Dyadic processes between mothers and preterm infants: Development at ages 2 to 5 years

In order to identify antecedents to cognitive, language, and social competence from 2 to 5 years of age in preterm children at biological and social risk, this study used multiple procedures, administered in the laboratory, at 13 and 20 months, to measure components of the social interactions between 51 mothers and their preterm infants. Two variables, maternal responsiveness to infant vocalization and infant irritability, were found to be significant predictors of later competence. Whereas greater maternal responsiveness, as expected, led to increased language and social skills, greater infant irritability during stressful situations also foretold later increased competence in expressive and receptive language and social cognition. Children born at higher birthweights and with longer gestations were more likely to be more irritable than those born at very low birthweights. The findings suggest different implications for negative affect in preterms who have experienced respiratory distress as contrasted to full-term children, but indicate similar positive consequences for maternal verbal responsiveness.     

Attitudes and the attribution of mental disorder

Among the problems of understanding mental pathology through a labeling perspective is the need to understand more about the attributional process itself. It is postulated that characteristics of observers, in particular their attitudes, influence the attribution of mental disorder to individuals manifesting deviant behavior. Questionnaire items were factor analyzed to produce several dimensions of attitudes and types of deviance. Tests of seven sub‐hypotheses provide support for the major hypothesis that the probability mental disorder will be attributed by an observer to an actor is positively related to the degree an actor's behavior (implying beliefs or attitudes) differs from the beliefs and attitudes of the observer.     

Breaking the Borders/Violating the Norms: An Archaeological Survey of an Intersex in a Traditional Society, Bam (South Eastern Iran)

How does breaking boundaries and passing identity red lines affect social and personal life? How do people with contradictory identities experience life in a traditional society? What will happen if the material and bodily identity of an individual goes against social norms? This research is a narration of some parts of an intersex life, an individual with a vague, unknown identity who contradicts the common norms of the society. In a traditional society, where gender and sexual identity act as a taboo and a powerful source of identity, people with uncommon (gender and sexual) identities suffer from an unstable social status. The story of Setareh/Saman’s life is told based on the archaeological remains from the debris of destroyed layers of a house in Bam. This is the story of transforming from female to male, the story of limitations, social inequalities and pressures on the individuals and the minorities who are condemned because of who they are.     

Anatomical limitations in mental transformations of body parts

Two experiments investigated whether possible and impossible body postures influence mental rotation processes differently considering that anatomical limitations constrain the way in which subjects perform mental transformations of body parts. In Experiment 1, mental rotation was performed on two stimuli presented simultaneously. Both possible and impossible body postures elicited mental rotation, although the mental rotation rate was slower for impossible postures. In Experiment 2, only one stimulus was presented at a time and subjects decided whether it represented a correct body-part configuration or not. A typical mental rotation function was only present for correct body-part configurations. The results are discussed in terms of the familiarity of the stimuli. Unfamiliar stimuli (physically impossible) are rotated via local representations of their parts, whilst global representations are used for rotating familiar (anatomically correct) stimuli.     

Influence of general and specific autobiographical recall on subsequent behavior: The case of cognitive performance

Two studies tested the impact of autobiographical recall of general versus specific academic success or failure on actual task performance. As expected, it was found that general memories of failure and specific memories of success resulted in worse performance than general memories of success and specific memories of failure. In Study 1, this performance pattern was obtained on a standard math test. In Study 2, it was replicated on a test of intellectual ability, and a mediation by fear of failure was documented. The present findings offer direct evidence that autobiographical memories of success and failure impact actual performance and also reveal the role of memory specificity in this influence.     

When self-destructive thoughts flash through the mind: Failure to meet standards affects the accessibility of suicide-related thoughts

When individuals realize that they fail to attain important standards or expectations, they may be motivated to escape the self, which could lead thoughts of suicide to become more accessible. Six studies examined this hypothesis, mainly derived from escape theory (Baumeister, 1990). The results indicated that whenever individuals realize that they fail to attain an important standard, they experience increased accessibility of suicide-related thoughts (Studies 1-6). In line with the idea that such effects reflect motivations to escape from negative self-awareness, they were especially pronounced when associated with high levels of self-consciousness and escapist motivations (Study 1) and with a large discrepancy between self and standards (Studies 2-4). Moreover, failure to attain standards increased suicide-thought accessibility along with the desire for an altered state of consciousness (Study 5). Finally, increases in suicide-thought accessibility after failure were associated with simultaneous increases in accessibility of general concepts related to escape (Study 6). Implications of these findings for escape and terror management theories are discussed.