Clarifying Parent–Child Reciprocities During Early Childhood: The Early Childhood Coercion Model

Consistent with existing theory, the quality of parent-child interactions during early childhood affects children's social relationships and behavioral adjustment during middle childhood and adolescence. Harsh parenting and a propensity toward emotional overarousal interact very early in life to affect risk for later conduct problems. Less empirical work has evaluated the emergence of early childhood coercive parent-child reciprocities. The proposed early childhood coercion model describes the processes by which coercive parent-child reciprocities emerge. Specifically, the interaction between parenting and infants' propensities toward reactivity influences the development of emotion regulation in children and disciplinary styles in parents. Highly reactive children are expected to experience more difficulty learning to regulate emotions and to evoke harsher parenting. Through a process of mutual reinforcement, harsh parenting, negative emotional reactivity, and poor emotion regulation become coercive parent-child reciprocities during early childhood. The emergence of coercive parent-child interactions further diminishes children's emotional regulatory capacities and affects the formation of peer relationships during kindergarten.     

Personality and religion: Applying cattell’s model among secondary school pupils

A sample of 1,070 secondary school pupils between the ages of eleven and eighteen years completed the High School Personality Questionnaire alongside the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity. The data demonstrate that religiosity is significantly correlated with five of the fourteen personality factors and with two of the four second-order factors. A positive attitude toward Christianity is associated with high scores on factor G (conformity), factor I (tendermindedness) and factor Q3 (self discipline), and low scores on factor E (submissiveness), factor F (sobriety), second-order factor of extraversion (indicating a relationship with introversion), and second-order factor of tough poise (indicating a relationship with emotionality).     

Psychological type and attitude toward Christianity: a replication

A sample of 149 university students completed the Francis Psychological Type Scales together with the Francis Scale of Attitude Toward Christianity. The data indicated that university students classified as Feeling Types hold a more positive attitude toward Christianity than those classified as Thinking Types. These findings replicate the 1999 report of Jones and Francis.     

Are American children's problems still getting worse? A 23-year comparison

Child Behavior Checklists were completed in home interviews by parents of 7–16-year-olds in 1976, 1989, and 1999. Competence scores decreased from 1976 to 1989, but increased in 1999. Problem scores increased from 1976 to 1989 and decreased in 1999 but remained higher than in 1976. Items, empirically based scales, and DSM-oriented scales showed similar patterns for demographically similar nonreferred samples assessed in 1976, 1989, and 1999 and for national samples that included referred children assessed in 1989 and 1999. For the 114 problem items that were common to the 1976, 1989, and 1999 assessments, the Q correlation was .98 between the mean scores on the 114 items in 1976 versus 1989 and was .94 between the mean scores on the 114 items in 1976 vs. 1999. This indicated very high stability in the rank ordering of item scores across intervals up to 23 years. For all children, the 1-year prevalence rate for mental health services use was 13.2% in 1989 versus 12.8% in 1999. For children with deviant Total Problems scores, the 1989 prevalence for service use was 30.5 versus 26.6% in 1999. Neither difference was statistically significant.     

The Relationship Between Personality and Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction with Ministry Among Female Stipendiary Anglican Clergy in the UK

A sample of 565 female stipendiary Anglican clergy in the UK completed the short form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire together with indices of satisfaction with ministry and of dissatisfaction with ministry. The data demonstrate that satisfaction with ministry is associated with stable extraversion, while dissatisfaction with ministry is associated with toughminded neuroticism. Satisfaction and dissatisfaction with ministry are not opposite ends of the same continuum. Pastoral Theology and Mansel Jones Fellow at Trinity College     

Making the Parents as Partners Principle a Reality: The Role of the Alliance

We explore the dimensions of the Parents as Partners principle, the widely touted, but somewhat elusive construct in the literature on treating children with serious mental illness, whose poorly defined boundaries, lack of empirical grounding, and overemphasis on instrumental dimensions attenuates its usefulness as a guide for practice and research. Four major barriers to the realization of this principle are outlined, all of which may impede actualizing partnership in practice and may also inhibit the early formation of a positive clinician/parent alliance, a neglected, though key dimension of true partnership practice. The alliance, which has a long clinical and research history in psychotherapy and behavioral research, and more recently, in a variety of community-based interventions, is a precursor to active client partnership with helpers and to treatment participation, as well as therapeutic in its own right. After reviewing relevant alliance research, we close with a beginning research agenda to incorporate the alliance as an integral component of future conceptualization and research about the Parents as Partners principle.     

Mommy and Daddy like you best: perceived family favouritism in relation to affect, adjustment and family process

Perceived family favouritism and disfavouritism were explored in relation to college students' adjustment, affect and family process. The participants included 127 males and females and 62 of their siblings (age range 18–32 years). Sixty-five per cent of the participants reported favouritism in their families; 24% reported disfavouritism. There was modest sibling agreement on the presence of family favouritism/disfavouritism as well as on who in the family was doing the favouring or disfavouring. The presence of disfavouritism was found to relate to lower family cohesion, higher family disengagement and higher family conflict. Participants who perceived themselves to be disfavoured also reported more frequent shame and more intense fear. Participants who perceived themselves to be favoured reported less frequent shame. Results are discussed in the context of the empirical and clinical literature on sibling and family interaction and the differential treatment of siblings by parents. A clinical case example is provided to illustrate the results and to highlight the implications for family therapy.