Six‐month follow‐up of two mother–infant psychotherapies: Convergence of therapeutic outcomes

Fifty‐eight mothers and infants participating in two infant–mother psychotherapeutic interventions in a comparative infant–mother clinical intervention study were followed six months after treatment ended. One treatment was an infant‐led psychotherapy, Watch, Wait, and Wonder (WWW). The other was a more traditional mother–infant psychodynamic psychotherapy (PPT). Infants ranged in age from 10 to 30 months at the outset of treatment, which took place in weekly sessions over approximately five months. Results indicated that positive effects observed from the beginning to the end of treatment in both treatment groups in infant symptoms, parenting stress, and mother–infant interaction were maintained or improved further at six‐month follow‐up. Additionally, decreased maternal depression, gains in infant cognitive development and emotion regulation, and improved infant–mother attachment security or organization had been observed posttreatment only in the WWW group. Interestingly, between the posttreatment to follow‐up period the PPT group also showed such gains. Thus, for these variables it would be more accurate to say that the outcomes were similar for the two treatment groups but change emerged at a different pace. Nevertheless, an advantage persisted in the WWW group in relation to mothers' comfort dealing with infant behaviors and their ratings of parenting stress which improved more in this group from the end of treatment to follow‐up. The direct inclusion of the infant as an initiator in WWW was set forth as an explanation of differentially timed treatment effects. ©2002 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

A Simple Incomplete Extension of T which is the Union of Two Complete Modal Logics with f.m.p.

I present here a modal extension of T called KTLM which is, by several measures, the simplest modal extension of T yet presented. Its axiom uses only one sentence letter and has a modal depth of 2. Furthermore, KTLM can be realized as the logical union of two logics KM and KTL which each have the finite model property (f.m.p.), and so themselves are complete. Each of these two component logics has independent interest as well.     

Implementation and Utilization Characteristics of a Rural,School-linked Mental Health Program

We examined variables associated with treatment engagement in a real-world therapeutic setting. The model of care examined involved school-linked mental health care for children and their families in a rural county. Service utilization characteristics, as well as child- and treatment-specific variables were examined in relation to their impact on therapy length, missed appointments, and treatment outcome. A total of 168 students and their families participated in therapeutic services over a period of approximately 4.5 years. Overall, children who had less psychopathology and a higher level of clinician-rated functioning (GAF) at the start of therapy were more likely to successfully complete treatment. Parental involvement in therapy was associated with a longer course of therapy, as well as more missed appointments. Barriers to treatment and treatment engagement, as well as future directions of study, are discussed.     

Toward a unifying model of identification with groups: integrating theoretical perspectives.

Building on the contributions of diverse theoretical approaches, the authors present a multidimensional model of group identification. Integrating conceptions from the social identity perspective with those from research on individualism-collectivism, nationalism- patriotism, and identification with organizations, we propose four conceptually distinct modes of identification: importance (how much I view the group as part of who I am), commitment (how much I want to benefit the group), superiority (how much I view my group as superior to other groups), and deference (how much I honor, revere, and submit to the group's norms, symbols, and leaders). We present an instrument for assessing the four modes of identification and review initial empirical findings that validate the proposed model and show its utility in understanding antecedents and consequences of identification.     

A comparison of visual working memory and episodic memory performance in younger and older adults

Working memory and episodic memory decline with age. However, as they are typically studied separately, it is largely unknown whether age-associated differences are similar. A task design was developed in which visual working memory and episodic memory performances were measured using the same stimuli, with both tasks involving context binding. A 2-back working memory task was followed by a surprise subsequent recognition memory task that assessed incidental encoding of object locations of the 2-back task. The study compared performance of younger (N=30; M_age=23.5, SD_age=2.9, range=20-29) and older adults (N=29; M_age=72.1, SD_age=6.8, range=62-90). Older adults performed worse than younger adults, without an interaction effect. In younger, but not in older adults, performance on the two tasks was related. We conclude that although age differences (Young>Older) are similar in the working memory and incidental associative memory tasks, the relationship between the two memory systems differs as a function of age group.     

Student Explanations in the Context of Computational Science and Engineering Education

Creating explanations is an important process for students, not only to make connections between novel information and background knowledge, but also to be able to communicate their understanding of any given topic. This article explores students’ explanations in the context of computational science and engineering, an important interdisciplinary field that enables scientists and engineers to solve complex problems. Specifically, this study explores: (a) students’ approaches to create written explanations of programing code and (b) the relationship between students’ explanations and their ability to do computer programing. Students wrote in-code comments for 3 MATLAB^® worked-examples, which were qualitatively analyzed using a coding scheme. Different approaches to self-explain were identified using hierarchical cluster analysis, and differences in students’ ability to do computer programing were identified using analysis of variance. The resulting approaches to self-explain were: original solution, mechanistic, principle-based, limited, and goal-based. The findings suggest that experienced students wrote simple in-code comments to self-explain, but students with lower ability to do computer programing wrote more comprehensive explanations, as they may take this as a learning opportunity.     

The dynamic and recursive interplay of embodiment and narrative identity

Although there is an increase in research into how narrative identity interrelates with embodiment, the mechanisms underlying this interplay are hardly addressed. In this paper, I target this hiatus in the literature by proposing two mechanisms that can help to (non-exhaustively) elucidate the dynamic interplay of narrative identity and embodiment. I start by briefly sketching the debate so far and then go on to argue that the way narrative self-understanding affects our embodiment can be understood on the model of narrative self-programming. After that I turn to the other side of the interaction. Drawing on research in ecological psychology and phenomenology, I show how embodiment affects our narrative self-understanding through the way in which we engage with affordances in our narrative background. After that I highlight the dynamic and recursive character of this interplay. I end with some conclusions and unresolved issues.     

From terror to joy: automatic tuning to positive affective information following mortality salience

Reminders of death tend to produce strong cognitive and behavioral responses, but little or no emotional response. In three experiments, mortality salience produced an automatic coping response that involved tuning to positive emotional information. Subjects showed increased accessibility of positive emotional information (Experiments 1 and 3) and gave more weight to positive emotion in their judgments of word similarity (Experiment 2) after contemplating death than after thinking about dental pain. This automatic coping response was found both after a delay (Experiments 1 and 2) and directly after the mortality-salience manipulation (Experiment 3), which suggests that the coping process begins immediately. Tuning to positive emotional information in response to mortality salience was unconscious and counterintuitive (Experiment 3). These findings shed light on the coping process that ensues immediately following mortality salience and help to explain why a delay is often necessary to produce effects in line with terror management theory.