Home Environment and Self‐Efficacy Beliefs among Native American,African American,and Latino Adolescents

Context helps determine what individuals experience in the settings they inhabit. Context also helps determine the likelihood that those experiences will promote adaptive development. Theory suggests likely interplay between various aspects of home context and development of ideas about self that influence patterns of development for children. This study addressed relations between two aspects of home life (companionship and investment, modeling and encouragement) and three types of self‐efficacy beliefs (enlisting social resources, independent learning, self‐regulatory behavior) considered important for long‐term adaptive functioning. The study focused on three groups of minority adolescents (Native American, African American, Latino). Relations were examined using regression models that also included four aspects of household risk that often hinder the development of self‐efficacy. Although findings varied somewhat across the three groups, significant relations emerged between the two domains of home life examined and self‐efficacy beliefs in all three groups, even controlling for overall household risk. Companionship and investment appeared particularly relevant for African American adolescents, while modeling and encouragement appeared particularly relevant for Native American adolescents. Both were relevant for Latino adolescents.     

The analyst as a citizen in the world

Beginning with a ‘big dream’ from almost fifty years ago, this paper tracks movement back and forth from an inner/individual adaptation to life to outer/collective adaptations through various stages of a life's journey. The rhythm between more inner orientation at one stage gives way to more outer adaptation at another stage and vice versa. This same movement can be paralleled by an exclusive emphasis on analysis at one stage and more of a mixture of analysis and activism at another stage. At the heart of this narrative is the realization that an inner big dream of decades before, symbolised both an inner path of developing a relationship with life‐promoting energies and an outer path represented by facilitating others’ discovery and participation in those energies. The dream therefore anticipated a more activist future of connecting inner and outer, individual and collective in various professional projects. This has resulted in occasional glimpses of the fact that the ‘spirit of the depths’ and ‘the spirit of the times’ can have a common meeting ground.     

Trauma,resilience and healthy and unhealthy forms of dissociation

This paper outlines the difference between healthy and unhealthy forms of dissociation following, and in response to, traumatic experience, in particular the experience of refugees, calling on 30 years’ experience in working with refugees in voluntary and public sectors, including 20 years at the Refugee Therapy Centre, London. It differentiates dissociation from repression, and looks at some of the specific traumatic experiences associated with refugees’ displacement and situation, particularly relating to loss. Four key characteristics of resilience are described: ‘psychic space’, ‘sense of self’, and the use of a ‘listening other’ and ‘healthy dissociation/resiliency’. Two vignettes are given to illustrate the difference between healthy and unhealthy dissociation.     

A Research Program Testing the Effectiveness of a Preventive Intervention for Couples with a Newborn

Noxious family environments are associated with a wide range of adverse child outcomes. In order to prevent couple and parent–child relationship problems, a number of programs have been developed for couples with newborns. The current paper describes a program of research evaluating the American version of couple CARE for parents of newborns. This version of CCP was administered to low‐income, unmarried couples with a new baby in an uncontrolled demonstration project (Study 1), compared with a waitlist control condition in a randomized controlled trial (Study 2), and evaluated with low‐income parents recruited from urban hospitals in two major metropolitan areas of the United States (Study 3 and Study 4). Despite participant satisfaction with CCP, preventive effects of the program were limited and there was one potential iatrogenic effect. Results were likely impacted by major challenges with recruiting participants and maintaining their engagement in CCP for the duration of the program. We discuss methodological differences between this series of studies and previous trials of prevention programs and make recommendations for improving service delivery to at‐risk new parents. These results have implications for public policies that aim to benefit children and families.     

Le TASC200, une épreuve d’attention et de saillance visuelle : fidélité, validité et normes préliminaires

In the clinical setting, attention is classically assessed by tasks that do not take into account theoretically important aspects, such as the salience-based guidance of visual search. The aim of this study was to develop a paced paper-and-pencil task for clinical use based on strong theoretical accounts that would assess salience-based visual search and that would meet the psychometric requirements for the assessment of attention. Participants were required to search and cancel targets of varying visual saliences as quickly and as accurately as possible during a predefined short period of time. The targets were intermixed with distractors. In agreement with theories of salience-based visual search, the results showed that the most salient targets were detected more easily than less salient targets. The task exhibited a quite acceptable test-retest reliability, and two construct validity studies showed that different scores involve different processes. This new task fully complies with the major theories of salience-based guidance of attention during visual search. It also meets the requirements of a plausible clinical task since its psychometric qualities are quite good. Preliminary normative data (n = 863) are presented for clinical use.     

