Effects of maternal unavailability on mother-infant interactions

To determine the differential effects of maternal emotional and physical unavailability on infant interaction behavior, 4-month-old infants were subjected to the mothers' still-face and to a brief separation from the mother. Although the infants became more negative and agitated during both conditions, the still-face was more stressful.     

Exploration of the links among fathers' unresolved states of mind with respect to attachment,atypical paternal behavior,and disorganized infant–father attachment

Atypical maternal behavior has consistently been identified as a precursor of disorganized infant–mother attachment, but to date, no research has examined the role of atypical paternal behavior in the development of disorganized infant–father attachment. This study aims to enhance our understanding and conceptualization of infant–father attachment by examining the role of fathers' unresolved states of mind and the display of atypical paternal behavior in the development of disorganized infant–father attachment. Thirty‐one middle‐class couples participated in this study. Maternal and paternal Adult Attachment Interviews (C. George, N. Kaplan, & M. Main, 1996 ) were completed prenatally and at infant age 6 months, respectively. Infant–mother and infant–father dyads participated in the Strange Situation paradigm (M. Ainsworth, M. Blehar, E. Waters, & S. Wall, 1978 ) when the infants were 12 and 18 months of age, respectively. The Atypical Maternal Behavior Instrument for Assessment and Classification (E. Bronfman, E. Parsons, & K. Lyons‐Ruth, 1999 ) was used to assess maternal and paternal behavior during the Strange Situation. Maternal states of mind regarding attachment predicted infant–mother attachment relationships, and paternal states of mind predicted infant–father attachment relationships. Atypical maternal behavior was associated with infant–mother disorganized attachment; however, atypical paternal behavior did not predict infant–father disorganized attachment. Thus, it is possible that other factors, yet to be uncovered, might contribute to the development of infant–father disorganized attachment.     

Dimensions of religious/spiritual well-being and schizotypal personality

Dimensions of religious/spiritual well being (RSWB; such as hope, forgiveness, or general religiosity) have been examined comprehensively, and its positive relation to subjective well-being has been confirmed. However, there also might be facets of RSWB linked to mental illness (e.g. delusional ideas). The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between different dimensions of RSWB, magical thinking as an indicator of schizotypy and Eysenck´s three personality factors (psychoticism, extraversion, neuroticism), as there might be facets of RSWB also linked to mental illness (e.g. delusional ideas). One hundred and two undergraduate students (53 female, 49 male) completed the Multidimensional Inventory of Religious/Spiritual Well-Being (MI-RSWB), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire in short version (EPQ-RK) together with the Magical Ideation Scale. Results indicate that facets of RSWB based on magical thinking could also be understood as neurotic symptoms. This underlines the hypothesis, that there might be pathogenetic as well as salutogenetic aspects of religiosity/spirituality associated with personality and subjective well-being.     

Women’s perception of men’s sensation seeking propensity from their dance movements

Risk-taking behaviour in men, an expression of the more general personality trait sensation seeking, has been hypothesized to be an evolved aspect of male psychology that arose through sexual selection. Sensation seeking could be seen as a costly behavioural trait that signals a man’s health and vigour and is preferred by women. This study extends knowledge about risk-taking as a cue in human mate choice by examining whether women can perceive men’s sensation seeking propensity (assessed with the Sensation Seeking Scale Form V; SSS-V) by viewing their dance movements. We videotaped 50 men’s dancing and had 60 women judge each dancer on perceived attractiveness and risk-taking. A positive and significant correlation was found between women’s attractiveness judgements and male’s SSS-V total score, thrill and adventure seeking, disinhibition and boredom susceptibility. Further, women’s risk-taking judgements were related to men’s boredom susceptibility. We conclude that (i) male sensation seeking propensity is signalled via their dance movements, and (ii) women are sensitive to these cues as they consider men who score high on sensation seeking as attractive. We discuss our results with reference to the evolutionary psychology concept of sexual selection and mate preferences.     

A discrete emotions approach to positive emotion disturbance in depression

Converging findings suggest that depressed individuals exhibit disturbances in positive emotion. No study, however, has ascertained which specific positive emotions are implicated in depression. We report two studies that compare how depressive symptoms relate to distinct positive emotions at both trait and state levels of assessment. In Study 1 (N=185), we examined associations between depressive symptoms and three trait positive emotions (pride, happy, amusement). Study 2 compared experiential and autonomic reactivity to pride, happy, and amusement film stimuli between depressive (n=24; DS) and non-depressive (n=31; NDS) symptom groups. Results indicate that symptoms of depression were most strongly associated with decreased trait pride and decreased positive emotion experience to pride-eliciting films. Discussion focuses on the implications these findings have for understanding emotion deficits in depression as well as for the general study of positive emotion.     

