3岁幼儿的二级观点采择及合作互动的影响

研究以经典的乌龟任务(实验1)和改良的滤镜任务(实验2)对3岁幼儿的二级观点采择进行探究, 并探讨其在短暂的社会互动前后的变化。结果表明：(1) 3岁幼儿尚难以自发进行二级观点采择, 但已具备进行这一加工的潜质; (2)短暂的合作互动可在一定程度上提高幼儿采择他人观点的成功率, 而竞争互动则无类似影响。该发现为从建构主义角度解释视觉观点采择发展提供了新的证据。     

重复信任博弈的决策过程与结果评价

“信任他人或者不信任他人?”是社会互动中经常面临一种行为决择, 直接影响着个体的社会生活。作为一种重要的社会信号机制, 信任是建立良好社会关系的基石, 它能够降低社会交易成本, 易化合作行为。为了探究个体在信任互动情境下大脑活动变化的时间动态特征, 采用事件相关电位技术记录了20名健康被试(充当信任者)完成重复性信任博弈任务(repeated Trust Game, rTG)时的脑电成分。行为结果发现个体选择信任的比例显著高于几率水平。电生理学结果表明, 决策阶段中不信任选择比信任选择诱发了更正的P2成分(150~250 ms), 差异波溯源分析定位于额中回(middle frontal gyrus, BA 46)和额下回(inferior frontal gyrus, BA 46)。反馈阶段中损失反馈比获益反馈诱发了更负的FRN成分(200~300 ms), 而获益反馈比损失反馈诱发了更短的P300潜伏期。本研究为理解人类信任博弈过程的动态加工时程提供了初步的神经电生理学证据。     

双语水平与认知控制心智转换

研究考察双语水平对认知控制心智转换的影响。通过语言转换和任务转换实验,比较两组一语水平相同而二语水平不同的“不平衡”中英双语者（40人,平均年龄20.30岁）。结果发现高水平组在语言转换中优于低水平组,但在任务转换中两组无显著差异。说明双语水平对认知控制心智转换的影响不显著。回归分析结果表明心智转换与双语水平无关,但二语使用显著预测任务转换代价,双语转换频率显著预测任务混合代价。研究表明双语水平对认知控制心智转换的促进作用不显著,但二语使用和双语转换频率可能是双语者心智转换能力增强的重要因素。研究进一步推进了双语促进认知控制的理论,明确了双语优势的具体来源及认知控制受影响的具体层面。     

婴幼儿视频对1-2岁儿童亲子互动的影响

通过对年幼儿童与一方家长观看视频前、观看视频中以及观看视频后的亲子互动比较,考察视频提供的互动性示范以及视频的文化适宜性对1-2岁儿童亲子互动的影响。结果表明,视频丰富的互动内容对观看视频后的亲子互动可能产生积极影响, 此影响受视频的文化适宜性的制约。视频注意以及亲子互动质量的下降是观看视频中亲子互动得分减少的原因。研究最后对以婴幼儿为受众的视频内容设计提出了建议。     

Parents as Partners: A U.K. Trial of a U.S. Couples‐Based Parenting Intervention For At‐Risk Low‐Income Families

Despite the well‐established links between couple relationship quality and healthy family functioning, and burgeoning evidence from the international intervention field, there is little or no evidence of the efficacy of couples‐based interventions from the United Kingdom (U.K.). This study explored whether the Parents as Partners (PasP) program, a group‐based intervention developed in the United States, brought about the same benefits in the U.K. The evaluation is based on 97 couples with children from communities with high levels of need, recruited to PasP because they are at high risk for parent and child psychopathology. Both mothers and fathers completed self‐report questionnaires assessing parents’ psychological distress, parenting stress, couple relationship quality and conflict, fathers’ involvement in child care and, importantly, children's adjustment. Multilevel modeling analysis comparing parents’ responses pre‐ and postintervention not only showed substantial improvements for both parents on multiple measures of couple relationship quality, but also improvements in parent and child psychopathology. Analyses also indicated most substantial benefits for couples displaying poorest functioning at baseline. The findings provide initial evidence for the successful implementation of PasP, an American‐origin program, in the U.K., and add support for the concept of the couple relationship as a resource by which to strengthen families.     

