Links between parental psychological violence, other family disturbances, and children's adjustment

In a sample of 143 parent-child dyads from two-parent and separated families, this investigation documented the links between parental psychological violence and separation or divorce, severity of parental conflict, triangulation of the child in this conflict, and polarized parent-child alliances. The unique and combined contributions of all these variables to children's behavior problems were also assessed. Participants were parents, mostly mothers, and their 10-12-year-old child. They were recruited through schools, community organizations, and newspapers. Questionnaires were administered at home. Findings suggest that separated families undergo more relational disturbances than two-parent families (more severe conflicts, more triangulation, stronger parent-child alliances), but the amount of parental psychological violence was similar in both groups. Psychological violence was associated with the severity of parental conflict, especially in two-parent families. Triangulation of the child in parental conflict was another correlate of psychological violence. Once all variables were controlled for, psychological violence remained the only significant correlate of children's externalized behavior problems. These findings raise the importance of preventing psychological violence toward children, especially in families plagued with severe parental conflicts.     

Metacognition and metarepresentation: is a self-directed theory of mind a precondition for metacognition?

Metacognition is often defined as thinking about thinking. It is exemplified in all the activities through which one tries to predict and evaluate one’s own mental dispositions, states and properties for their cognitive adequacy. This article discusses the view that metacognition has metarepresentational structure. Properties such as causal contiguity, epistemic transparency and procedural reflexivity are present in metacognition but missing in metarepresentation, while open-ended recursivity and inferential promiscuity only occur in metarepresentation. It is concluded that, although metarepresentations can redescribe metacognitive contents, metacognition and metarepresentation are functionally distinct.     

On the relationship between responsibility and guilt: antecedent appraisal or elaborated appraisal?

Three studies are reported in which we examined the relation between responsibility and guilt. Results from Study 1 suggested that responsibility increased as a function of guilt, but that the reverse relation did not emerge. In the second and third studies we primed either responsibility or guilt and examined how these primes influenced subsequent appraisals for novel events. We also used different manipulations of responsibility and guilt. In Study 2 guilt was operationalized as negative interpersonal consequences as evidenced by the reactions of others. Responsibility was varied by manipulating the controllability of negative outcomes. In Study 3 responsibility was manipulated in terms of the severity of negative consequences for oneself. Results of both studies showed that guilt primes gave rise to perceptions of responsibility but that responsibility primes did not affect perceptions of guilt. We conclude that responsibility is best regarded as an elaborated appraisal generated by guilt, rather than an antecedent of guilt. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Joint Attention and Attachment in Toddlers with Autism

Joint attention is often referred to as a triadic relation between self, other and object. Young children with autism show deficiencies in the use of joint attention behaviors. Individual differences may be expected, and they may be determined by the children’s cognitive development or the characteristics of the relationship of the child with the caregiver. Although most joint attention skills develop under the age of three, most studies of joint attention in children with autism involved children older than 3 years of age, due to difficulties in diagnosing autism under this age. In this study we investigated joint attention behaviors of 78 young children (mean age 25.7 months, SD 6.1) with autism spectrum disorders (n = 20), other developmental delays (n = 18), and typically developing children (n = 40). Following the pertinent literature and confirmed by factor analysis, two types of joint attention behaviors were distinguished, Basic Joint Attention (BJA) and Associated Joint Attention (AJA). We found that cognitive delays and autistic symptoms—but not attachment insecurity or disorganization—were related to less joint attention. Already at the age of 2 years, children with more autistic symptoms show less joint attention, even after controlling for developmental level.     

Processing of biological motion point-light displays by baboons (Papio papio)

Humans apply complex conceptual judgments to point-light displays (PLDs) representing biological motion (BM), but how animals process this kind of display remains uncertain. Four baboons (Papio papio) were trained to discriminate BM from nonbiological motion PLDs using an operant computerized test system. Transfer tests were given after training with novel BM stimuli representing humans or baboons (Experiment 1), with inverted PLDs (Experiment 2), and with BM stimuli in which body parts had been spatially disorganized (Experiment 3). Very limited transfer was obtained with the novel and inverted displays in Experiments 1 and 2, but transfer was much higher after spatial disorganization in Experiment 3. It is suggested that the baboons did not retrieve and interpret the articulated shape of the human or monkey body from the BM PLD stimuli, but rather focused their attention on the configural properties of subparts of the stimuli. Limits in perceptual grouping and restricted abilities in picture-object equivalence might explain why the baboons did not map BM PLD displays onto what they represent.     

