Pets as safe havens and secure bases: The moderating role of pet attachment orientations

We examined the extent to which a pet functions as an attachment figure. In Study 1, 165 pet owners performed a goal exploration task, assessing the number of life goals generated and confidence in goal attainment. In Study 2, 120 pet owners performed a distress-eliciting task while assessing blood pressure. In both studies, participants were divided into three conditions: pet physical presence, pet cognitive presence, and no pet presence. As compared to no pet presence, physical or cognitive pet presence increased the number of life goals generated and self-confidence in goal attainment and reduced blood pressure during the distress-eliciting task. The findings confirm the ability of a pet to provide a safe-haven and a secure-base and the moderating role of attachment insecurities.     

Family functioning among returnees to Orthodox Judaism in Israel

The role of religious conversion in marriages and family functioning has been little explored. The current study examined family functioning and parenting stress among returnees to Orthodox Judaism with adolescent children. Possible explanatory factors for difficulties, such as attachment insecurity, religious discord in families, and poor community integration, were also explored. Randomly selected samples of returnee and nonreturnee Orthodox Jews with adolescent children (N = 1632) completed measures of attachment, community integration, marital functioning, and parenting stress. Results indicate that returnees report greater family disengagement (lack of warmth), family chaos (lack of control), and parenting stress. They also reported higher religious discord, higher attachment insecurity, and poorer community integration, which all correlated with higher parenting stress, family disengagement (lack of warmth), and family chaos (lack of control). Moreover, differences between returnees and nonreturnees on family functioning and parenting stress were largely mediated by differences in the explanatory factors. These results substantiate previous anecdotal reports and suggest possible avenues for intervention among Orthodox returnees with family difficulties. They also support the relevance of religious factors in family functioning.     

Is conflict monitoring supramodal? Spatiotemporal dynamics of cognitive control processes in an auditory Stroop task

The electrophysiological correlates of conflict processing and cognitive control have been well characterized for the visual modality in paradigms such as the Stroop task. Much less is known about corresponding processes in the auditory modality. Here, electroencephalographic recordings of brain activity were measured during an auditory Stroop task, using three different forms of behavioral response (overt verbal, covert verbal, and manual), that closely paralleled our previous visual Stroop study. As was expected, behavioral responses were slower and less accurate for incongruent than for congruent trials. Neurally, incongruent trials showed an enhanced fronto-central negative polarity wave (N_inc), similar to the N450 in visual Stroop tasks, with similar variations as a function of behavioral response mode, but peaking ~150 ms earlier, followed by an enhanced positive posterior wave. In addition, sequential behavioral and neural effects were observed that supported the conflict-monitoring and cognitive adjustment hypothesis. Thus, while some aspects of the conflict detection processes, such as timing, may be modality dependent, the general mechanisms would appear to be supramodal.     

Do Master Narratives Change Among High School Students? A Characterization of How National History Is Represented

Master narratives frame students’ historical knowledge, possibly hindering access to more historical representations. A detailed analysis of students’ historical narratives about the origins of their own nation is presented in terms of four master narrative characteristics related to the historical subject, national identification, the main theme and the nation concept. The narratives of Argentine 8th and 11th graders were analyzed to establish whether a change toward a more complex historical account occurred. The results show that the past is mostly understood in master narrative terms but in the 11th grade narratives demonstrate a more historical understanding. Only identification appears to be fairly constant across years of history learning. The results suggest that in history education first aiming at a constructivist concept of nation and then using the concept to reflect on the national historical subject and events in the narrative might help produce historical understanding of a national past.     

The Dyadic Relationships Test: Creation and Validation of a Model-Derived,Visual-Verbal Instrument to Evaluate Couple Relationships. Part II

The second part of this article adds evidence to support the psychometric properties of the Dyadic Relationships Test (DRT), designed to evaluate dyadic relationships from a theoretical Selfhood model. This model was presented in an early publication (Cusinato & L'Abate, 2003) and in the first part of this article.     

Evaluation of a Structured Psychoeducational Intervention with Couples: The Dyadic Relationships Test (DRT)

Four cases are presented to illustrate the clinical usefulness of a new, statistically validated, visual-verbal test to evaluate couple relationships at seven different stages of the life cycle. Results from this test can be correlated with dimensions measured with another instrument, allowing to evaluate whether any progress has taken place as a result of structured or unstructured interventions.     

Likeness: A Hidden Ingredient in Family Therapy

The purpose of this paper is to show how one can progress from a validated theoretical model to its practical application in family therapy. The model applied in this case is the Likeness Continuum consisting of six degrees of Likeness: symbiosis, sameness, similarity, differentness, oppositeness, and alienation. A formal Task to evaluate this model in family therapy is attached to provide a basis for the evaluation of this model in the laboratory and in the therapy office.     

Detecting Perceiver Expectancies: The Role of Perceiver Distraction in Spontaneously Triggering Identity Negotiation

To examine whether social interaction processes can trigger naturally-occurring identity negotiation, the current research manipulated perceiver distraction and valence of perceivers' expectations about targets. Nondistracted perceivers corrected their behaviors and impressions for the influence of their expectancies. Distracted perceivers corrected their overt information-gathering behaviors, but appeared to exhibit their biases in subtle ways. Targets detected distracted perceivers' negative expectancies, and showed signs of engaging in identity negotiation processes by behaving contrary to their perceivers' expectancies. The results suggest that distraction may facilitate the emergence of subtle expectancy-biased perceiver behaviors, and may trigger targets to intuitively engage in identity negotiation processes.     

Rediscovering Meaning

The present crisis of the Western countries involves not just the world of politics, finance, and the economy, but also the ecosystem balance, the world of the values on which the model of social organization and economic development is based. The crisis is therefore systemic, epoch-making, and overcoming it will require radical changes, above all in the way we think, in our scale of values, and therefore our culture. On the other hand, for decades the world—in particular the West—has been experiencing a cultural sea-change that is challenging many of the pillars of society that have stood for centuries. The young people of today and their use of technological social networks to develop non-profit initiatives for social change may create a more positive future while maintaining our human values.