Perspective taking in children's narratives about jealousy

This study explored relationships between perspective‐taking, emotion understanding, and children's narrative abilities. Younger (23 5‐/6‐year‐olds) and older (24 7‐/8‐year‐olds) children generated fictional narratives, using a wordless picture book, about a frog experiencing jealousy. Children's emotion understanding was assessed through a standardized test of emotion comprehension and their ability to convey the jealousy theme of the story. Perspective‐taking ability was assessed with respect to children's use of narrative evaluation (i.e., narrative coherence, mental state language, supplementary evaluative speech, use of subjective language, and placement of emotion expression). Older children scored higher than younger children on emotion comprehension and on understanding the story's complex emotional theme, including the ability to identify a rival. They were more advanced in perspective‐taking abilities, and selectively used emotion expressions to highlight story episodes. Subjective perspective taking and narrative coherence were predictive of children's elaboration of the jealousy theme. Use of supplementary evaluative speech, in turn, was predictive of both subjective perspective taking and narrative coherence.     

QUALITIES MIDLIFE WOMEN DESIRE IN THEIR SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS AND THEIR CHANGING SEXUAL RESPONSE

The present study focused on the association between the particular sexual qualities midlife women desired in themselves and their husbands and the changes in sexual response they were experiencing. In a U.S. sample of 280 women participating in the ongoing Midlife Women's Health Survey, 40% reported a change in their sexual response, more often as decrements than increases, although desiring more nongenital touching was frequently noted. Respondents wanted more change in their own than in their partners' sexual qualities. In addition, the desire to change sexual qualities in oneself and in one's husband was significantly related to many changes in sexual responsivity. These findings are discussed in the context of a woman-defined sexuality at midlife.     

Cognitive reactivity, dysfunctional attitudes, and depressive relapse and recurrence in cognitive therapy responders

Dysfunctional attitudes can foreshadow depressive relapse/recurrence. Priming mood, through induction paradigms, is hypothesized to activate dysfunctional attitudes. Cognitive reactivity (CR) refers to mood-linked increases in dysfunctional attitudes after priming. Here we explored the extent to which CR as well as residual, unprimed, dysfunctional attitudes predicted depressive relapse/recurrence among depressed patients who responded to acute phase cognitive therapy (CT). Consenting adults, aged 18–70, with recurrent major depressive disorder (n = 523) participated in a two-site randomized controlled trial examining the durability of continuation phase treatments. Patients received 16–20 sessions of CT. Among the 245 incompletely remitted responders, 213 agreed to undergo a mood induction paradigm. After 8 months of continuation phase treatments, participants were followed an additional 24 months. Although the mood induction significantly lowered mood in 80% of responders, the expected CR was not evident. By contrast, higher unprimed dysfunctional attitudes following CT did predict relapse/recurrence over 20 and 32 months post-randomization. The findings of this large longitudinal study of incompletely remitted CT responders challenge the notion that it is necessary to prime mood in order to maximize dysfunctional attitudes’ prediction of relapse and/or recurrence. While findings cannot be generalized beyond CT responders, they emphasize the clinical importance of reducing dysfunctional attitudes in preventing depression.