Making sense of family conflict: Intimate partner violence and preschoolers’ externalizing problems.

This research examines relations among parental intimate partner violence (IPV), preschoolers’ narrative coherence about family conflict situations, and preschoolers’ externalizing problems. Participants were 57 mothers and their 4- to 5-year-old children. Mothers provided data on IPV and children’s externalizing problems. Narrative coherence was coded from children’s play narratives in response to story stems from the MacArthur Story Stem Battery. Results are consistent with theory suggesting that exposure to IPV may adversely affect preschoolers’ ability to understand family conflict situations in an organized manner, which in turn may contribute to their externalizing problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distorting children's reports and interpretations of events through suggestion.

54 children (aged 4–6 yrs old) participated in an experiment examining the effects of leading interviews on their interpretations and factual recall of an interaction with a teaching assistant (TA). Children were either familiar or unfamiliar with the TA and were interviewed in either an incriminating or a neutral manner. In comparison with neutral-interview children, incriminating-interview children made more cued-recall errors and endorsed more biased interpretations of the TA's actions. Familiarity with the TA had limited effects on free recall and interpretations of the TA's actions and had no effect on cued recall. Results indicated that 4- to 6-yr-olds will produce misleading reports about their interactions with either familiar or unfamiliar adults when they are prompted to do so by an opinionated adult interviewer. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A dyspraxic deficit in specific language impairment and developmental coordination disorder? Evidence from hand and arm movements

The extent to which children with either specific language impairment (SLI) or developmental coordination disorder (DCD) could be considered dyspraxic was examined using three tasks involving either familiar, or unfamiliar actions. SLI is diagnosed in children who fail to develop language in the normal fashion for no apparent reason, while the DCD diagnosis is applied to a child who experiences problems with movement in the absence of other difficulties. Seventy-two children aged between 5 and 13 years participated, falling into one of four groups: (1) children with specific language impairment (SLI), (2) children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD), (3) age-matched control children, and (4) younger control children. The performance of the clinical groups resembled that of younger normally developing children. Children with SLI, DCD, and the younger controls showed significant difficulty on the task requiring the production of familiar, but not unfamiliar postures. The deficit observed in the SLI group is particularly striking because it was seen both in those with and those without recognized motor difficulties.     

Priming of familiar and unfamiliar visual objects over delays in young and older adults.

Although priming of familiar stimuli is usually age invariant, little is known about how aging affects priming of preexperimentally unfamiliar stimuli. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of aging and encoding-to-test delays (0 min, 20 min, 90 min, and 1 week) on priming of unfamiliar objects in block-based priming paradigms. During the encoding phase, participants viewed pictures of novel objects (Experiments 1 and 2) or novel and familiar objects (Experiment 3) and judged their left–right orientation. In the test block, priming was measured using the possible–impossible object-decision test (Experiment 1), symmetric–asymmetric object-decision test (Experiment 2), and real–nonreal object-decision test (Experiment 3). In Experiments 1 and 2, young adults showed priming for unfamiliar objects at all delays, whereas older adults whose baseline task performance was similar to that of young adults did not show any priming. Experiment 3 found no effects of age or delay on priming of familiar objects; however, priming of unfamiliar objects was only observed in the young participants. This suggests that when older adults cannot rely on preexisting memory representations, age-related deficits in priming can emerge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of familiarity of task and choice on the functional performance of younger and older adults.

An experiment was conducted to compare the functional performance of younger and older adults on familiar and unfamiliar tasks under 2 conditions of perceived control. Specifically, the relation between age and motor and process skills was examined. The familiar tasks were simple cooking tasks, whereas the unfamiliar tasks were contrived, meaningless tasks developed for this study. Younger and older adults did not differ in the ratings of the familiarity of the tasks, but results from 2 Age?×?Task?×?Choice analyses of variance demonstrated a significant age difference for motor and process skills under all conditions. This suggests that older adults demonstrate age-related decline, even with activities that take motivational, experiential, and ecological validity components into account. For the process skills scale, there was also a significant main effect for choice. These results support the concept that perceived control may improve performance, but not differentially for older adults; that is, younger and older adults both demonstrated improved process performance when given their choice of tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in functional performance

We compared the functional performance of 20 young adult women and 20 older adult women on two types of tasks. One type of task was normal instrumental activities of daily living (e.g., meal preparation, home maintenance) that were meaningful, familiar, and well practiced. The other type was a contrived, relatively unfamiliar task of wrapping a package. Although young and old women did not differ significantly in their familiarity with the two tasks, results from two repeated measures MANOVAs revealed a significant age difference in both activities. This finding suggests that older adults show age-related decline with tasks even when those tasks are familiar, practiced, and ecologically valid.     

