The Process Linking Child-Invested Contingent Self-Esteem and Conditional Regard: The Roles of Maternal Anger and its Regulation

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Parents whose self-esteem is contingent on their children’s achievements tend to exert more control over their children by displaying decreased affection...     

Gaps Between Immigrant Spouses in Host Country Language Proficiency: Longitudinal Effects on Marital Satisfaction

Research on immigration underscores the importance of language acculturation in successful adjustment to life in a new country. However, the profound impact of different levels of language proficiency between immigrant spouses on their married life is an understudied topic. The current study explores whether differences between immigrant spouses in host language proficiency predict marital satisfaction in their first four years in the host country. Using a three-wave longitudinal study, with intervals of one to two years, we collected data from 316 married couples who immigrated from the Former Soviet Union to Germany and Israel. Language proficiency and marital satisfaction were measured via self-report questionnaires. We conducted an Actor-Partner Interdependence Model analysis to control for dyadic and time data dependencies. The results indicate that differences between spouses in their host language proficiency predict marital dissatisfaction, and that this effect is exacerbated over time. These associations held across gender and host country. The findings are discussed in light of the gap-distress model.     

The Role of Fathers’ Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Dyadic Adjustment in the Intergeneration Transmission of Captivity Trauma

This study aimed to assess the longitudinal associations between the 1973 Israeli-Arab War ex-prisoners of war’s (ex-POWs) posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms (PTSS) and dyadic adjustment (DAS) and their adult offspring’s secondary PTSS and DAS. A sample of 124 Israeli father–child dyads has been examined (fathers at 2003 and 2008; offspring at 2013–2014). Results show that fathers’ PTSS and DAS mediated the link between war captivity and offspring’s secondary PTSS and DAS, respectively. The intergenerational transmission of captivity trauma is indirectly explained by the long-term effects of the fathers’ PTSS on their offspring’s secondary PTSS and DAS.     

Interest as a Motivational Resource: Feedback and Gender Matter, but Interest Makes the Difference

This study tested the hypothesis that interest in a certain topic enables children to sustain their intrinsic motivation in topic-related tasks when positive feedback is absent. Ninety-one Israeli children in the seventh grade completed a questionnaire assessing their interest in the topic of logic questions. Later, in individual sessions, children worked on logic questions, and either received positive feedback or no feedback on their performance. Then, they completed a questionnaire assessing their intrinsic motivation to participate in a similar task. As expected, children with a high level of interest reported more intrinsic motivation than did children not high on interest. Among children with moderate interest, absence of positive feedback was associated with decreased intrinsic motivation for boys, and increased motivation for girls. This gender-related pattern was interpreted as suggesting that girls with moderate interest perceived the positive feedback as an attempt to control them. The findings support the view that interest may serve as a personal resource that helps children to cope with non-optimal learning conditions.     

Mediators of the associations between parents’ conditional regard and the quality of their adult-children’s peer-relationships

Motivation and Emotion - Parental conditional regard (PCR) involves parents providing or withdrawing affection to motivate children to do what the parents want. Numerous studies have demonstrated...     

Empathising with the enemy: emotion regulation and support for humanitarian aid in violent conflicts

Considering that negative intergroup emotions can hinder conflict resolution, we proposed integrative emotion regulation (IER) as possibly predicting conciliatory policies towards outgroups in violent conflict. Two studies examined Jewish Israelis’ self-reported IER, empathy, liberal attitudes, and support for humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Study 1 (N?=?298) found that unlike reappraisal Jewish Israelis’ ability to explore emotions (e.g. IER) promoted concern for others’ emotions (empathy), which in turn predicted support for humanitarian aid (while controlling for education level, and religiosity). Study 2 (N?=?291) replicated this mediation model, additionally confirming that liberal attitudes (upholding equal, fair treatment for minorities) moderated the relation between IER and support for humanitarian aid. Thus, IER linked more strongly with humanitarian support when the commitment for liberal egalitarian beliefs was high. Preliminary results hold important theoretical and practical implications regarding the potential to empathise with outgroup members in intractable conflicts.     

A projective assessment of autonomous motivation in children: Correlational and experimental evidence

This article presents two studies aimed at validating a new TAT-like projective measure of autonomous motivation in children. Study 1 assesses the validity of the new measure by correlating it with self-report questionnaires of autonomous motivation, positive and negative affect, task value and mastery goal orientation. Study 2 is an experiment in which autonomous motivation is manipulated and then assessed with the new projective measure and with a self-report scale. Results of both studies support the validity of the new projective measure. In study 2, regression analysis suggests that the new projective measure is sensitive to aspects of experimentally induced autonomous motivation that are not captured by a self-report measure.

Assessing the Experience of Autonomy in New Cultures and Contexts

This research demonstrates the usefulness of the technique of Smallest Space Analysis (SSA) in the construction of indices of the experience of autonomy, a central construct in Ryan and Deci’s self-determination theory of motivation and personality (SDT, 2000) and a construct central to recent controversies on socialization in different cultures. We propose that SSA has two advantages in comparison to correlation tables in the assessment of the experience of autonomy. First, it allows easy identification of items that best capture the various motivations along the relative autonomy continuum postulated by SDT. Second, and more important, it can reveal data patterns that might contribute to theoretical refinement that otherwise might remain unnoticed. These advantages were demonstrated in three Israeli samples: two samples of elementary school children (n = 697 and n = 417), and one sample of high school students (n = 317). Discussion considers ways in which SSA can contribute to the development and refinement of measures and theory pertaining to the experience of autonomy in cultures and contexts not examined so far.