Do Children’s Attributions Mediate the Link Between Parental Conditional Regard and Child Depression and Emotion?

Both parental conditional regard for academics and depressogenic attributions are related to detrimental psychological outcomes for children. Here we examine associations among parental conditional negative regard, child depressogenic attributions, child depressive symptoms, and emotion reactivity in children between the ages of 8 and 12, as well as whether children’s self-reported and behavioral attributions for negative events mediate associations between parental conditional negative regard for academics with children’s depressive symptoms and emotion reactivity. In Study 1 (N?=?108, M _age ?=?9.73, 50 male), children’s self-reported attributions for hypothetical events mediated the link between parental conditional negative regard and child depressive symptoms. In Study 2 (N?=?104, M _age ?=?10.28, 54 male), children attempted an impossible puzzle task while their skin conductance level was monitored, after which they completed an interview that was coded for spontaneous attributions for failure. Children’s spontaneous attributions mediated the link between parental conditional negative regard and child emotion reactivity, but not depressive symptoms. Findings suggest that children’s attributions may be a mechanism through which parental conditional negative regard is related to children’s depressive symptoms and emotion reactivity during a performance challenge. These results have implications for developmental models of depression risk and potential areas for clinical interventions with both children and their parents.     

Source Monitoring and Executive Function in 2.5- to 3-Year-Olds

Hala, Brown, McKay, and San Juan (2013) found that children as young as 2.5 years of age demonstrated high levels of accuracy when asked to recall whether they or the experimenter had carried out a particular action. In the research reported here, we examined the relation of early-emerging source monitoring to executive function abilities. Participants were children aged 2.5- to 3-years old. For the source-monitoring procedure, we used the Hala et al. (2013) task in which children and the experimenter took turns placing a total of 20 items on a model farm (encoding phase). For the source memory test, children were asked who had placed each item (retrieval phase). Executive function measures included assessments of working memory, delay-inhibitory control, and conflict-inhibitory control. The main finding was that inhibitory control measures were significantly related to performance on the source-monitoring task. This relation held for the conflict-inhibitory control measures even when controlling for age and vocabulary. The findings of this research suggest that even at the early age of 2.5 years, development of executive control is linked to the emergence of source-monitoring ability.     

A response to the proposed ELCA inter‐religious policy statement

In this solicited essay, an undergraduate Interfaith Scholar and Interfaith Studies minor at Concordia College responds to the ELCA proposed interreligious policy statement. In this essay, I will contend that the policy statement beautifully articulates our Lutheran commitment to accompany our neighbors by envisioning a world in which God celebrates all forms of diversity. Moreover, by framing our vocation in the context of relational theology, the document lays the groundwork for mutual understanding that prioritizes service to the neighbor over proselytization.     

Like mother,like child? Maternal determinants of children's early social-emotional development

Social-Emotional competencies evolve early in life. For example, early emotion regulation is learned primarily in the context of mother–child interaction, which may allow for maternal influences to shape children's social-emotional development. The aim of the current study was to longitudinally examine maternal determinants of children's early social-emotional development in a community-based sample of first-time mothers (N = 61, aged 22–39 years). Specifically, we used structural equation modeling to examine how maternal emotion regulation difficulties and subclinical depression directly and indirectly, through sensitivity and postnatal bonding, assessed at 6 to 8 months predicted child outcomes at 12 to 16 months. We found that mothers’ sensitivity predicted fewer social-emotional and behavioral problems and that stronger bonding predicted fewer problems and more social-emotional competencies. Emotion regulation difficulties were significantly associated with depressive symptoms; yet, when accounting for shared variances, both factors differentially predicted less positive child outcomes such that more difficulties indirectly, through poorer bonding, predicted greater delay in competencies, and more symptoms indirectly, through less sensitivity, predicted more problems. Current findings underline the significance of maternal factors impacting the quality of mother–child interaction for children's positive development. Potential implications for early prevention programs to support children who are otherwise at risk for negative emotional outcomes due to mothers’ emotional state postpartum are discussed.     

