Temporal and causal order effects in thinking about what might have been

When people think counterfactually about what might have been different for a sequence of events, they are influenced by the order in which the events occurred. They tend to mentally undo the most recent event in a temporal sequence of two events. But they tend to mentally undo the first event in a causal sequence of four events. We report the results of two experiments that show that the temporal and causal order effects are not dependent on the number of events in the sequence. Our first experiment, with 300 participants, shows that the temporal order effect occurs for sequences with four events as well as for sequences with two events. Our second experiment, with 372 participants, shows that the causal order effect occurs for sequences with two events as well as for sequences with four events. We discuss the results in terms of the mental representations that people construct of temporal and causal sequences.     

Determinants of attachment and mastery motivation in infants born to adolescent mothers

Thirty mothers aged 14–19 and their approximately one-year-old babies participated in this study of the influence of the social support network and stress on infant-mother attachment and on mastery motivation. During the home visit the mothers completed a demographic questionnaire, the Psychosocial Kinship Inventory and the Life Events Stress Scale. In the laboratory the infants' mastery motivation and infant-mother attachment were assessed. A discriminant function analysis indicated that infant-mother attachment was predicted best by the social support network. Multiple regression analyses showed that infant persistence was significantly related to the social network, living with the infant's grandmother and financial aid. The results stress the importance of contextual influences on infant socio-emotional development.     

Infant crying and parent–infant interaction: Theory and measurement

Infant crying is frequently quantified as a primary dependent variable in studies where the goal is to understand and soothe infant crying within the context of the parent–infant relationship. Through a historical review and an examination of studies and measurement techniques, the utility of quantifying infant crying is discussed. Although duration and timing of infant crying may be a practical concern for families and health professionals, the effectiveness of soothing interventions may not be best examined by attempts to measure unit reductions in infant crying. Rather, developing an understanding of infant crying within the context of parent–infant relationships may have more utility. Understanding infant crying in context may provide direction to the selection of soothing interventions and to more appropriate measures of the effectiveness of such interventions. ©1999 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Pain in the Past and Pleasure in the Future: The Development of Past–Future Preferences for Hedonic Goods

It seems self-evident that people prefer painful experiences to be in the past and pleasurable experiences to lie in the future. Indeed, it has been claimed that, for hedonic goods, this preference is absolute (Sullivan, 2018). Yet very little is known about the extent to which people demonstrate explicit preferences regarding the temporal location of hedonic experiences, about the developmental trajectory of such preferences, and about whether such preferences are impervious to differences in the quantity of envisaged past and future pain or pleasure. We find consistent evidence that, all else being equal, adults and children aged 7 and over prefer pleasure to lie in the future and pain in the past and believe that other people will, too. They also predict that other people will be happier when pleasure is in the future rather than the past but sadder when pain is in the future rather than the past. Younger children have the same temporal preferences as adults for their own painful experiences, but they prefer their pleasure to lie in the past and do not predict that others' levels of happiness or sadness vary dependent on whether experiences lie in the past or the future. However, from the age of 7, temporal preferences were typically abandoned at the earliest opportunity when the quantity of past pain or pleasure was greater than the quantity located in the future. Past–future preferences for hedonic goods emerge early developmentally but are surprisingly flexible.