Piagetian object permanence and its development in Eurasian jays (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Garrulus glandarius</Emphasis>)

Object permanence in Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) was investigated using a complete version of the Uzgiris and Hunt scale 1. Nine hand-raised jays were studied, divided into two groups according to their different developmental stages (experiment 1, older jays: 2–3 months old, n = 4; experiment 2, younger jays: 15 days old, n = 5). In the first experiment, we investigated whether older jays could achieve piagetian stage 6 of object permanence. Tasks were administered in a fixed sequence (1–15) according to the protocols used in other avian species. The aim of the second experiment was to check whether testing very young jays before their development of “neophobia” could influence the achievement times of piagetian stages. Furthermore, in this experiment tasks were administered randomly to investigate whether the jays’ achievement of stage 6 follows a fixed sequence related to the development of specific cognitive abilities. All jays tested in experiments 1 and 2 fully achieved piagetian stage 6 and no “A not B” errors were observed. Performance on visible displacement tasks was better than performance on invisible ones. The results of experiment 2 show that “neophobia” affected the response of jays in terms of achievement times; the older jays in experiment 1 took longer to pass all the tasks when compared with the younger, less neophobic, jays in experiment 2. With regard to the achieving order, jays followed a fixed sequence of acquisition in experiment 2, even if tasks were administered randomly, with the exception of one subject. The results of these experiments support the idea that piagetian stages of cognitive development exist in avian species and that they progress through relatively fixed sequences. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at and is accessible for authorized users.     

Understanding the Labour Market Participation of Skilled Immigrant Women in Switzerland: The Interplay of Class, Ethnicity, and Gender

Switzerland has recently adopted immigration policies that give preference to skilled migrants, the assumption being that migrants with higher education will integrate easily. Our study of 57 skilled immigrant women from Latin America, the Middle East and Southeastern Europe shows that this assumption is largely unjustified. Most of the women cannot use their social and cultural capital to establish themselves in the upper segments of the labour market. A third are not integrated in the labour market and a quarter occupy positions below their skill-level. A further third work at their skill-level but only irregularly. The differentiated participation of these immigrants in the labour market is well explained by analysing the interplay of class, ethnicity and gender.     

Moving along to things left undone

This paper expands on three areas of clinical theory that are introduced and discussed in the lead paper and the others in this symposium. The first issue addressed is the concept of the real relationship as used in the moment of meeting model of psychotherapeutic change. Particular focus has been placed on the past, the present, and the hierarchy of goals in the treatment relationship. Second, the paper explores the concept of implicit relational knowledge with attention to the concepts of transference, countertransference, interpretation, and insight in the change process. Finally, the paper attends to the nature of the “now moment” in the moment of meeting model. Specifically explicated are ways this concept relates to changes in brain organization and also ways the moment of meeting model relates to other psychotherapy models, such as the relational schools and self-psychology. © 1998 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Dyadically expanded states of consciousness and the process of therapeutic change

This paper addresses an intersubjective issue that arises out of our model of therapeutic change: Why do humans so strongly seek states of emotional connectedness and intersubjectivity and why does the failure to achieve connectedness have such a damaging effect on the mental health of the infant? A hypothesis is offered—the Dyadic Expansion of Consciousness Hypothesis—as an attempt to explain these phenomena. This hypothesis is based on the Mutual Regulation Model (MRM) of infant–adult interaction. The MRM describes the microregulatory social-emotional process of communication that generates (or fails to generate) dyadic intersubjective states of shared consciousness. In particular, the Dyadic Consciousness hypothesis argues that each individual, in one case the infant and mother or in another the patient and the therapist, is a self-organizing system that creates his or her own states of consciousness (states of brain organization), which can be expanded into more coherent and complex states in collaboration with another self-organizing system. Critically understanding how the mutual regulation of affect functions to create dyadic states of consciousness also can help us understand what produces change in the therapeutic process. © 1998 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Implicit relational knowing: Its role in development and psychoanalytic treatment

It is increasingly apparent that “something more” than interpretation is needed to bring about change in psychoanalytic treatment. Drawing on clinical and developmental observations, we propose that interactional processes from birth onward give rise to a form of procedural knowledge regarding how to do things with intimate others, knowledge we call implicit relational knowing. This knowing is distinct from conscious verbalizable knowledge and from the dynamic unconscious. The implicit relational knowing of patient and therapist intersect to create an intersubjective field that includes reasonably accurate sensings of each person's ways of being with others, sensings we call the “real relationship.” This intersubjective field becomes more complex and articulated with repeated patient–therapist encounters, giving rise to emergent new possibilities for more coherent and adaptive forms of interaction. During a transactional event that we term a “moment of meeting,” a new dyadic possibility crystallizes when the two persons achieve the dual goals of complementary fitted actions and joint intersubjective recognition in a new form. We argue that such moments of meeting shift the relational anticipations of each partner and allow for new forms of agency and shared experience to be expressed and elaborated. © 1998 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Does a Gatekeeper Suicide Prevention Program Work in a School Setting? Evaluating Training Outcome and Moderators of Effectiveness

The current study sought to evaluate the suicide prevention gatekeeper training program QPR (Question, Persuade, and Refer) among school personnel using a non‐equivalent control group design. Substantial gains were demonstrated from pre‐ to post‐test for attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs regarding suicide and suicide prevention. Exploratory analyses revealed the possible moderating effects of age, professional role, prior training, and recent contact with suicidal youth on QPR participants' general knowledge, questioning, attitudes toward suicide and suicide prevention, QPR quiz scores, and self‐efficacy. The need for replication using a more rigorous experimental design in the context of strong community collaboration is discussed.     

Altruistic behavior and cooperation: The role of intrinsic expectation when reputational information is incomplete

Altruistic behavior is known to be conditional on the level of altruism of others. However, people often have no information, or incomplete information, about the altruistic reputation of others, for example when the reputation was obtained in a different social or economic context. As a consequence, they have to estimate the other's altruistic intentions. Using an economic game, we showed that without reputational information people have intrinsic expectations about the altruistic behavior of others, which largely explained their own altruistic behavior. This implies that when no information is available, intrinsic expectations can be as powerful a driver of altruistic behavior as actual knowledge about other people's reputation. Two strategies appeared to co-exist in our study population: participants who expected others to be altruistic and acted even more altruistically themselves, while other participants had low expected altruism scores and acted even less altruistically than they expected others to do. We also found evidence that generosity in economic games translates into benefits for other social contexts: a reputation of financial generosity increased the attractiveness of partners in a social cooperative game. This result implies that in situations with incomplete information, the fitness effects of indirect reciprocity are cumulative across different social contexts.     

On the Nature,Magnitude, and Causality of Suicidal Behaviors: An International Perspective

The central questions addressed in this paper are whether present generations of adolescents and adults worldwide are at greater risk of developing suicidal reactions than previous generations were and what the possible causal mechanisms involved are. On the basis of data from international and national data banks as well as an extensive review of the literature, it is concluded that a true increase in suicide mortality and morbidity has occurred over the larger part of this century among the White urban adolescent and young adult populations of North America and Europe, particularly among (young) males over the last three decades. Among the possible causal mechanisms identified are (1) the corresponding increase in the prevalence of depressive disorders; (2) the corresponding increase in the prevalence of substance (ab)use and substance abuse disorders, and a lowering of age of onset of (ab)use; (3) psychobiological changes, in particular the dramatic lowering of the age of puberty; (4) an increase in the number of social stressors with extensive consequences for youth; (5) changes in attitudes towards suicidal behaviors and the related increased availability of suicidal models.