‘I still have difficulties feeling like a mother’: The transition to motherhood of preterm infants mothers

Objective: The premature birth of their infant can constitute a sudden interruption of the transition to motherhood that requires a reorganisation of the process. The present study aimed to analyse the experience of the transition to motherhood of preterm infants’ mothers, framing it within Stern’s transition to motherhood theory.

Method: A semi-structured interview was administered to 30 mothers during the recovery of the infant in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The interview explored the experience of mothers related to pregnancy, the infant’s birth and recovery.

Results: Thematic Analyses evidenced four interrelated themes: disconnection from the child, perception of maternal inadequacy, loss of parental role and temporal suspension. The themes showed that the mothers’ experience of preterm birth not only concerns the traumatic delivery, but is also embedded in the entire process of becoming a mother within an institutional context.

Conclusions: Results were connected to Stern’s theory. Findings revealed difficulties for preterm mothers that could affect the development of the maternal constellation and thus their transition to motherhood. These difficulties may influence the construction of maternal identity, mother’s representation of their child and the bond with their child.     

Evaluation of a Spanish version of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire: Some personal and situational factors related to the aggression scores of young subjects

The psychometric properties of a Spanish translation of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire adapted for pre-adolescents and adolescents have been studied. A maximum-likelihood confirmatory factor analysis corroborates Buss and Perry’s four-factor structure. The internal consistency of each factor and of the total score has proved to be satisfactory. The four factors are more closely interrelated in pre-adolescents than in adolescents.A second aim of this work has been to further our understanding of the possible relationship between aggression scores and certain outside-school activities of the subjects studied. Two thousand two hundred and eight students filled in the questionnaire together with a self-report concerning their habits. The results show that the aggression scores rise concomitantly with time spent watching television and playing video games and decrease the greater the time devoted to extra-curricular reading or moderate amounts of homework. Statistically significant differences relating to age and gender were also found.     

A cross-syndrome study of the development of holistic face recognition in children with autism, Down syndrome, and Williams syndrome

We report a cross-syndrome comparison of the development of holistic processing in face recognition in school-aged children with developmental disorders: autism, Down syndrome, and Williams syndrome. The autism group was split into two groups: one with high-functioning children and one with low-functioning children. The latter group has rarely been studied in this context. The four disorder groups were compared with typically developing children. Cross-sectional trajectory analyses were used to compare development in a modified version of Tanaka and Farah’s part–whole task. Trajectories were constructed linking part–whole performance either to chronological age or to several measures of mental age (receptive vocabulary, visuospatial construction, and the Benton Facial Recognition Test). In addition to variable delays in onset and rate of development, we found an atypical profile in all disorder groups. These profiles were atypical in different ways, indicating multiple pathways to, and variable outcomes in, the development of face recognition. We discuss the implications for theories of face recognition in both atypical and typical development, including the idea that part–whole and rotation manipulations may tap different aspects of holistic and/or configural processing.     

Does quality of sleep mediate the effect of depression on hopelessness?

The objectives of the study were to evaluate the relationship between sleep quality, depression, and hopelessness in advanced cancer patients and whether sleep quality mediated the effect of depression on hopelessness. The final sample consisted of 102 advanced cancer patients under palliative treatment. Patients completed the Greek Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, a sleep quality instrument, the Greek Beck Depression Inventory for measuring depression, and finally the Beck Hopelessness Scale. Patients' performance status was assessed by their overall physical functioning, as defined by the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group. Depression was highly associated with hopelessness (r = .52, p<.001). Statistically significant associations were found between sleep quality with hopelessness (r = .37, p<.001), as well as with depression (r = .36, p<.001). Mediation analyses indicated that depression influenced hopelessness directly as well as indirectly by its effect on sleep quality. About 14.58% of the variation in hopelessness was explained by depression; 4% of the variance in hopelessness explained by depression was accounted for by the mediation pathway indicating that sleep quality mediated the relationship between depression and hopelessness. Similarly, in the reverse mediation analysis, depression mediated the relationship between sleep quality and hopelessness; 43% of the variation in hopelessness was explained by sleep quality. In conclusion, some of the effect of depression on hopelessness was mediated by sleep quality, but depression had a direct effect on hopelessness as well. Additionally, some of the effect of sleep quality on hopelessness was mediated by depression. The current findings are important because improving sleep quality by treating depression may contribute to decreased hopelessness scores and vice versa: Treating depression by improving sleep quality may also contribute to lower hopelessness scores.     

Empirical test of bullies' status goals: assessing direct goals, aggression, and prestige

The literature suggests that status goals are one of the driving motivations behind bullying behavior, yet this conjecture has rarely if ever been examined empirically. This study assessed status goals in three ways, using dyadic network analysis to analyze the relations and goals among 10-11 and 14-15 year olds in 22 school classes (N boys=225; N girls=277). As a validation bullies were contrasted with victims. Bullies had direct status goals (measured with the Interpersonal Goal Inventory for Children) and showed dominance as measured with proactive aggression. Moreover, as predicted from a goal perspective, bullying behavior was related to prestige in terms of perceived popularity. In contrast, victims lacked status goals, were only reactively aggressive, and low on prestige. That being popular is not the same as being liked could be shown by the fact that bullies were just as rejected as victims by their classmates. Eighth-grade bullies had more direct status goals than fourth-grade bullies, possibly indicating that striving for the popularity component of status increases in early adolescence.     

