Loving and angry? Happy and sad? Understanding and reporting of mixed emotions in mother–child relationships by 6‐ to 12‐year‐olds

The Evaluative Space Model of emotions allows for the coactivation of positive‐appetitive and negative‐avoidant systems, but few studies have examined mixed emotions in child development. Existing research suggests children's understanding of opposite valence emotion combinations emerges by approximately 11 years of age. However, it is not yet clear whether various opposite valence combinations are understood at different ages, nor whether children can understand them in others before they have experienced such mixed emotions themselves. Semi‐structured interviews with 97 children investigated whether they regarded six combinations of opposite valence mixed emotions as possible, could provide reasons for them, and report their own experience of each in the context of mother–child relationships. Both understanding that such combinations are possible and ability to provide reasons for them increased after age 6 and up to age 11, but were still incomplete in 12‐year‐olds. Understanding of different opposite valence combinations developed at different rates. At each age, fewer children who showed understanding of these combinations in others reported having had a similar experience themselves. The findings suggest a need to systematically examine a range of mixed emotions in order to develop a comprehensive theory of the development of mixed emotion understanding. They also suggest extending research into adolescence.     

Attributions of Responsibility for Obesity: Narrative Communication Reduces Reactive Counterarguing Among Liberals

Informed by theory and research on attributions and narrative persuasion, we compared the effectiveness of narrative and nonnarrative messages in changing attributions of responsibility for causes and solutions related to obesity in the United States. We randomly assigned 500 adults to view one of three messages (narrative, evidence, and a hybrid of the two) emphasizing environmental causes of obesity, or a no‐exposure control condition. The narrative condition increased the belief that societal actors (government, employers) are responsible for addressing obesity, but only among liberals. This pattern of results was partially explained by the success of the narrative condition in reducing reactive counterarguing, relative to the evidence condition, among liberals. We conclude with theoretical and practical implications.     

Beliefs and inferences: A test of a rational-emotive hypothesis 1. Performing in an academic seminar

Subjects were asked to imagine that they were going to present an academic seminar. They were further asked to imagine (a) that they adhered to a rational belief or an irrational belief; (b) that they had made or had not made an effort in preparing for the seminar and (c) that their performance counted or did not count towards their final examination grade. Whilst in role, subjects were asked to make inferences about various aspects of their performance and the responses of others. While the results supported the hypothesis that imagining that one is holding an irrational belief leads to more negative inferences than holding a rational belief, it was also found that not making an effort in preparing for the siminar led subjects to make more negative inferences than making an effort. In addition, there were several two-way and three-way significant interactions between the independent variables. The results supported Ellis's (1985) recent formulation concerning the complex relationship between events and inferences (A), beliefs (B) and emotional and behavioral consequences of beliefs (C).Windy Dryden PhD is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths' College, University of London, England. Julia Ferguson is Research Assistant in the Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths' College, University of London, England. Tony Clark was an Undergraduate Student in the Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths' College, University of London, England. He graduated in 1987.     

Counting On Blood Donors: Increasing the Impact of Reminder Calls

Two experiments were conducted to see if blood drive attendance could be increased by altering the content of reminder calls. In Experiment 1 college students received either a standard reminder (the place, time, and necessity of eating beforehand) or a commitment-enhancing reminder in which they agreed to be "counted on". Those in the latter condition were significantly more likely (p <.007) to attend a blood drive. Experiment 2 demonstrated that an alternate wording for the commitment-enhancing message was possible; that a verbal response was necessary to ensure the commitment; and that a message enhancing altruism was not as effective. The studies suggest that asking for an additional commitment during a reminder call can appreciably increase blood drive participation rates.     

The roles of self-regulation and partner regulation on romantic relationship quality

Research into self-regulation and partner regulation strategies has largely involved parallel lines of research, thus, it is difficult to determine the relative contribution of both forms of regulation when it comes to relationship outcomes. Therefore, the question remains as to which form of regulation is more strongly associated with relationship quality; is it more important to focus on adaptive self-regulation or adaptive strategies to regulate one's partner? The current research addresses this important gap by comparing the relative associations of adaptive self-regulation and adaptive partner regulation strategies on romantic relationship quality. A community sample of mixed gender couples (N = 114) who were predominantly satisfied with their current relationships – but nonetheless still experienced relationship conflict – were administered self-report assessments of various self-regulation and partner regulation strategies as well as a measure of relationship quality. Couples also participated in a videotaped discussion of an unresolved relationship issue that was scored by trained coders for verbal and nonverbal indicators of self-regulation and partner regulation strategies. Actor–partner interdependence modeling revealed that for both men and women, adaptive self-regulation strategies were positively associated with their own evaluations of relationship quality as well as their partner's relationship quality. In contrast, engaging in adaptive partner regulation strategies was not significantly associated with men's or women's own, or their partner's relationship quality. Findings highlight the importance of focusing on self-regulation in relationships, as it is these strategies, over partner regulation strategies, that have more positive implications for the relationship quality experienced by typically satisfied couples.     

Memory lapses during a pandemic: Differential associations between COVID-stress and daily memory lapses?

The policies related to COVID-19 pandemic such as stay at home orders and social distancing increased daily stress and associated impairments in mental health. This study examines the association between COVID-related stress and cognitive functioning by examining two different types of daily memory lapses, those related to prospective memory (i.e., memory for future plans) and retrospective memory (i.e., memory for past information) as well as the perceived emotional and functional consequences of daily memory problems. As part of a larger study, 58 adults (18 men; 22 ± 3 years) completed a web-based version of the daily inventory of stressful events including stress related to COVID-19 and positive/negative affect for eight consecutive days between 8 September 2020 and 11 November 2020. Findings showed that prospective lapses were positively correlated with COVID-19 stressors (r = 0.41, p = 0.002). At the within-person level, daily COVID-19 stressors were significantly associated with the number of prospective lapses (b = 0.088, SE = 0.040). COVID-19-related stressors were not significantly related to retrospective lapses (all ps > 0.05). Our findings suggested that more daily COVID-19 stressors were related to greater numbers of prospective lapses in daily life even among healthy younger adults. Thus, future research should address long term relations of COVID-19 stress and cognitive functioning in addition to the specific cognitive impairments related to COVID-19 infection.     

A general rotation criterion and its use in orthogonal rotation

Measures of test parsimony and factor parsimony are defined. Minimizing their weighted sum produces a general rotation criterion for either oblique or orthogonal rotation. The quartimax, varimax and equamax criteria are special cases of the expression. Two new criteria are developed. One of these, the parsimax criterion, apparently gives excellent results. It is argued that one of the most important factors bearing on the choice of a rotation criterion for a particular problem is the amount of information available on the number of factors that should be rotated. This research was supported by the National Research Council of Canada research grant 291-13 to Dr. G. A. Ferguson.