Children's representations of multiple family relationships: organizational structure and development in early childhood

The authors examine mutual family influence processes at the level of children's representations of multiple family relationships, as well as the structure of those representations. From a community sample with 3 waves, each spaced 1 year apart, kindergarten-age children (105 boys and 127 girls) completed a story-stem completion task, tapping representations of multiple family relationships. Structural equation modeling with autoregressive controls indicated that representational processes involving different family relationships were interrelated over time, including links between children's representations of marital conflict and reactions to conflict, between representations of security about marital conflict and parent-child relationships, and between representations of security in father-child and mother-child relationships. Mixed support was found for notions of increasing stability in representations during this developmental period. Results are discussed in terms of notions of transactional family dynamics, including family-wide perspectives on mutual influence processes attributable to multiple family relationships.     

Heritability of antisocial behaviour at 9: do callous‐unemotional traits matter?

A previous finding from our group indicated that teacher-rated antisocial behaviour (AB) among 7-year-olds is particularly heritable in the presence of callous-unemotional (CU) traits. Using a sample of 1865 same-sex twin pairs, we employed DeFries-Fulker extremes analysis to investigate whether teacher-rated AB with/without CU traits also shows aetiological differences among 9-year-olds. Furthermore, we assessed whether the differences in the magnitude of heritability would be evident even when hyperactive symptoms were controlled for in the statistical analysis. AB among 9-year-olds was more heritable with than without concomitant CU. The heritability difference was even more pronounced in magnitude when hyperactive symptoms were controlled. CU traits thus appear to index one valid way of sub-typing children with early-onset AB.     

Children assess informant reliability using bystanders' non-verbal cues

Recent findings show that preschool children are selective with respect to whom they ask for information and whose claims they endorse. In particular, they monitor an informant's record of past accuracy or inaccuracy and use that record to gauge future trustworthiness. We ask if preschoolers also monitor the non-verbal cues of assent or dissent that bystanders display toward an informant's claims and use that information to gauge an informant's trustworthiness. In familiarization trials, 4-year-olds watched as two adult informants made conflicting claims regarding the name of an unfamiliar object. Two adult bystanders consistently signaled assent - via nods and smiles - to the claims of one informant, and dissent - via head shakes and frowns - from the claims of the other informant. When invited to endorse one of the two claims, 4-year-olds mostly agreed with the informant who had received bystander assent. Thus, in the absence of background knowledge about an object's name, children use third-party non-verbal signals to assess the accuracy of conflicting labels. On subsequent test trials, the informants again made conflicting claims about novel object names, but in the absence of the two bystanders. Despite the lack of any informative bystander signals, children with more advanced understanding of mental states continued to display greater trust in the informant who had received bystander assent in the earlier trials.     

The Stroop effect in English-Japanese bilinguals: the effect of phonological similarity

English-Japanese bilinguals performed a Stroop color-word interference task with both English and Japanese stimuli and responded in both English and Japanese. The Japanese stimuli were either the traditional color terms (TCTs) written in Hiragana or loanwords (LWs) from English written in Katakana. Both within-language and between-language interference were found for all combinations of stimuli and responses. The between-language interference was larger for Katakana LWs (phonologically similar to English) than for Hiragana TCTs, especially with Japanese responses. The magnitude of this phonological effect increased with self-rated reading fluency in Japanese. Overall responding was slower and the Stroop effect larger with English than with Japanese stimuli. These results suggest that unintentional lexical access elicits automatic phonological processing even with intermediate-level reading proficiency.     

Language-induced motor perturbations during the execution of a reaching movement

In a recent study Boulenger et al. (2006) found that processing action verbs assisted reaching movement when the word was processed prior to movement onset and interfered with the movement when the word was processed at movement onset. The present study aimed to further corroborate the existence of such cross-talk between language processes and overt motor behaviour by demonstrating that the reaching movement can be disturbed by action words even when the words are presented delayed with respect to movement onset (50 ms and 200 ms). The results are compared to studies that show language-motor interaction in conditions where the word is presented prior to movement onset and are discussed within the context of embodied theories of language comprehension.     

Evaluation of a Brief Group Based Psychological/Educational Treatment Programme for Women with an Iatrogenic Chronic Hepatitis C Virus Infection

Thirty-two women with an iatrogenic chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection were assigned to a treatment or waiting list control group and completed the SF-36, GHQ30, Battles SE, and two in-house questionnaires. A series of mixed model ANOVAs indicated a significant Group × Time effect for SF-36 physical functioning (F = 9.01, p < .01) and a series of repeated measures ANOVAs (treatment group only) indicated a significant time effect for a sustained improvement in psychological well-being (F = 8.01, p < .01) at 3 months posttreatment. Furthermore, most women posttreatment felt more positive and informed about their illness, had more confidence, and reported a greater ability to control and cope with their lives. Psychological/educational treatment programmes show promise for increasing adjustment and coping in women with an iatrogenic HCV infection and may be modified for use in other HCV cohorts.     

The relationship between self-report mood and personality

Past research pertaining to personality and mood has been concerned with the relationship between specific personality traits and specific mood states. The present examines the relationship between self-report measures of personality and mood. University students (82 males, 118 females), completed a personality questionnaire consisting of 20 personality bipolar adjectives and a mood inventory measuring six mood dimensions. Factor analysis of the personality adjectives revealed four factors, which were then correlated with the mood scales. Results of this analysis revealed significant correlations between the personality factors and mood dimensions suggesting that personality is related to some aspects of mood.     

Spatial representation in body coordinates: evidence from errors in remembering positions of visual and auditory targets after active eye, head, and body movements.

Eight participants were presented with auditory or visual targets and then indicated the target's remembered positions relative to their head eight seconds after actively moving their eyes, head or body to pull apart head, retinal, body, and external space reference frames. Remembered target position was indicated by repositioning sounds or lights. Localization errors were found related to head-on-body position but not of eye-in-head or body-in-space for both auditory (0.023 dB/deg in the direction of head displacement) and visual targets (0.068 deg/deg in the direction opposite to head displacement). The results indicate that both auditory and visual localization use head-on-body information, suggesting a common coding into body coordinates--the only conversion that requires this information.     

Work–family conflict, perceived supervisor support and organizational commitment among Brazilian professionals

The current study examines a variety of relationships pertaining to work–family conflict among a sample of Brazilian professionals, in order to shed light on work–family issues in this cultural context. Drawing from the cultural values of Brazil and social identity theory, we examine the relationships of two directions of work–family conflict (work interference with family and family interference with work), perceived supervisor support, and sex with affective and continuance organizational commitment. Work interference with family was related to higher continuance commitment and perceived supervisor support was related to higher affective commitment. An interaction between family interference with work and perceived supervisor support predicting continuance commitment revealed a reverse buffering effect such that the relationship was stronger under conditions of high support. Results are discussed within the Brazilian context.