Like mother,like child? Maternal determinants of children's early social-emotional development

Social-Emotional competencies evolve early in life. For example, early emotion regulation is learned primarily in the context of mother–child interaction, which may allow for maternal influences to shape children's social-emotional development. The aim of the current study was to longitudinally examine maternal determinants of children's early social-emotional development in a community-based sample of first-time mothers (N = 61, aged 22–39 years). Specifically, we used structural equation modeling to examine how maternal emotion regulation difficulties and subclinical depression directly and indirectly, through sensitivity and postnatal bonding, assessed at 6 to 8 months predicted child outcomes at 12 to 16 months. We found that mothers’ sensitivity predicted fewer social-emotional and behavioral problems and that stronger bonding predicted fewer problems and more social-emotional competencies. Emotion regulation difficulties were significantly associated with depressive symptoms; yet, when accounting for shared variances, both factors differentially predicted less positive child outcomes such that more difficulties indirectly, through poorer bonding, predicted greater delay in competencies, and more symptoms indirectly, through less sensitivity, predicted more problems. Current findings underline the significance of maternal factors impacting the quality of mother–child interaction for children's positive development. Potential implications for early prevention programs to support children who are otherwise at risk for negative emotional outcomes due to mothers’ emotional state postpartum are discussed.     

The gap between medical and monetary choices under risk persists in decisions for others

Decisions under risk in the medical domain have been found to systematically diverge from decisions in the monetary domain. When making choices between monetary options, people commonly rely on a decision strategy that trades off outcomes with their probabilities; when making choices between medical options, people tend to neglect probability information. In two experimental studies, we tested to what extent differences between medical and monetary decisions also emerge when the decision outcomes affect another person. Using a risky choice paradigm for medical and monetary decisions, we compared hypothetical decisions that participants made for themselves to decisions for a socially distant other (Study 1) and to recommendations as financial advisor or doctor (Study 2). In addition, we examined people's information search in a condition in which information about payoff distributions had to be learned from experiential sampling. Formal modeling and analyses of search behavior revealed a similarly pronounced gap between medical and monetary decisions in decisions for others as in decisions for oneself. Our results suggest that when making medical decisions, people try to avoid the worst outcome while neglecting its probability—even when the outcomes affect others rather than themselves.     

Testing Event-Based Forms of Causality

Three fundamental types of causal relations are those of necessity, sufficiency, and necessity and sufficiency. These types are defined in contexts of categorical variables or events. Using statement calculus or Boolean algebra, one can determine which patterns of events are in support of a particular form of causal relation. In this article, we approach the analysis of these forms of causality taking the perspective of the analyst of empirical data. It is proposed using Configural Frequency Analysis (CFA) to test hypotheses about type of causal relation. Models are proposed for two-variable and multi-variable cases. Two CFA approaches are proposed. In the first, individual patterns (configurations) are examined under the question whether they are in support of a particular type of causal relation. In the second, patterns that are in support are compared with corresponding patterns that are not in support. In an empirical example, hypotheses are tested on the prediction of sustainability of change in dietary fat intake habits.     

Does evaluative learning rely on the perception of contingency?: manipulating contingency and US density during evaluative conditioning

An experiment is reported studying the impact of objective contingency and contingency judgments on cross-modal evaluative conditioning (EC). Both contingency judgments and evaluative responses were measured after a contingency learning task in which previously neutral sounds served as either weak or strong predictors of affective pictures. Experimental manipulations of contingency and US density were shown to affect contingency judgments. Stronger contingencies were perceived with high contingency and with low US density. The contingency learning task also produced a reliable EC effect. The magnitude of this effect was influenced by an interaction of statistical contingency and US density. Furthermore, the magnitude of EC was correlated with the subjective contingency judgments. Taken together, the results imply that propositional knowledge about the CS-US relationship, as reflected in contingency judgments, moderates evaluative learning. The data are discussed with respect to different accounts of EC.     