Temperature-related expression of the vacuolar aspartic proteinase (APR1) gene and beta-N-acetylglucosaminidase (HEX1) gene during Candida albicans morphogenesis

An experiment was conducted to compare the functional performance of younger and older adults on familiar and unfamiliar tasks under 2 conditions of perceived control. Specifically, the relation between age and motor and process skills was examined. The familiar tasks were simple cooking tasks, whereas the unfamiliar tasks were contrived, meaningless tasks developed for this study. Younger and older adults did not differ in the ratings of the familiarity of the tasks, but results from 2 Age x Task x Choice analyses of variance demonstrated a significant age difference for motor and process skills under all conditions. This suggests that older adults demonstrate age-related decline, even with activities that take motivational, experiential, and ecological validity components into account. For the process skills scale, there was also a significant main effect for choice. These results support the concept that perceived control may improve performance, but not differentially for older adults; that is, younger and older adults both demonstrated improved process performance when given their choice of tasks.     

Children's beliefs about familiar and unfamiliar peers in relation to their sociometric status.

Examined children's general beliefs about familiar and unfamiliar peers in relationship to their sociometric status and their experience with parents. In the initial phase involving 886 4th and 5th graders, submissive rejected children but not aggressive rejected children reported less positive beliefs about peers than average status children. In the 2nd portion, which included 77 boys and girls from the larger sample, no relationship between children's sociometric status and their beliefs about unfamiliar peers was found. Beliefs about unfamiliar peers were related, however, to children's perception of the amount of acceptance and support they received from parents. Implications of these findings for children's social competence are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The marital repercussions of behavior therapy for agoraphobia.

Examined the effects of intensive behavior therapy on the husbands and marriages (mean length of 12.7 yrs) of 32 females with long-standing agoraphobia (mean length 9.5 yrs). Pre- and posttreatment assessments were made of Ss and their husbands to measure fear, hostility, experience, and husband's attitude. Further assessments were made at 3-, 6-, and 12-mo follow-up. In one pattern of marital interaction, couples had increased marital conflict and exposed problems relating to sex roles and wives' autonomy following rapid improvement in wives' phobias, assertiveness, and social confidence. 12 husbands developed psychological symptoms in relation to these problems, which also impeded wives' progress in the 1st 6 mo of follow-up. One year after treatment, marital systems had largely adapted, and both partners were more autonomous within the marriage. In the 2nd pattern of interaction, partners were protected from personal conflict in the 1st 6 mo followed by a mutual adherence to sex-role stereotypes. Husbands reported a marked decrease in psychological symptoms. In the last 6 mo of follow-up, conflict over sex-role stereotypes emerged, and the extent of the patient's continuing symptomatic improvement was determined mainly by the couples' success in resolving these conflicts. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of spatial attention in visual word processing.

Ss made lexical decisions on a target letter string presented above or below fixation. In Exps 1 and 2, target location was cued 100 msec in advance of target onset. Responses were faster on validly than on invalidly cued trials. In Exp 3, the target was sometimes accompanied by irrelevant stimuli on the other side of fixation; in such cases, responses were slowed (a spatial filtering effect). Both cuing and filtering effects on response time were additive with effects of word frequency and lexical status (words vs nonwords). These findings are difficult to reconcile with claims that spatial attention is less involved in processing familiar words than in unfamiliar words and nonwords. The results can be reconciled with a late-selection locus of spatial attention only with difficulty but are easily explained by early selection models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit gender stereotyping in judgments of fame.

Implicit (unconscious) gender stereotyping in fame judgments was tested with an adaptation of a procedure developed by L. L. Jacoby, C. M. Kelley, J. Brown, and J. Jasechko (1989). In Experiments 1–4, participants pronounced 72 names of famous and nonfamous men and women, and 24 or 48 hr later made fame judgments in response to the 72 familiar and 72 unfamiliar famous and nonfamous names. These first experiments, in which signal detection analysis was used to assess implicit stereotypes, demonstrate that the gender bias (greater assignment of fame to male than female names) was located in the use of a lower criterion (B) for judging fame of familiar male than female names. Experiments 3 and 4 also showed that explicit expressions of sexism or stereotypes were uncorrelated with the observed implicit gender bias in fame judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relations between temperament and empathy in 2-year-olds.

The role of infant and toddler temperament in the prediction of empathy in 2-year-old children was examined. Assessments of temperament included reactivity and affect observed at 4 months of age, as well as inhibition at Age 2. Empathy was measured in 2-year-old children's responses to simulations of distress performed by their mothers and by an unfamiliar person. Children showed relatively more concern for the mother's distress, but they were also responsive to unfamiliar victims. Infants who were unreactive and showed little affect also showed less empathy toward the unfamiliar adult almost 2 years later. Inhibition toward an unfamiliar adult (but not toward the mother) at 2 years of age was negatively related to empathy. Inhibited temperament may thus have a major impact on young children's empathy in unfamiliar contexts. Findings also highlight the need to consider early underarousal as another dimension of temperament that may dampen expressions of empathic concern. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An Inquiry into the Spontaneous Transfer of Problem-Solving Skill

