Review of Le Réaction Du Jeune Enfant à La Personne Etrangère.

Reviews the book, Le Réaction Du Jeune Enfant à La Personne Etrangère by Thérèse Gouin Décarie in collaboration with Jacques Goulet, Sandra Rafman, Martine Darquenne Brossard and Ruth Shaffran. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations entre humeur dépressive et somatisation: Recension des écrits autour du portrait cible du somatisateur.

A diagnosis of clinical depression just as masked depression is often associated with body aches that can not be medically explained. After a presentation of operational definitions of somatization and psychosomatic disorders, and of the relationship between depression and somatization, a sociopsychological portrait is given of a target subject suffering from somatization disorder, as discussed in recent publications. The type and psychosocial characteristics, vulnerability to stress, character traits and beliefs, and the family model of the average person suffering from somatization disorder were specified. Finally, the relevance of various treatments was discussed, emphasizing the interest in multiple treatments after arriving at a successful diagnosis. The clinical benefits of prevention in the normal person and of learning to control the psyche/soma interrelationship were outlined. Developing research on somatization, whether it is related or not to depressive moods, is definitely of cultural and financial interest since these patients are large consumers of health care. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Les comportements de contr?le des mères adolescentes: Recension critique de la documentation empirique.

The article offers a critical review of the literature on the determinants of adolescent mothers' control behaviours. The reviewed studies, published from 1980 to 2001, and presented in the first section of the article reveal that adolescent mothers' control behaviours are linked to and at times can be predicted by a set of determinants belonging to three categories: 1) Mothers' psychosocial conditions such as their received and perceived social support, social conflict and experienced stress; 2) their personal and developmental characteristics such as their age, history of maltreatment, parental attitudes and knowledge about child development; and 3) their child's characteristics such as his or her temperament. The growing body of research has contributed to the development of a predictive model adapted to the specific circumstances of adolescent mothers. Despite such progress, research results remain divergent and contradictory partly due to the discrepancies in the conceptual and methodological approaches adopted by investigators. These discrepancies are presented in the first section of this article. The second section offers an analysis of the more global limitations that are common to all reviewed studies such as the diversity of definitions and instruments used to... (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence du processus de coping de l’enfant d’age scolaire sur son adaptation à la séparation parentale et aux conflits entre ses parents.

There exists an abundant literature on the effects of parental separation on children. However, few studies focus on the coping process employed by children to help them deal with this familial restructuring. Eighty-five children and their parents, from intact or separated families, answered questionnaires measuring parental conflicts, the child’s coping process, and the child’s adaptation to validate a theoretical model of child adaptation and to identify the mechanisms by which this process is related to their adaptation. The model takes into account the coping process of children subjected to family-related stress. Path analyses show that threat appraisal influences the choice of coping strategies, and reveal that active strategies influence the perceived efficacy of the coping strategies. The results also show that the children’s coping process is partially tied to their adaptation in various ways. However, avoidance and support seeking coping strategies could have different impacts on the adaptation of the children of each group. This study also draws attention to the direct impact of conjugal conflicts on the child’s adaptation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sollicitation de participation à une enquête par courriel: Effet de la présence sociale de l'attrait physique du demandeur sur le taux de réponse.

Many influence techniques increase response rates to a survey, but these techniques have been tested with face-to-face or telephone surveys. Few studies have tested the effect of compliance techniques in a Computer-Mediated Communication. The personalization of the relationship between the subject solicited and the solicitor as well as the physical attractiveness of the solicitor are factors which have been found to favor compliance to a request in face-to-face situation. Two experiments were carried out in two different situations in which a survey solicitation was sent by e-mail. The presence versus absence of the solicitor's picture in the e-mail and the physical attractiveness of the solicitor were used as independent variables. The results showed that the response rate increased when the solicitor's picure was presented but decreased when the solicitor had a low level of attractiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Les dèterminants de la procrastination académique: Un modèle médiationnel du contexte familial et des processus du soi.

