Affect Children Research Articles

Validating parent and child forms of the Parent Perception Inventory.

Understanding parenting from both parent and child perspectives is critical to child clinical and developmental research. Similarities and differences between parents' and children's reports can be highly informative, but only if they derive from psychometrically sound measures that assess the same parenting constructs. We examined the psychometric properties of the child and parent forms of the Parenting Perception Inventory (Bruce et al., 2006), which measures perceptions of two higher-order dimensions: positive, warm, supportive parenting; and negative, harsh, critical parenting. Data from a four-wave, longitudinal study of community children and adolescents (n = 876, Mage = 9.5 at the beginning), and data from a study of children (n = 131, Mage = 9.35) of depressed and nondepressed mothers provided psychometric support for both measures. Factor analyses revealed the existence of two factors in both the child and parent forms, and showed strong congruence across the two forms. Other analyses examined longitudinal structure, item difficulty, item discriminations, and scale coverage of the child form. Parents' and children's perceptions of parenting were related to children's affect, emotionality, and depressive symptoms. Parents' perceptions of parenting were related to parents' depressive symptoms and to parenting self-efficacy. (PsycINFO Database Record

Distinguishing self-oriented perfectionism-striving and self-oriented perfectionism-critical in school-aged children: Divergent patterns of perceived parenting, personal affect and school performance

Parental expectations and criticism are associated with Self-Oriented Perfectionism-strivings (SOP-striving) and Self-Oriented Perfectionism-critical (SOP-critical)11SOP-striving refers to self-oriented perfectionism-striving subscale; SOP-critical refers to self-oriented perfectionism-critical subscale. respectively, when retrospectively examining parenting during childhood, but have never been examined within an actual child sample. Similarly, the differential relations of SOP-striving and SOP-critical to affect and academic achievement have rarely been tested within a child sample, nor has the association of these parenting behaviors with these outcomes been explored. The present study consisted of 203 children, aged 8 to 12. Results replicated previous findings within a child sample, indicating that parental expectations are associated with SOP-striving (b=0.29, p<0.001), which is associated with academic achievement (b=0.30, p<0.001), while parental criticism is associated with SOP-critical (b=0.31, p<0.001), which is associated with negative affect (b=0.28, p<0.001). Moreover, the results reveal these parenting behaviors are related to children's affect and academic achievements, both directly and indirectly through perfectionism. The present investigation lends credence to the Social Expectations Model (Flett, Hewitt, Oliver, & MacDonald, 2002) by providing evidence within the target population, and highlights the divergent patterns of SOP-striving and SOP-critical.

Family Environments and Children's Executive Function: The Mediating Role of Children's Affective State and Stress

ABSTRACTThere is increasing evidence that inadequate family environments (family material environment and family psychosocial environment) are not only social problems but also factors contributing to adverse neurocognitive outcomes. In the present study, the authors investigated the relationship among family environments, children's naturalistic affective state, self-reported stress, and executive functions in a sample of 157 Chinese families. These findings revealed that in inadequate family material environments, reduced children's cognitive flexibility is associated with increased naturalistic negative affectivity and self-reported stress. In addition, naturalistic negative affectivity mediated the association between family expressiveness and children's cognitive flexibility. The authors used a structural equation model to examine the mediation model hypothesis, and the results confirmed the mediating roles of naturalistic negative affectivity and self-reported stress between family environments and the cognitive flexibility of Chinese children. These findings indicate the importance of reducing stress and negative emotional state for improving cognitive functions in children of low socioeconomic status.

The role of affect in the positive self: Two longitudinal investigations of young adolescents in the United States and China.

This research investigated the role of American and Chinese children's affect in the valence of their views of themselves. In 2 studies (Ns = 825 and 397), children in the United States and China reported on their affect (e.g., positive and negative emotions) and described themselves multiple times over the 7th and 8th grades. The more positive and less negative children's affect, the more positive their descriptions of themselves over time in both studies. These pathways were more consistent than those in the reverse direction (i.e., from children's self-descriptions to their affect). Notably, regardless of direction, the strength of the pathways was similar in the United States and China. The findings suggest that counter to some theoretical perspectives, affect is not more important in American than Chinese children's judgments about the self. (PsycINFO Database Record

How differentiated do children experience affect? An investigation of the within- and between-person structure of children’s affect.

