The cross-cultural validity of the Caregiving Experiences Questionnaire (CEQ) among Danish mothers with preschool children

The present study explored the Danish cross-cultural validity of the Caregiving Experiences Questionnaire (CEQ), a new measure of caregiving representations in parent-child relationships. Low-risk Danish mothers (N = 159) with children aged 1.5–5 years completed the CEQ and predictive validity measures of parenting stress and child behavior problems. Exploratory factor analyses supported a four-factor model. Analyses showed significant theoretically meaningful associations between the CEQ scales and predictive validity measures. The current study adds evidence to the cross-cultural validity of the CEQ.     

“You Shouldn’t Look at Us Strangely”: An Exploratory Study on Personal Perspectives on Quality of Life of Adolescents with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders in Residential Youth Care

Applied Research in Quality of Life - Adolescents with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD) have complex needs and experience challenges in various developmental areas and life domains. The...     

Gender (mis)measurement: Guidelines for respecting gender diversity in psychological research

Empirical evidence affirms that gender is a nonbinary spectrum. Yet our review of recently published empirical articles reveals that demographic gender measurement in psychology still assumes that gender comprises just two categories: women and men. This common practice is problematic. It fails to represent psychologists' current understanding of gender, violates our ethical principles as scientists, and can result in gender misclassification. Psychologists' reliance on binary measures also conveys an exclusionary attitude that is contrary to recent ethical recommendations and contrary to the growing public concern about transgender rights. We extend five simple, no‐cost recommendations that begin to resolve these ethical and methodological problems: use and report, nonbinary gender measures; report the prevalence of nonbinary participants; clarify their inclusion and treatment in analysis; and use gender inclusive language. We also address common concerns expressed by researchers, including whether measuring “sex” resolves the issue and whether gender‐inclusive measures confuse or offend participants.     

Differentiation of Self and Dyadic Adjustment in Couple Relationships: A Dyadic Analysis Using the Actor‐Partner Interdependence Model

Bowen's multigenerational theory provides an account of how the internalization of experiences within the family of origin promotes development of the ability to maintain a distinct self whilst also making intimate connections with others. Differentiated people can maintain their I‐position in intimate relationships. They can remain calm in conflictual relationships, resolve relational problems effectively, and reach compromises. Fusion with others, emotional cut‐off, and emotional reactivity instead are common reactions to relational stress in undifferentiated people. Emotional reactivity is the tendency to react to stressors with irrational and intense emotional arousal. Fusion with others is an excessive emotional involvement in significant relationships, whilst emotional cut‐off is the tendency to manage relationship anxiety through physical and emotional distance. This study is based on Bowen's theory, starting from the assumption that dyadic adjustment can be affected both by a member's differentiation of self (actor effect) and by his or her partner's differentiation of self (partner effect). We used the Actor‐Partner Interdependence Model to study the relationship between differentiation of self and dyadic adjustment in a convenience sample of 137 heterosexual Italian couples (nonindependent, dyadic data). The couples completed the Differentiation of Self Inventory and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale. Men's dyadic adjustment depended only on their personal I‐position, whereas women's dyadic adjustment was affected by their personal I‐position and emotional cut‐off as well as by their partner's I‐position and emotional cut‐off. The empirical and clinical implications of the results are discussed.     

Source monitoring reduces the suggestibility of preschool children

The relation between source monitoring and suggestibility was examined among preschool children. Thirty-two 3- to 5-year-olds were simultaneously presented with a brief story in two different modalities, as a silent video vignette and a spoken narrative. Each modality presented unique information about the story, but the information in the two versions was mutually compatible. The children were then asked a series of questions, including questions about the source (modality) of story details, and leading questions about story details (to assess suggestibility). Performance on the source-monitoring questions was highly correlated with the ability to resist suggestion. In addition, children who were asked source-monitoring questions prior to leading questioning were less susceptible to suggestion than were those who were asked the leading questions first. This study provides evidence that source monitoring can play a causal role in reducing the suggestibility of preschool children.     

Age-related susceptibility to the Müller-Lyer and the horizontal-vertical illusions

Participants between the ages of 3 and 20 years adjusted the Müller-Lyer illusion and the inverted-T form of the Horizontal-Vertical illusion. Perceptual error was quantified using signal detection and nonparametric measures of sensitivity and responsivity. Significant changes in sensitivity and responsivity were found for each illusion across participants' ages. No effect of sex of participant was found. Sensitivity and responsivity were largely asymptotic between the ages of 13 to 15 years for the Müller-Lyer illusion and between the ages of 11 to 15 years for the Horizontal-Vertical illusion.     

Young adult outcome of children with "situational" hyperactivity: a prospective,controlled follow-up study

To examine the importance of symptom pervasiveness in ADHD, we conducted a prospective, 12-year follow-up study of boys (ages 6–12) considered hyperactive at school and home (Pervasive ADHD), boys considered hyperactive by teachers but not parents (School Only ADHD), boys considered hyperactive by parents but not teachers (Home Only ADHD), and nonhyperactive comparisons. Follow-up was completed on 82–94% participants. Clinicians interviewed participants and their parents, blind to childhood status. At follow-up, antisocial disorder was significantly more prevalent among Pervasive and School Only ADHD (29% for both) than Home Only ADHD (0%) and comparisons (8%). In a similar manner, severity of behavioral problems distinguished groups (Pervasive, School > Home, comparisons), as did educational attainment and academic performance (poorest for Pervasive and School). These findings stress the validity of teacher reports in the diagnosis of ADHD.     

Local vs. global covert visual attention: Are two states necessary? Comment on Liechty et al., 2003

Liechty, Pieters, and Wedel (2003) report an eye-tracking experiment that is taken to support the distinction between two states of covert visual attention: local versus global. We discuss several logical problems with this dichotomy and their experiment, and then provide an alternate account of their data using a model, E-Z Reader, that requires only a single attention state.We thank Keith Rayner and two anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier version of this paper.