Reconsidering the sauce: A comment on Floyd.

Comments on the article Fundamentalism: Sauce for the goose by K. Floyd (see record 2007-09680-001). Floyd reminds us that the application of a little logic to the propositions we claim are true can sometimes show us that our beliefs are untenable, and that such a finding "could turn out to be very freeing indeed". In particular, he uses one of the arguments some of us struggled with the first time we met logic as a discipline: If P is true then Q is true. Q isn't true. Therefore, P isn't true. Floyd applies this principle to religious belief: If I believe that P is true and Q is true when in fact P implies that 0 is false then I am truly inconsistent! He also shows how easily we are willing to use such logic on the beliefs of others but not on our own beliefs. The current authors' attempt to demonstrate that Floyd makes several questionable steps in his reasoning, thereby calling into question the conclusions he draws. Floyd has sought to point out the lack of thought behind numerous religious beliefs. The current authors accept this general observation, but they believe it unfair to attribute this difficulty only to religious beliefs. The difficulty with religious beliefs is not that they are not concerned with truth vs. non-truth, but rather that for a number of reasons, the difference between these two poles is often not obvious. The question of the validity of religious beliefs is a philosophically spiny one that has been addressed, sometimes adequately and sometimes in very illogical, emotional and violent fashions, for thousands of years. It seems obvious to the authors that "three minutes thought" is not sufficient to untangle such an issue. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contingency detection and the contingent organization of behavior in interactions: Implications for socioemotional development in infancy.

In this report, the authors review studies addressing the issue of contingencies in social and nonsocial contexts during infancy. The review is divided into 4 groups of studies that suggest that (a) young infants detect contingencies unrelated to their behavior; (b) infants detect contingencies involving their behavior; (c) the study of contingency is pertinent for addressing behavioral organization within parent-infant interaction; and (d) there is a link between behavioral contingency in early infancy and global measures of socioemotional development that are predictive of social functioning at later points during childhood. Throughout the report, the pertinence of infant emotional responses during contingency-related tasks is emphasized. Finally, the authors delineate certain enduring questions regarding contingency experience in infancy and suggest ways of organizing research to address some of them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attachment State of Mind, Learning Dispositions, and Academic Performance During the College Transition.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation among attachment state of mind, students' learning dispositions, and academic performance during the college transition. Sixty-two students were involved in a short-term longitudinal study and were interviewed with the Adult Attachment Interview. Students' learning dispositions were assessed at the end of high school (Time 1) and halfway through their 1st semester in college (Time 2). Academic records were collected at Time 1 as well as at the end of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd college semesters. Autonomous students showed better learning dispositions throughout the transition and were less likely than dismissing and preoccupied students to experience a decrease in these dispositions between Time 1 and Time 2. In addition, dismissing students obtained the lowest average of grades in college, and this association was mediated by changes in quality of attention during the transition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability of Attachment During the Preschool Period.

Children's attachment patterns at early preschool age and 2 years later as well as factors related to stability-instability were examined in a diverse socioeconomic status French Canadian sample of 120 children. Attachment was assessed during 2 laboratory visits using separation-reunion procedures when the children were approximately 3.5 (J. Cassidy & R. S. Marvin, 1992) and 5.5 (M. Main & J. Cassidy, 1988) years old. Overall, stability of attachment, based on 4-way classification, was moderate (68%, k = .47, p = .01). Change from security to disorganization was associated with the most dramatic decline in interactive quality with mother, lowest marital satisfaction, and greatest likelihood of severe attachment-related family events, namely, loss and parental hospitalization. Families of children who changed from security to organized insecurity presented levels of caregiving and marital dissatisfaction that fell between those of stable secure children and secure children who changed toward disorganization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Direction des effets entre le tempérament de l'enfant et la sensibilité maternelle.

This study aims to examine the potential direction of effects between infant temperament and maternal sensitivity between 15 and 18 months, while considering five different temperament dimensions (activity level, pleasure, social fearfulness, anger proneness and interest/persistence). More specifically, it aims to verify if the direction of effects and the strength of the relation between these two variables vary as a function of the level of psychosocial risk infants are exposed to and infant gender. Fifty low-risk and 98 high-risk mother-infant dyads (defined as a function of mother status: adult or adolescent) were evaluated twice during home visits. At 15 and 18 months, mothers completed a French-Canadian version of the Toddler Behaviour Assessment Questionnaire (TBAQ; Goldsmith, 1996), the Questionnaire d'évaluation du comportement de l'enfant (QéCE; Lemelin, Tarabulsy, Provost, Fournier, Robitaille, Hémond & Tessier, 2007), and observers completed the Maternal Behaviour Q-Sort (MBQS, Pederson & Moran, 1995). Results obtained in the study show that the strength of the relation, and the direction of effects, between infant temperament and maternal sensitivity vary as a function of the temperament dimension taken into account. In addition, the direction of effects also sometimes varies as a function of the level of psychosocial risk and infant gender. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Questionnaire d'évaluation du comportement de l'enfant: Version canadienne fran?aise du Toddler Behavior Assessment Questionnaire.

This study was designed to validate the Questionnaire d'évaluation du comportement de l'enfant (QéCE), a French-Canadian version of the Toddler Behavior Assessment Questionnaire (TBAQ; Goldsmith, 1996) which is used to evaluate five dimensions of children's temperament from 15 to 36 months of age: Activity level, Pleasure, Social fearfulness, Anger proneness, Interest/persistence. A sample of 122 15-month-old children was assessed with the QéCE. Three months later (at 18 months), 106 of these children were re-assessed with the QéCE for a second time. In addition, 102 of these children had previously been assessed at 10 months with the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ, Bates et al., 1979), a questionnaire used to assess temperament during the first year of life. Results show that the QéCE scales have adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability. In addition, the results show that the QéCE scales possess adequate discriminant properties and good convergent validity with the ICQ. The psychometric properties of the QéCE, the fact that it is quick and easy to administer and to score, and its capacity to provide information on several dimensions of childrens' temperament make it an interesting questionnaire to use in child development research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Another Look Inside the Gap: Ecological Contributions to the Transmission of Attachment in a Sample of Adolescent Mother-Infant Dyads.

Ecological contributions to attachment transmission were studied in a sample of 64 adolescent mother-infant dyads. Maternal sensitivity was assessed when infants were 6 and 10 months old, and infant security was assessed at 15 and 18 months. Maternal attachment state of mind was measured with the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) after the 1st assessment. Ecological variables considered were maternal education and depression, paternal support, and infant maternal grandmother support. Results indicated that when the contribution of ecological variables was statistically controlled for, sensitivity was a significant mediator and state of mind no longer contributed to infant security. Sensitivity also mediated an association between maternal education and infant attachment, suggesting that attachment transmission is embedded in a more global process of infant attachment development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)