Mood, memory, and social judgments in children

The influence of positive and negative moods on children's recall and recognition memory and impression-formation judgments was investigated in a two-list experimental design. A total of 161 schoolchildren, 8 to 10 years old, were presented with audiovisual information containing positive and negative details about 2 target children. Each presentation was preceded by happy or sad mood manipulations. One day later, the children were again placed in a happy or sad mood, and their recall and recognition memory and impression-formation judgments were assessed. Results showed that memory was better when (a) the children felt happy during encoding, retrieval, or both; (b) the material was incongruent with learning mood; (c) the 2 target characters were encountered in contrasting rather than in matching mood states; and (d) recall mood matched encoding mood. A happy mood increased the extremity of both positive and negative impression-formation judgments. Results are contrasted with experimental data obtained with normal or depressed adults, and implications are considered for contemporary theories of mood effects on cognition and for social-developmental research.     

Marital conflict and adjustment: speech nonfluencies in intimate disclosure

Speech nonfluency in response to questions about the marital relationship was used to assess anxiety. Subjects were 31 husbands and 31 wives, all white, college educated, from middle- to lower-middle-class families, and ranging from 20 to 30 years of age. Three types of nonfluencies were coded: filled pauses, unfilled pauses, and repetitions. Speech-disturbance ratios were computed by dividing the sum of speech nonfluencies by the total words spoken. The results support the notion that some issues within marriage are more sensitive and/or problematic than others, and that, in an interview situation, gender interacts with question content in the production of nonfluencies.     

Prosodic aspects of motherese: effects on gaze and responsiveness in developmentally disabled children

This study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of using voice tones (prosody) typical of "motherese" (O. K. Garnica, 1977, in C. E. Snow & C. A. Ferguson (Eds.), Talking to Children: Language Input and Acquisition, pp. 63-88, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press) on responsiveness and eye gaze in children with severe handicaps. Specifically, two conditions, "motherese" and "conversational" voice tones, were compared. The current study presents data from naturalistic observations of six children, and controlled experimental manipulations with four children. The results of the naturalistic observations in Study 1 suggested a positive relationship between the use of voice tones typical of "motherese" and responsiveness and eye gaze. Further analysis using an alternating treatments design in Study 2 revealed similar results. Specifically, the use of prosody associated with "motherese" showed increased levels of eye gaze when compared to the use of "conversational tones." The results suggest the importance of considering normal development in analyzing social and teaching interactions between teachers and severely handicapped children.     

Children's perception of certain musical properties: scale and contour

Children's perception of scale and contour in melodies was investigated in five studies. Experimental tasks included judging transposed renditions of melodies (Studies 1 and 3), discriminating between transposed renditions of a melody (Study 2), judging contour-preserving transformations of melodies (Study 4), and judging similarity to a familiar target melody of transformations preserving rhythm or rhythm and contour (Study 5). The first and second studies showed that young children detect key transposition changes even in familiar melodies and they perceive similarity over key transpositions even in unfamiliar melodies. Young children also are sensitive to melodic contour over transformations that preserve it (Study 5), yet they distinguish spontaneously between melodies with the same contour and different intervals (Study 4). The key distance effect reported in the literature did not occur in the tasks of this investigation (Studies 1 and 3), and it may be apparent only for melodies shorter or more impoverished than those used here.     

Behavioral and sociocognitive correlates of ratings of prosocial behavior and sociometric status

Although peers' and teachers' evaluations of children's prosocial behavior and peers' sociometric ratings frequently have been used in studies of social development, the validity of young children's ratings of others has been questioned, as has that for teachers' ratings of prosocial behavior. In this study, preschoolers' ratings of peers' sociometric status and prosocial behavior, as well as teachers' ratings of children's prosocial dispositions, were obtained. These were correlated with children's naturally occurring prosocial or social behavior; ratings of prosocial behavior also were correlated with children's prosocial moral reasoning and prosocial self-attributions. Peers' sociometric ratings were positively related to children's sociability whereas prosocial ratings were related to helping (but not sharing) behavior. Teachers' ratings of prosocial behavior were not related to frequency of prosocial behaviors, but were positively related to developmentally mature moral judgments and self-reported motives.     

A record-keeping format for training systemic therapists

Training in systemic therapy necessitates a structured approach to teaching systemic thinking. The Systemic Therapy Sessions Summary Form, a record-keeping method, is presented as a tool for enhancing training in systemic therapy. The purpose of this form is to provide the structure for the trainee to develop circular hypotheses, to connect reflexively the assessment and intervention components of therapy, and to maintain a sense of the evolving nature of therapy across sessions. A case example illustrates the use of this record-keeping format.     

Family Therapy in Trouble: Psychoeducation as Solution and as Problem

The authors cite clinical literature attesting to the importance of recognizing the family, rather than the individual, as the proper locus of conceptualizing, diagnosing, and treating mental illnesses. Specifically with regard to severe psychiatric illnesses, in particular schizophrenia, family dysfunction contributes to the emergence of the illness, significantly affects its course, and strongly influences the achievement and maintenance of treatment gains. Currently, a movement is afoot to limit sharply the amount and kind of treatment offered to schizophrenic patients and their families. Rooted in a “medical model” or “biogenic” view of the etiology of schizophrenia, this school of thought prescribes psychoeducation as the family treatment of choice. The present article looks at some misconceptions regarding treatment that prompted a widespread turning away from psychoanalytically oriented family psychotherapy for schizophrenic patients and their families, examines the reductionism (biological and behavioral) inhering in the exclusive use of psychoeducation, and looks at the clinical dangers of such reductionism. Finally, it proposes that family psycho-therapists should not abandon a concern with the inner lives of severely ill patients and their families in the face of spuriously generalized claims made by reductionist researchers.