Fathers' and mothers' attachment representations as predictors of preadolescents' attachment security: A ten‐year follow‐up of Finnish families

The question of how mothers' and fathers' representations of attachment correlate ten years later with children's perceptions of attachment relationships was examined in a longitudinal study on Finnish families (N = 42). The parents completed the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) during the child's first year of life. At 11 years, the children filled out three scales on how secure they perceive the relationship with each parent. Parents' AAI classifications and AAI dimensions based on continuous scales were used as predictors of the preadolescents' attachment security. Regression analyses demonstrated that fathers' but not mothers' State‐of‐Mind and Experience dimensions predicted preadolescents' security of attachment to father. The discussion focuses on the predictive validity of the classical categorical versus the recently proposed continuous approach and the different roles of parents in transmitting security from one generation to another.     

Patterns of emotional availability between mothers and young children: Associations with risk factors for borderline personality disorder

Emotional availability (EA) characterizes a warm, close relationship between caregiver and child. We compared patterns (clusters) of EA on risk factors, including those for borderline personality disorder (BPD). We sampled 70 children aged 4 to 7 years from low socio‐economic backgrounds: 51% of whose mothers had BPD. We coded filmed interactions for EA: mothers' sensitivity, structuring, non‐intrusiveness, non‐hostility, and children's responsiveness to, and involvement of, mothers. We additionally coded children's over‐responsiveness and over‐involvement. Using person‐centred analyses, we identified four clusters: high functioning, low functioning, asynchronous (mothers above average on two of four dimensions and children below), and below average. Mothers in the low‐functioning cluster had lower income, less social support, more of the borderline feature of negative relationships, and more depression than did mothers in the high‐functioning cluster. The children in the low‐functioning group had more risk factors for BPD (physical abuse, neglect, and separation from, or loss of caregivers, and negative narrative representations of the mother–child relationship in their stories) than did children in the high‐functioning group. The asynchronous group included older girls who were over‐responsive and over‐involving with their mothers in an apparent role reversal. Interventions targeting emotional availability may provide a buffer for children facing cumulative risks and help prevent psychopathology.

Highlights

• This paper investigated how mother‐child emotional availability (warmth and closeness) relates to risk factors for borderline personality disorder, including mother‐child role reversal.
• In filmed mother‐child interactions, low emotional availability was associated with risk for borderline personality disorder and role reversal was more likely for older girls.
• Findings support the cumulative risk hypothesis and may inform interventions to improve mother‐child emotional availability to prevent the development of psychopathology.

     

中国古代堕胎考略

中国见于史书记载的堕胎行为从汉代就开始了,并且形成三种堕胎技术。唐宋以后,由于人口增长的压力,堕胎在一些地区出现了普遍化倾向,导致堕胎的公开化和职业化。但由于传统重生育、反堕胎观念的存在,堕胎技术一直受到歧视,得不到完善,人们为此付出了长期的血的代价。     

Characteristics of memories for traumatic and nontraumatic birth

Evidence for memory characteristic differences between trauma and other memories in non‐clinical samples is inconsistent. However, trauma is frequently confounded with the event recalled. This study compares trauma and nontrauma memories for the same event, childbirth, in a non‐clinical sample of 285 women 4–6 weeks after birth. None of the women met diagnostic criteria for post‐traumatic stress disorder. Traumatic birth, defined by the DSM‐5 event criterion, was reported by 100 women. The ratings of some memory characteristics did not differ between memories for traumatic and nontraumatic birth: All were rated highly coherent and central to women's lives, with moderate sensory memory. However, women who experienced traumatic births reported more involuntary recall, reliving, and negative/mixed emotions. Thus, trauma memories differed from nontrauma memories. In this non‐clinical sample, this is likely to be due to encoding during trauma rather than the distinctive memory profile for memories retrieved by those experiencing trauma symptoms.     

About the Guest Editors

SUMMARY

With the number of incarcerated women rising in the United States, scholarship and activism has focused more explicitly on the backgrounds, criminal contexts, and programming needs of the imprisoned population. This article focuses on motherhood and relies on qualitative life-history interviews with thirty women in a southwestern detention center. The women's narratives are used to further our understanding of the ways in which motherhood (1) resonates with incarcerated women's self-perceptions, (2) relates to their motivations for crime, and (3) informs therapeutic programming within the carceral¹ environment. In order to address the needs of a critical, yet often ignored, correctional population, we specifically examine the ways in which gender-specific therapeutic approaches may be applied to a jail facility where continuous, in-depth programming may be challenging due to inmate turn-around and unrest.     

Parental Preference for Sex of Newborn as Reflected in Positive Affect in Birth Announcements

Content analysis of birth announcements was used as a method to investigate parental preference for the sex of newborns in Canada. The expression of positive affect (happiness and pride) in birth announcements was examined to determine whether parents express these emotions differently as a function of the sex of newborn. The findings suggest that parents express relatively more pride at the birth of boys than girls, whereas the opposite results were found for happiness. Parents seem unconsciously to categorize boys and girls into two distinct motivational systems: status and attachment, which are related to pride and happiness, respectively. This distinction may influence parents perception of their childs worth and their subsequent investment in their childs development.     

When Respect Means to Obey: Immigrant Mexican Mothers' Values for Their Children

We describe Mexican immigrant mothers' values for their children and their understanding of how children acquire those values. Fifteen mothers were given a Q-Sort task of parental values and interviewed at length using a semi-structured format. Analysis of the mothers' transcribed narratives revealed salient features of a cultural model of child development that constrasts sharply with current professional models. The emergent portrait of children was one of inactive learners whose ability to understand dictated social behavior, developed very slowly over the years, and was dependent on parental direction and instruction.