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Developmental Psychology Sep 2019Emotions remain something of a mystery for most of us even when we accept their centrality to development in general and to infancy in particular. I make 2 arguments in...
Emotions remain something of a mystery for most of us even when we accept their centrality to development in general and to infancy in particular. I make 2 arguments in this paper. One: that the most crucial thing about emotions is that they allow mutuality of engagement with other emotional beings-not only evoking responses, but also provoking further emotions in others. Mutual engagements-sometimes called moments of meeting or encounters with other minds-can be transformational. They allow us to be "seen," to be "known" by others, and in achieving that, they allow us to be persons. Some key phenomena of emotional encounters in infancy are discussed to illustrate this point. Evidence of such meetings is abundant in our lives and needs a committed focus for study within developmental psychology. Two: that we need to open out the idea of emotions (as well as probe at a microlevel) and the terms affect or affectivity might help encompass a greater breadth. Daniel Stern's "vitality affects" and Ben Anderson's "affective atmospheres" both cross disciplinary boundaries in contemplating emotional phenomena. It seems crucial for developmental psychology to incorporate such different aspects-neurological, kinematic, situational and sociopolitical-into discussions of emotional development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Topics: Emotions; Humans; Infant; Psychology, Developmental
PubMed: 31464506
DOI: 10.1037/dev0000773 -
Current Issues in Personality Psychology 2023From Bill Kessen's idea of the child as a "cultural invention" (Kessen, 1983) it follows that developmental psychology cannot function fruitfully without historical... (Review)
Review
From Bill Kessen's idea of the child as a "cultural invention" (Kessen, 1983) it follows that developmental psychology cannot function fruitfully without historical analysis. Developmentalists should stop "positivistic dreaming" and develop a historical developmental psychology. The history of childhood shows how a historical process of infantilization has taken place since Rousseau and the 19th century pedagogical and educational theories and institutions. In the 20th century a new process of de-infantilization took place, caused mainly by the modern mass media (Postman, 1982). It is demonstrated how this led to the "disappearance of childhood". Babies no longer were considered and studied as "empty-headed" (William James' conception of the baby experiencing "one great blooming, buzzing confusion"): impressive new research methods and data "filled the baby's brain" and made the baby much more human than ever before in history. With the narrowing of the gap between childhood and adulthood adolescence as a bridge is less necessary than before. Not only the disappearance of childhood is going on; at the same time there is a correlated disappearance of adolescence. The conclusion must be that the study of cognitive, social and personality development should take into consideration the cultural historical embeddedness.
PubMed: 38013941
DOI: 10.5114/cipp/159600 -
Development and Psychopathology Oct 2022Although variable-oriented analyses are dominant in developmental psychopathology, researchers have championed a person-oriented approach that focuses on the individual...
Although variable-oriented analyses are dominant in developmental psychopathology, researchers have championed a person-oriented approach that focuses on the individual as a totality. This view has methodological implications and various person-oriented methods have been developed to test person-oriented hypotheses. Configural frequency analysis (CFA) has been identified as a prime method for a person-oriented analysis of categorical data. CFA searches for configurations in cross-classifications and asks whether the number of observed cases is larger (CFA type) or smaller (CFA antitype) than expected under a probability model. The present study introduces a combination of CFA and model-based recursive partitioning (MOB) to test for type/antitype heterogeneity in the population. MOB CFA is well suited to detect complex moderation processes and can distinguish between subpopulation and population types/antitypes. Model specifications are discussed for first-order CFA and prediction CFA. Results from two simulation studies suggest that MOB CFA is able to detect moderation processes with high accuracy. Two empirical examples are given from school mental health research for illustrative purposes. The first example evaluates heterogeneity in student behavior types/antitypes, the second example focuses on the effect of a teacher classroom management intervention on student behavior. An implementation of the approach is provided in R.
