Preschoolers joke with jokers, but correct foreigners

Thirty- and 36-month-old English speakers' (N = 106) ability to produce jokes, distinguish between humorous and sincere intentions, and distinguish between English- and foreign-language speakers, was examined in two tasks. In the Giving task, an experimenter requested one of two familiar objects, and a confederate always gave her the wrong object. In the Naming task, the confederate mislabeled familiar objects. In the English-speaking conditions, the confederate laughed after doing the wrong thing (English-Humor) or said, 'There!' (English-Sincere). In the Foreign conditions, the French- or Italian-speaking confederate laughed (Foreign-Humor) or said, 'D'accord!' or 'Va bene!' (Foreign-Sincere). When preschoolers were subsequently requested to give and name the same objects and a new set of familiar objects they were significantly more likely to imitate and 'do the wrong thing' in the Humor versus Sincere, and in the English versus Foreign conditions.     

Relations between covert orienting and filtering in the development of visual attention

This study examined a widely held assumption concerning the development of visual attention, namely, that different aspects of visual selectivity depend on common processing resources. Observers aged 5, 7, 9, and 24 years participated in a speeded classification task designed to examine the relations between covert shifts of attention and filtering. There were three important findings: (1) covert orienting and filtering share processing resources, (2) the ability to orient covertly to a target location and to filter competing information on the same trial became more efficient with age, and (3) 5 year olds were able to filter as efficiently as adults when target location was precued. The implications of these results for theories of attentional development are discussed.     

The distinction between needs and wishes: implications for psychoanalytic theory and technique.

After a comprehensive survey of the literature is presented and some caveats entered, this paper delineates the concept of a psychological "need," noting that it bears a complex relation to the concept of a "wish." Need is universal, wish experience-bound. A need, unlike a wish, is not subject to repression. In addition, although a wish can be replaced by another wish, a need cannot be replaced by another need. Whereas the frustration of a wish causes dynamic shifts, the frustration of a need leads to structural disintegration. Needs and wishes can be in harmony or in opposition. The paper also identifies six basic psychological needs, which would seem to be ubiquitous, though the degree to which they are overt and the ways in which they are met vary across cultures. Their gratification seems necessary for healthy psychic development to occur, for relationships to survive, and for psychoanalytic work to take hold and to continue optimally. These needs are (1) the need for one's physical needs to be deemed legitimate; (2) the need for identity, recognition, and affirmation; (3) the need for interpersonal and intrapsychic boundaries; (4) the need for understanding the causes of events; (5) the need for optimal emotional availability of a love object; and (6) the need for a resilient responsiveness by one's love objects under special circumstances. Ordinarily these needs are met during the course of treatment with no deliberate effort by the analyst. In the treatment of some patients, however, they require more direct attention. A number of clinical vignettes are presented to elucidate these ideas.     

Adult visual experience promotes recovery of primary visual cortex from long-term monocular deprivation

Prolonged visual deprivation from early childhood to maturity is believed to cause permanent visual impairment. However, there have been case reports of substantial improvement of binocular vision in human adults following lifelong visual impairment or deprivation. These observations, together with recent findings of adult ocular dominance plasticity in rodents, led us to re-examine whether adult primary visual cortex (V1) is capable of any recovery following long-term monocular deprivation starting in development. Using mice as a model, we find that monocular deprivation from early development to mature ages (well past the critical period) severely impaired binocular vision by reducing the amplitude of responses elicited by stimulation of the deprived eye. Surprisingly, we find little effect on nondeprived eye responses. Restoration of binocular vision in mature adults yields modest but significant improvement of visual responses in V1. Remarkably, we find that when binocular vision is followed by occlusion of the nondeprived eye, visual responses in V1 recover almost fully, as measured by visual evoked potential amplitude, spatial frequency threshold, and single-unit activity. We conclude that adult V1 can recover from long-term deprivation when provided with an optimal regimen of visual experience.     

