Rebuilding the network: New relationships in widowhood

This study examined the formation of nonkin relationships in widowhood, using personal network data from 548 older men and women who lost a partner through death fewer than 10 years earlier. Relationships established after the death of the spouse were cited by 27.6% of the respondents. New relationships with neighbors were cited in particular. New relationships were more often nominated by women than by men. Formation of new relationships was strongly and positively associated with the duration of widowhood, the presence of a new partner, and having put effort into seeking new relationships. The findings suggest that, to gain a proper understanding of why some widowed individuals form new relationships and others do not, knowledge is required about the quality of the social network prior to widowhood.     

Influence of Maternal Denomination, God Concepts, and Child-Rearing Practices on Young Children's God Concepts

This study tests a model of individual differences in God concepts among kindergarteners, based on social learning and projection theory. Relations among maternal education, religious denomination, God concepts, child-rearing practices, and young children's God concepts were examined. Subjects were 363 Dutch preschoolers (mean age = 66 months) and 271 of their mothers belonging to three religious denominations (open Christian, orthodox Christian, and nonaffiliated). Child-rearing practices as well as God concepts were measured using questionnaires. God concepts were operationalized as ideas about potential characteristics of God. The model was partly supported. Maternal orthodox Christian denomination, God concepts, and child-rearing practices all had effects on children's "potent God" concept, confirming all parts of the model. Differences in children's "punishing God" concept were explained by strict child-rearing practices, providing evidence for projection theory only. Children's "loving and caring God" concepts were predicted by mothers'"loving God" concept, lending support for social learning theory .     

Adult Detection of Children's Selfish and Polite Lies: Experience Matters

Five groups of participants (N = 150) with differing amounts of experience working with children were assessed on their ability to detect children's lying or truth telling. Children's lies were told for antisocial reasons (i.e., self‐serving lies) and for prosocial reasons (i.e., to benefit others). Overall, adults were more accurate at identifying children's dishonest statements than their true statements, and children's antisocial lies were detected more accurately than were their prosocial lies. While adults without experience were poor at detecting child lie tellers and truth tellers, adults with extensive child experience were better at distinguishing children's lies and truths.     

Dedicate Your Life to the Company! A Terror Management Perspective on Organizations

Terror management research has examined many institutions and beliefs, which provide people with a sense of psychological security against death awareness. However, one important area has yet to receive attention: the workplace. For many employees, corporate culture is not only connected to earning a salary, but also to a sense of security and even personal transcendence. We present evidence that pro‐company judgments can serve as psychological defenses under existential threat. In Study 1, following mortality salience, employees gave a more favorable evaluation of the company‐praising essay and a more negative evaluation of the critical one. In Study 2, employees and students at a German university were more likely to endorse aspects of organizational culture under mortality salience.     

Psychodynamic assessment of changes in children with autism under psychoanalytic treatment

In this article the authors report insights into autism developed through their extensive experience of psychoanalytic therapy with children with autism. The fi rst stages of body psychic development are seriously disrupted by this pathology, resulting in primitive anxieties of falling and of being liquefi ed. These anxieties are connected to the fragile development of body ego and of its related spatiotemporal organisation. The changes in children observed by the authors during the therapeutic process lead them to offer a psychodynamic assessment tool, which revolves principally around the development of body ego. After the initial state of 'severe autism', the authors describe three stages: the stage of 'recovery of the skin' (Bick); the established 'symbiotic phase', subdivided into 'vertical then horizontal splitting of the body ego'; and fi nally the stage of 'individuation'. First, the authors describe the principal psychoanalytic approaches to autism and refl ect on the links possible with nonpsychoanalytic work.