Research on the structure of children's affect is limited. It is possible that children's perception of their own affect might be less differentiated than that of adults. Support for the 2-factor model of positive and negative affect and the pleasure-arousal model suggests that children in middle childhood can distinguish positive and negative affect as well as valence and arousal. Whether children are able to differentiate further aspects of affect, as proposed by the 3-dimensional model of affect (good-bad mood, alertness-tiredness, calmness-tension), is an unresolved issue. The aim of our study was the comparison of these 3 affect models to establish how differentiated children experience their affect and which model best describes affect in children. We examined affect structures on the between- and within-person level, acknowledging that affect varies across time and that no valid interpretation of either level is feasible if both are confounded. For this purpose, 214 children (age 8-11 years) answered affect items once a day for 5 consecutive days on smartphones. We tested all affect models by means of 2-level confirmatory factor analysis. Although all affect models had an acceptable fit, the 3-dimensional model best described affect in children on both the within- and between-person level. Thus, children in middle childhood can already describe affect in a differentiated way. Also, affect structures were similar on the within- and between-person level. We conclude that in order to acquire a thorough picture of children's affect, measures for children should include items of all 3 affect dimensions. (PsycINFO Database Record

Transgenerational effects of maternal depression on affect recognition in children

BackgroundThe association between maternal depression and adverse emotional and behavioral outcomes in children is well established. One associated factor might be altered affect recognition which may be transmitted transgenerationally. Individuals with history of depression show biased recognition of sadness. Our aim was to investigate parallels in maternal and children's affect recognition with remitted depressed mothers. Methods60 Mother–child dyads completed an affect recognition morphing task. We examined two groups of remitted depressed mothers, with and without history of physical or sexual abuse, and a group of healthy mothers without history of physical or sexual abuse. Children were between 5 and 12 years old. ResultsAcross groups, mothers identified happy faces fastest. Mothers with remitted depression showed a higher accuracy and response bias for sadness. We found corresponding results in their children. Maternal and children's bias and accuracy for sadness were positively correlated. Effects of remitted depression were found independent of maternal history of physical or sexual abuse. LimitationsOur sample size was relatively small and further longitudinal research is needed to investigate how maternal and children's affect recognition are associated with behavioral and emotional outcomes in the long term. ConclusionsOur data suggest a negative processing bias in mothers with remitted depression which might represent both the perpetuation of and vulnerability to depression. Children of remitted depressed mothers appear to be exposed to this processing bias outside acute depressive episodes. This may promote the development of a corresponding processing bias in the children and could make children of depressed mothers more vulnerable to depressive disorders themselves.

Determining the Factors that Influence Nursing Students’ Affection for Children

OzeT ABS TRACT Amac: Bu arastirma, hemsirelik ogrencilerinin hem cocuk sevme duzeylerini etkileyen faktorlerin, hem de bakimlarinda kolaylastirici faktorlerin belirlenerek egiticilere isik tutmasi amaciyla planlanmistir. Gerec ve Yontem: Arastirma verilerinin toplanmasinda; “Demografik Veri Toplama Formu” ve “Cocuk Sevme Olcegi” kullanilmistir. Verilerin analizinde yuzdelik, ortalama ve standart sapma, korelasyon ve coklu regresyon analizi ile kullanilmistir. Anlamlilik duzeyi 0,05 olarak kabul edilmistir. Bulgular: Calismaya katilan ogrencilerin yas ortalamasi 22,43±1,87 yil olup, cinsiyete gore incelendiginde ogrencilerin %79,8‘i kizdir ve %90,4’unun kardesi vardir. Ogrenciler daha once cocuk bakma durumuna gore incelendiginde %61,7’sinin daha once cocuk bakiminda yer aldigi, %95,7’sinin cocuklarla oyun oynamada istekli oldugu ve %80,8’inin ileride cocuk sagligi kliniklerinde calismak istedigi bulunmustur. Cocuk sevme ile kardes sayisi, cocuk bakma durumu, cocukla oyun oynama ve cocuk servisinde calismayi isteme arasinda anlamli bir iliski belirlenmistir. Sonuc: Calismadaki degiskenler cocuk sevme durumunun sadece %52’sini aciklamaktadir. Cocuk sevme durumunu etkileyen diger faktorlerin belirlenebilmesi icin daha genis orneklemde ve farkli egitim modelindeki ogrencilerde ornekleme dahil edilerek calismanin tekrarlanmasi onerilir. The Journal of Pediatric Research 2015;2(1):37-41 Anahtar Kelimeler: Cocuk, hemsirelik ogrencisi, cocuk sevme durumu

Maternal regulation of child affect in externalizing and typically-developing children.

