Self-reported reflective functioning and father–child interactions in a sample of fathers who have used intimate partner violence

Reflective functioning (RF) has been found to be associated with mother–child interactions, but less is known about the association of fathers’ self and child-focused RF and father–child relationships.  Fathers who have histories of intimate partner violence (IPV) are known to have poor RF, which may impact their father–child interactions.  The current study was designed to examine how types of RF are associated with father–child relationships.  Pretreatment assessments and recorded, coded father–child play interactions were used to examine associations among fathers’ history of adverse childhood experiences (ACES), RF and coded father-child play interactions in a sample of 47 fathers with a history of IPV use in the last 6 months with their coparent.  Fathers’ ACES and their child's mental states (CM) were associated with father-child dyadic play interactions.  Fathers with greater ACES and higher scores on CM had the most dyadic tension and constriction during play interactions.  Those with high ACES but low CM had scores similar to those with low ACES and low CM.  These results indicate that fathers who have used IPV and have a history of significant adversity may benefit from interventions to increase their child-focused RF and further improve their interactions with their children.     

The perceptions of social context (PoSC): Introducing the PoSC scale

IntroductionThe Perception of Social Context refers to the perceptions that workers have of (1) the immediate supervisor, (2) the colleagues, and (3) top management of their organization.ObjectiveThe purpose of the present paper is to introduce the Perceptions of Social Context (PoSC) scale, an instrument for assessing workers’ perception of their social context.MethodWe used three studies (N total = 960) to test the internal, external, convergent, and predictive validity of the PoSC, as well as its reliability.ResultsIn Study 1, the hypothesized three-factor structure was empirically tested and supported by means of exploratory structural equation modeling. Study 2 provided further support for the factorial structure of the scale and evidence for its convergent and external validity in relation to important organizational variables. Study 3 provided evidence for the predictive validity with respect to job satisfaction and performance.ConclusionEstablished validity allows the PoSC scale to be used to specifically detect behaviors enacted by key social constituents and thus to plan specific and therefore more effective interventions.     

Looking is not enough: Multimodal attention supports the real-time learning of new words

Most research on early language learning focuses on the objects that infants see and the words they hear in their daily lives, although growing evidence suggests that motor development is also closely tied to language development. To study the real-time behaviors required for learning new words during free-flowing toy play, we measured infants’ visual attention and manual actions on to-be-learned toys. Parents and 12-to-26-month-old infants wore wireless head-mounted eye trackers, allowing them to move freely around a home-like lab environment. After the play session, infants were tested on their knowledge of object-label mappings. We found that how often parents named objects during play did not predict learning, but instead, it was infants’ attention during and around a labeling utterance that predicted whether an object-label mapping was learned. More specifically, we found that infant visual attention alone did not predict word learning. Instead, coordinated, multimodal attention–when infants’ hands and eyes were attending to the same object–predicted word learning. Our results implicate a causal pathway through which infants’ bodily actions play a critical role in early word learning.     

Interpersonal coordination tendencies and perception of visual information for decision-making in futsal

This study investigated how futsal players visually perceived information on angular interpersonal coordination relations, between available sources such as nearest defender, goalkeeper position and ball, when deciding to shoot at goal. Experienced players (n = 180) participated in eighteen, video-recorded futsal matches, during which 32 participants wore an eye tracking device. Forty-five sequences of play were selected and edited from the moment a teammate passed the ball to the shooter, until the moment a shot was undertaken. Independent variables included the angle connecting the shooter to their closest defender and goalkeeper, and it’s rate of change (velocity and variability) during performance. Then eye tracking system (TOBII PRO) was used to examine gaze patterns of shooters during task performance. Findings revealed that: (i) futsal players adapted their gaze patterns differently between key information sources when shooting confirmed as: their closest defender, goalkeeper, ball, and court floor; and (ii), the ball was the information source which was most fixated on, regardless of the characteristics of interpersonal coordination tendencies that emerged when shooting. These findings can be interpreted as evidence of functional perceptual behaviours used to regulate actions needed to ensure precise contact with the ball when shooting at goal. Further, adaptations of fixation patterns, varied between marking defender, goalkeeper, and ball, may provide functional postural orientation to facilitate a successful shot at goal.     

A longitudinal study of “we-talk” as a predictor of marital satisfaction

We-talk, the use of first-person plural pronouns over the use of singular pronouns when describing relationship events, is regarded as a linguistic indicator of marital relationship functioning. A meta-analysis revealed that we-talk is positively associated with relationship satisfaction. However, this literature is based mostly on cross-sectional studies. This study tested the hypothesis that we-talk would be associated with greater marital satisfaction over time. The sample comprised 77 couples enrolled in a longitudinal study of parents of preschool-aged children. We-talk was assessed at baseline during a marital discussion task about parenting challenges. Couples completed a measure of marital satisfaction at baseline, 6- and 12-month follow-ups. An actor–partner interdependence model examined the effects of spouses' we-talk on their own marital satisfaction (actor effects), and their partners' marital satisfaction (partner effects). Results indicated a positive partner effect of we-talk at baseline, but not over time. Moreover, there was an actor effect of we-talk on changes in marital satisfaction over time, whereby low actor we-talk was associated with a reduction in marital satisfaction, but high actor we-talk was not associated with such a decrease. These findings suggest that greater cognitive interdependence, as indicated by we-talk, may protect from declines in marital satisfaction over time.     