Connell and Wellborn proposed a model which posits that the social context influences the development of self system processes which in turn have an impact on school engagement. The purpose of the present study was to test the validity of the Connell and Wellborn's model in line with academic procrastination. The model suggests that self-determination in family activities (implication) and the quality of the relation between parents and their children (structure) are positively associated to children's self-system processes (competence, autonomy, and relatedness). Moreover, the model proposes that children's self-system processes are negatively related to academic procrastination. Participants were 100 families (father, other, and children) from the Quebec city area. Results from path analysis supported the model. Theoretical implications of the findings are discussed in line with Connell and Wellborn's model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

L'école telle qu'ils la voient: Validation d'une mesure des perceptions du contexte scolaire par les élèves du secondaire.

The purpose of this study was to develop a French-language questionnaire to measure students' perceptions of the teaching practices to which they are exposed (goal structures and teacher-student relations). The primary objective was to assess the psychometric qualities of the questionnaire with 1,265 students distributed among various high school years. Internal consistency and test-retest stability of the scales proved to be entirely satisfactory. Results of confirmatory factorial analysis demonstrate the scales' construction validity. Results of multiple regressions also indicate that retained perceptions are consistent predictors of students' motivational directions and emotional experience at school, regardless of their socio-demographic or academic characteristics. The study's second goal was to contribute to the theoretical debate over what students' perceptions reflect. Such perceptions have shown to have little dependency on their socio-demographic or academic characteristics. Students' responses also displayed consistency in relation to their class level. Further, the effects of students' perceptions when aggregated in exogenous variables parallel such effects on an individual basis. Finally, students' perceptions are in line with those of their teachers. These results support the notion that students' perceptions are based largely on the characteristics of their school environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effets de distribution du voisinage orthographique et d'amor?age par répétition masqué.

This research centres on the effect that the orthographic neighbourhood has in the visual recognition of words. Specifically, we studied to what extent orthographic neighbourhood distribution, that is, the number of letter positions allowing formation of at least one neighbour (Pugh, Rexer, Peter, & Katz, 1994), influences the masked repetition priming effect. In a previous study (Mathey, Robert, & Zagar, 2004), interaction between neighbourhood distribution and orthographic priming was obtained in the lexical decision task. The Interactive Activation Model (IA; McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981) simulated this interaction. With the orthographic priming effect modified for distribution of the neighbourhood of target words, it was necessary to study whether the repetition priming effect also varied as a function of this indicator. Studying this interaction presents a major theoretical issue in specifying the activating and inhibiting processes presented in the IA model. Simulations were produced to obtain precise model predictions regard regarding the neighbourhood distribution effect in a repetitive priming situation for our experimental material. Target words all had two neighbours that were most frequent. These neighbours were isolated, that is, distributed over two letter positions (e.g.: TAUX/faux-toux), or associated, i.e., concentrated on one single position (e.g., SEAU/beaupeau). Targets were preceded by an identical priming (repetitive priming; e.g.: seau-SEAU) or by controlled priming (e.g., &&&&-SEAU). The simulation results obtained using the IA model show the facilitating effects of neighbourhood distribution and repetitive priming, but no interaction between these factors. The experimental results obtained in a lexical decision task confirm these predictions. Thus, the empirical data replicate the neighbourhood distribution's facilitating effect (Mathey & Zagar, 2000) as well as the facilitating effect of masked repetition (Forster & Davis, 1984). Finally, the most interesting result is that the facilitating effect of repetition is comparable for target words with associated neighbours and target words with isolated neighbours. An explanation of the combined effects of the orthographic neighbourhood and orthographic masked repetition priming, integrating data from literature as well as from the current study, is proposed within the framework of the IA model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence du niveau initial de sensibilité au conflit sur l'apprentissage de la conservation des quantités par une méthode de conflit cognitif.