Disentangling the adult attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder endophenotype: parametric measurement of attention

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) persists frequently into adulthood. The decomposition of endophenotypes by means of experimental neuro-cognitive assessment has the potential to improve diagnostic assessment, evaluation of treatment response, and disentanglement of genetic and environmental influences. We assessed four parameters of attentional capacity and selectivity derived from simple psychophysical tasks (verbal report of briefly presented letter displays) and based on a "theory of visual attention." These parameters are mathematically independent, quantitative measures, and previous studies have shown that they are highly sensitive for subtle attention deficits. Potential reductions of attentional capacity, that is, of perceptual processing speed and working memory storage capacity, were assessed with a whole report paradigm. Furthermore, possible pathologies of attentional selectivity, that is, selection of task-relevant information and bias in the spatial distribution of attention, were measured with a partial report paradigm. A group of 30 unmedicated adult ADHD patients and a group of 30 demographically matched healthy controls were tested. ADHD patients showed significant reductions of working memory storage capacity of a moderate to large effect size. Perceptual processing speed, task-based, and spatial selection were unaffected. The results imply a working memory deficit as an important source of behavioral impairments. The theory of visual attention parameter working memory storage capacity might constitute a quantifiable and testable endophenotype of ADHD.     

Berufliche Leistungsfähigkeit

In different fields of law the assessment of capability of performance is important and often poses a particular challenge for medical or psychological experts. The present article introduces a model for the assessment of capability of performance developed on the background of a multicenter and interdisciplinary research project. This approach of assessment assumes that the performance capability of a person with psychiatric or psychosomatic disorders does not arise from symptomatology alone; instead, it is also a consequence of interactions between coping processes of the individual and environmental factors. The presented model of the assessment of performance capability is mainly oriented to the “International Classification of Functioning” (ICF; WHO) whose central diagnostic categories are, in addition to the disorder and the somatic and psychiatric functions, the levels of activity and participation. The different assessing levels are operationalized in the assessment model. In this article the various diagnostic levels and their interactions and the criteria which have been formulated are described. The process of decision-making is explored as well. This assessment model aims to make a more reliable, valid and transparent process of expert decision-making in order to increase the objectivity and justice of the assessment procedure.     

Essentialist theory of ‘hybrids’: From animal kinds to ethnic categories and race

This article presents a theory of the perception of hybrids, resulting from cross‐breeding natural animals that pertain to different species and of children parented by couples with a mixed ethnic or racial background. The theory states that natural living beings, including humans, are perceived as possessing a deeply ingrained characteristic that is called ‘essence’ or ‘blood’ or ‘genes’ in everyday discourse and that uniquely determines their category membership. If, by whatever means, the genes or essences of two animals of different species are combined in a hybrid, the two incompatible essences collapse, leaving the hybrid in a state of non‐identity and non‐belonging. People despise this state and reject the hybrid (Study 1). This devaluation effect holds with cross‐kind hybrids and with hybrids that arise from genetically combining animals from incompatible habitats across three cultures: Austria, India and Japan (Study 2). In the social world, groups and ethnic or racial categories frequently are essentialized in an analogue way. When people with an essentialist mindset judge ethnically or racially mixed offspring, they perceive a collapse of ethnic or racial essence and, consequently, denigrate these children, as compared to children from ‘pure’ in‐group or out‐group parents (Study 3). The findings are discussed in terms of the widespread ‘yuck factor’ against genetically modified animals, in terms of the cultural concepts of monstrosity and of racism and prejudice.     

Learning of magnetic compass directions in pigeons

A proof of magnetic compass learning by pigeons under laboratory conditions has been attempted for decades, but all experiments have failed so far. The aim of the present study was to test whether pigeons can learn magnetic compass directions in an operant chamber if magnetic cues are presented as true spatial cues. Experimental sessions were carried out in the local geomagnetic field and in magnetic fields with matched total intensity and inclination, but different directions generated with Helmholtz-coils. Birds demonstrated successful learning with a performance level comparable to that in learning studies with magnetic anomalies. In addition, we compared the data from magnetic learning in the laboratory with performance from homing experiments in the field. The birds that were more successful in the learning experiment had vanishing bearings farther away from the home direction than the group mean at unfamiliar, but not at familiar sites. This might suggest that better learners explore unknown locations in a different way. Our findings represent the first evidence for operant magnetic compass learning in pigeons and also provide a link between behavioural data from the field and the laboratory.