Early pathways to bullying: A prospective longitudinal study examining the influences of theory of mind and social preference on bullying behaviour during the first 3 years of school

Research has focused on the role of theory of mind (ToM) for positive social behaviour, while the association between ToM and negative social behaviours is less well understood. This longitudinal study compares two mediation models examining the role of ToM and peer-rated social preference at ages 5 and 6 for bullying at age 7. Participants were 114 children (58 boys, M_age = 67 months) at entry to primary school (T1). At Time 2 (T2), 106 children and, at Time 3 (T3), 96 children remained. Teacher-rated externalizing problems and children’s language ability were controlled at T1. Poor ToM was found to indirectly predict later bullying via poor social preference, while for boys only, greater earlier ToM directly predicted greater bullying 2 years later. These results suggest that there are different pathways to bullying via ToM and social preference , which has implications for interventions to prevent the development of bullying behaviour.     

Reappraisal inventiveness: impact of appropriate brain activation during efforts to generate alternative appraisals on the perception of chronic stress in women*

Background and objectives: Previous research indicated that more left-lateralized prefrontal activation during cognitive reappraisal efforts was linked to a greater capacity for generating reappraisals, which is a prerequisite for the effective implementation of cognitive reappraisal in everyday life. The present study examined whether the supposedly appropriate brain activation is relevant in terms of more distal outcomes, i.e., chronic stress perception.

Design and methods: Prefrontal EEG alpha asymmetry was recorded while female participants were generating reappraisals for stressful events and was correlated with their self-reported chronic stress levels in everyday life (n?=?80).

Results: Women showing less left-lateralized brain activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex during cognitive reappraisal efforts reported experiencing more stress in their daily lives. This effect was independent of self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative emotions.

Conclusion: These findings underline the practical relevance of individual differences in appropriate brain activation during emotion regulation efforts and the assumedly related basic capacity for the generation of cognitive reappraisals to the feeling of being stressed. Implications include the selection of interventions for the improvement of coping with stress in women in whom the capability for appropriate brain activation during reappraisal efforts may be impaired, e.g., due to depression or old age.     

Disentangling Child-Specific and Family-Wide Processes Underlying Negative Mother-Child Transactions

The current study examines the transactional processes between maternal negativity and child disruptive behavior during early childhood, using a sibling comparison design. This design allows for a more sophisticated test of the behavioral training hypothesis than is possible when only one child per family is included in the analysis as it excludes two confounders (passive gene-environment correlation and family-wide environmental influence). Three hundred and ninety-seven families were visited on three occasions when the target child was 1.5, 3 and 4.5 years old (920 children, 51.5% female). The target child and up to three older siblings per family were included in data collection and analysis. Mothers and fathers reported on children’s disruptive behavior and mothers reported on their negativity to children. Within-family cross-lag pathways, as well as a significant indirect effect through which children increased their own disruptive behavior via maternal negativity confirmed a behavioral training effect. Family level maternal negativity and sibling disruptive behavior showed high levels of stability over three to four years and no context effect for maternal negativity or sibling disruptive behavior was seen. The theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Introspective disputes deflated: the case for phenomenal variation

Sceptics vis-à-vis introspection often base their scepticism on ‘phenomenological disputes’, ‘introspective disagreement’, or ‘introspective disputes’ (ID) (see Kriegel in Phenomenol CognSci 6(1):115–136, 2007; Bayne and Spener in Philos Issues 20(1):1–22, 2010; Schwitzgebel in Perplexities of consciousness, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2011): introspectors massively diverge in their opinions about experiences, and there seems to be no method to resolve these issues. Sceptics take this to show that introspection lacks any epistemic merit. Here, I provide a list of paradigmatic examples, distill necessary and sufficient conditions for IDs, present the sceptical argument encouraged by IDs, and review the two main strategies (resolution and containment) to reject such a scepticism. However, both types of strategies are unsatisfactory. In order to save introspection from the looming sceptical threat, I advocate a deflationary strategy, based on either an ‘Argument from Perceptual Kinship’ or an ‘Argument from Ownership’. In the end, there cannot be any genuine IDs, for nothing can fulfil the reasonable conditions for IDs. What looks like IDs may instead be indicators of phenomenal variation. Debates that look like IDs may then arise even if introspection were a perfect method to know one’s mind. Thus, scepticism vis-à-vis introspection based on IDs rests on shaky grounds.