Satellite babies in transnational families: A study of parents' decision to separate from their infants

This study examines a practice which is characteristic of an era of intensifying globalization: As part of a transnational lifestyle, an increasing number of immigrants to North America send infants thousands of miles back to their country of origin to be raised by members of their extended families—a culturally sanctioned tradition. After several years of separation, the children return to the biological parents to attend school in the adopted country, a custom which, according to Western mental health models, could have significant sequelae for attachment relationships and other facets of development. This practice is particularly prevalent among immigrants from the People's Republic of China, but a modified version of it can be found in other groups as well. The work described here is the first phase of a longitudinal project that explores the advantages and potential repercussions, for both infants and parents, of a transnational lifestyle. The current study reviews the decision‐making process of a group of Chinese Canadian immigrant parents who are considering a separation from their infants. Preliminary findings show that the expected concerns about disrupting attachment relationships are embedded in more salient considerations of economic need and cultural perspective. These exploratory data exemplify an emergent field of culture‐focused research and practice in infant mental health, and support the call for innovative models to situate infant developmental pathways in global and transcultural contexts.     

The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) as a Measure of Implicit Relative Preferences: A First Study

The Psychological Record - The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) was designed to examine implicit beliefs or attitudes. In Experiment 1, response latencies obtained from Irish...     

Introduction to the Special Issue on Clinical Psychology and Behavioral Science: Processes,Principles, and Analytic Strategies

The Psychological Record -     

Dyadic nominations of bullying: Comparing types of bullies and their victims

Previous studies indicate that when identifying individuals involved in bullying, the concordance between self- and peer- reports is low to moderate. There is support that self- and peer- identified victims constitute distinct types of victims and differ in adjustment. Likewise, differentiating between self- and peer- reports of bullying may also reveal distinct types of bullies. The goal of this study was to examine differences between types of bullies identified via dyadic nominations (self-identified, victim-identified, and self/victim identified). First, we examined the concordance between dyadic nominations of bullying and traditional measures of bullying (i.e., self- and peer-reports). Second, we compared the behavioral profiles of the bully types to nonbullies, with a focus on aggressive behaviors and social status. Third, we examined whether the types of bullies targeted victims with different levels of popularity, as well as the role of their own popularity and prioritizing of popularity. Participants were 1,008 Dutch adolescents (50.1% male, M_age = 14.14 years, standard deviation [SD] = 1.30) who completed a classroom assessment of dyadic nominations, peer nominations, and self-report items. Results indicated that victim identified and self/victim identified bullies were more aggressive, more popular, and less socially preferred than self-identified bullies and nonbullies. Self/victim identified bullies targeted victims with the highest social status. The association between bully type and victims' popularity was further qualified by bullies' own popularity and the degree to which they prioritized popularity. Implications for the implementation of dyadic nominations are discussed.     

Are the facial gender and facial age variants of the composite face illusion products of a common mechanism?

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - When the upper half of one face (‘target region’) is spatially aligned with the lower half of another (‘distractor region’), the two...     

Family dynamics as predictors of infant disposition

In this longitudinal study of mothers, their families, and their infants, both discriminant and regression analyses showed that prenatal reports of family dynamics predicted infant disposition at 8 months with considerable accuracy. The most important predictive component was organization and consistency within the family unit as well as the dependability of other family members. Possible mechanisms by which family dynamics might affect the infant's developing disposition are discussed.     

Egocentric and Exocentric Spatial Judgements of Visual Displacement

The role of changes in ego- and exocentric spatial relationships on perceptual judgements about visual displacement was investigated in this study. Subjects were asked to indicate whether a dot in a test stimulus was displaced compared to a dot in a reference stimulus. Subjects were given explicit instructions to report displacement relative to themselves (egocentric) or relative to a circle surrounding the dot (exocentric). Four types of test stimuli were used in which object-circle (exocentric) and object-observer (egocentric) relations were systematically varied. It was found that for test stimuli that reveal conflicting ego- and exocentric spatial information, subjects performed poorly in both instruction conditions. This suggests that ego- and exocentric representations cannot be used independently and are probably interconnected.     

Identifying components of type-A behaviour: “toxic” and “non-toxic” achieving

Measures of the Type-A behaviour pattern (TABP) have generally failed to distinguish between different components of the construct, some of which may not constitute risk factors at all. Based on the responses of a total of 632 subjects, the present paper reports on the development of student and working adult questionnaires which comprise discrete and unambiguous indices of “toxic” and “non-toxic” behaviour. Both components reflect high achievement motivation, but in the toxic scale this is compounded by hostile competitiveness and impatience. The scales were related in predictable ways to other relevant indices of personality, and while the toxic factor was significantly associated with deterioration in health status during adaptation, the non-toxic factor conferred a protective effect.     

Muslims in the West: A select bibliography

The presence of Muslims in the West has posed a challenge to the self-assured populations of Europe. This bibliography provides an overview of available scholarship in the English language on the situation of Muslims in Western Europe and in areas of traditional European settlement. It is demonstrable that the conditions they face vary according to established relationships between religion and state in each country, the laws that govern immigration, naturalization and citizenship, the heritage of tolerance, the acceptance of alternative social values and the willingness to allow Muslim participation in the democratic process.