In order to elucidate the problem raised by the usually observed differential efficacy of the induced learning of logical structures by children, the hypothesis was made that the progress observed in preoperational subjects (aged from 4;6 to 6;6), submitted to a training of the conservation of liquids with a technique based upon cognitive conflict, was a function of the subject's initial level of sensitivity to conflict. Subjects were first administered three predictive tests of sensitivity to conflict and then were trained on the conservation task by a method of cognitive conflict based on compensation and addition-subtraction. As predicted, it was found that the experimental group, when compared to the control group, performed better on two successive post-tests and that the progress observed was strongly related to the initial level of sensitivity to cognitive conflict as measured by the predictive test, without any significant correlation with chronological age. These findings seem to indicate that the three main aspects measured by the predictive tests (consistency in the use of concepts, presence of well-articulated functional schemata, ability to accept empirical facts) are important determinants in a child's capacity to profit by a training technique based on cognitive conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sociogenèse et psychobiologie: Les sources de la continuité et de la discontinuité du développement.

The aim of this article is to reflect conceptually upon the various stakes in development from both psychobiological and sociogenetical perspectives, two prominent contemporary theories of social sciences. Where does developmental continuity belong?...Does it belong within the individual or within his or her environment? Despite explicitly recognizing the influence of social experience in human development, the traditionally old nature-nurture debate remains at the center of theoretical analyses and leads to a futile integration of the two positions. The authors propose a theoretical model, which suggests not to integrate these two antagonistic positions but rather to recognize and utilize their interdependency as a means of viewing continuity and discontinuity as complementary facets of development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Techniques of child therapy: Psychodynamic strategies.

Reviews the book, Techniques of child therapy: Psychodynamic strategies by Morton Chethik (see record 1989-97537-000). This volume is addressed both to the advanced psychotherapy student and to the practitioner who is just beginning to work with children. It provides an orientation to the dynamic approach of assessing the young patient, of formulating a working model of the child's conflicts, and ways to gradually intervene in order to restore the normal developmental process. To furnish this orientation, discussions are included on the basics of play therapy, working with parents, fundamental tasks of treatment, conceptual frameworks for guiding interventions, distinctions between different forms of intervention, and differences in therapeutic strategy for working with various disorders ranging from situationally induced acting-out to character pathologies. Although it may seem overly ambitious for the author to explicate and integrate this amount of material within a book of this size, he has nonetheless succeeded in creating a cohesive and clinically useful body of knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children and social policy: Section introduction.

This article introduces this special section in the current issue of the American Psychologist. The present section serves as an introduction and exemplar of the interface between child development research and social policy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Commentary: Some focus and process considerations regarding effects of parental depression on children.

Six main questions are considered: How does depression affect parent-child interaction? Are the effects of parental depression uniform? Do they stem specifically from depressions as such? Do the risks derive from alterations in parent-child interaction? Which psychological functions in the child are affected? and Why do children differ in their responses to parental depression? The main challenges include the need (a) to study aspects of parenting that extend beyond styles of immediate interaction, (b) to differentiate varieties of parental psychopathology, (c) to consider the extent to which effects on children derive from parental depression per se rather than associated risk factors, (d) to differentiate between varied types of psychological dysfunction in the children, (e) to consider genetic as well as environmental transmission, (f) to examine mediating risk and protective mechanisms, and (g) to investigate the processes involved in individual differences in children's responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Allocution prononcée par S. E. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, présidente de la Lettonie, à l'occasion du 65e congrès de la Société canadienne de psychologie.

This article is an address by Dr. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President of Latvia, at the 65th Congress of the Canadian Psychological Association. An English version of this address can be found in the same issue (see record 2005-04705-001). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

L'échelle de développement pubertaire: équivalence en langue fran?aise du <>.

