LA MÈRE ET SON BÉBÉ: VARIATIONS CULTURELLES ANALYSE CRITIQUE DE LA LITTÉRATURE*

Infant-caretaking as a complex activity is a part of the culture. Each country, each ethnic group has his own norms, theories and practices. Three facets of the mother-infant relationship (from the point of view of the mother) can be identified: they are practices (nursing and home stimulations), representations and folk theories, and styles of interaction. They all vary in function of environmental, social and cultural factors, the strength of each is discussed here. Also, the first part of this paper informs the reader on methodological problems in this kind of studies. And, in the last one, mother-infant relationship in the migration context is studied.     

Negative self-imagery in social anxiety contaminates social interactions

Patients with social phobia report experiencing negative images of themselves performing poorly when in feared social situations. The present study investigates whether such negative self-imagery (based on memory of past social situations) contaminates social interactions. High socially anxious volunteers participated in two conversations with another volunteer (conversational partner). During one conversation, the socially anxious volunteers held in mind a negative self-image, and during the other they held in mind a less negative (control) self-image. As predicted, when holding the negative image the socially anxious volunteers felt more anxious, reported using more safety behaviours, believed that they performed more poorly, and showed greater overestimation of how poorly they came across (relative to ratings by the conversational partner). Conversational partners rated the socially anxious volunteers' performance as poorer in the negative image condition. Furthermore, the conversation was contaminated since both groups of participants rated its quality as poorer in the negative image condition.     

Professional Identity Development: A Grounded Theory of Transformational Tasks of Counselors

The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory study was to investigate practicing counselors' professional identity development at nodal points during their career. Through the use of 6 focus groups of beginning, experienced, and expert counselors, 26 participants shared their experiences, and 6 themes emerged to form a theory of transformational tasks of professional identity development. Through these tasks, counselors encountered issues of idealism toward realism, burnout toward rejuvenation, and compartmentalization toward congruency.     

The effects of modifying interpretation bias on worry in generalized anxiety disorder

This study investigated whether facilitating a benign interpretive bias decreases negative thought intrusions in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Clients were randomly allocated to an interpretation modification condition in which they repeatedly accessed benign meanings of emotionally ambiguous homographs and scenarios, or to a control condition in which they accessed threat and benign meanings with equal frequency. Worry frequency was assessed using a breathing focus task that involved categorising the valence of thought intrusions before and after an instructed worry period. Interpretation bias was assessed during the modification tasks, and on a different measure of interpretation bias (sentence completion) following a period of worry. The experimental procedure modified interpretations made during training, and in the later sentence completion task. Furthermore, compared to the control group, the benign group showed fewer negative thought intrusions during breathing focus (as rated by both participants and an assessor). These findings show that it is possible to induce a more benign interpretive bias in GAD clients and that this reduces negative thought intrusions.     

The effect of attention modification with explicit vs. minimal instructions on worry

In this experiment we investigated the effect of different instructions on the modification of attentional biases, and subsequently on worry persistence. Participants without excessive worry completed a modified dot-probe task, designed to train attention either to threat or neutral words. Half of each group was given explicit instructions regarding the relationship between word valence and target location, and half were given the more usual minimal instructions. Impact on worry persistence was assessed by categorizing the valence of thought intrusions before and after a period of instructed worry. Response latencies to test items on the dot-probe task showed that attention had been successfully manipulated in the expected direction, and explicit instructions led to more effective attention modification. Moreover, participants in the attend-threat group who received explicit instructions reported significantly more negative thought intrusions following instructed worry, as rated by an assessor, whereas participants in the attend-neutral group did not. These findings suggest that an attentional bias towards threatening information plays a role in worry persistence, and that explicit instructions may be helpful in modifying this bias.     

Importance of having agreeable friends in adolescence (especially when you are not)

Using the actor–partner interdependence model, we examined whether adolescent's agreeableness, best friend's agreeableness, and the interaction between adolescent‐friend agreeableness are important for interpersonal functioning. Adolescents (N = 158) in fifth to eighth grades who were part of best friend pairs completed personality and friendship measures. Adolescents' adjustment and victimization experiences were assessed by peer nominations. For boys, best friend's agreeableness moderated the relationship between the target boy's agreeableness and overt victimization, relational victimization, and externalizing problems. For girls, best friend's agreeableness moderated the relationship between the target girl's agreeableness and internalizing problems and prosocial skills. This study provides an initial glimpse into how traits of friends can influence outcomes beyond what would be expected from adolescents' personality alone.     

Using a Values‐Based Taxonomy in Counselor Education

Values such as respect for the client's privacy and respect for diversity are integral to training new counselors. This requires learning in the affective domain, defined as the internalization of values ( Krathwohl, Bloom, & Masia, 1964 ). The affective taxonomy of Krathwohl et al. (1964) is presented as a means of teaching values and measuring the internalization of values. An example from a multicultural counseling course is offered as a template for implications in counselor education.     

Quitting smoking: The importance of non-smoker identity in predicting smoking behaviour and responses to a smoking ban

Objective: We examined how ‘smoker’ and ‘non-smoker’ self- and group-identities and socio-economic status (SES) may predict smoking behaviour and responses to antismoking measures (i.e. the Dutch smoking ban in hospitality venues). We validated a measure of responses to the smoking ban.

Design: Longitudinal online survey study with one-year follow-up (N = 623 at T1 in 2011; N = 188 at T2 in 2012) among daily smokers.

Main outcome measures: Intention to quit, quit attempts and ‘rejecting’, ‘victimizing’, ‘socially conscious smoking’ and ‘active quitting’ responses to the smoking ban.

Results: Non-smoker identities are more important than smoker identities in predicting intention to quit, quit attempts and responses to the smoking ban, even when controlling for other important predictors such as nicotine dependence. Smokers with stronger non-smoker identities had stronger intentions to quit, were more likely to attempt to quit between measurements, and showed less negative and more positive responses to the smoking ban. The association between non-smoker self-identity and intention to quit was stronger among smokers with lower than higher SES.

Conclusion: Antismoking measures might be more effective if they would focus also on the identity of smokers, and help smokers to increase identification with non-smoking and non-smokers.