Problem solving, by definition, involves achieving new understanding in unfamiliar contexts, and is critical to all aspects of life, especially in the educational and scientific arenas. Students learn from many experiences to develop a repertoire of abilities, including the use of logic, which enable them to spontaneously transfer their problem-solving skill to unfamiliar situations. The purpose of this study is to explore the minimum conditions necessary to facilitate the spontaneous transfer of problem solving skill in an unfamiliar context. One hundred and seventy-five subjects were presented with logically identical problems based on the Wason selection task, which differed only in the degree to which a familiar schema could be invoked to help solve the problem. In the pretest stage, only 10.5% of subjects could solve the selection problem in an unfamiliar context, whereas 57.3% could solve it in one that was familiar. The effect of three interventions, prior exposure to a familiar scenario, repeat opportunities on like problems, and process-oriented feedback, on selection task performance in an unfamiliar context was assessed in a posttest stage. Overall, none of the interventions were effective, indicating that the minimum threshold for spontaneous transfer may be above the level of intervention included in this study. Schema theory, implications for instruction, and directions for future research are discussed. Copyright 1997Academic Press     

Everyday rules for behavior: Mothers' requests to young children.

Examined how mothers socialize young children toward behavioral self-regulation. In a longitudinal paradigm focused on developmental issues, mothers of toddlers and preschoolers reported rules for everyday behaviors and noted the child's level of compliance. Results showed (1) commonalities among mothers in the network of rules being socialized, (2) age-related increases in numbers and kinds of rules, (3) a shift in the structure of rule networks from an early emphasis on safety toward encouraging autonomy and integrating children into the family, and (4) an inherent developmental organization within rule networks. For children, findings revealed (1) compliance was highest in situations that involved rules for safety and other's possessions, and (2) gradual age-related movement from external control to internally mediated compliance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Instruction by mothers and fathers during problem solving with their young children.

Mothers and fathers of 163 5-year-olds were observed interacting with their children in dyads on 2 separate occasions on a familiar and unfamiliar cognitive activity. Within- and between-family comparisons were conducted. Few differences in the instruction provided by mothers and fathers appeared, and those that did were on the unfamiliar task. On this task, instruction by mothers, within and across families, was more responsive to children's changing skill than was instruction by fathers. Directive and disapproving comments by parents were related to poorer posttest performance by the child. High level of instruction by both parents was related to better posttest performance than was low level of instruction by parents. Contributions of parents to their children's cognitive development are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital behavior, parenting behavior, and multiple reports of preschoolers' behavior problems: Mediation or moderation?

Associations among positive and conflictual marital behavior and multiple reports of child behavior problems were examined in a community sample of 78 families with 3-year-old children. Maternal and paternal parenting behaviors were tested as potential mediators and moderators. Parents reported on child behavior problems and were observed during parent-child interaction and couple discussion in the presence of the child. Observers and preschool teachers also reported on child behavior problems. Less positive marital engagement and greater conflict were associated with observers' reports, but not with parents' or teachers' reports, of more behavior problems. Associations between marital behavior and child behavior problems were not explained by maternal or paternal behavior; stronger support was found for moderating effects of parenting. Also, positive marital engagement was a slightly better predictor of child behavior problems than was marital conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting boys' social acceptance and aggression: The role of mother–child interactions and boys' beliefs about peers.

Seven- to 9-year-old boys (N?=?177) and their mothers participated in this study in which the associations between boys' experiences with their mothers, their beliefs about familiar and unfamiliar peers, and their peer adjustment were examined across a 2-year period. Boys' negative behavior with mothers was associated with their having more negative beliefs about familiar and unfamiliar peers and with their being more aggressive and less well-liked. Beliefs about familiar peers predicted changes in boys' social acceptance, whereas negative beliefs about unfamiliar peers predicted changes in aggression. In addition, boys' beliefs about peers changed in response to their social experience. The implications of these findings for children's social development are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional expression in the family as a context for children's appraisals of interparental conflict.

The cognitive contextual framework proposes that the emotional climate in the family plays a role in shaping how children perceive and evaluate interparental conflict. This hypothesis was tested in a sample of 144 8- to 12-year-old children and their parents. Children in families that expressed high levels of negative affect and low levels of positive affect reported greater self-blame for conflict, but parents' expressiveness did not predict children's threat appraisals. Positive and negative expressiveness moderated the association between exposure to parental conflict and children's internalizing and externalizing problems. These data suggest that the broader family context can shape the meaning of conflict to children and increase understanding of the conditions under which parental discord leads to child maladjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young children's appraisals of interparental conflict: Measurement and links with adjustment problems.

The present study investigated 2 questions pertinent to understanding developmental aspects of children's conflict appraisals: (a) Do 7- to 9-year-old children make reliable distinctions between their perceptions of conflict and their appraisals of threat and self-blame? (b) Do threat and blame appraisals mediate the association between exposure to interparental conflict and adjustment problems in this age group? Factor analysis of a new version of the Children's Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale (CPIC-Y) designed for younger children showed that 179 7- to 9-year-old children distinguished properties of conflict from their appraisals of it. Moreover, as predicted by the cognitive-contextual framework, threat and self-blame appraisals mediated the link between conflict and internalizing problems but not externalizing problems. This study provides compelling evidence that appraisals of interparental conflict can be reliably measured at relatively young ages and suggests that perceptions of threat and self-blame function similarly in 7- to 9-year-olds as they do in older children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)