The Pubertal Development Scale from A. C. Petersen and L. J. Crockett (1985) is a self-report instrument that measures levels of pubertal maturation in adolescence. The main goal of this study was to validate the French version of the instrument on a high school population. The latter was administered on 3 occasions to 255 students during their 1st and 2nd high school years. The measure's internal consistency and the sequence of bodily changes of boys and girls allowed the authors to establish the reliability of the students' perception of their pubertal development. Like J. M. Tanner (1962) and Petersen et al. (1985, 1988), 5 categories identifying different pubertal status were labeled. Results show satisfactory reliability from such a pubertal classification system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender arrangements and nuclear threat: A discussion with Dorothy Dinnerstein.

One of the major contributions in the social science of the post-Vietnam era has been the initiation of a new discourse on the psychology of gender. If one were pressed to identify the prototypical statement of this fresh field, the most justifiable candidate would be Dorothy Dinnerstein's book, The Mermaid and the Minotaur. Dinnerstein's thesis is that mother-monopolised child-rearing deforms both male and female psychological development, engendering semi-monstrous mythical figures bound together symbiotically rather than complementary human beings in creative, loving relation. The social confounding of child-rearing with mothering implies a process of development that confronts boys with an abrupt disidentification. For girls, on the other hand, it is the continuity of identification that presents problems. This article presents an interview with Dinnerstein on the relationship between gender development and war. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Approche transversale de profils d'adaptation en santé mentale chez des filles et des gar?ons de 6 à 9 ans: Une analyse typologique.

The purpose of this study was to build on the emerging effort to produce a typology of child behavioral adjustment. The children (302 girls, 354 boys) aged six to nine years responded to a mental health self-report: The Dominic-R (Valla et al., 1994, 1997). The proposed typology is based upon a multidimensional conceptualization and employs the Ward method of cluster analysis to derive specific subtypes that represent both normal and problematic profiles. The database used in developing this typology includes males and females. Five to six types of mental health profiles were identified: Good adjustment, average adjustment, internalized, externalized, and mixed behavior problems. Clusters indicated differences on the basis of age and gender. The treatment implications of these findings are being discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading difficulties in children: Proceedings of a conference held in Douglas Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, November, 1967.

Presents the proceedings of a conference on reading difficulties in children, which was held in Douglas Hospital Montreal, Quebec in November 1967. With the development of interest in cognitive processes in recent years, special education gained a distinct role in psychotherapy with children. This conference was a natural outcome of a therapeutic-educational program whereby considerations of the patient's progress and future moved from conceptions of classical psycho-pathology to conceptions of an educational-methodological nature. The conference was organized, not with the purpose of becoming a "cure-all" event, but as an initial step towards achievement of functional cooperation between professionals in an important field of child development and childhood psychopathology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Mothering of Adolescents: A Comparison of Two Samples.

This study examined 2 samples of adolescents and mothers using a child-based design (Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development [NEAD] project, N = 395 families) and a parent-based design (Twin Moms [TM] project, N = 236 twin family pairs) to compare genetic and environmental influences on mothering. For both samples, the same measures of positivity, negativity, control, and monitoring were used. The use of matched child-based and parent-based samples enabled passive and nonpassive genotype-environment (GE) correlations to be approximated, providing information about process. Passive GE correlations were suggested for mother's positivity and monitoring. For mother's negativity and control, primarily nonpassive GE correlations were suggested. In several cases, both types of GE correlation were indicated. Finally, observer ratings of negativity and monitoring were influenced only by environmental factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's representations of multiple family relationships: Organizational structure and development in early childhood.

The authors examine mutual family influence processes at the level of children's representations of multiple family relationships, as well as the structure of those representations. From a community sample with 3 waves, each spaced 1 year apart, kindergarten-age children (105 boys and 127 girls) completed a story-stem completion task, tapping representations of multiple family relationships. Structural equation modeling with autoregressive controls indicated that representational processes involving different family relationships were interrelated over time, including links between children's representations of marital conflict and reactions to conflict, between representations of security about marital conflict and parent-child relationships, and between representations of security in father-child and mother-child relationships. Mixed support was found for notions of increasing stability in representations during this developmental period. Results are discussed in terms of notions of transactional family dynamics, including family-wide perspectives on mutual influence processes attributable to multiple family relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)