青少年的心理弹性及自我概念：一年跟踪的交叉滞后分析

为考察青少年心理弹性的发展与内在作用机制,促进学生的心理健康发展。研究选取369名青少年（高中生260名,大学生109名）,分别在学生入学一月及一年后两次跟踪测查青少年的心理弹性以及包括青少年对自我言语能力、数学能力、学校一般情况、体能、外貌、与异性关系、与同性关系、与父母关系、诚实可信赖度、情绪稳定性和一般自我概念等因子的自我评价概念状况。结果表明,青少年的心理弹性总体状况一年后显著增强（F(1, 366) = 16.35, p < .01, ηp2 = .04）。心理弹性与自我概念各因子交叉滞后分析表明,自我概念总分及青少年对自身外貌、体能、与同性关系、与异性关系的评价等四个因子能够分别预测一年后的心理弹性。研究为促进青少年心理弹性及积极心理健康提供了理论参考。     

A Bayesian analysis of finite mixtures in the LISREL model

In this paper, we propose a Bayesian framework for estimating finite mixtures of the LISREL model. The basic idea in our analysis is to augment the observed data of the manifest variables with the latent variables and the allocation variables. The Gibbs sampler is implemented to obtain the Bayesian solution. Other associated statistical inferences, such as the direct estimation of the latent variables, establishment of a goodness-of-fit assessment for a posited model, Bayesian classification, residual and outlier analyses, are discussed. The methodology is illustrated with a simulation study and a real example.This research was supported by a Hong Kong UGC Earmarked grant CUHK 4026/97H. The authors are indebted to the Editor, the Associate Editor, and three anonymous reviewers for constructive comments in improving the paper, and also to ICPSR and the relevant funding agency for allowing the use of the data. The assistance of Michael K.H. Leung and Esther L.S. Tam is gratefully acknowledged.     

STIMULUS CHARACTERISTICS WITHIN DIRECTIVES: EFFECTS ON ACCURACY OF TASK COMPLETION

Three experiments were conducted in an outpatient setting with young children who had been referred for treatment of noncompliant behavior and who had coexisting receptive language or receptive vocabulary difficulties. Experiment 1 studied differential responding of the participants to a brief hierarchical directive analysis (least‐to‐most complex stimulus prompts) to identify directives that functioned as discriminative stimuli for accurate responding. Experiment 1 identified distinct patterns of accurate responding relative to manipulation of directive stimulus characteristics. Experiment 2 demonstrated that directives identified as effective or ineffective in obtaining stimulus control of accurate responding during Experiment 1 continued to control accurate responding across play activities and academic tasks. Experiment 3 probed effects of the interaction between the type of directive (effective vs. ineffective) and the reinforcement contingency (differential reinforcement for attempts vs. differential reinforcement for accurate responses) on accurate task completion and disruptive behavior. Results suggested that behavioral escalation from inaccurate responding to disruptive behavior occurred only when ineffective directives were combined with differential reinforcement for accurate task completion. The overall results are discussed in terms of developing a methodology for identifying stimulus characteristics of directives that affect accurate responding.     

Quantifying Idiodynamics: A Process Approach to Personality Psychology

Rosenzweig's (1950) concept of idiodynamics is presented, and the importance of time in applied idiodynamics is stressed. Time-series analyses are proposed as one method for realizing the potential of idiodynamics for understanding and modeling individual lives. Building on this, and incorporating Cattell's (1966) notion of the data box, a process approach to personality research is proposed. This approach begins with idiodynamic analyses at the level of individual lives in an effort to identify patterns or themes, then proceeds to examine individual differences in the patterns or themes so identified. Examples of applying this process approach to personality questions are provided. These include identification of cycles in daily moods, assessing the link between each individual's moods and the events in his/her daily life, and the relation between repressive coping style and the experience of and memory for affect-charged life events. Conclusions emphasize how this approach can retain the appeal of the dynamic while maintaining the precision and rule-governed discourse afforded by quantification.     

青少年道德情绪判断与归因特点研究

运用情境故事考察246名青少年在犯过情境中的道德情绪判断与归因特点,以年龄、犯过类别、行为者意图结果的匹配关系为因素进行对数线性分析。结果表明：犯过类别、行为者意图结果的匹配关系对青少年道德情绪判断与归因存在重要影响,青少年道德情绪判断与归因上的年龄差异主要存在于12岁组和14岁以上组之间,12岁组的情绪判断较为单一,归因上以道德定向为主,而14岁以上组出现了更多复杂情绪判断及移情定向归因。