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.     

祖辈协同教养与幼儿错误信念理解能力的关系:亲子依恋与祖辈同住的作用

为考察祖辈协同教养与幼儿错误信念理解之间的关系以及幼儿亲子依恋的中介作用,采用方便抽样的方法,调查了某城市三所幼儿园345名小班至大班的祖辈协同教养幼儿及其家庭教养人。对幼儿使用操作任务考察错误信念理解能力,对其家庭教养人利用自陈式问卷收集家庭教养方式和亲子依恋等数据。结果显示：(1)祖辈协同教养类型显著影响幼儿的错误信念理解水平和亲子依恋,“有祖辈同住”协同教养幼儿的错误信念理解水平以及依恋的安全性均显著低于“无祖辈同住”协同教养幼儿;(2)亲子依恋在祖辈协同教养的民主信任和教养冲突两个维度与幼儿错误信念理解能力之间分别存在显著的中介作用;(3)祖辈协同教养类型在教养冲突、亲子依恋、错误信念理解能力的中介模型中起调节作用,在“有祖辈同住”条件下,协同教养冲突显著负向预测幼儿的亲子依恋安全感。     

Resilience characterized and quantified from physical activity data: A tutorial in R

Consistent physical activity is key for health and well-being, but it is vulnerable to stressors. The process of recovering from such stressors and bouncing back to the previous state of physical activity can be referred to as resilience. Quantifying resilience is fundamental to assess and manage the impact of stressors on consistent physical activity. In this tutorial, we present a method to quantify the resilience process from physical activity data. We leverage the prior operationalization of resilience, as used in various psychological domains, as area under the curve and expand it to suit the characteristics of physical activity time series. As use case to illustrate the methodology, we quantified resilience in step count time series (length = 366 observations) for eight participants following the first COVID-19 lockdown as a stressor. Steps were assessed daily using wrist-worn devices. The methodology is implemented in R and all coding details are included. For each person’s time series, we fitted multiple growth models and identified the best one using the Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE). Then, we used the predicted values from the selected model to identify the point in time when the participant recovered from the stressor and quantified the resulting area under the curve as a measure of resilience for step count. Further resilience features were extracted to capture the different aspects of the process. By developing a methodological guide with a step-by-step implementation, we aimed at fostering increased awareness about the concept of resilience for physical activity and facilitate the implementation of related research.     

Time counts: Bidirectional interaction between time and numbers in human adults

Number is known for influencing time processing, but to what extent time influences number in human adults is unclear. We investigated possible bidirectional interactions (number on time and time on number) using a novel Stroop-like task; participants compared numbers or temporal durations in congruent (larger number presented for longer duration) or incongruent conditions (smaller number presented for longer duration). Time and number tasks were presented in different blocks (Experiment 1) or within the same block of trials with task instructions provided at the offset of the stimuli (Experiment 2). Analyses of response times (RTs) and their distribution revealed that number affected time from early RTs, and time affected number at late RTs – an asymmetry observed only when time and number tasks were presented in separate blocks. Thus, carefully chosen tasks and appropriate data analysis can reveal bidirectionality between time and number, consistent with shared magnitude or decision mechanisms.     

Mission and reconciliation from a Christian-Muslim relations perspective

The encounter between Islam and Christianity in the mission field has created shocks that have left indelible scars across the ages. These two religions, which have never hidden their missionary intentions, have at times engaged in the struggle for supremacy on the religious chessboard, not hesitating to encroach on each other. This state of affairs has led to frustrations and conflicts between the two religious systems that the passage of time has not been able to erase. Various organizations have attempted to bring Christians and Muslims together, among these the Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa. Reconciliation is possible. Although the path to reconciliation is still long, one who has already travelled on it gives us signs of hope. Only God can clear the path to effective reconciliation. This, however, must be combined with a new understanding of mission in both religious systems as well as a commitment on the part of both to embark on a new dynamic.     

A time series analysis of the relation between motor skill acquisition and sleep in infancy

To systematically examine the relation between motor milestone onset and disruption of night sleep in infancy, three families kept microgenetic, prospective, daily checklist diaries of their infants’ motor behavior and sleep (197-313 observation days; 19,000 diary entries). Process control and interrupted time series analyses examined whether deviations from the moving average for night wakings and evening sleep duration were temporally linked to motor skill onset and tested for meaningful differences in individual sleep patterns before and after skill onset. Model assumptions defined skill onset as first day of occurrence or as mastery and moving average windows as 3, 7, or 14 days. Changes in infants’ sleep patterns were associated with changing expertise for motor milestones. The temporal relation varied depending on infant and sleep parameter. Intensive longitudinal data collection may increase our understanding of micro-events in infant development.     

