Late Adoptions: Attachment Security and Emotional Availability in Mother–Child and Father–Child Dyads

A growing body of research suggests that a history of neglect, abuse and institutionalization can negatively affect late-adopted children’s attachment representations, and that adoptive parents can play a key role in enabling adopted children to earn secure attachments. Still, only a few studies have explored the quality of caregiver–child interaction in adoptive families. The present study aimed at verifying both the concordance of attachment in adoptive dyads (mother–children and father–children) and the relationship between attachment representations and parent–child interaction. The research involved 20 adoptive families in which the child’s arrival had occurred between 12 to 36 months before the assessment, and where children were aged between 4.5 and 8.5 years. Attachment was assessed through the Adult Attachment Interview for parents and through the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task for children. The emotional quality of parent–child interaction was assessed trough the Emotional Availability Scales. Our results pointed out the presence of a relation between attachment representations of late-adopted children and their adoptive mothers (75%, K?=?0.50, p?=?.025). In addition, we found that both insecure children and mothers showed lower levels of EA than secure ones. Some explanations are presented about why, in the early post-adoption period, child attachment patterns and dyadic emotional availability seem to be arranged on different frameworks for the two parental figures.     

A unilateral field advantage for detecting repeated elements

Previous studies have shown that letter repetitions are detected more rapidly when presented bilaterally (one letter in each visual field) than when presented unilaterally (both in the same field) when subjects have to report matches independently of case or font (e.g., Aa). This pattern of results is referred to as a bilateral field advantage. Here, we present evidence of an opposite pattern of results for detecting repeated items when they are physically identical. In our repetition detection paradigm, subjects indicated whether there was a repetition of any two of four presented items, one in each quadrant of the visual field. Stimulus classes tested included letters, color, size, orientation, and motion paths. The subjects were significantly faster at detecting unilateral versus bilateral repetitions for four out of the five stimuli classes tested, with a trend in the same direction for the fifth. This unilateral field advantage suggests that low-level processes group physically identical items more efficiently within hemifields than across.     

Relational selves as self-affirmational resources

Three studies examined the self-affirmational role of relational selves, or aspects of the self in relation to significant others. The overriding hypothesis was that individuals who view relational self-aspects as core to their identity are particularly likely to use them as self-affirmational resources in the face of threat. Supporting this, threat was especially likely to lead individuals for whom relationships are highly self-defining to spontaneously refer to relational self-aspects in a subsequent, self-relevant task. Moreover, spontaneous and induced relational self-affirmations in response to threat were especially esteem-repairing for such individuals. Together, these findings carve out a much-needed role for relational self-aspects in the self-affirmation literature, and dovetail with mounting appreciation of the far-ranging impact of significant others on the self-system.     

Exploring the relationship between umbilical blood cord donation and the impact of social distance on altruism and trust

Allogeneic umbilical cord blood (UCB) donation is a pro-social behaviour directed to strangers that has a certain cost for the donor. Although the promotion of such behaviour is an important goal for many countries' health systems, little is known about the reasons that would lead to it. With this study, we explored how the impact of social closeness on altruism and trust could be related to UCB donation in a sample of new-mothers (N = 167). Participants played hypothetical Dictator and Trust games with socially close (e.g., parents) or distant (e.g., strangers) others. They donated more money to parents and siblings compared to cousins, friends and strangers and they trusted more parents, siblings and friends than cousins and strangers. Interestingly, the lower the impact of social closeness on altruism (i.e., generosity towards socially distant others), the higher the intention and the actual probability of UCB donation. A mediation analysis has shown that the relationship between social closeness on altruism and UCB donation was mediated by objective intention to donate (i.e., having followed all the procedures needed). These findings show that other-oriented motivations towards distant others might have important practical implications in identifying the targets of interventions for the promotion of UCB donation.     

The Italian job?: Comparing theory of mind performance in British and Italian children

Cross‐cultural research on theory of mind is relatively recent and largely restricted to comparisons of children from Western versus non‐Western samples; much less is known about variation within Western cultures. This study compared 5‐ to 6‐year‐olds from Britain and Italy (matched for age, verbal age, gender, and maternal education; N = 140), on tests tapping children's understanding of 1st and 2nd order false belief and mixed emotions. Overall, British children outperformed Italian children; group differences were clearest for tests of false‐belief understanding. These results are discussed in relation to contrasts in family talk about mental states, schooling, language comprehension, and cultural factors in Britain and Italy.     

Feline communication strategies when presented with an unsolvable task: the attentional state of the person matters

Animal Cognition - Research on social cognitive ability in domestic cats is limited. The current study investigated social referencing in cats when exposed to first, a solvable, and then, an...     

The capacity to symbolise: Ideas and implications

Through a literature review and clinical examples of session material and dreams, this paper explores aspects of the origin and development of the capacity to symbolise. The literature review considers Freud’s thinking on symbols in dreams, hysteria and obsessional neurosis, Klein’s discovery of the importance of unconscious phantasy, Bion’s ideas on the psychotic part of the mind and Bick’s seminal ideas on skin as an important symbolic boundary between psyche and soma. The clinical material in this paper is used to demonstrate the capacity to symbolise, reasons for the impairment of this capacity, and how the translation of symbols through interpretation in a therapeutic setting can enable the symbols to acquire meaning. It includes examples both of the author’s work with adults and of other clinicians’ work with a child and an adolescent in a psychotic state of mind. The paper’s aim is to consolidate the idea that the capacity to symbolise grows out of an optimal early parent/child relationship and that the awareness of the significance of the symbols when they have been interpreted is of crucial importance.     

Working under cover: performance‐related self‐confidence among members of contextually devalued groups who try to pass

This paper experimentally examines the effects of passing (versus revealing) a contextually devalued identity on performance‐related self‐confidence. An experimental scenario was developed on the basis of the results of a pilot study. Studies 1 and 2 (total N = 255) experimentally manipulate passing versus revealing a contextually devalued identity, to an ingroup or an outgroup partner. The results show that, although passing makes participants believe that their partner has more positive expectations of them, it also undermines performance‐related self‐confidence. Moreover, the results show that negative self‐directed affect (i.e., guilt and shame) mediated the negative effect of passing on performance‐related self‐confidence. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How the bimodal format of presentation affects working memory: an overview

The best format in which information that has to be recalled is presented has been investigated in several studies, which focused on the impact of bimodal stimulation on working memory performance. An enhancement of participant’s performance in terms of correct recall has been repeatedly found, when bimodal formats of presentation (i.e., audiovisual) were compared to unimodal formats (i.e, either visual or auditory), in providing implications for multimedial learning. Several theoretical frameworks have been suggested in order to account for the bimodal advantage, ranging from those emphasizing early stages of processing (such as automatic alerting effects or multisensory integration processes) to those centred on late stages of processing (as postulated by the dual coding theory). The aim of this paper is to review previous contributions to this topic, providing a comprehensive theoretical framework, which is updated by the latest empirical studies.