Elaboration and Autonomy Support in Low-Income Mothers' Reminiscing: Links to Children's Autobiographical Narratives

Maternal elaboration and autonomy support during reminiscing facilitate middle-class children's autobiographical narrative skills. In this study, low-income Hispanic, White, and Black mothers' elaboration and autonomy support in reminiscing were examined in relation to children's joint and independent autobiographical narratives and engagement. Sixty preschool children discussed three past events with their mothers and one past event with a researcher. Maternal elaboration was related to children's joint and independent autobiographical narratives, and autonomy support was related to children's joint and independent engagement. Hispanic mothers used a less elaborative style during conversations about misbehavior, and Hispanic children tended to have less advanced independent autobiographical narratives. Maternal elaboration and autonomy support appear to play different roles in children's autobiographical narratives. Further, reminiscing may serve different purposes in different racial/ethnic groups.     

Prologue: Introduction and Overview to Special Volume

Abstract

The editors provide an overview of the obstacles that prevent us from ending child abuse in the United States and briefly summarize the various articles in this volume that address these obstacles from multiple points of view.     

Assessing volunteer motives: a comparison of an open‐ended probe and Likert rating scales

The purpose of the present study was to compare the motives of volunteers (career, esteem, protective, social, understanding, and value) as assessed by an open‐ended probe and the Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) which employs a Likert rating scale. One‐hundred‐and‐twenty‐nine individuals, who volunteered for an organization that focuses on episodic volunteering in the community, completed both measures of volunteer motives and reported their frequency of volunteering for the organization. The Spearman rank correlation between the rankings of the six volunteer motives in the two distributions was 0.71. The maximum variance shared between the same motive as assessed by the two methods was 0.14. Frequency of volunteering for the organization was predicted by the value (positive predictor) and social (negative predictor) VFI scale scores. A post hoc analysis of the data from the open‐ended probe revealed three additional motives for volunteering—enjoyment, religiosity, and team building. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of alcohol and marijuana on dynamic visual acuity: I. Threshold measurements

Alcohol and marijuana produce significant dose-related reductions in dynamic visual acuity. Ten subjects participated in a double-blind experiment involving three dose levels of each drug (including placebo). The reduction of DVA produced by alcohol (1.0 ml 95% ethanol/kg body weight) was greater than for marijuana (15 mg Δ-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), and we suggest that this difference was produced by differential oculomotor effects of the two drugs. We have speculated that reduction in DVA under alcohol may be a contributing factor in alcohol-related traffic accidents.     

Intralist interference and imagery in deaf and hearing children

Children from populations lacking verbal proficiency were given an interference list of paired associates (high within-list stimulus similarity) or 1 of 2 noninterference lists (low stimulus similarity), under a standard control condition (pictorial items side by side) or an imagery condition (items depicted as interacting). In Experiment I, with deaf children 6–10 years old, the imagery condition facilitated performance on the interference list, mainly by reducing generalization errors. There was significant interference only in the control condition. Unexpectedly, imagery failed to improve performance on the noninterference lists. In Experiment II, with hearing children 4–5 years old, there was significant interference in both the imagery and the control condition. Imagery significantly facilitated performance in all lists, but did not reduce interference, apparently because it did not reduce generalization errors. Thus, imagery (a) facilitates performance by increasing the memorability of stimulus-response associations, and (b) reduces interference by reducing confusion among similar stimuli.     

The quail, Coturnix coturnix, as a laboratory animal

The quail, Coturnix coturnix, is small, gentle, hardy, adaptable, easy to house, and economical to maintain. Wetherbee and Jacobs (1960) call it the “Drosophila of the avian laboratory,” and yet this charming bird is virtually unknown to the psychological laboratory. Our preliminary investigations show that the pecking operant is readily conditioned and that little or no deprivation is necessary to maintain behavior with food as a reinforcer. Visual and temporal discriminations were very quickly made. Our observations suggest that the social behavior of these birds might be a fruitful area for psychological study. On the basis of our somewhat limited observations, we believe that C. coturnix should prove a useful experimental animal for comparative studies, for basic research in learning, motivation, and perhaps social behavior, and for teaching the analysis of behavior in demonstrations and laboratory courses.     

Sudden Death of the Therapist: The Effects on the Patient

While the termination phase of psychoanalytic psychotherapy has been discussed in the literature, the effects on the patient of a forced termination following the therapist's death have seldom been investigated. In this paper, two groups of patients (N = 35) were compared: those who experienced a planned termination and those who experienced a sudden termination as a result of their therapist's death. Data were gathered by means of detailed questionnaire and formal psychological assessment (i.e., the Grief Experience Inventory). Responses were also solicited from therapists who treated patients subsequent to the original therapist's death. Results indicate that patients forced to terminate due to the therapist's unexpected demise experienced significantly more intense grief reactions with regard to feelings of anger, despair, depersonalization, and somatization. The nature of the transference relationship with the original therapist at the time of the latter's death appeared to influence the subsequent therapeutic relationship as well. The authors present recommendations and practical guidelines concerning therapists' responsibility to their analytic patients to make reasonable accommodations in the event of their unexpected death.