Observational Context of Mother-Child Interaction: Impact of a stress Context on Emotional Availability

Previous studies have found that a stressful observational context challenges the mother-child relationship, thus highlighting negative interactive behavior. However, the impact of observational context has only been investigated in infants and preschoolers without specifically using the Emotional Availability Scales. Nor have they explored whether the association of mother-child interaction with children’s emotional or behavioral problems depends on the observational context. We observed 140 mothers and their five to 12-year-old children in non-stressful free play and in a stressful task context. In general, dyads showed higher emotional availability in the task context compared to the free play. Specifically, mothers showed higher levels of Sensitivity, Structuring and Nonhostility, but lower levels of Nonintrusiveness during the task compared to the free play context; children showed higher levels of Responsiveness during the task than during free play. After controlling for dyadic stress, contextual effects decreased for all dimensions of emotional availability. The association of mother-child interaction with child problem behavior depended on the observational context. Specifically, we found maternal emotional availability during free play to be more strongly associated with child problem behavior than during the stressful task; however, emotional availability of the child was more strongly associated with problem behavior when obtained during the task. We conclude that context impacts on mother-child interactive behavior and also on the association of mother-child-interaction and child behavior. Stress is a relevant contextual factor influencing mother-child interactive behavior.     

Factors related to the comorbidity between oppositional defiant disorder and anxiety disorders in preschool children

Background and objectives: The aim of the study is to identify factors related to comorbid oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and anxiety disorders (ADs). Design: A sample of 622 children was assessed longitudinally at 3 and 5 years of age. Methods: At baseline, there were 310 boys (49.8%), most participants were of Caucasian–white ethnicity (89.1%) and attended to public school (64.0%), and families’ socioeconomic status was 64.3% medium-high, 14.1% medium and 20.5% medium-low. Children diagnosed with ODD and/or AD were selected: n?=?103 at 3 years of age (44 ODD, 42 AD and 17 ODD?+?AD) and n?=?106 at 5 years of age (31 ODD, 60 AD and 15 ODD?+?AD). Results: High levels of the child’s negative affectivity and the mother’s aggressive behavior (versus AD), and high scores in the father’s psychopathology measurements (versus ODD) were related to the presence of comorbid ODD?+?AD at 3 years of age. High scores in approach-positive anticipation, fears (only in boys, in girls the reverse effect occurred) compared to ODD and AD independently and aggressive behavior (versus AD), and low scores for smiling and laughter (versus ODD only and AD only) were predictive of comorbidity at the 5 years of age. Conclusions: Temperament traits may be a common factor in explaining longitudinal ODD?+?AD comorbidity.     

Meaning Coconstruction in Group Counseling: The Development of Innovative Moments

This study discusses a model of group counseling, the narrative mediation path (NMP), which is a unique narrative, multimodal approach that combines four narrative modes (metaphoric, iconographic, writing, and bodily) and the narrative group. The purpose of the NMP is to foster reflexive processes with underachieving university students and to improve their academic performance. The study analyzes a single case of group counseling for seven underachieving economics students at an Italian university and the process of meaning construction among NMP narrative modes and the follow-up session. It applies the innovative moments coding system, a reliable method for studying change by tracking narrative innovations in sessions. More specifically, we focus on how innovative moments (IMs: action, reflection, protest, and reconceptualization) evolve during the four different narrative modes and the follow-up session. The findings suggest that the NMP fosters narrative innovations, mainly of a reflexive nature (reflection and reconceptualization). Moreover, during counseling and the follow-up session, the pattern of change is primarily characterized by reconceptualization IMs, the most complex form of narrative innovation.     

Specific relationships between job demands, job resources and psychological outcomes and the mediating role of negative work-home interference

This study among 115 US and 260 Dutch nurses and nurse assistants tested a theoretically derived model of specific relationships between work characteristics and two theoretically distinct outcomes (i.e., emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction). Furthermore, the mediating role of negative work-home interference (NWI) in this context was examined. It was hypothesized that emotional exhaustion is related to job demands (i.e., psychological and emotional demands), and that job satisfaction is primarily associated with job resources (i.e., job control). Workplace social support was proposed to relate to both outcomes. In addition, we expected NWI to partially mediate the hypothesized relationships. Finally, we expected this pattern to be similar across the two samples. Structural equation modeling (LISREL) indicated (1) that our postulated model largely fitted to the data in both samples (same pattern), and (2) that NWI partially mediated the relationship between psychological job demands and emotional exhaustion in the Dutch sample. It can be concluded that the results supported our proposed pattern of specific relationships and, to a lesser extent, the partial mediating role of NWI. Practical implications and methodological limitations were discussed.     