Interdependent sampling and social influence

Most explanations of social influence focus on why individuals might want to agree with the opinions or attitudes of others. The authors propose a different explanation that assumes the attitudes of others influence only the activities and objects individuals are exposed to. For example, individuals are likely to be exposed to activities that their friends enjoy. The authors demonstrate that such influence over sampling behavior is sufficient to produce a social influence effect when individuals form attitudes by learning from experience. Even if the experiences of 2 individuals, when they sample an object or event, are independent random variables, their attitudes will become positively correlated if their sampling processes are interdependent. Interdependent sampling of activities thus provides a different explanation of social influence with distinct empirical and theoretical implications.     

Brain c-Fos immunocytochemistry and cytochrome oxidase histochemistry after a fear conditioning task

The involvement of the basolateral and the medial amygdala in fear conditioning was evaluated using different markers of neuronal activation. The method described here is a combination of cytochrome oxidase (CO) histochemistry and c-Fos immunocytochemistry on fresh frozen brain sections. Freezing behavior was used as an index of auditory and contextual fear conditioning. As expected, freezing scores were significantly higher in rats exposed to tone-shock pairings in a distinctive environment (conditioned; COND), as compared to rats that did not receive any shocks (UNCD). CO labeling was increased in the basolateral and medial amygdala of the COND group. Conversely, c-Fos expression in the basolateral and medial amygdala was lower in the COND group as compared to the UNCD group. Furthermore, c-Fos expression was particularly high in the medial amygdala of the UNCD group. The data provided by both techniques indicate that these amygdalar nuclei could play different roles on auditory and contextual fear conditioning.     

Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction: Does Psychosocial Distress Play a Role?

Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction (SOD) is a functional gastrointestinal disorder characterized by pancreatobiliary-type of pain in the absence of organic abnormalities. The aim of this study was to investigate specific psychosocial predictors of functional outcome in a group of patients consecutively referred to a gastroenterological department for biliary-type of pain. Based on medical examination patients were divided into functional (SOD) and organic groups. Self-administered questionnaires regarding demographic characteristics, psychological distress (Symptom Check-List-90–R, [SCL-90-R]), severity of acute and chronic stress, level of subjective well-being and satisfaction with health were completed. The analyses were based on the logistic regression approach. In this sample, SOD patients were older than organic patients and more likely female. Logistic regression analysis showed that higher acute stress (i.e., main effect) was associated with a decreased likelihood of functional (SOD) outcome, whereas the combination of acute stress with chronic stress and the combination of acute stress with higher severity of psychopathology (i.e., interaction effect) was associated with an increased likelihood of functional (SOD) outcome. These findings suggest stressful life events in combination with certain psychological symptoms can play a role in the symptom presentation of patients with sphincter of Oddi dysfunction.     

The influence of action perception on object recognition: a developmental study

Two experiments explored the existence and the development of relations between action representations and object representations. A priming paradigm was used in which participants viewed an action pantomime followed by the picture of a tool, the tool being either associated or unassociated with the preceding action. Overall, we observed that the perception of an action pantomime can facilitate the recognition of a corresponding tool. Experiment 1 was based on a naming task and was conducted with 9- to 12-year-old children and a group of young adults. While substantial priming effects were obtained for all age groups, they were especially important for the youngest participants. Smaller priming effects were obtained in Experiment 2, using a categorization task and conducted on 5- to 11-year-old children and young adults, but again the results suggest that these action priming effects diminish with increasing age. Implications of these results for the organization and development of conceptual knowledge are discussed.     

The critique of pure phenomenology

The topic of this paper is phenomenology. How should we think of phenomenology – the discipline or activity of investigating experience itself – if phenomenology is to be a genuine source of knowledge? This is related to the question whether phenomenology can make a contribution to the empirical study of human or animal experience. My own view is that it can. But only if we make a fresh start in understanding what phenomenology is and can be.