Relative effects of breastfeeding intention and practice on maternal responsiveness

Our objective was to examine the differential effects of antenatal breastfeeding intention (BI) and breastfeeding practice (BP) on maternal postnatal responsiveness. We conducted a secondary analysis of longitudinal data from a subsample of 962 mother–infant dyads from a U.K.-based birth cohort study the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Exposures were BI and BPs measured at 32 weeks of gestation and 18 months’ postpartum. The outcome was maternal responsiveness assessed at 12 months’ postpartum. We used logistic regression analyses unadjusted and adjusted for confounders. Intention to breastfeed was associated with increased odds of postnatal maternal responsiveness independent of BP, adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 2.34, 95% CI [1.42, 3.86]. There was no evidence that BP was an independent predictor of maternal responsiveness, OR = 0.93, 95% CI [0.55, 1.57]. Life-course epidemiology analyses demonstrated that maternal responsiveness is most positive when both BI and BP are present. This is the first population-based study to provide evidence that BI during pregnancy is more strongly associated with maternal postnatal responsiveness than is BP. Further research is needed to understand the determinants of BI in pregnancy and its relationships with maternal responsiveness.     

Developmental Perspectives on Interpersonal Affective Touch

Topoi - In the last decade, philosophy, neuroscience and psychology alike have paid increasing attention to the study of interpersonal affective touch, which refers to the emotional and...     

Ethical Decision Making in Autonomous Vehicles: The AV Ethics Project

Science and Engineering Ethics - The ethics of autonomous vehicles (AV) has received a great amount of attention in recent years, specifically in regard to their decisional policies in accident...     

Talking about the silent fear: adolescents' experiences of violence in an urban high-rise community

The self-reported violent experiences of adolescents living in a public-subsidized urban high-rise building were examined. This effort was part of an interdisciplinary, community-university collaboration program called the HOME (High-rise On-site Multifamily Environments) Family Support Project. A survey of violent experiences and a one-on-one structured interview were conducted with 20 adolescent residents. Results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed high degrees of exposure to violence among these adolescents, concerns for their personal safety, as well as insights into what they believe adults could and should be doing to address increasing levels of community violence. The implications of these results for conducting ecologically valid research on sensitive issues with adolescents and for family support program planning are discussed.     

Rich interpretation vs. deflationary accounts in cognitive development: the case of means-end skills in 7-month-old infants

Seven-month-old infants appear to learn means-end skills, such as pushing a button to retrieve a distant toy (Psychological Review 104 (1997) 686). The present studies tested whether such apparent means-end behaviors are genuine, or simply the repetition of trained behaviors under conditions of greatest arousal, as suggested by a dynamic systems reinterpretation. When infants were trained to repeat behaviors that did not serve as means to retrieving toys (pushing a button to light a set of distant lights), their button-pushing differed significantly from infants for whom button-pushing served as a means for retrieving toys. Further, infants demonstrated means-end skills with behaviors that they had not been trained to repeat. Implications for early means-end abilities and for debates surrounding the interpretation of infant behavior are discussed.     

The fit and implementation of sexual harassment law to workplace evaluations

Three studies used videotaped harassment complaints to examine the impact of legal standards on the evaluation of social-sexual conduct at work. Study 1 demonstrated that without legal instructions, college students' judgment strategies were highly variable. Study 2 compared 2 current legal standards, the "severity or pervasiveness test" and a proposed utilitarian alternative (i.e., the rational woman approach). Undergraduate participants taking the perspective of the complainant were more sensitive to offensive conduct than were those adopting an objective perspective. Although the utilitarian altemative further increased sensitivity on some measures, it failed to produce a principled judgment strategy. Finally, Study 3 examined the kinds of errors that full-time workers make when applying the "severity or pervasiveness" test to examine more closely the sensitivity of the subjective approach.     

Is emotional intelligence an advantage? An exploration of the impact of emotional and general intelligence on individual performance

Emotional intelligence is an increasingly popular consulting tool. According to popular opinion and work-place testimonials, emotional intelligence increases performance and productivity; however, there has been a general lack of independent, systematic analysis substantiating that claim. The authors investigated whether emotional intelligence would account for increases in individual cognitive-based performance over and above the level attributable to traditional general intelligence. The authors measured emotional intelligence with the Multifactor Emotional Intelligence Scale (MEIS; J. D. Mayer, P. Salovey, & D. R. Caruso, 1997). As measured by the MEIS, overall emotional intelligence is a composite of the 3 distinct emotional reasoning abilities: perceiving, understanding, and regulating emotions (J. D. Mayer & P. Salovey, 1997). Although further psychometric analysis of the MEIS is warranted, the authors found that overall emotional intelligence, emotional perception, and emotional regulation uniquely explained individual cognitive-based performance over and beyond the level attributable to general intelligence.