Life satisfaction trajectories among junior high school students in China: The role of parent–child communication

A 3-year follow-up test (from grades 7 to 9) was administered to 807 junior high school students from two regions in Hunan Province, China, using multilevel analysis to examine trends in junior high school students' life satisfaction, differences by gender and location of life and the effects of father–child/mother–child communication on the development of life satisfaction. The results showed that (1) Chinese junior high school students' life satisfaction showed a decreasing trend from the seventh grade to the ninth grade, and there was a significant decreasing process in the eighth grade; (2) father–child communication and mother–child communication had a significant positive predictive effect on Chinese junior high school students' life satisfaction and (3) father–child communication and mother–child communication had a significant negative predictive effect on the decreasing trend of life satisfaction, in which the effect of mother–child communication was particularly significant.     

Maternal depression and the timing of mother–child dialogue

Turn-taking in dialogue is an essential part of communication and early language experience. The prevalence of utterances and the timing of responses in dialogue were examined at 14 and 36 months of age in 104 mother–child dyads from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (EHSREP). Mothers varied in their level of depression risk (measured with the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale; CES-D). Although maternal utterance rate did not vary significantly across any factors, the latency of mothers' responses to their children decreased with development (12 ms/month) and was significantly related to that of their own children (i.e., slow-responding children had slow-responding mothers). Mothers with higher levels of depressive symptoms were 11% slower in responding to their children than mothers with low depression risk, suggesting that the interactive timing of speech to children may be particularly sensitive to maternal depression, modifying the contingent properties of children's early language experience.     

Is the heart preadapted to hypoxia? Evidence from fractal dynamics of heartbeat interval fluctuations at high altitude (5,050 m)

The dynamics of heartbeat interval time series over large time scales were studied by a modifed random walk analysis introduced recently asDetrended Fluctuation Analysis. In this analysis, the intrinsic fractal long-range power-law correlation properties of beat-to-beat fluctuations generated by the dynamical system (i.e., cardiac rhythm generator), after decomposition from extrinsic uncorrelated sources, can be quantified by the scaling exponent (α) which, in healthy subjects, for time scales of ∼10⁴ beats is ∼1.0. The effects of chronic hypoxia were determined from serial heartbeat interval time series of digitized twenty-four-hour ambulatory ECGs recorded in nine healthy subjects (mean age thirty-four years old) at sea level and during a sojourn at 5,050 m for thirty-four days (Ev-K2-CNR Pyramid Laboratory, Sagarmatha National Park, Nepal). The group averaged α exponent (±SD) was 0.99±0.04 (range 0.93–1.04). Longitudinal assessment of α in individual subjects did not reveal any effect of exposure to chronic high altitude hypoxia. The finding of α∼1 indicating scale-invariant long-range power-law correlations (1/f noise) of heartbeat fluctuations would reflect a genuinely self-similar fractal process that typically generates fluctuations on a wide range of time scales. Lack of a characteristic time scale along with the absence of any effect from exposure to chronic hypoxia on scaling properties suggests that the neuroautonomic cardiac control system is preadapted to hypoxia which helps prevent excessive mode-locking (error tolerance) that would restrict its functional responsiveness (plasticity) to hypoxic or other physiological stimuli. Editorial Note: A philosopher is, by definition, a lover of wisdom. In the following article, Dr. Dimitrov, as a philosopher, examines the principles that underlie being and thinking as performed by the structures of the brain. He reports his thoughts in a “virtual context.” Virtual, a word enjoying great popularity today, is derived from the Latin word for man; it describes manliness and implies apparent, but not actual, power. In his analysis of how information is dealt with by the human being, the author uses theoretical physics and mathematics that may seem arcane to some readers. A major aspect of his thesis declares that the effective performance of information systems relies not on the structures involved, but on the way they interact.     

组织情境下的不道德行为现象:来自道德推脱理论的解释

为什么企业中的不道德行为会屡屡发生?这是一直以来困扰组织管理实践者和学者们的难题,不道德行为的发生与发展机制已经成为心理学研究的一个重要领域。其中,心理学视角下的道德推脱理论为这一难题提供了解释思路。在企业的现实情况中,可以从员工个体和组织领导两方面维度研究各自对应的组织情境因素通过道德推脱机制对不道德行为产生的影响。未来研究的关键在于探讨和实证检验组织情境下道德推脱机制的选择偏好对不道德行为的影响作用,不断丰富和加强道德推脱对员工个体以及领导不道德行为影响机理的研究。     

Biases and regularities of grapheme–colour associations in Japanese nonsynaesthetic population

Associations between graphemes and colours in a nonsynaesthetic Japanese population were investigated. Participants chose the most suitable colour from 11 basic colour terms for each of 40 graphemes from the four categories of graphemes used in the Japanese language (kana characters, English alphabet letters, and Arabic and kanji numerals). This test was repeated after a three-week interval. In their responses, which were not as temporally consistent as those of grapheme–colour synaesthetes, participants showed biases and regularities that were comparable to those of synaesthetes reported in past studies. Although it has been believed that only synaesthetes, and not nonsynaesthetes, tended to associate graphemes with colours based on grapheme frequency, Berlin and Kay's colour typology, and colour word frequency, participants in this study tended in part to associate graphemes with colours based on the above factors. Moreover, participants that were nonsynaesthetes tended to associate different graphemes that shared sounds and/or meanings (e.g., Arabic and kanji numerals representing the same number) with the same colours, which was analogous to the findings in Japanese synaesthetes. These results support the view that grapheme–colour synaesthesia might have its origins in cross-modal association processes that are shared with the general population.