A Longitudinal Study of Parental Depressive Symptoms and Coparenting in the First 18 Months

Although the negative impact of postpartum depression on parenting behaviors has been well established—albeit separately—for mothers and fathers, the respective and joint impact of both parents' mood on family‐group interactive behaviors, such as coparenting support and conflict behaviors between the parents, have not yet been investigated. The aim of this study was to examine the association between parental depressive symptoms and coparenting behaviors in a low‐risk sample of families with infants, exploring reciprocity between the variables, as well as gender differences between mothers and fathers regarding these links. At 3 (T1), 9 (T2), and 18 months postpartum (T3), we assessed both parents' depressive symptoms with a self‐report questionnaire and observed coparenting support and conflict during triadic mother–father–child interactions. The results revealed that higher maternal depressive symptoms at T1 were associated with lower support at T1 and T2. Conflict at T3 was associated with higher maternal depressive symptoms at T3 and, more surprisingly, with less depressive symptoms in mothers at T2 and fathers at T3. Cross‐lagged associations suggested that parental depressive symptoms were more likely to influence coparenting than the reverse. Moreover, maternal depressive symptoms were more likely to be linked to coparenting behaviors than were paternal depressive symptoms. These results confirm that parental—mostly maternal—depressive symptoms, even of mild intensity, may jeopardize the development of healthy family‐level relations, which previous research has shown to be crucial for child development.     

The future of Jungian analysis: strengths,weaknesses, opportunities,threats (‘SWOT’)

Using a methodology derived from management and organizational studies, the author reviews the future of Jungian analysis. The methodology is termed SWOT – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. A selected list in each of these categories is presented. The author is transparent in allowing for the fact that the paper not only derives from a public lecture on the topic, but also retains the immediacy and the contrarian and opinionated style of such a lecture.     

Bridging worlds: participatory thinking in Jungian context

Introducing the ‘participatory’ paradigm associated with the work of transpersonalists Richard Tarnas and Jorge Ferrer, the author outlines an approach to Jung's archetypal thinking that might offer a more adequate basis in which to ground a non‐reductive approach to practice. In order to demonstrate the relevance of this outlook at the present time, the author begins by examining recent debates concerning the nature of ‘truth’ in the clinical setting. Reflecting on the difficulties analysts face in attempting to maintain professional authority without falling into an implicit authoritarianism, it is argued that any approach to therapy seeking to orient itself towards ‘the unconscious’ must posit the challenges of pluralism as a central concern for practice. With reference to the relationship between analytical psychology and the psychoanalytic mainstream, attention is drawn to the theoretical problems raised by the relational commitment to constructivist epistemologies, and a consequent tendency towards biological reductionism. Turning to the Jungian literature, similar tensions are observed at play in the present state of analytical psychology. Drawing attention to the process‐oriented qualities of Jung's work, it is suggested that the speculative nature of Jung's psychology offers a more adequate basis for contemporary practice than might be assumed.     

Disintegration of the self and the regeneration of ‘psychic skin’ in the treatment of traumatized refugees

This paper presents a tentative understanding of the characteristics of the extreme traumas, elsewhere called ‘complex PTSD’, that some refugees and asylum‐seekers bring into therapy. It suggests that these kinds of traumas suffered during adulthood may involve a disintegration of the self and a loss of ‘psychic skin’. This conceptualization is derived from the treatment of a refugee who survived multiple extreme traumas and with whom efforts were made in therapy to identify a complex methodology making use of supplementary therapeutic tools in addition to individual psychotherapy. The case demonstrates how the disintegration of self implies not only a deep somato‐psychic dissociation, but also a loss of intrapsychic and interpersonal space. In the treatment this was worked through via repetition of the victim‐aggressor dynamics at multiple levels. In the end, the therapeutic context was structured like a set of concentric layers, creating a ‘bandage’ over the patient's wounds whilst his ‘psychic skin’ was able to regenerate. The conditions triggered by extreme traumas in refugees challenge some of the cornerstones of individual psychoanalytic technique, as well as the idea that individual therapy may be thought of as existing in an environmental vacuum.     

Psychological implications of a vision disorder

The paper discusses how the condition of crossed‐eyes affects a baby's eye contact with mother and potentially results in the loss of a vital emotional connection with her during the earliest days of life. This loss may contribute to a rupture that arrests emotional development at a deep psychic level. It is suggested that, in the same way as premature separation, the rupture can precipitate a ‘fusional complex’, a defence that develops to protect the infant against psychotic anxieties. The paper proposes that psychological development atrophies in this place and creates a blind spot. These ideas are explored through analytic theory and developmental literature. The dreams of a patient and his art are used to illustrate a 10‐year ‘alchemical’ process of bringing repressed material into consciousness and transformation. Healing the psychological wounds of deficits in early eye contact may be found to bring sight to a blind spot that was created by the nature of the condition itself.