Motivational Antecedents and Consequences of the Mother–Adolescent Communication

Communication between parents and their children represents an important factor of family socialization. Nevertheless, little is known about why parents communicate in different ways and how these qualitative differences in parent–child communication may affect the child. Building on self-determination theory, the present study focuses on motivational antecedents of need-supportive communication as a function of parental child-related beliefs (i.e., long-term goals that parents have set for their children’s future, and parental child-related behavior expectations in terms of parental dissatisfaction or satisfaction with child behavior). Moreover, the effect of perceived need-supportive communication on children’s prosocial behavior and (externalizing and internalizing) behavioral difficulties will be addressed. Three waves of data from 1125 mothers and adolescents aged between 10 and 17 years were analyzed using growth-curve modeling. We found linearly increasing trajectories in extrinsic parental goals for children and dissatisfaction with child behavior, and decreasing trajectories of need-supportive communication. Individual differences do not vary significantly over time. In addition, holding extrinsic parental goals for children positively predicts parents’ dissatisfaction with their child’s behavior and negatively predicts need-supportive communication. Parents’ dissatisfaction with their child’s behavior also contributes to decreasing need-supportive communication. As expected, need-supportive communication predicts prosocial behavior and externalizing behavioral difficulties. When need-supportive communication decreases over time, both externalizing and internalizing behavioral difficulties increase. Furthermore, the effect of mothers beliefs on adolescents socioemotional development was mediated through perceived mother’s communication quality. These results suggest that parental child-related beliefs are important motivational antecedents of parent–child communication that may prevent behavioral difficulties.     

Motivated or Demotivated to Be Creative: The Role of Self‐Regulatory Focus in Transformational and Transactional Leadership Processes

Numerous studies have recognised the importance of transformational leadership style for encouraging employees’ creativity. Self‐regulation studies have highlighted the influence of a promotion focus on employees’ creative behaviours. Yet both leadership and self‐regulation theories have paid less attention to the role transactional leadership style and situational prevention regulatory focus may play in affecting employees’ creativity. In this article we present a theoretical model which examines transformational and transactional leadership styles and both promotion and prevention situational self‐regulatory focus (SRF). The model suggests that while transformational leadership promotes creativity, at least partially by enhancing follower's situational promotion SRF, transactional leadership style (transactional active) is aligned with followers’ prevention situational SRF, which is associated with leaders’ hindering of followers’ creativity. Findings from two studies, an experimental study (N = 189) and a field study (N = 343 employees and 75 managers), support this model, showing that the relationship between different types of leadership and creativity are more complex than previously regarded. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Children prenatally exposed to maternal anxiety devote more attentional resources to neutral pictures

Maternal anxiety during pregnancy can negatively affect fetal neurodevelopment, predisposing the offspring to a higher risk of behavioral and emotional problems later in life. The current study investigates the association between maternal anxiety during pregnancy and child affective picture processing using event‐related brain potentials (ERPs). Mothers reported anxiety during the second trimester using the anxiety subscale of the Symptom Checklist (SCL‐90). At age 4 years, child affective picture processing (N = 86) was measured by recording ERPs during viewing of neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant pictures selected from the International Affective Pictures System. The late positive potential (LPP)—an ERP component reflecting individual differences in affective processing—was used as child outcome. The expected positive association between maternal anxiety and LPP amplitude for unpleasant pictures was not found. Nevertheless, we found a positive association between maternal anxiety during pregnancy and LPP amplitudes for neutral pictures in the middle and late time window at anterior locations (all p < .05). These associations remained significant after adjusting for maternal postnatal anxiety and gestational age at birth and after FDR correction for multiple comparisons. Our study provides neurophysiological evidence that children prenatally exposed to higher maternal anxiety devote more attentional resources to neutral pictures, but not to unpleasant pictures. Possibly, these children show enhanced vigilance for threat when viewing neutral pictures. Although useful in dangerous environments, this enhanced vigilance may predispose children prenatally exposed to higher maternal anxiety to developing behavioral and/or emotional problems later in life. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEzYi6IS2HA     

The Rationality of Ultimate Concern: Moral Exemplars,Theological Ethics,and the Science of Moral Cognition

This paper argues that consideration of moral exemplars may provide a means for integrating insights across philosophical ethics, theological ethics, and the scientific study of moral cognition. Key to this endeavor is an understanding of the relation of cognition and emotion in ethical decision-making, a relation that is usually understood to be oppositional but which in proper circumstances may be understood to be quite the opposite. Indeed, a distinctive feature of moral exemplarity may consist in the ability to properly integrate the emotions into the moral life, and reference to and imitation of exemplars may involve a referencing and imitating of the emotions of the exemplar.     

