The caregiving relationship under stress: foster carers’ experience of loss of the sense of self

This paper is an account of a piece of research which involved interviewing six foster carers who had ended a placement with a child under the age of five with an early experience of abuse and neglect. The paper describes one of the themes that emerged from the data analysis, the loss of the sense of self in the foster carers, and argues that the experience of attempting to provide care for these children led to internal shifts in the carers that reverberated throughout the network around the child. The paper suggests that knowing about the external reasons for placement breakdown is not enough without taking into account the impact on the internal world of the foster carers and the emotional impact of attempting to provide care for a child who has experienced abuse and neglect.     

When criticism is ineffective: The case of historical trauma and unsupportive allies

Three studies examined the effect of historical trauma reminders and criticism from international allies on attitudes toward current conflicts. In Study 1, Israeli participants (N = 116) were primed with the Holocaust, and read either that the U.S. President Obama supports Israel's right to defend itself and attack Iran, or that he opposes such action. Then, support for preemptive violence was assessed. Study 2 (N = 133) replicated this design, comparing inclusive and exclusive framings of the Holocaust. Study 3 (N = 478), examined the effect of Holocaust reminders and criticism from the European Union on attitudes toward militant policies against Palestinians. All three studies found that Holocaust primes juxtaposed with international criticism increased support for aggression, especially under exclusive framings of the Holocaust. Study 3, however, found this effect only among left‐wing participants. These findings indicate that when historical trauma is salient, international criticism may be ineffective and may even backfire.     

Modeling the complexity of dynamic,momentary interpersonal behavior: Applying the time-varying effect model to test predictions from interpersonal theory

This paper demonstrates a recently-popularized quantitative method, the time-varying effect model (TVEM), in describing dynamic, momentary interpersonal processes implicated by Interpersonal Theory. We investigated moment-to-moment complementarity in affiliation and control behaviors (i.e., correspondence in affiliation and reciprocity in control between married dyad members) in a five-minute interaction (N = 135), and how complementarity changed over time. Overall, results supported complementarity in affiliation and control. Moreover, effects were time-varying: Complementarity in affiliation increased over time and complementary in control changed over time in a cyclical manner. Dyadic adjustment moderated the strength in complementarity in control during specific timeframes. We discuss implications of these results and future directions. The findings support the utility of TVEM for studying dynamic and time-dependent interpersonal processes.     

Traces of the past: an interview study with Finnish war children who did not return to Finland after the Second World War

This paper is an in-depth qualitative study based on interviews with 10 Finnish children who were evacuated to Sweden during Second World War and who did not return to Finland after the war. The interviewees were asked to tell about their lives. Nine of them were between 2 and 5 years and one was 7 years old at the time of evacuation. The aim was to study how their childhood experiences were reflected in adult memories, how they remembered or did not remember. This paper focuses on the consequences of not knowing about one’s early life and also on whether it is possible to observe signs of the Finnish mother. She did not appear explicitly but could be sensed in the tendency of the interviewees to express negations, displacement and active denial. The interviewers’ countertransference gave a sense of the unspoken but present, as feelings of shame and diffuse anger. The difficulty for the interviewees to think about or reflect over the loss of mother and the experience of evacuation led to a reduced ability to create meaning – in the sense of knowing oneself. We also looked for a comprehensive picture of the war children’s experience.     

Drives and objects - notes on the change of drive theory

Freud’s drive theory has been questioned since the 1940s when Fairbairn created a metaphor of the mind that is not based on the tripartite model and drive theory. His work inspired others to elaborate on the significance of internal object relationships. According to the object relation theory, internal object relations are dynamic structures capable of generating meanings and action. Consequently, two distinct metapsychologies were created.The aim of this article is to show how the interaction of theories has initiated revisions of classic drive theory. Freud’s concept of drive and three synthesizing viewpoints between the two perspectives are discussed. Otto Kernberg addresses affects as a primary motivational system; the mother–infant relationship organizes affects to drives. Joseph Sandler adheres to classic drive theory but proposes that the ego’s attempt to protect the mind against psychic pain is as important as drive derivatives in motivating the mind. Laplanche proposes that the unconscious of the care-giving adult is the crucial factor for the constitution of an infant’s unconscious and drives. For Freud and Klein, drive is inherent. Contemporary writers, like Loewald and Laplanche, conceive drive as a function of the mind that is born out of the same matrix of interaction with the other elements of the mind.     

Big Five traits and relationship satisfaction: The mediating role of self-esteem

This study examined the mediating role of self-esteem in the association between Big Five traits and relationship satisfaction. Using data of 237 heterosexual couples and the Actor-Partner Interdependence Mediation Model (APIMeM), self-esteem mediated the association between Big Five traits and relationship satisfaction. We also tested the directionality of the association using longitudinal data of 141 couples. Results indicate that only agreeableness (and neuroticism marginally) predicts relationship satisfaction two years later, but relationship satisfaction predicted partner’s extraversion. Further, significant indirect effects emerged between relationship satisfaction, self-esteem, and later neuroticism. These results underline the importance of studying Big Five traits and self-esteem conjointly when studying relationship satisfaction. Furthermore, testing for alternative longitudinal associations elucidates the role of romantic relationships in personality development.     

Within-person and between-people variability in personality dynamics: Knowledge structures,self-efficacy,pleasure appraisals,and the Big Five

We investigated within-person co-variations from the perspective of knowledge-and-appraisal theories of personality. Knowledge structures were idiographically assessed as personal beliefs on the relevance of personality characteristics in facilitating successful actions in interpersonal situations. Three main findings emerged. First, beliefs of situational relevance of self-defining strengths and weaknesses show additive effects in accounting for intra-individual variability in contextualized self-efficacy appraisals. Secondly, between-person variability in Extraversion moderates within-person co-variation between self-efficacy and knowledge structures. Thirdly, self-efficacy mediates the impact of knowledge structures on perceived likelihood of performing the interpersonal behaviors in the future, after controlling for rated frequency of the same behaviors in the past. Overall, the present findings suggest that within-person and between-person approaches are complementary and need to be integrated.     

Short and extra-short forms of the Big Five Inventory–2: The BFI-2-S and BFI-2-XS

The Big Five Inventory–2 (BFI-2) uses 60 items to hierarchically assess the Big Five personality domains and 15 more-specific facet traits. The present research develops two abbreviated forms of the BFI-2—the 30-item BFI-2-S and the 15-item BFI-2-XS—and then examines their measurement properties. At the level of the Big Five domains, we find that the BFI-2-S and BFI-2-XS retain much of the full measure’s reliability and validity. At the facet level, we find that the BFI-2-S may be useful for examining facet traits in reasonably large samples, whereas the BFI-2-XS should not be used to assess facets. Finally, we discuss some key tradeoffs to consider when deciding whether to administer an abbreviated form instead of the full BFI-2.