Imagery and verbal thought during rumination and distraction: Does imagery amplify affective response?

Rumination has long been considered a verbal thought process, though emerging evidence suggests that some individuals dwell on maladaptive imagery. This series of studies evaluated imagery and verbal thought during experimentally induced rumination and distraction. In Study 1, imagery and verbal thought during rumination resulted in similar increases in negative affect. Greater imagery during distraction, on the other hand, was associated with greater decreases in negative affect while verbal thought was not related to affect change. Given that greater verbal thought was reported in the rumination condition and greater imagery was reported in the distraction condition, Study 2 evaluated whether the rumination/distraction induction was confounded by concurrent induction of imagery or verbal thought. The rumination prompts induced both rumination and verbal thought and the distraction prompts induced both distraction and imagery. Using a revised induction, Study 3 tested whether imagery and verbal thought during rumination and distraction impacted affective response. Rumination maintained negative affect and distraction relieved negative affect, regardless of the degree to which imagery or verbal thought was experienced. This paper provides evidence that imagery-based rumination is just as impairing as verbally-based rumination and highlights imagery-based distraction as a potentially effective alternative to rumination.     

Bread and Roses: Empathy and Recognition

Empathy and Recognition represent two closely intertwined, crucial elements of human relatedness, and thus of the analytic relationship. Each ushers in a different quality of relatedness in the dyad: Empathy is a response to a basic human need, crucial to psychic safety and coherence, and may be imagined ahead of time as the need for someone to understand one’s experience, to get one’s pain. By contrast, recognition as a longing may be only partially formulated before it is emergent, because it is in the moments when it is realized that the desire for its inherent mutuality may be most keenly felt. It is in such moments, often arising through collision and unpacking between two distinct and suddenly more fully knowable subjectivities, that the experience of desire may be both held and renewed. Recent relational writing has made clear how deeply intersubjective empathy may be, in its fullest realization; however, with recognition, the desire for the other as other, who may now be known as such, arises anew out of the experience of being met in intersubjective encounter. Like bread and roses, both are vital as felt experience, and in potentiating transformation.     

Withstanding the test of time: Multisensory cues improve the delayed retention of incidental learning

Multisensory tools are commonly employed within educational settings (e.g. Carter & Stephenson, 2012 ), and there is a growing body of literature advocating the benefits of presenting children with multisensory information over unisensory cues for learning (Baker & Jordan, 2015 ; Jordan & Baker, 2011 ). This is even the case when the informative cues are only arbitrarily related (Broadbent, White, Mareschal, & Kirkham, 2017 ). However, the delayed retention of learning following exposure to multisensory compared to unisensory cues has not been evaluated, and has important implications for the utility of multisensory educational tools. This study examined the retention of incidental categorical learning in 5‐, 7‐ and 9‐year‐olds (N = 181) using either unisensory or multisensory cues. Results found significantly greater retention of learning following multisensory cue exposure than with unisensory information when category knowledge was tested following a 24‐hour period of delay. No age‐related changes were found, suggesting that multisensory information can facilitate the retention of learning across this age range.     

The relationship between religion and health-related behaviours in patients with borderline personality disorder

With addictive disorders frequently co-occurring among patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD), exploring factors that may influence health-related behaviours, like religious involvement, is important. This study assesses whether religious involvement is associated with smoking and alcohol use disorders (AUDs) in BPD subjects. This study used data from Wave 2 of the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), which used the Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule–DSM-IV (AUDADIS-IV) as its assessment instrument. The AUDADIS-IV assessed personality disorders, tobacco usage, the presence of AUDs, and religious involvement. Attending a place of worship and weekly or more frequent worship attendance were significantly associated with reduced likelihood of current smoking and AUDs among BPD subjects. AUDs were also significantly less common in those reporting higher subjective religiousness. In conclusion, people with BPD who are religiously inclined are less likely to engage in addictive behaviours, specifically smoking and AUDs.