Can We Identify Emotion Over‐regulation in Infancy? Associations with Avoidant Attachment,Dyadic Emotional Interaction and Temperament

Emotion over‐regulation in infancy has seldom been the focus of empirical research. This study analysed the specificities of over‐regulation when compared with under‐regulation (maladaptive) and adaptive regulation by testing its association with attachment, dyadic emotional interaction, and temperament. The sample consisted of 52 low‐risk mother–infant dyads. During a home visit, dyadic emotional interaction was assessed in the daily routines and free play of 10‐month‐old infants. The infant's emotion regulation was assessed using the Shape Sorter Task, and a temperament questionnaire was completed by the mother. Attachment was assessed at 12 or 16 months using the Strange Situation. As hypothesized, (i) emotion over‐regulation (versus adaptive regulation) was predicted by a lower quality of dyadic emotional interaction and marginally by avoidant attachment; (ii) over‐regulation (versus under‐regulation) was predicted by avoidant attachment; and (iii) the predictive role of avoidant attachment was substantiated after controlling for another measure of mother–infant interaction. Contrary to expectations, temperament did not distinguish between emotion regulation styles. The link between over‐regulation and lower quality of mother–infant emotional interaction and avoidant attachment was demonstrated. There is empirical support to the claim that it is possible to identify emotion over‐regulation in infancy and that it is a maladaptive style of emotion regulation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Individual differences in the Behavioral Inhibition System are associated with orbitofrontal cortex and precuneus gray matter volume

The Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) is described in Gray's Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory as a hypothetical construct that mediates anxiety in animals and humans. The neuroanatomical correlates of this system are not fully clear, although they are known to involve the amygdala, the septohippocampal system, and the prefrontal cortex. Previous neuroimaging research has related individual differences in BIS with regional volume and functional variations in the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampal formation. The aim of the present work was to study BIS-related individual differences and their relationship with brain regional volume. BIS sensitivity was assessed through the BIS/BAS questionnaire in a sample of male participants (N = 114), and the scores were correlated with brain regional volume in a voxel-based morphometry analysis. The results show a negative correlation between the BIS and the volume of the right and medial orbitofrontal cortices and the precuneus. Our results and previous findings suggest that individual differences in anxiety-related personality traits and their related psychopathology may be associated with reduced brain volume in certain structures relating to emotional control (i.e., the orbitofrontal cortex) and self-consciousness (i.e., the precuneus), as shown by our results.     

Repetition priming within and between languages in verb generation: evidence for shared verb concepts

Although translation equivalents for concrete nouns are known to have shared core conceptual representations in bilingual memory (Francis, 1999), the status of translation-equivalent verbs has not been systematically tested. Three repetition-priming experiments using a verb generation task were used to determine whether verbs have shared representations across languages and to identify the processes facilitated in repeated verb generation. In Experiment 1 fluent Spanish-English bilingual speakers exhibited repetition priming both within and between languages, but between-language priming was weaker. In Experiment 2 performance of non-bilingual English and Spanish speakers was equivalent to that of bilingual speakers responding in their dominant language. Experiment 3 used manipulations meant to isolate noun comprehension, verb concept selection, and verb production. The between-language priming in Experiments 1 and 3 indicates that verb concepts are shared across languages and that verb concept selection exhibits facilitation. Experiment 3 showed that the greater within-language priming was due primarily to facilitation of verb production processes.     

Infant artificial language learning and language acquisition

The rapidity with which children acquire language is one of the mysteries of human cognition. A view held widely for the past 30 years is that children master language by means of a language-specific learning device. An earlier proposal, which has generated renewed interest, is that children make use of domain-general, associative learning mechanisms. However, our current lack of knowledge of the actual learning mechanisms involved during infancy makes it difficult to determine the relative contributions of innate and acquired knowledge. A recent approach to studying this problem exposes infants to artificial languages and assesses the resulting learning. In this article, we review studies using this paradigm that have led to a number of exciting discoveries regarding the learning mechanisms available during infancy. These studies raise important issues with respect to whether such mechanisms are general or specific to language, the extent to which they reflect statistical learning versus symbol manipulation, and the extent to which such mechanisms change with development. The fine-grained characterizations of infant learning mechanisms that this approach permits should result in a better understanding of the relative contributions of, and the dynamic between, innate and learned factors in language acquisition.     