Temporal contingencies between children's affect and maternal behavior play a role in the development of children's externalizing problems. The goal of the current study was to use a microsocial approach to compare dyads with externalizing dysregulation (N =191) to healthy controls (N = 54) on maternal supportive regulation of children's negative and positive affect. Children were between the ages of 8 and 12 years. Mother-child dyads participated in conflict and positive discussions, and child affect and maternal supportive affect regulation were coded in real time. First, no group differences on overall levels of mother supportive regulation or child affect were found. Second, three event history analyses in a 2-level Cox hazard regression framework were used to predict the hazard rate of (a) maternal supportiveness, and of children's transitions (b) out of negative affect and (c) into positive affect. The hazard rate of maternal supportiveness, regardless of child affect, was not different between groups. However, as expected, the likelihood of mothers' supportive responses to children's negative affect was lower in externalizing than comparison dyads. In addition, children with externalizing problems were significantly less likely than typically developing children to transition out of negative affect in response to maternal supportiveness. The likelihood of both typically developing children and children with externalizing problems transitioning into positive affect were not related to specific occurrences of maternal supportiveness. Results of the current study show the importance of temporal dynamics in mother-child interactions in the emergence of children's externalizing problems.

Antonin Artaud and Freud’s “Family Romance”: The Transgressive Sublime

Freud’s family romance and Romantic idealism conjoined in Antonin Artaud’s work such that repetition and transference became accompanied by a Romantic quest for a strange and more sublime aesthetic order. This was both a psychological system and a philosophical perspective that negatively and energetically influenced his radical and existential forms of self-identification.

Longitudinal Study of an After-school, Inquiry-based Science Intervention on Low-achieving Children's Affective Perceptions of Learning Science

This longitudinal study explores the effects of an after-school, inquiry-based science intervention on improving low-achieving elementary school children's affective perceptions of learning science (APLS) and positive thinking. Thirty-nine low-achieving children nominated by their teachers attended a three-semester intervention and formed the experimental group; another 87 typical fourth graders were randomly selected as the comparison group. The elementary school student questionnaire was administered to assess all participants' APLS and positive thinking. In addition, eight target students from the experimental group with the lowest scores on either APLS or positive thinking were selected for observation and interviews. Factor analyses, paired-wise t-tests, and theme content analyses were used to compare the similarities and differences between groups and within semesters. It was found that the experimental group children's APLS and positive thinking were gradually and significantly more improved than their counterparts' during the intervention. Interview and observation results were consistent with the quantitative findings. This longitudinal study provided evidence that the after-school, inquiry-based science intervention acted as a facilitating agent for improving low achievers' APLS and positive thinking. Instructional implications and research recommendations are discussed.

The Genesis of a Sensibility and the Gulf Coast Oil Disaster of 2010

Intimate biographical, urgent environmental, and political reflections come together in this aesthetically refined depth psychological excursion beyond self and subjectivity to the transpersonal field of the lumen naturae. From a fateful family car accident through reveries of childhood, school, Boy Scouts, and the influence of a local earth mother and a nature guru sent by Providence, the evolution of a Midwestern child's keen eye and ardent affection for the natural world proceeds tumultuously from art school and a crucial dissociative crisis to a singularly enchanted morning of bird watching on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. There the jarring impact of the explosive British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on the same adult personality 30 hours later and fifty miles off shore is elaborated with no small sense of horror. Colorful observations of birds, insects and plant species, habitats and locales, personal dreams and key excerpts from an old Ecuador travel journal are subtly interwoven, then highlighted by the collectively significant proclamation of fierce political will by a powerful black woman to her countless earthly children in for an era torn with war and ecological outrages. This prose poem seeks throughout to characterize the unique position of our reflective human consciousness poised between the dazzling if troubled extended world and the inwardly receding expanse of psychic space brimming with living images and struck through with myriad scintillae, the rods and cones of the imaginal retina with which we see and derive our capacity for wonder.

