Intellectual ability in young men separated temporarily from their parents in childhood

We examined the effects of early life stress (ELS) on intellectual ability in 2,725 20-year-old male participants, of whom 321 were separated temporarily (mean 1.7 years) from both their parents during World War II, at an average age of 4.3 years. Intellectual ability was tested when entering compulsory military service. The separated men had − 0.28 (95% CI − 0.39, − 0.16), − 0.13 (95% CI − 0.25, − 0.01), − 0.18 (95% CI − 0.29, − 0.06), and − 0.19 (95% CI − 0.30, − 0.07) SD units lower verbal, visuospatial, arithmetic, and composite score of intellectual ability, respectively, compared to non-separated. Participants who were separated for more than a year and between two and four years had the lowest ability scores. ELS showed most consistent associations with verbal ability, but were not limited to it. Children beyond infancy and before their school-age may be the most vulnerable to the adverse effects of the ELS.     

Depressed youth: treatment outcome and changes in family functioning in individual and family therapy

This study explores the role of family functioning in therapeutic change in focused individual psychodynamic psychotherapy (FIPP) and time‐limited systems integrative family therapy (SIFT) for depressed children and adolescents. After a screening process, 72 participants aged 8 to 15 were randomized to either FIPP or time‐limited SIFT. Assessments took place prior to, at the end of, and 6 months after treatment. Families in both SIFT and FIPP showed a small but significant and sustained improvement in family functioning by the end of treatment in both mothers' self‐reports and family therapists' assessments. Better family functioning at baseline in mothers' self‐reports and improved family functioning during SIFT, as assessed by family therapists, predicted a sustained decrease in self‐reported depressive symptoms. Results indicated that time‐limited SIFT may be more effective with younger children and in patients without a diagnosis of double depression than adolescents.     

Difficult temperament predicts self‐esteem in adolescence

A six‐year longitudinal study investigated the impact of maternal hostile child‐rearing attitudes, role dissatisfaction, and maternal perceptions of adolescent temperamental difficultness on self‐esteem in late adolescence, after controlling for the initial self‐esteem measured in early adolescence. Adolescents (n = 313), derived from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study, rated their self‐esteem at the study entry at age 12, and six years later at age 18. Maternal reports of child‐rearing attitudes, of role satisfaction, and of the temperament of the adolescent were obtained at the study entry and three years later. Mother's perceptions of adolescent's temperament as difficult at ages 12 and 15 predicted adolescent's self‐reported self‐esteem in late adolescence, whereas earlier self‐esteem did not predict later perceptions of temperament or parenting. We found no evidence that maternal perceptions of parenting indirectly, or after controlling for the initial level, predicted adolescent's self‐reported self‐esteem. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Maternal perceptions and adolescent self-esteem: a six-year longitudinal study

A six-year longitudinal study investigated the development of self-esteem in relation to mother's child-rearing attitudes, role satisfaction, and perceived temperament of the child. Participants were two age cohorts of girls and boys from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study, being 6 (n = 416) and 9 years old (n = 408) at the beginning of the study (baseline). Scores regarding mother's hostile child-rearing attitudes, mother's low role satisfaction, and maternal perceptions of child's difficult temperament (high activity, negative emotionality, and low cooperativeness) were obtained at baseline and three years later. Self-esteem was measured by self-reports six years later, at the ages of 12 and 15. The results indicated considerable gender differences. Among girls nearly all childhood variables individually predicted self-esteem, whereas among boys the associations were less evident. Additionally, perceived difficult temperament at baseline predicted hostile child-rearing attitudes at first follow-up, which further predicted low self-esteem among girls only.     

A FACTOR ANALYTICAL STUDY OF TRANSFER OF TRAINING

An attempt is made to show that the problem of functional similarity between psychological activities, central to the analysis of transfer of training, can be studied with the aid of factor analysis. Some research designs are discussed, and a 'common factor model' for transfer of training presented. The results of an experimental study of transfer within the common factor space of three factors of manual performance, aiming, tapping, and finger dexterity, indicate that the amount of transfer tends to increase as a function of increasing factorial similarity between the activities involved.     

Transactional development of parent personality and child temperament

Stability and change in parental extraversion and neuroticism were studied in transaction with their views of their child's temperament from the age of six months to the age of five‐and‐a‐half years in 109 mother–father–child triads (parent–daughter: n = 61, parent–son: n = 48). While parental traits showed high stability, infants' higher positive affectivity predicted an increase in parental extraversion over 5 years, and infant's higher activity predicted a decrease in parental neuroticism. Parent‐rated temperament showed expected heterotypic continuity. Initially higher parental extraversion predicted an increase in the child's effortful control, and higher parental neuroticism predicted an increase in the child's negative affectivity. The results indicate that parental personality and child temperament develop in transaction promoting change in each other. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.