Profiles of Identity Exploration and Commitment Across Domains

We examined the relationships between family structure, gender and age and profiles of identity exploration and commitment in the ideological (occupation, values, politics, religion, gender roles) and interpersonal identity (dating, friendships, and family) domains among 388 young adults. The general profile revealed low exploration in both domains, with ideological exploration being the lower, compared to high and comparable levels of commitment in the two domains. Older participants explored more than younger ones, and females gave more attention to the interpersonal domain than did males. Participants from original families explored more in the interpersonal domain than in the ideological domain, but their commitment was the same for the two domains. Participants from non-original families explored in equal amounts in the two domains, but were more committed in the interpersonal domain compared to participants from original families. Participants from non-original families explored more in the ideological domain than did participants from original families. Our findings indicate that individuals from non-original families exhibit positive outcomes and strengths that are often overlooked in the literature.     

Mentalization in children and mothers in the context of trauma: An initial study of the validity of the Child Reflective Functioning Scale

This study examined the validity of the Child Reflective Functioning Scale (CRFS: Ensink, Target, & Oandason, 2013, Child reflective functioning scale scoring manual: for application to the Child Attachment Interview. London, UK: Anna Freud Centre – University College London), a measure designed to assess reflective functioning (RF) or mentalization during middle childhood. Participants were 94 mother–child dyads divided into two subgroups; 46 dyads where children had histories of intrafamilial (n = 22 dyads) or extrafamilial (n = 24 dyads) sexual abuse, and a community control group composed of 48 mother–child dyads. RF of children and their mothers was assessed using videotaped and transcribed data gathered using the Child Attachment Interview and the Parent Development Interview (PDI: Slade, Aber, Bresi, Berger, & Kaplan, 2004, The parent development interview‐Revised. New York, NY: The City University of New York). The findings indicate that the CRFS proved reliable, with excellent intraclass correlation coefficients for general RF, as well as RF regarding self and others. Significant differences in RF were found between sexually abused children and the control group, and also between children who had experienced intrafamilial and extrafamilial sexual abuse. This provides support for the discriminant validity of the CRFS. Furthermore, maternal RF was associated with child RF. Both abuse and maternal RF made significant contributions to predicting children's RF regarding themselves, but child sexual abuse was the only variable that made a significant contribution to explaining variance in children's RF regarding others.     

Alexithymia,memory of emotion,emotional awareness,and perfectionism

The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20; R. M. Bagby, J. D. A. Parker, & G. J. Taylor, 1994) is a self-assessment instrument designed to measure deficits in meta-emotional functioning (e.g., difficulties in identifying and describing emotions). Four studies were carried out to examine the association between the TAS-20 and (a) performance measures of meta-emotional functioning (memory of emotion and emotional awareness; Studies 1-2) and (b) measures of perfectionistic standards that may possibly be involved in the self-assessment of abilities-difficulties (Studies 3-4). The TAS-20 failed to correlate in the predicted direction with the performance measures but showed sizable correlations with measures of perfectionism. Moreover, perfectionism was found to predict TAS-20 scores independent of depression, anxiety, and somatic complaints. The results are discussed in terms of the TAS-20 measuring primarily certain aspects of meta-emotional self-efficacy.     

The proposed interaction between working memory and inhibition

Two experiments investigated the determinants of performance on a go/no-go task by studying the interplay of two executive function components, working memory (WM) and inhibition. Systematically varied task demands on WM and inhibition were used in the analysis of performance together with individual capacity measures of both functions, thereby investigating an interactive view of WM and inhibition. Further analyses were conducted with individual differences in general fluid intelligence (gF), in an attempt to study the role of higher order cognition in handling task demands. The results are new in presenting empirical evidence for interactive effects of the task demand variables in concert with individual WM capacity as well as with gF, suggesting that executive processes common to WM and gF are involved in inhibitory performance, whereas gF appears to reflect a broader function in controlling behaviour in relation to task goals, whether it involves active responding or not.     

Dreading the boards: stress response to a competitive audition characterized by social-evaluative threat

The capacity of psychosocial stressors to provoke the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis has been demonstrated to vary depending upon a number of psychological factors. Laboratory stressors characterized by social-evaluative threat are proposed to be the most efficacious in the elicitation of a cortisol stress response. Salivary cortisol, cardiovascular, and subjective responses of 16 healthy adults facing a naturalistic stressor characterized by social-evaluative threat (competitive performance auditions) were examined. Audition exposure was sufficient to provoke significant cortisol, arterial blood pressure (systolic and diastolic), and subjective stress responses. Cortisol response reactivity (area under the curve with respect to increase [AUCi]) also correlated with participants' subjective rating of social-evaluative threat. The competitive performance audition context is therefore considered a promising context in which to further explore cortisol responsivity to social-evaluative threat.     

Disfluency characteristics of 2-, 4-, and 6- yr-old males

Fluency characteristics of 36 nonstuttering males aged 2, 4, and 6 yr are presented in terms of patterns of disfluency and relationships among disfluency variables. The most frequently occuring disfluency types at each age level were revision-incomplete phrase and interjections; the least noted type was part-word repetitions for 2- and 4-yr olds and disrhythmic phonations for 6-yr-olds. Patterns of disfluency appear to be similar at all age levels studied, except that the 2-yr-old pattern showed greater magnitudes in various disfluency types. A range exists in the relationships among individual disfluency types, from moderately strong relationships between, for example, revision-incomplete phrase and interjections to lack of linear relationships between, for example, interjections and phrase repetitions. A linguistic factor may be strong within certain disfluency types. e.g., revision-incomplete phrase, interjections, and word repetitions, whereas a motor factor may be operative in others, e.g., part-word repetitions and disrhythmic phonations.     

The influence of a history of romance on judgments and responses to a complaint of sexual harassment

Results indicated that a female complainant was seen as less innocent and an accused male less guilty when they had previously been romantically involved. As a consequence, decision makers felt it was more appropriate to be lenient in responding to the accused. Also, as demonstrated in previous research, male and female decision makers differed in their judgments and responses to a complaint of sexual harassment. These results have implications for organizational policies concerning workplace romance and for training people to deal with complaints of sexual harassment.Partial support for this study was provided by a Saint Mary's Senate research grant. The authors thank an anonymous reviewer for the helpful comments on an earlier version of the paper.