Mood lability among offspring of parents with bipolar disorder and community controls

Early identification of bipolar disorder (BP) symptomatology is crucial for improving the prognosis of this illness. Increased mood lability has been reported in BP. However, mood lability is ubiquitous across psychiatric disorders and may be a marker of severe psychopathology and not specific to BP. To clarify this issue, this study examined the prevalence of mood lability and its components in offspring of BP parents and offspring of community control parents recruited through the Pittsburgh Bipolar Offspring Study. Forty-one school-age BP offspring of 38 BP parents, 257 healthy or non-BP offspring of 174 BP parents, and 192 offspring of 117 control parents completed a scale that was developed to evaluate mood lability in youth, i.e., the Children's Affective Lability Scale (CALS). A factor analysis of the parental CALS, and in part the child CALS, revealed Irritability, Mania, and Anxiety/Depression factors, with most of the variance explained by the Irritability factor. After adjusting for confounding factors (e.g., parental and offspring non-BP psychopathology), BP offspring of BP parents showed the highest parental and child total and factor scores, followed by the non-BP offspring of BP parents, and then the offspring of the controls. Mood lability overall and mania-like, anxious/depressed, and particularly irritability symptoms may be a prodromal phenotype of BP among offspring of parents with BP. Prospective studies are warranted to clarify whether these symptoms will predict the development of BP and/or other psychopathology. If confirmed, these symptoms may become a target of treatment and biological studies before BP develops.

How can parents obtain knowledge about their adolescent children?

The aim of this study is to analyse the influence of family dimensions on parental knowledge of their adolescent children, based on the country, gender and age of adolescents. This study adopts two different perspectives—national and international—with data taken from the results of the 2006 edition of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study undertaken in Spain and other member countries of the international network, namely, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The results indicate that both fathers and mothers obtain knowledge about their adolescent children through the children's disclosures, parental affection, parental solicitation and family activities. The discussion focuses on how these family dimensions promote parental knowledge.

‘I know it's wrong, but . . .’: a qualitative investigation of low‐income parents' feelings of guilt about their child‐feeding practices

In the developed world, child overweight and obesity rates are highest among the disadvantaged. This has resulted in calls for more research with low socio-economic families to better understand their experiences with disadvantage and how they might lead to poorer weight outcomes. The present study, conducted in Australia, adopted a qualitative approach to investigate the factors affecting low socio-economic parents' child-feeding practices. Methods used to collect data were introspections, interviews and focus groups. In total, 37 parents of overweight or obese children aged between 5 and 9 years took part in the 6-month study. Guilt emerged as an emotion that parents regularly experienced when allowing their children to consume too much food or foods high in fat, salt and/or sugar. Parents attributed their guilt-inducing child-feeding practices to both external and internal factors. Time scarcity and cost were factors that were primarily characterized by an external locus of control. The factors characterized by an internal locus of control were fear of their children experiencing hunger, the perceived need to secure their children's affection through the provision of treat foods, perceptions of their ability to balance their children's diets across eating situations and perceived laziness. Recommendations are provided for addressing guilt-inducing child-feeding practices.

Children's recognition of emotions from vocal cues

Emotional cues contain important information about the intentions and feelings of others. Despite a wealth of research into children's understanding of facial signals of emotions, little research has investigated the developmental trajectory of interpreting affective cues in the voice. In this study, 48 children ranging between 5 and 10 years were tested using forced-choice tasks with non-verbal vocalizations and emotionally inflected speech expressing different positive, neutral and negative states. Children as young as 5 years were proficient in interpreting a range of emotional cues from vocal signals. Consistent with previous work, performance was found to improve with age. Furthermore, the two tasks, examining recognition of non-verbal vocalizations and emotionally inflected speech, respectively, were sensitive to individual differences, with high correspondence of performance across the tasks. From this demonstration of children's ability to recognize emotions from vocal stimuli, we also conclude that this auditory emotion recognition task is suitable for a wide age range of children, providing a novel, empirical way to investigate children's affect recognition skills.