Doing African political philosophy from a universalist perspective

There has been a strong impetus to set the definitional parameters of study in African political philosophy and theory. Many scholars advance the idea of a discipline intended to provide lessons that stem from “original” African moral, ideological, and political traditions. Often, these traditions and their ideas are presented as holding categorical moral substance in so far as they are seen to be specific to a culturally essentialist understanding of “Africa.” In turn, an influential part of the literature estimates the normative value of the intellectual ideas and arguments afforded by a varied historical, socio-cultural and economic African geography by the degree to which, in being tethered to a seemingly homogenous, “culturally African” influence, these ideas can be opposed to a “Western” equivalent. In this article, I argue that the effects on the discipline of attending to, and being defined by, this cultural essentialism are at best unclear, at worst detrimental. I aim to contribute to the side of those who advocate a universalist perspective to the study of African political philosophy and thought, and who argue for jettisoning an unhelpful dichotomy between “West” and “African,” in favour of a methodological, conceptual and historical specificity that allows the discipline to be truly useful to itself and to others.     

Empathy and Cognitive Processing as Factors Determining the Consequences of Secondary Exposure to Trauma Among Roman Catholic Clergymen

Journal of Religion and Health - By helping individuals after traumatic experiences, the helper is also exposed to the consequences of trauma. The aim of this study was to determine the...     

What gaze adds to arrows: Changes in attentional response to gaze versus arrows in childhood and adolescence

From early ages, gaze acts as a cue to infer the interests, behaviours, thoughts and emotions of social partners. Despite sharing attentional properties with other non-social directional stimuli, such as arrows, gaze produces unique effects. A spatial interference task revealed this dissociation. The direction of arrows was identified faster on congruent than on incongruent direction-location trials. Conversely, gaze produced a reversed congruency effect (RCE), with faster identifications on incongruent than congruent trials. To determine the emergence of these gaze-specific attentional mechanisms, 214 Spanish children (4–17 years) divided into 6 age groups, performed the aforementioned task across three experiments. Results showed stimulus-specific developmental trajectories. Whereas the standard effect of arrows was unaffected by age, gaze shifted from an arrow-like effect at age 4 to a gaze-specific RCE at age 12. The orienting mechanisms shared by gaze and arrows are already present in 4-year olds and, throughout childhood, gaze becomes a special social cue with additional attentional properties. Besides orienting attention to a direction, as arrows would do, gaze might orient attention towards a specific object that would be attentionally selected. Such additional components may not fully develop until adolescence. Understanding gaze-specific attentional mechanisms may be crucial for children with atypical socio-cognitive development.     

Self-determined profiles of academic motivation

Motivation and Emotion - This study was designed to investigate academic motivation profiles (and their similarity) among distinct samples of high school students. Anchored in recent developments...     

Stereotypes,Ingroup Emotions and the Inner Predictive Machinery of Testimony

The reductionist/anti-reductionist debate about testimonial justification (and knowledge) can be taken to collapse into a controversy about two kinds of underlying monitoring mechanism. The nature and structure of this mechanism remains an enigma in the debate. We suggest that the underlying monitoring mechanism amounts to emotion-based stereotyping. Our main argument in favor of the stereotype hypothesis about testimonial monitoring is that the underlying psychological mechanism responsible for testimonial monitoring has several conditions to satisfy. Each of these conditions is satisfied by our “hot” stereotypical capacities. Intergroup emotions play a key role here. Intergroup emotions inform the agent about which candidate stereotype is better suited to the current situation. Emotions serve as evidence that makes a certain stereotype and its particular profile of features more or less expected.