The Role of Emotional Content and Perceptual Saliency During the Programming of Saccades Toward Faces

Previous studies have shown that the human visual system can detect a face and elicit a saccadic eye movement toward it very efficiently compared to other categories of visual stimuli. In the first experiment, we tested the influence of facial expressions on fast face detection using a saccadic choice task. Face-vehicle pairs were simultaneously presented and participants were asked to saccade toward the target (the face or the vehicle). We observed that saccades toward faces were initiated faster, and more often in the correct direction, than saccades toward vehicles, regardless of the facial expressions (happy, fearful, or neutral). We also observed that saccade endpoints on face images were lower when the face was happy and higher when it was neutral. In the second experiment, we explicitly tested the detection of facial expressions. We used a saccadic choice task with emotional-neutral pairs of faces and participants were asked to saccade toward the emotional (happy or fearful) or the neutral face. Participants were faster when they were asked to saccade toward the emotional face. They also made fewer errors, especially when the emotional face was happy. Using computational modeling, we showed that this happy face advantage can, at least partly, be explained by perceptual factors. Also, saccade endpoints were lower when the target was happy than when it was fearful. Overall, we suggest that there is no automatic prioritization of emotional faces, at least for saccades with short latencies, but that salient local face features can automatically attract attention.     

Solitude in context: On the role of culture,immigration, and acculturation in the experience of time to oneself

Older adults spend much time in solitude (without social interaction), putting them at risk of loneliness, especially if aging outside their country of origin (e.g., Chinese immigrants to Canada). Yet, cultural contextual factors that may reduce loneliness in moments of solitude are poorly understood. This study sought to disentangle the roles of culture, immigration, and acculturation in solitude-loneliness associations across two countries. Community-dwelling adults aged 51–85 in Vancouver (N = 58 East Asian, N = 37 European/North American) and in Hong Kong (N = 56 East/Southeast Asian) completed approximately 30 ecological momentary assessments over 10 days on their current affect and social situations. Participants in Vancouver spent more time in solitude, desired solitude more, and felt less lonely overall than those in Hong Kong. Multilevel models revealed that moments of solitude felt lonelier than moments spent in social interaction, but only for individuals less acculturated to their host culture or not concurrently desiring solitude. Associations held regardless of host culture, cultural heritage, or immigration status. Findings suggest that solitude need not feel lonely if it happens by choice and if individuals feel connected with their host culture, for both immigrant older adults and those aging in their birth country.     

Empathic accuracy and cognitions during conflict: An in‐depth analysis of understanding scores

Empathic accuracy research indicates that partners achieve only moderate success at reading each other's thoughts. The current study identifies specific patterns of online thought that contribute to empathic inaccuracy during conflict interactions. Married/cohabiting partners completed a conflict interaction and reported their own thoughts during video‐assisted recall of the interaction, also inferring the thoughts of the other partner. Content analysis of these online thoughts demonstrated a high degree of mindfulness about the process of communication, along with a perspective bias, in which partners tended to construe their own communication as constructive and the other partner's communication as avoidant and confrontational. Specific mind‐reading errors linked to both the thematic content and affective tone of online thought predicted lower overall empathic accuracy.     

创造与伸展:奥古斯丁时间观的两个向度

奥古斯丁《忏悔录》中的“时间之间”受到后世哲学家们的广泛关注和高度评价,但往往只重视其中“心灵的伸展”这一向度．而忽视上帝的创造这一向度,忽视了永恒之维。事实上,上帝的创造和心灵的伸展这两个向度不可分割．前者规定后者,阐明时间的起源;后者反映前者,说明时间的存在和本质。后者受前者的制约。也就是说,心灵的伸展有一个界限,是不可超越的。当文德尔班强调奥古斯丁的形而上学是“内在经验的形而上学”时,他确认了奥古斯丁时间观的心灵向度;当吉尔松称之为“皈依的形而上学”时,则是强调“心灵伸展的界限”,即永恒上帝的创造。