DNA Testing for Family Reunification in Canada: Points to Consider

Countries have adopted different laws, policies, and practices that allow immigration officers to request in certain cases DNA tests to confirm biological relationships in the context of family reunification. In Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada has adopted a policy of suggesting DNA testing only as a last resort in cases where no documentary evidence has been submitted or where the evidence provided is deemed unsatisfactory. However, in practice, there have been concerns on the increasing use of DNA tests in family reunification processes of nationals from certain regions including Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Moreover, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR) presents a biological definition of family as a determinant of parenthood in the context of family reunification that is inconsistent with the psychosocial definition used in provincial family laws. Although there are cases that can justify the request for DNA tests, there are also significant social, legal, and ethical issues, including discrimination and unfair practices, raised by this increasing use of genetic information in immigration. This policy brief identifies points to consider for policymakers regarding the use of DNA testing in Canadian family reunification procedures. These include (1) the need to refine the policy of “using DNA testing as a last resort” and its implementation, (2) the need to modify the definition of “dependent child” under the IRPR to reflect the intrinsic reality of psychosocial family ties, and (3) the importance of conducting more research on the use of DNA testing in other immigration contexts.     

The effect of polygamous marital structure on behavioral,emotional, and academic adjustment in children: a comprehensive review of the literature

Polygamy represents expanded family structures that are based on marriages involving a husband with 2 or more wives. Interestingly, polygamy is legally and widely practiced in 850 societies across the globe. In the last 2 decades, polygamy has been the focus of a significant growth in public, political, and academic awareness. Indeed, several quantitative and qualitative research articles and theoretical papers have emerged during this period, particularly concerning the effects of this form of marital structure on behavioral, emotional, and academic adjustment of children. However, to date, no researcher has provided a summary of the extant literature. Thus, the purpose of this comprehensive literature review is to summarize findings and to discuss implications of empirical studies that have examined whether polygamous marital structures are beneficial or harmful to children in comparison with children raised in monogamous marital structures. This review includes a summary of the findings from all quantitative and qualitative studies in the extant literature that have examined the effect of polygamy on children's outcomes.     

Neighbourhood,school and family determinants of children's aspirations in primary school

Aspirations can be important for young children as well as adolescents. However, there is little research on the determinants of aspirations in young children. We carried out this study to investigate the early contextual (neighbourhood, school and family) determinants of occupational aspirations in primary school children. Our sample comprised children from the Millennium Cohort Study who lived in England in the beginning of our study period (n = 10,086; 5,126 boys). Occupational aspirations were measured at age 7 years, while their contextual determinants were measured in the previous data sweeps, at ages 3 and 5 years. We fitted structural equation models to test the role of family and neighbourhood socio-economic status (SES) and child ethnicity in predicting aspirations both directly and via their associations with parental involvement, household chaos, school-level achievement and child cognitive ability. We found that the only significant determinants of aspirations at age 7 years were family SES and ethnicity, and only in boys. Family SES and ethnicity were also related to parental involvement, household chaos, cognitive ability and school-level achievement, but none of these factors predicted aspirations. Supplementary analysis showed that family SES was a particularly powerful determinant of the aspirations of white compared to non-white boys.     

Some psychoanalytic reflections on the concept of dignity

After reviewing the pertinent philosophical and psychoanalytic writings on the concept of dignity, this paper proposes three categories of dignity. Conceptualized as phenomenological clusters, heuristic viewpoints, and levels of abstraction, these include (i) metaphysical dignity which extends the concept of dignity beyond the human species to all that exists in this world, (ii) existential dignity which applies to human beings alone and rests upon their inherent capacity for moral transcendence, and (iii) characterological dignity which applies more to some human beings than others since they possess a certain set of personality traits that are developmentally derived. The paper discusses the pros and cons of each category and acknowledges the limitations of such classification. It also discusses the multiple ways in which these concepts impact upon clinical work and concludes with some remarks on the relationship of dignity to choice, narcissism, and suicide.