The quality of sucking in infants with colic

Feeding problems have been reported in infants with colic. The purpose of this study was to examine the nutritive sucking pattern of infants identified as having colic. Twenty-nine infants (16 with colic and 13 controls) between the ages of 1 to 3 months, being bottle-fed by their mothers, were observed by a blind examiner. We hypothesized that infants with colic would show greater disorganization in nutritive sucking and show greater variability in sucking rate than infants without colic, as assessed by the revised Neonatal Oral Motor Assessment Scale (NOMAS). Infants with colic were found to present a disorganized sucking pattern; namely, a lack of rhythmical movement and a difference in amount of sucks per burst than infants without colic. Methods of intervention are suggested.     

War on heaven and earth: Misotheistic themes in popular culture

In this article, I evaluate particular critical narratives of religion in pop culture. I note briefly some early cases where criticism is primarily directed at religious abuses. Next, I make some observations about the misotheistic tradition in which the relationship between religious reality and human life is more complicated. Finally, I make some remarks on the use of religious and quasireligious elements in pop culture and what kind of effects these might have on our social imagination.     

A Romanian Contribution to Contemporary Ecumenism

This article examines the contribution to ecumenical dialogue of Ion Bria, an important Romanian theological and ecumenical personality. The value of his approaches is demonstrated by the fact that many contemporary authors start their research from his ideas, such as the concept of the “liturgy after the liturgy,” of which he was a significant proponent, and which are still relevant to ecumenical dialogue. At the time they were first proposed, they shifted ecumenical dialogue. Bria was also a good and careful observer of ecumenical and pan‐Orthodox reality. He presented with objectivity the reality from his home space and made valuable comparisons between his spirituality and other confessional approaches, offering new topics of dialogue and creating bridges between churches.     

Mother‐Stepfather Coparenting in Stepfamilies as Predictor of Child Adjustment

Coparenting between biological parents is a strong predictor of child adjustment. To date, however, little is known about the coparenting dynamics between parent and stepparent in stepfamilies. This study aimed at exploring the links between coparenting in the mother–stepfather dyad and child behavior in stepfamilies compared with the links between mother–father coparenting and child behavior in first‐marriage families. Two modes of coparenting were assessed: overt coparenting, that is, coparental behaviors in the presence of the child, and covert coparenting, that is, the way each parent speaks of the other parent to the child. The sample (N = 80) comprised 48 stepfamilies and 32 first‐marriage families with a child between 7 and 13 years old. Overt coparenting was assessed through direct observation in the standardized situation of the PicNic Game. Covert coparenting and child behavior were assessed through mother‐reported questionnaires. Results showed (a) more covert coparenting behaviors in first‐marriage families, (b) no differences in overt coparenting, (c) more child difficulties reported in stepfamilies, (d) less optimal overt coparenting being linked with more difficulties in children in both family structures, and (e) an interaction effect between family structure and coparenting, showing that overt coparenting is linked with child behavior mainly in stepfamilies.     

The Added Value of Studying Embodied Responses in Couple Therapy Research: A Case Study

This article reports on the added value of embodied responses identified through sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity in couple therapy research. It focuses on moments of change and the timing of therapeutic interventions or therapeutic moves in a couple therapy session. The data for this single‐case study comprise couple therapy process videotapes recorded in a multi‐camera setting, and measurements of participants’ SNS activity. The voluntary participants were a marital couple in their late thirties and two middle‐aged male psychotherapists. The division into topic segments showed how the key issue of seeking help, which was found to comprise three separate components, was repeatedly dealt with in the session. SNS activity showed different degrees of synchronization between the couple, between the therapists, and between the couple and therapists during the dialogue pertaining to these three components. The issue of timing emerged as a complex, even ambivalent, phenomenon. Arousal in the therapists was in line with their therapeutic activity, whereas in the clients it was more anticipatory. The approach used here rendered visible some of the intensity that therapeutic dialogue can generate when dealing with issues of relationship change in the couple context and showed how this intensity can be dialogically regulated in the therapeutic system.     

Parent–child attachment as a mediator of the relationship between parenting style and gelotophobia among adolescents

Fear of being laughed at and family interaction are highly related. Parental over‐control and over‐protection influence children's excessive anxiety over being laughed at. Conversely, parental attachment is an important index of the parent–child relationship and is closely correlated to children's gelotophobia. However, is it the style of parenting or the outcome of parenting (i.e. attachment) that influences a child's gelotophobia? To answer this question, the present study analysed the relationships between gelotophobia, perceived parenting of children and parent–child attachment, as well as the mediating role of attachment between parenting and children's gelotophobia, using a sample of 373 high‐school students. The results show that being highly communicative and close attachment completely weakened the negative correlation between warm, caring parenting and the child's gelotophobia; moreover, being highly communicative and close attachment, together with over‐protective and over‐controlling parenting, influence children's gelotophobia. In sum, this study indicates that parent–child attachment has a direct and indirect influence on perceived parental care and protection and children's fear of being laughed at.     

Measurement invariance of the Belief in a Zero‐Sum Game scale across 36 countries

In this paper, we examined the psychometric properties of cross‐cultural validation and replicability (i.e. measurement invariance) of the Belief in a Zero‐Sum Game (BZSG) scale, measuring antagonistic belief about interpersonal relations over scarce resources. The factorial structure of the BZSG scale was investigated in student samples from 36 countries (N = 9907), using separate confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) for each country. The cross‐cultural validation of the scale was based on multigroup confirmatory factor analyses (MGCFA). The results confirmed that the scale had a one‐factor structure in all countries, in which configural and metric invariance between countries was confirmed. As a zero‐sum belief about social relations perceived as antagonistic, BZSG is an important factor related to, for example, social and international relations, attitudes toward immigrants, or well‐being. The paper proposes different uses of the BZSG scale for cross‐cultural studies in different fields of psychology: social, political, or economic.     

The Ontology of Musical Versions: Introducing the Hypothesis of Nested Types

This article explores the ontological nature of musical versions. I assume the widespread view that type/token ontologies offer the best explanation of the repeatable nature of works of music. However, I show that traditional type/token theories, which distinguish only between two levels of objects, face two problems when applied to the phenomenon of musical versions. First, they are not able to accommodate the familiar intuition of our musical practices that the work versioned is repeated in its versions’ performances. Second, they are not able to distinguish between two different phenomena of our practices: the phenomenon of a work's versions and the phenomenon of works inspired by, or derived from, other works. These undesirable consequences are entailed, under traditional two‐level type/token theories, by the nature of types as ontologically thin entities. I defend that the hypothesis of nested types, a multiple‐level type/token theory, can avoid these two problems while preserving the theoretical virtues of traditional two‐level type/token theories and structural monism—the most widely shared view about the individuation of musical works, according to which musical works are individuated by one, and only one, sound structure.