Social Interaction Relationships Research Articles

Observations of Children's Task Activities and Social Interactions in Relation to Teacher Perceptions in a Child-Centered Preschool: Are We Leaving Too Much to Chance?

The goal of the present study was to describe one center's interpretation of childcentered instruction and what this looked like in terms of the children's daily activities, social affiliation, and behavior in the classrooms. Staff at a self-identified child-centered constructivist preschool program were interviewed about their pedagogical philosophy and asked to give their estimates of the proportion of time that children in their classrooms spent both interacting with different people (alone, with peer, with teacher) and engaged in various behaviors. Data were collected pertaining to children's goal-directed, sustained activities, social affiliation, affect expression, and inappropriate/aggressive behavior via 2,752 naturalistic classroom observations over the course of a semester. Results indicate children a) spent significantly less time engaging in focused, goal-directed, learning activities, b) sustained their attention on one activity for significantly smaller lengths of time, c) expressed overt positive affect considerably less often, and d) had significantly less one-on-one teacher-child interaction, than was believed and desired by the staff. Results were consistent with both a fear expressed by the center director and recent calls from researchers in early childhood education, that teachers in many child-centered constructivist early childhood programs may be committing the "early childhood error" by stepping back and refraining from getting directly involved in children's activities.

Social relations and depressive symptoms in older adults with knee osteoarthritis

Depressive symptoms often occur as a comorbid condition in the context of chronic illnesses such as arthritis. However, the role of both social support and social strain in relation to depressive symptoms has not been adequately explored. This study investigates the association of support and strain with depressive symptoms among a sample of older men and women in the USA ( N=298, mean age 71 years) who have knee osteoarthritis (OA). Data were collected from a survey mailed to residents who had previously participated in the Osteoarthritis Study in Seniors (OASIS), a longitudinal observational study of OA progression (survey response rate was 77%). Hierarchical regression analyses revealed significant associations of both support and strain with depressive symptoms, while statistically controlling for a variety of demographic, psychosocial and disease-related variables. In addition, social support significantly buffered the relation between social strain and depressive symptoms. The interaction effect was not significantly different for women and men, nor were the individual associations of support and strain with depressive symptoms conditioned by participant gender. The results add to the ongoing discussion regarding gender and social relations as well as highlight the role of both positive (social support) and negative (social strain) aspects of social interactions in relation to the psychological functioning of older adults coping with a chronic illness.

Trait hostility and ambulatory cardiovascular activity: responses to social interaction.

This study examined trait hostility and social interaction in relation to ambulatory cardiovascular activity in 40 male and 39 female undergraduates. Participants wore an ambulatory blood pressure monitor and completed diary entries while engaged in everyday activities. Diary reports indicating that participants had been talking were used to identify cardiovascular readings taken during social interaction. Interaction effects for overall diastolic blood pressure and heart rate levels indicated that hostility was positively associated with these variables in men only. In addition, hostility was associated with higher systolic blood pressure during social interaction, an effect primarily due to data for men. Because physical activity was controlled statistically, it is likely that these effects were mediated by psychological processes. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that cardiovascular reactivity to social interaction mediates the relationship between hostility and coronary disease, and they may have implications for understanding sex differences in coronary risk.

A Darwinian Approach to the Origins of Psychosis

The onset of psychotic illness in the reproductive phase of life with a decrease in fecundity (and approximately constant incidence across populations) requires an evolutionary explanation. What is the survival value of the predisposing gene or genes? Evolutionary theories, including the author's, are reviewed and critically compared. Some theories (e.g. Huxley et al, 1964) postulate an advantage outside the nervous system: such theories fail to explain either the characteristic age distribution or constant incidence. More plausible are theories that relate the advantage to diversity of personality structure or social ability, or even to general intelligence, i.e. to the areas of function in which the phenomena of psychosis arise. It is argued that psychosis arises as the boundary of a distribution of variation in cerebral structure generated in the course of hominid evolution. Language played a central role, with the critical changes taking place on the basis of a mutation that allowed the two cerebral hemispheres to develop with a degree of independence. Sexual selection (differing criteria in females and males in choosing a mate) acting on this genetic innovation has generated a dimension of competence in social interaction in relation to which there has been a progressive increase in cerebral size by delayed maturation (neoteny). A sexual dimorphism in cerebral asymmetry and the sex difference in age of onset of psychosis can be parsimoniously explained if a gene regulating the relative growth of the two hemispheres is X-Y homologous.

Effects of social context and mothers' requesting strategies on Down's syndrome children's social responsiveness.

Social context and maternal style of requesting and responsiveness were examined in teaching and social interactions in relation to 28 Down's syndrome (DS; 30 to 69 months old) and 28 mental-age matched normal children's cooperation and social initiative. Compliance for DS children was similar to normal children for child-initiated exchanges but decreased during mother-initiated exchanges, particularly in less structured situations. The DS children initiated fewer exchanges but were comparable on self-directed behavior. Differences in mothers' requests and children's social competence related to risk, language skills, and social situation. The DS but not normal children were more likely to increase compliance with directive vs. suggestive requests, but only in the structured situation