Mothers' attachment status as determined by the Adult Attachment Interview predicts their 6-year-olds' reunion responses: a study conducted in Japan

Following a 1986 study reporting a predominance of ambivalent attachment among insecure Sapporo infants, the generalizability of attachment theory and methodologies to Japanese samples has been questioned. In this 2nd study of Sapporo mother-child dyads (N=43), the authors examined attachment distributions for both (a) child, based on M. Main and J. Cassidy's (1988) 6th-year reunion, and (b) adult, via the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). In contrast to the previous Sapporo study, children's 3-way or "organized" distribution did not differ from the global distribution. However, when the disorganized-controlling (D) and cannot classify (CC) categories were applied to the analyses, a high proportion of D/CC children was found. Comparable analyses for Japanese mothers, including the unresolved/disorganized (U) and CC categories, were found to deviate slightly from the global norm. However, turning from global distributions to mothers' AAI classification as related to their child's reunion classification, all matches were surprisingly close to those established worldwide. When, as is customary, mothers' U and CC classifications were combined (U/CC) and compared with the child's D and CC classifications (also customarily combined as D/CC), mothers' U/CC status strongly predicted child D/CC status (r=.60, d=1.50). Additionally, mothers' AAI subclassifications predicted child subclassifications.     

Unique pathways to resilience across cultures

An international mixed methods study of resilience of 14 sites in eleven countries identified seven tensions that youth resolve in culturally specific ways. Resolution of these tensions is foundational to experiences of resilience. This paper reports on the qualitative findings from interviews with 89 youth. Results support a culturally embedded understanding of positive youth development that better accounts for young people's resilience in western and non-western countries. Specifically, the seven tensions identified include: access to material resources, relationships, identity, cohesion, power and control, social justice, and cultural adherence. Findings show that no one pattern in the resolution of these tensions predicts resilience better than another. A case study of a Palestinian boy demonstrates the intersection of the seven tensions and the uniqueness of their resolution. The implications of this work for interventions is discussed.     

Retelling urban legends

We explored factors influencing the retelling of urban legends. As predicted by prior work, people retold truthful and scary stories. But people also retold well-known stories. This contrasts with the expectation that people would not pass on a story that everyone already knew. Also as predicted by prior work, repeating a story increased its credibility. But repeating also increased a story's importance, scariness, and likelihood of retelling. In general, contextualizing a story and increasing the number of details did not affect the likelihood of retelling a story. The exception was that details increased the likelihood of retelling a newly heard story. However, if people read a story with context or details, more contextual elements and details were included in their retellings. At the same time, people confabulated details to an equal degree no matter what type of embellishments they had read.     

Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Factors Influencing Adolescents' Decisions About Having Sex: A Test of Sufficiency of the Theory of Planned Behavior1

This study tested the theory of planned behavior's (TPB) expectation that attitudes, social norms, and self‐efficacy would mediate other variables' effects on intention for having sex and probability of having sex. Longitudinal data were collected from 790 high‐school‐aged adolescents. In an intrapersonal variable model, sensation seeking, alcohol use, hard work, smoking, and moral beliefs had mediated effects, but the last 2 also had direct effects (on intention and behavior, respectively). In an interpersonal model, school attachment had mediated effects, pressure to have sex had a direct effect on behavior, and parent communication and number of sexually active friends had both. Intrapersonal variable effects were better described by the TPB than those of interpersonal variables. Targeting distal psychosocial factors may enhance intervention efficacy.     

Plasma interleukin-6 and soluble IL-6 receptors are associated with psychological well-being in aging women.

OBJECTIVE: This study tested the hypothesis that psychological well-being would predict lower plasma levels of inflammatory factors in aging women. DESIGN: One hundred thirty-five women ages 61-91 years (M = 74.5 years) participated in this study. After completing self-administered questionnaires in their homes, participants stayed overnight at the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Blood samples for cytokine analyses were obtained in participants' homes after the GCRC visit. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Psychological well-being and ill-being, history of health problems, and health behaviors were assessed via self-administered questionnaires. Detailed medical history and concurrent health measures were obtained during the GCRC stay. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays were used to determine interleukin-6 (IL-6) and soluble IL-6 receptor (sIL-6R) concentrations in plasma. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Regression analyses showed that plasma IL-6 levels were lower in women scoring higher on positive relationships, whereas sIL-6R levels were lower in women scoring higher on purpose in life, even after a variety of sociodemographic and health factors were controlled. These outcomes, combined with the absence of significant links with other measures of well-being and ill-being, suggest selective patterns of association between later life inflammatory processes and psychological factors, particularly those focused on positive ties with others and purposeful engagement.     

The depth of distractor processing in search with clutter

Some search tasks involve looking for a category target in clutter. This is the task faced, for example, by a baggage screener looking for weapons in a suitcase. Such tasks presumably involve the segmentation and recognition of the target object, but it is unknown whether they also involve the segmentation and recognition of the distractor objects. To examine the depth of distractor processing in this task, we had observers search through cluttered displays composed of normal and chimerical distractors. The normal distractors were photographs of recognizable objects, while the chimerical distractors were created by interchanging parts between the normal objects. The obsever's task was to identify the display quadrant that contained an animal or a vehicle target. We varied the difficulty of the search task by varying target and distractor discriminability, target uncertainty, and target occlusion. Only when the target was partially occluded did we find an effect of distractor type. In this case, observers may have found the target through a process of mentally eliminating whole distractor objects. When the target was unoccluded, we found no evidence that observers selected and rejected whole distractors during search. This second result supports our previous claim that often the items for search in clutter are not whole objects.     

Is Silence More Golden for Women than Men? Observers Derogate Effusive Women and their Quiet Partners

Couples in which the woman is more verbally disinhibited than the man (man-more-inhibited couples) report lower satisfaction than couples in which the man is more verbally disinhibited (woman-more-inhibited couples). A violation of traditional gender roles is hypothesized to underlie this phenomenon. It was predicted that members of man-more-inhibited couples would be rated less likeable than woman-more-inhibited couples, and disinhibited men would be rated more competent than other males and females. To test these hypotheses, 95 undergraduate participants from a southwestern US university viewed a videotaped conflict between a man-more-inhibited or woman-more-inhibited couple. As predicted, members of man-more-inhibited couples were rated less likeable than members of woman-more-inhibited couples and disinhibited husbands were rated more competent than all other targets.     

Spatial visualization in physics problem solving

Three studies were conducted to examine the relation of spatial visualization to solving kinematics problems that involved either predicting the two-dimensional motion of an object, translating from one frame of reference to another, or interpreting kinematics graphs. In Study 1, 60 physics-naíve students were administered kinematics problems and spatial visualization ability tests. In Study 2, 17 (8 high- and 9 low-spatial ability) additional students completed think-aloud protocols while they solved the kinematics problems. In Study 3, the eye movements of fifteen (9 high- and 6 low-spatial ability) students were recorded while the students solved kinematics problems. In contrast to high-spatial students, most low-spatial students did not combine two motion vectors, were unable to switch frames of reference, and tended to interpret graphs literally. The results of the study suggest an important relationship between spatial visualization ability and solving kinematics problems with multiple spatial parameters.     

Etiology and Management of Elder Self‐Neglect

This article addresses the challenges of defining and accurately identifying elder self‐neglect and explores an interdisciplinary team model, including counselors and mental health professionals, designed to implement prevention and intervention strategies. The challenge of striking a balance between the need to respect the individual elders' autonomy and the need to attend to their health care needs is underscored.