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.     

The Influence of Shared Visual Context on the Successful Emergence of Conventions in a Referential Communication Task

Human communication is thoroughly context bound. We present two experiments investigating the importance of the shared context, that is, the amount of knowledge two interlocutors have in common, for the successful emergence and use of novel conventions. Using a referential communication task where black‐and‐white pictorial symbols are used to convey colors, pairs of participants build shared conventions peculiar to their dyad without experimenter feedback, relying purely on ostensive‐inferential communication. Both experiments demonstrate that access to the visual context promotes more successful communication. Importantly, success improves cumulatively, supporting the view that pairs establish conventional ways of using the symbols to communicate. Furthermore, Experiment 2 suggests that dyads with access to the visual context successfully adapt the conventions built for one color space to another color space, unlike dyads lacking it. In linking experimental pragmatics with language evolution, the study illustrates the benefits of exploring the emergence of linguistic conventions using an ostensive‐inferential model of communication.     

The effects of self‐explaining when learning with text or diagrams

Self‐explaining is an effective metacognitive strategy that can help learners develop deeper understanding of the material they study. This experiment explored if the format of material (i.e., text or diagrams) influences the self‐explanation effect. Twenty subjects were presented with information about the human circulatory system and prompted to self‐explain; 10 received this information in text and 10 in diagrams. Results showed that students given diagrams performed significantly better on post‐tests than students given text. Diagrams students also generated significantly more self‐explanations that text students. Furthermore, the benefits of self‐explaining were much greater in the diagrams condition. To discover why diagrams can promote the self‐explanation effect, results are interpreted with reference to the multiple differences in the semantic, cognitive and affective properties of the texts and diagrams studied.     

The heterogeneity of attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms and conduct problems: Cognitive inhibition,emotion regulation,emotionality, and disorganized attachment

This study examined the contributions of several important domains of functioning to attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and conduct problems. Specifically, we investigated whether cognitive inhibition, emotion regulation, emotionality, and disorganized attachment made independent and specific contributions to these externalizing behaviour problems from a multiple pathways perspective. The study included laboratory measures of cognitive inhibition and disorganized attachment in 184 typically developing children (M age = 6 years, 10 months, SD = 1.7). Parental ratings provided measures of emotion regulation, emotionality, and externalizing behaviour problems. Results revealed that cognitive inhibition, regulation of positive emotion, and positive emotionality were independently and specifically related to ADHD symptoms. Disorganized attachment and negative emotionality formed independent and specific relations to conduct problems. Our findings support the multiple pathways perspective on ADHD, with poor regulation of positive emotion and high positive emotionality making distinct contributions to ADHD symptoms. More specifically, our results support the proposal of a temperamentally based pathway to ADHD symptoms. The findings also indicate that disorganized attachment and negative emotionality constitute pathways specific to conduct problems rather than to ADHD symptoms.     

Effects of reinforcement context on choice

Two experiments investigated the effects of successive reinforcement contexts on choice. In the first, concurrent variable-interval schedules of primary reinforcement operated during the initial links of concurrent chains. The rate of this reinforcement arranged by the concurrent schedules was decreased across conditions: When it was higher than the terminal-link rate, preference for the higher frequency initial-link schedule increased relative to baseline. (During baseline, a standard concurrent-schedule procedure was in effect). When the initial-link reinforcement rate was lower than the terminal-link rate, preference converged toward indifference. In the second experiment, a chain schedule was available on a third key while a concurrent schedule was in effect on the side keys. When the terminal link of the chain schedule was produced, the side keys became inoperative. Availability of the chain schedule did not affect choice between the concurrent schedules. These results show that only when successive reinforcement contexts are produced by choice responding do those successive contexts affect choice in concurrent schedules.     

Critical reflection and critical reflexivity as core processes for critical WOP: Precarious employment as an example

This work suggests that researchers in work and organizational psychology (WOP) and WOP as a discipline would benefit from a critical perspective on their own research and practice. We highlight the value of critical reflection and critical reflexivity on contexts of research and practice in order to increase the practical impact of WOP for everyone. First, we outline how WOP currently fails to address pressing global issues, such as precarious employment, by focusing on work-related phenomena in affluent societies and neglecting issues relevant to the majority of the world's working population. Second, we present a heuristic framework of four fundamental contextual components that are important to consider when engaging in a continuous process of critical reflection and critical reflexivity: history; economy and politics; society and culture; and personal background. Third, we illustrate why these contexts are important for WOP with the example of precarious employment. Considering context more explicitly is important for future WOP research because context not only co-determines the experiences of the working people under investigation but also the subjectivity of researchers themselves. We hope to encourage WOP researchers to engage in critical reflection and critical reflexivity to promote a more critical WOP.     

Visual context processing and its development in gamers and non-gamers

Visual context processing was investigated in both action video game players and nonplayers using the Ebbinghaus illusion task (N = 312, 39.4% female) in a cross-sectional study design. When presented in context, players showed markedly poorer target size discrimination accuracy compared with nonplayers in the 6-, 7-, 8-, and 9-years old age groups, but this difference was reduced in 10-years old group and diminished in adults. When presented in isolation (no-context), the two groups displayed similar performance in all age groups. Furthermore, nonplayers (linear) and players (bell curve) showed profoundly different age-related differences in context processing. These findings provide evidence that players might have enhanced perceptual bias to process visual context in the transition from early childhood to early adolescence, and the differences between the two groups start at early ages and continue with distinct developmental profiles.     

亲子依恋与儿童抑郁症状的关系：儿童对环境的生物敏感性的作用及父母差异

不良的亲子依恋是导致儿童抑郁症状的风险因素,但其对儿童的影响会因儿童对环境的生物敏感性不同而存在差异。为探究家庭中母子、父子依恋对儿童抑郁症状的影响及儿童生物敏感性(本文中采用迷走神经抑制作为指标)在其中的作用,本研究结合行为任务、问卷报告、生理测量等多种研究手段,招募150名学龄儿童(平均年龄8.64岁,63名女孩)参与研究。结果表明：(1)学龄儿童的母子依恋水平高于父子依恋水平。(2)高水平的母子依恋与父子依恋会同等程度地降低儿童的抑郁症状。(3)儿童对环境的生物敏感性对母子依恋影响儿童抑郁症状路径的调节作用显著,生理上对环境更敏感(高迷走神经抑制)的儿童更易得益于高母子依恋,表现出较低的抑郁水平;但同时,这类儿童在母子依恋较低时也更易表现出较高的抑郁水平。(4)儿童的生物敏感性对父子依恋影响儿童抑郁症状路径的调节作用不显著,高父子依恋对生物敏感性水平不同的儿童均存在有利影响。(5)在不同情境中测量的迷走神经抑制对亲子依恋影响儿童抑郁症状的调节作用模式相似,表现出跨情境一致的特点。本研究率先揭示儿童迷走神经抑制与亲子依恋对儿童抑郁症状的联合作用机制及父母角色差异。