A tale of four countries: How Bowlby used his trip through Europe to write the WHO report and spread his ideas

Attachment theory, developed by child psychiatrist John Bowlby, is considered a major theory in developmental psychology. Attachment theory can be seen as resulting from Bowlby's personal experiences, his psychoanalytic education, his subsequent study of ethology, and societal developments during the 1930s and 1940s. One of those developments was the outbreak of World War II and its effects on children's psychological wellbeing. In 1950, Bowlby was appointed WHO consultant to study the needs of children who were orphaned or separated from their families for other reasons and needed care in foster homes or institutions. The resulting report is generally considered a landmark publication in psychology, although it subsequently met with methodological criticism. In this paper, by reconstructing Bowlby's visit to several European countries, on the basis of notebooks and letters, the authors shed light on the background of this report and the way Bowlby used or neglected the findings he gathered.     

Gesture for generalization: gesture facilitates flexible learning of words for actions on objects

Verb learning is difficult for children (Gentner, 1982 ), partially because children have a bias to associate a novel verb not only with the action it represents, but also with the object on which it is learned (Kersten & Smith, 2002 ). Here we investigate how well 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children (N = 48) generalize novel verbs for actions on objects after doing or seeing the action (e.g., twisting a knob on an object) or after doing or seeing a gesture for the action (e.g., twisting in the air near an object). We find not only that children generalize more effectively through gesture experience, but also that this ability to generalize persists after a 24‐hour delay.     

Psychotherapy Training Process as a Group Experience: A Hermeneutic-Constructivist Perspective

This article focuses on the training of hermeneutic constructivist psychotherapists and aims to point out those aspects that make the group such a privileged place for the construction of the professional role. It hypothesized that the group, as a closed and transitory context, can promote an openness to the exploration of different alternatives and the experimentation of the professional role. The article concentrates especially on applying the psychotherapy group theory of G. A. Kelly to the group training of hermeneutic constructivist psychotherapists, describing this process through the experience cycle (Kelly, 1995) in the perspective of a transformative experience. Starting from the basic theories behind the therapeutic process, illustration will follow of the training procedure formulated to allow working with the group within a context of relationships that favor learning and experimentation of new roles. The various phases of group therapeutic training will then be illustrated. These have been formulated to enable working within the group in a relational context that favors the role of therapist construction, coming from the elaboration of certain areas of the personal system and from experimentation and the elaboration of this new role itself.     

The effects of expected reward on creative problem solving

Creative problem solving involves search processes, and it is known to be hard to motivate. Reward cues have been found to enhance performance across a range of tasks, even when cues are presented subliminally, without being consciously detected. It is uncertain whether motivational processes, such as reward, can influence problem solving. We tested the effect of supraliminal and subliminal reward on participant performance on problem solving that can be solved by deliberate analysis or by insight. Forty-one participants attempted to solve 100 compound remote associate problems. At the beginning of each problem, a potential reward cue (1 or 25 cents) was displayed, either subliminally (17 ms) or supraliminally (100 ms). Participants earned the displayed reward if they solved the problem correctly. Results showed that the higher subliminal reward increased the percentage of problems solved correctly overall. Second, we explored if subliminal rewards preferentially influenced solutions that were achieved via a sudden insight (mostly processed below awareness) or via a deliberate analysis. Participants solved more problems via insight following high subliminal reward when compared with low subliminal reward, and compared with high supraliminal reward, with no corresponding effect on analytic solving. Striatal dopamine (DA) is thought to influence motivation, reinforce behavior, and facilitate cognition. We speculate that subliminal rewards activate the striatal DA system, enhancing the kinds of automatic integrative processes that lead to more creative strategies for problem solving, without increasing the selectivity of attention, which could impede insight.     

Change in Maternal Stress for Families in Treatment for their Children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder

Our objective was to predict change in maternal stress over the course of a randomized clinical trial comparing the efficacy of two interventions for Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD): Parent Management Training and Collaborative & Proactive Solutions. In a secondary analysis of data collected from this randomized clinical trial, we examined whether children’s self-reported positive relations with their parents impacted responsiveness to treatment, which in turn impacted maternal stress. One hundred thirty-four children and their parents (38.1% female, ages 7–14, M age?=?9.51, SD?=?1.77) were tracked across three time points: pre-treatment; one-week post-treatment; and six-month post-treatment. Hierarchical linear models tested change in children’s reports of positive relations with parents, clinician reports of ODD severity, and maternal reports of parenting stress. Models then tested multilevel mediation from positive relations with parents, through ODD severity, onto maternal stress. Hypothesized indirect effects were supported such that children’s reports of positive views toward parents uniquely predicted reductions in ODD severity over time, which in turn uniquely predicted reductions in maternal stress. Results highlight the promise of potential secondary benefits for parents following interventions for children with oppositional problems. Furthermore, results underscore the importance of the parent–child relationship as both a protective factor and as an additional target to complement interventions for child disruptive behaviors.     

The role of sustained attention,maternal sensitivity,and infant temperament in the development of early self-regulation

This study investigated infant predictors of early cognitive and emotional self-regulation from an intrinsic and caregiving environmental perspective. Sustained attention, reactive aspects of infant temperament, and maternal sensitivity were assessed at 10 months (n = 124) and early self-regulation (including executive functions, EF, and emotion regulation) was assessed at 18 months. The results indicated that sustained attention predicted early EF, which provide empirical support for the hierarchical framework of EF development, advocating early attention as a foundation for the development of cognitive self-regulation. Maternal sensitivity and surgency predicted emotion regulation, in that infants of sensitive mothers showed more regulatory behaviours and a longer latency to distress, whereas high levels of surgency predicted low emotion regulation, suggesting both the caregiving environment and temperament as important in the development of self-regulation. Interaction effects suggested high sustained attention to be a protective factor for children of insensitive mothers, in relation to emotion regulation. In addition, high levels of maternal sensitivity seemed to foster development of emotion regulation among children with low to medium levels of sustained attention and/or surgency. In all, our findings point to the importance of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors in infant development of self-regulation.     

On Fair Person Classification Based on Efficient Factor Score Estimates in the Multidimensional Factor Analysis Model

Since Hooker, Finkelman and Schwartzman (Psychometrika 74(3): 419–442, 2009) it is known that person parameter estimates from multidimensional latent variable models can induce unfair classifications via paradoxical scoring effects. The open question as to whether there is a fair and at the same time multidimensional scoring scheme with adequate statistical properties is addressed in this paper. We develop a theorem on the existence of a fair, multidimensional classification scheme in the context of the classical linear factor analysis model and show how the computation of the scoring scheme can be embedded in the context of linear programming. The procedure is illustrated in the framework of scoring the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV).     

Increased parasympathetic activity and ability to generate positive emotion: The influence of the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism on emotion flexibility

Cross-species behavioral research suggests that a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene (rs6265, Val66Met), influences behavioral inflexibility. This SNP has not yet been linked to variability in emotion-related behaviors, despite broader evidence suggesting an association may be present. This investigation explored the role of the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism in emotion response behaviors measured during a lab-based emotional provocation. Specifically, the influence of BDNF Val66Met in emotion flexibility was explored in a sample of healthy adults (N?=?120), emotion responses were recorded during the emotional provocation on multiple dimensions, in response to emotionally-evocative videos of negative then positive valence. These results suggest that Met carriers exhibit decreased parasympathetic responding, and reduced ability to generate positive emotion, relative to Val homozygotes. These findings are the first to suggest an association between the Met allele and a pattern of responding indicative of emotion inflexibility that might afford greater risk for psychopathology.