A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Situationally Induced Achievement Goals on Task Performance

The purpose of this research was to meta-analyze studies which experimentally induced an achievement goal state to examine its causal effect on the individual’s performance at the task at hand, and to investigate the moderator effects of feedback anticipation and time pressure. The data set comprised 19 papers, 79 individual effect sizes, and 3,482 participants. Performance measures represented task performance across a variety of tasks. The findings indicate that relative to avoidance goals (either performance-avoidance goals or mastery-avoidance goals), approach goals (either mastery-approach goals or performance-approach goals) enhance task performance. Furthermore, relative to performance-approach goals, mastery-approach goals lead to better performance, particularly when individuals do not anticipate feedback and when there is no time pressure. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.     

Capturing the Structure of Distinct Types of Individual Differences in the Situation‐specific Experience of Emotions: The Case of Anger

The aim of this paper was to understand why some people experience certain emotions in a specific situation, whereas others do not. We postulate that these individual differences arise from individual differences in two underlying processes of emotion elicitation: (i) individual differences in the emotion components (appraisals and action tendencies) that situations activate in a person and (ii) individual differences in how these emotion components are related to subjective emotional experience. In this paper, we re‐analysed data from two studies on anger to capture the structure of these two types of individual differences by using clustering modelling techniques. Consistent results across the two studies demonstrated that individuals differ in anger because they (i) differ in how easy they experience anger‐relevant appraisals (Studies 1 and 2) and action tendencies (Study 2) in increasingly negative situations and (ii) differ in which of these components are necessary to experience anger. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Longitudinal study of low and high achievers in early mathematics

Background. Longitudinal studies allow us to identify, which specific maths skills are weak in young children, and whether there is a continuing weakness in these areas throughout their school years. Aims. This 2‐year study investigated whether certain socio‐demographic variables affect early mathematical competency in children aged 5–7 years. Sample. A randomly selected sample of 127 students (64 female; 63 male) participated. At the start of the study, the students were approximately 5 years old (M= 5.2; SD= 0.28; range = 4.5–5.8). Method . The students were assessed using the Early Numeracy Test and then allocated to a high (n= 26), middle (n= 76), or low (n= 25) achievers group. The same children were assessed again with the Early Numeracy Test at 6 and 7 years old, respectively. Eight socio‐demographic characteristics were also evaluated: family model, education of the parent(s), job of the parent(s), number of family members, birth order, number of computers at home, frequency of teacher visits, and hours watching television. Results . Early Numeracy Test scores were more consistent for the high‐achievers group than for the low‐achievers group. Approximately 5.5% of low achievers obtained low scores throughout the study. A link between specific socio‐demographic characteristics and early achievement in mathematics was only found for number of computers at home. Conclusions . The level of mathematical ability among students aged 5–7 years remains relatively stable regardless of the initial level of achievement. However, early screening for mathematics learning disabilities could be useful in helping low‐achieving students overcome learning obstacles.     

Paw preference is not affected by postural demand in a nonprimate mammal (Felis silvestris catus)

Previously, it has been thought that handedness is unique to humans. Recently, it has been found that hand or paw preferences are common among a variety of vertebrate species. Different models have been put forth to describe the evolution of primate handedness. In this study we aimed to explore whether these models can also be used to predict manual laterality in nonprimate mammalian groups. The cat (Felis silvestris catus) is a good nonprimate model for manual laterality, as cats frequently use paws to catch and hold prey. Cats were exposed to two standardized manual laterality tasks, differing in postural demand. Subjects (N = 28) were forced to use either a stable or unstable body posture (i.e., sitting or standing vs. vertical clinging) to extract food items from a plastic box attached at two different heights. We revealed that cats exhibited paw preferences at an individual level with about 40% left, 30% right, 30% nonlateralized subjects. Postural demand was linked to task difficulty: the unstable body posture was found to be significantly more difficult than the stable body posture. However, these differences in postural demand and task difficulty did not lead to differences in direction or strength of paw preference. Findings suggested that nonprimate mammals differ from primates in their sensitivity to task related factors, such as postural demand. Results coincide with those of some prosimians, providing support for the hypothesis that postural demand and the associated task complexity became influencing factors on manual laterality in the course of primate evolution.     

Abstract

Although Aristotle did not mention it, integrity can be understood in an Aristotelian framework. Seeing it in these terms will show that it is an executive virtue which concerns the existential well being of an agent. This analysis is not offered as an exegesis of Aristotle's text, but as an attempt to use an Aristotelian framework to understand a virtue deemed important today. This account will have the benefit of solving some problems relating to motivational internalism and, as such, will contribute to that recent current of thought which has been highlighting the importance of virtue thinking in moral theory. I will distinguish moral judgement from decision and show that moral judgement is dependent upon virtue more strongly than it is upon impartial rationality. I will suggest that integrity is the virtue to which moral judgement gives expression and is the virtue which links judgement to decision so as to overcome akrasia.