Power of the desired self: Influence of induced perceptions of the self on reasoning

This research shows that the motivation to posses a desired characteristic (or to avoid an undesired one) results in self-perceptions that guide people’s use of base rate in the Lawyer–Engineer problem (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973). In four studies, participants induced to believe (or recall, Exp. 2) that a rational cognitive style is success-conducive (or an intuitive cognitive style failure-conducive) subsequently viewed themselves as more rational and relied more on base rate in their probability estimates than those induced to believe that a rational cognitive style is failure-conducive (or an intuitive cognitive style success-conducive). These findings show that the desired self had an influence on reasoning in the self-unrelated lawyer–engineer task, since the use of base rates was mediated by changes in participants’ perceptions of their own rationality. These findings therefore show that the desired self, through the working self-concept that it entails, constitutes another factor influencing people’s use of distinct modes of reasoning.     

The good, the strong, and the accurate: preschoolers' evaluations of informant attributes

Much recent evidence shows that preschoolers are sensitive to the accuracy of an informant. Faced with two informants, one of whom names familiar objects accurately and the other inaccurately, preschoolers subsequently prefer to learn the names and functions of unfamiliar objects from the more accurate informant. This study examined the inference process underlying this preference. We asked whether preschoolers make narrow inferences about informants, broader trait-based inferences, or more global evaluative inferences. We further asked what inferences preschoolers make about a potential informant based on distinctions in the unrelated domain of physical strength. The results indicate that preschoolers make relatively narrow inferences when observing individual differences in accuracy even though they are prone to global evaluative inferences when observing individual differences in strength. Preschoolers’ burgeoning understanding of others as expert language users may underlie their selective endorsement of a more accurate informant.     

Leibniz-linked Pairs of Deductive Systems

A pair of deductive systems (S,S??) is Leibniz-linked when S?? is an extension of S and on every algebra there is a map sending each filter of S to a filter of S?? with the same Leibniz congruence. We study this generalization to arbitrary deductive systems of the notion of the strong version of a protoalgebraic deductive system, studied in earlier papers, and of some results recently found for particular non-protoalgebraic deductive systems. The necessary examples and counterexamples found in the literature are described.     

Heterotopias of Homelessness: Citizenship on the Margins

The concept of heterotopia challenges political theory, which has often focused on utopic thinking. Foucault describes a heterotopia as a heterogenous space that juxtaposes in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible. Streets, squares and parks form heterotopias when their utopic purity as public space is juxtaposed with the private spaces created by the cardboard boxes and other temporary shelters of homeless people. Since citizenship has traditionally been thought of as participation in a democratic public sphere, how do heterotopias of homelessness challenge the ideas about citizenship? Based on narrative research with homeless people in Poland, I show how the homeless conceive of their marginality. Their participation or non-participation in democracy is not hidden but, on the contrary, very visible in public spaces where they are included as excluded.     

Comparison of pausing behavior in children who stutter and children who have Asperger syndrome

Purpose

The objective of this research was to compare the number and types of grammatical and non-grammatical silent pauses presented by stutterers and subjects with Asperger syndrome in their narratives.

Method

Ten children who stutter and four participants with Asperger syndrome (mean ages of both groups 10 years) were assessed at the Speech and Language Disorders Department of the Universidade Federal de São Paulo/Brasil. They narrated a story based on a pre-selected sequence of pictures. They were filmed and their productions were analyzed using version 5.0.47 of Praat (http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/download_win.html). Silent intervals in the speech that ranged from 0.25 to 4 s were considered pauses. The pauses were classified as grammatical and non-grammatical, depending on the words that preceded and followed them.

Results

Both groups presented grammatical and non-grammatical pauses and the former predominated. The children with Asperger syndrome produced a greater number of pauses than the stutterers.Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (1) characterize the use of pauses in the oral narrative; (2) distinguish a grammatical pause from a non-grammatical pause regarding the use and function; (3) recognize the pattern of pause found in the two populations.