Rage Attacks in Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Phenomenology and Clinical Correlates

Rage attacks have been documented in youth with varied psychiatric disorders, but few data have been reported on the clinical characteristics and correlates of rage attacks among children with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Participants were 86 children (ages 6-16 years) with a primary diagnosis of OCD. Patients and their primary caregiver were administered clinician-rated measures of obsessive-compulsive severity and rage severity. Children completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale and the Child Sheehan Disability Scale-Child, whereas parents completed the Rage Attacks Questionnaire, Aberrant Behavior Checklist-Irritability Scale, Children's Affective Lability Scale, and Child Sheehan Disability Scale-Parent. Rage was common among youth with OCD and was associated with varied clinical characteristics. Rage severity accounted for functional impairment beyond the influence of obsessive-compulsive symptom severity; however, these relations were explained by the impact of family accommodation. These data suggest that rage attacks are relatively common, have a negative impact on illness presentation, and contribute to functional impairment above and beyond obsessive-compulsive symptom severity. Rage may contribute to family accommodation of symptoms, which may further affect obsessive-compulsive symptom severity and impairment.

Modeling Adoption Attitudes: Recalled Maternal Warmth, Affection for Children, and Parenting Motivation

We tested a model for predicting adoption attitudes: that remembered parental warmth is associated with more positive attitudes toward adoption and that this relationship is mediated by motivation to parent and liking of children. One hundred and eighty-seven university students participated in the study. Controlling for participant gender and adoption experience, the model was supported for maternal warmth, but not for paternal warmth. Specifically, the relationship between recalled maternal warmth and more positive attitudes toward adoption was mediated positively by liking of children and negatively by motivation to parent. The results implicate both childhood experiences and contemporary motives and preferences in adoption attitudes.

Infant signs as intervention? Promoting symbolic gestures for preverbal children in low-income families supports responsive parent–child relationships

Abstract Gestures are a natural form of communication between preverbal children and parents which support children's social and language development; however, low-income parents gesture less frequently, disadvantaging their children. In addition to pointing and waving, children are capable of learning many symbolic gestures, known as “infant signs,” if modeled by adults. The practice of signing with infants is increasingly popular in middle-income populations around the world, but has not been examined as an intervention to promote positive qualities of the parent–child relationship. This study tested whether an infant sign intervention (ISI) encouraging low-income parents to use symbolic gestures could enhance the parent–child relationship. A final sample of twenty-nine toddlers and their families were followed for 7 months after assignment to the ISI or a control group. Children and mothers in ISI group families used more symbolic gestures than those in control families. Mothers’ in the ISI group were more attuned to changes in children's affect and more responsive to children's distress cues. Mothers in the intervention group also viewed their children more positively, reducing parenting-related stress. This study provides evidence that a simple infant sign intervention is an effective tool to promote bidirectional communication and positive interactions for preverbal children and their parents.

Family transitions following the birth of a sibling: an empirical review of changes in the firstborn's adjustment.

Nearly 80% of children in the United States have at least 1 sibling, indicating that the birth of a baby sibling is a normative ecological transition for most children. Many clinicians and theoreticians believe the transition is stressful, constituting a developmental crisis for most children. Yet, a comprehensive review of the empirical literature on children's adjustment over the transition to siblinghood (TTS) has not been done for several decades. The current review summarizes research examining change in first borns' adjustment to determine whether there is evidence that the TTS is disruptive for most children. Thirty studies addressing the TTS were found, and of those studies, the evidence did not support a crisis model of developmental transitions, nor was there overwhelming evidence of consistent changes in firstborn adjustment. Although there were decreases in children's affection and responsiveness toward mothers, the results were more equivocal for many other behaviors (e.g., sleep problems, anxiety, aggression, regression). An inspection of the scientific literature indicated there are large individual differences in children's adjustment and that the TTS can be a time of disruption, an occasion for developmental advances, or a period of quiescence with no noticeable changes. The TTS may be a developmental turning point for some children that portends future psychopathology or growth depending on the transactions between children and the changes in the ecological context over time. A developmental ecological systems framework guided the discussion of how child, parent, and contextual factors may contribute to the prediction of firstborn children's successful adaptation to the birth of a sibling.

Toward Automatic Recognition of Children's Affective State Using Physiological Parameters and Fuzzy Model of Emotions

Toward Automatic Recognition of Children's Affective State Using Physiological Parameters and Fuzzy Model of Emotions