How to bring the news … peak-end effects in children’s affective responses to peer assessments of their social behavior

The retrospective evaluation of an event tends to be based on how the experience felt during the most intense moment and the last moment. Two experiments tested whether this so-called peak-end effect influences how primary school students are affected by peer assessments. In both experiments, children (ages 7–12) assessed two classmates on their behaviour in school and then received two manipulated assessments. In Experiment 1 (N ?=?30), one assessment consisted of four negative ratings and the other of four negative ratings with an extra moderately negative rating added to the end. In Experiment 2 (N ?=?44), one assessment consisted of four positive ratings, and the other added an extra moderately positive rating to the end. Consistent with the peak-end effect, the extended assessment in Experiment 1 and the short assessment in Experiment 2 were remembered as more pleasant and less difficult to deal with, which shaped children’s peer assessment preferences and prospective choices of which assessment to repeat. These findings indicate that the process of peer assessment can be improved by ending the feedback with the most positive part of the assessment.     

Mentalization-based Interventions in Child Psychiatry and Youth Protection Services II: A Model Founded on the Child’s Prementalizing Mode of Psychic Functioning

ABSTRACT

The systematic and rigorous observations of children in child psychiatry and Youth Protection Services in Quebec revealed that most of these children presented multiple, complex and often severe problems, and did not seem to benefit much from classic psychodynamic psychotherapy. Owing to a poorly developed mentalizing capacity, many of these children did not use symbolic play as a means of expressing their intrapsychic conflicts and relational difficulties and did not communicate much verbally with clinicians. It was noted also that these children’s inner world was dominated by prementalizing modes of thinking, namely, the teleological mode, the psychic equivalence mode, and the pretend mode. This article is the last in a series of three. The first concerns the clinical assessment of prementalizing modes of psychic functioning in children and their parents. The second lays out the general objectives, principles and interventions of a mentalization-based treatment for children. This third article presents specific intervention strategies adapted to children’s predominant mode of thinking. The objectives and techniques regarding each mode are discussed. Three clinical examples serve to illustrate the interventions. The authors suggest that these children must develop a certain degree of mentalizing capacity before they can benefit from classic psychodynamic psychotherapy.     

Factorial validity of the Bulimia Test-Revised in adolescent boys and girls.

The present study examined the psychometric properties and principal components structure of the Bulimia Test Revised (BULIT-R; [Thelen, M.H., Farmer, J., Wonderlich, S. & Smith, M. (1991). A revision of the Bulimia Test: the BULIT-R. Psychological Assessment, 3, 119-124.]) using a sample of early adolescent males and females. Three hundred and six girls (mean age = 13.66; S.D. = 1.12) and 297 boys (mean age = 13.89: S.D. = 1.13) from grades 7-10 completed the BULIT-R as part of a larger study investigating disordered eating in early adolescence. In comparison to the 5 factors identified in adult female samples, the factor analysis identified four similar factors for adolescent boys and girls: bingeing, control, normative weight loss (dieting and exercise) and extreme weight loss behaviors (vomiting, diuretics and laxatives). The findings highlight similarities between boys and girls and differences in the factorial nature of the BULIT-R for adult and adolescent samples. The BULIT-R also demonstrated good reliability with adolescent samples and adequate concurrent validity with the DFT, DEBQ and binge eating as defined by the DSM-IV criteria. The emergence of bingeing and control as two distinct factors is an important distinction that needs to be considered when attempting to provide accurate incidence rates of binge eating and bulimic symptomatology in adolescents.     

Tabacco deprivation: The foot-in-the-door technique versus the low-ball technique

The present experiment was aimed at comparing the efficiency of the foot-in-the-door technique (Freedman and Fraser, 1966) to that of the low-ball technique (Cialdini Bassett, Cacioppo and Miller, 1978). Subjects were requested to abstain from smoking for 18 hours. The results demonstrated the superiority of the low-ball technique. An original method of operationalizing the low-ball technique (the use of intermediate behaviours) is presented herein.