Représentations des pratiques éducatives parentales et estime de soi chez des enfants placés en fratrie versus séparément

Despite abuse, children placed in childcare homes have parental representations which are marked by ambivalence. This ambivalence is characterized by the coexistence of negative and positive representation towards their biological parents. However, the fact that positive representations towards neglecting parents persist can possibly harm self-esteem. Placement aims not only to protect the child, but also to offer him the possibility of reconstructing his self-image with more secure attachment figures. When a placement is decided, the children are entrusted to Child Welfare and are placed either with their siblings or separately. This study aims to examine the parental representations and the self-esteem of 33 children that are placed with siblings and 25 children that are placed alone; all children were between the ages of 10 and 18. Then, the relation between parental representations and self-esteem was examined in each group. Those two dimensions have been respectively measured with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale and the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI). The results show that participants placed with their siblings were less depressed and had a better self-esteem than participants placed separately. Moreover, although the two groups had neglecting parents, the participants placed with their siblings had significantly better parental care representations. This study also put into light that the links between parental representations and self-esteem are significantly different whether the participant is placed with his siblings or not. Among children placed with siblings, the more positive the images of the father and the mother, the lower the self-esteem level. These results confirm the hypothesis according to which a positive parental care representation could reinforce the negative image those children have of themselves. The results also question the effects (positive or negative) of the defensive exclusion process on the evolution of self-representations among placed children. Finally, from a therapeutic point of view, they stress the importance of working on self-esteem with placed children.     

Dynamique des processus de développement de carrière en contexte contre-stéréotypique : modélisation de la réussite des femmes militaires aux formations professionnelles

Careers in the French Navy are determined by successive certifications allowed military to have more and more managerial responsibilities. Women are unequally represented in the hierarchy. Military identity is deeply associated with male characteristics (Sorin, 2003). Women encounter difficulties to be perceived as military in their own right (Héritier, 2011), but also to articulate their identity as women with their professional identity, de facto in opposition (Toulgoat, 2002). On the one hand women's family life is seen as incompatible with service life (Caraire & Léger, 2000), on the other hand, within the crews of warships, their skills are underestimated (Matthews, Ender, Laurence, & Rohall, 2009). The objective of this study is to model the effects of professional identifications and self-assessment of competences on the success of military women in professional certifications. We interviewed 154 students in training to become “experienced operators” (including 73 women) with an average of 3.32 years of duty (SD = 2.11) and 61 students in training to become “team leader” (including 20 women) with an average of 9.28 years of duty (SD = 3.30). The questionnaire measures self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977), performance expectations compared to their colleagues (Rosenthal, Crisp, & Suen, 2007), identification to the professional group (Laplante & Tougas, 2011) and identification to the organization (Tougas, Rinfret, Beaton, & de la Sablonniere, 2005). The final score at the end of the training is considered as an indicator of success. While women are as successful as men in the certification “operator”, they are less successful in the certification “team leader”. The structural equation model (path analysis) (χ²(15, n = 215) = 21.32, p = .13; CFI = .982, GFI = .976, RMSEA = .044) emphasizes the centrality of professional identifications to succeed in training. Women are less identified with sailor than men and feel less able to succeed, they develop lower performance expectations and they underestimate their performance compared to their colleagues, which has a negative effect on their success in training. In parallel, changes in family life are associated with reduced professional identifications, but this effect is independent of the sex of the individuals. Women are therefore exposed to two independent sources of influence limiting their career development: gender, which leads to less professional identifications and to compare unfavorably with their colleagues, and family status. These results highlight the importance of the dynamic of self-realization processes throughout the career.     

Validation française du Caregiving Strain Questionnaire sur une population de parents d’enfants avec troubles du spectre de l’autisme

The Caregiving Strain Questionnaire (CGSQ-21) allows the assessment of the burden of family caregivers. The objective of this study is to present a validation of a French translation of this questionnaire (FCGSQ-21) to parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A literature review from 2002 to 2012 highlighted that five scales measured caregivers’ burden regarding children and only one English scale examined parents of children with ASD's burden. The CGSQ-21 was chosen for this study and has been validated with 167 French parents who completed an online survey. Those parents filled out a total of six questionnaires measuring optimism, perceived social support, care satisfaction, anxiety, depression and perceived burden. The factorial and convergent validities as well as the internal consistency of the FCGSQ-21 have been tested with an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). A three factors model was found to best fit the structure of this scale, those include the objective burden as well as the internalized and externalized subjective burdens. The convergent validity brings to light significant correlations between many scales of the protocol. In the present study, the FCGSQ-21's homogeneity is excellent with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.90. The FCGSQ-21 is a valid and useful tool to measure the burden perceived by parents of children with ASD. This study's objective was to confirm the tool's validity in order to improve clinical practice with children and their parents. This scale evaluates parents’ levels of burden perceived for the purpose of adapting interventions given to the children while taking into account parental well-being's specificities highlighted by the FCGSQ-21.     

The Greek Roots of the Ad Hominem-Argument

In this paper, I discuss the current thesis on the modern origin of the ad hominem-argument, by analysing the Aristotelian conception of it. In view of the recent accounts which consider it a relative argument, i.e., acceptable only by the particular respondent, I maintain that there are two Aristotelian versions of the ad hominem, that have identifiable characteristics, and both correspond to the standard variants distinguished in the contemporary treatments of the famous informal fallacy: the abusive and the circumstancial or tu quoque types. I propose to reconstruct the two Aristotelian versions (see sections 1 and 2), which have been recognized again in the ninteenth century (sec. 3). Finally, I examine whether or not it was considered as a fallacious dialogue device by Aristotle and by A. Schopenhauer (sec. 4).