Topics: Humans; Psychology, Developmental; Psychopathology
PubMed: 33750489
DOI: 10.1017/S0954579421000018 -
Frontiers in Psychology 2023
PubMed: 37854137
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1260109 -
Frontiers in Psychology 2022
PubMed: 36467214
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1086458 -
Developmental Psychology Oct 2022Theory and research have described developmental processes leading to damaged parent-child relationships, such as those that occur during a divorce. However, scholars... (Review)
Review
Theory and research have described developmental processes leading to damaged parent-child relationships, such as those that occur during a divorce. However, scholars dispute the scientific status of the literature on children who form unhealthy alliances with one parent against the other-termed parental alienation (PA). This comprehensive literature review tests competing descriptions of the PA literature. Accessing four electronic databases, we identified 213 documents with empirical data on PA published in 10 languages through December 2020. The results confirmed that the current state of PA scholarship meets three criteria of a maturing field of scientific inquiry: an expanding literature, a shift toward quantitative studies, and a growing body of research that tests theory-generated hypotheses. Nearly 40% of the PA literature has been published since 2016, establishing that PA research has moved beyond an early stage of scientific development and has produced a scientifically trustworthy knowledge base. This literature review documents the value of multiple research methodologies to this knowledge base. In addition, the growing body of research described in this review enhances our understanding of the association between interparental conflict and the breakdown of parent-child relationships in families where conflict differentially affects children's relationship with and behavior toward each parent. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Topics: Divorce; Family Conflict; Humans; Parent-Child Relations; Parents; Psychology, Developmental
PubMed: 35653764
DOI: 10.1037/dev0001404 -
Frontiers in Psychology 2022
PubMed: 36312117
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035999 -
Pediatric Annals Oct 2020Mental health disorders emerge in predictable patterns across pediatric development. Understanding these patterns can help clinicians anticipate emerging mental health... (Review)
Review
Mental health disorders emerge in predictable patterns across pediatric development. Understanding these patterns can help clinicians anticipate emerging mental health problems. In this article, we review child development, merging concepts from developmental psychology with motor, language, cognitive, and social development. We point out developmental red flags for mental health disorders in each developmental period. [Pediatr Ann. 2020;49(10):e426-e430.].
Topics: Child; Child Development; Developmental Disabilities; Humans; Mental Disorders; Mental Health
PubMed: 33034657
DOI: 10.3928/19382359-20200921-04 -
Developmental Science Sep 2020We review the support for, and criticisms of, the teleological stance theory, often described as a foundation for goal-directed action understanding early in life. A... (Review)
Review
We review the support for, and criticisms of, the teleological stance theory, often described as a foundation for goal-directed action understanding early in life. A major point of contention in the literature has been how teleological processes and assumptions of rationality are represented and understood in infancy, and this debate has been largely centered on three paradigms. Visual habituation studies assess infant's abilities to retrospectively assess teleological processes; the presence of such processes is supported by the literature. Rational imitation is a phenomenon that has been questioned both theoretically and empirically, and there is currently little support for this concept in the literature. The involvement of teleological processes in action prediction is unclear. To date, the ontology of teleological processes remains unspecified. To remedy this, we present a new action-based theory of teleological processes (here referred to as the embodied account of teleological processes), based on the development of goal-directed reaching with its origin during the fetal period and continuous development over the first few months of life.
Topics: Goals; Habits; Humans; Imitative Behavior; Infant; Male; Perception; Psychology, Child; Psychology, Developmental; Retrospective Studies
PubMed: 32304172
DOI: 10.1111/desc.12970 -
Journal of Child Psychology and... May 2023Part of the appeal of attachment language is that it feels near to our everyday experience, as terms like 'attachment', 'security' or 'disorganisation' feel readily...
Part of the appeal of attachment language is that it feels near to our everyday experience, as terms like 'attachment', 'security' or 'disorganisation' feel readily recognisable. Yet, not one of these terms is used by academic attachment researchers in line with ordinary language. This has hindered the evidence-based use of attachment in practice, the feedback loop from practice to research and the dialogue between attachment researchers in developmental psychology and in social psychology. This paper pinpoints the difficulties arising from the existence of multiple versions of 'attachment theory' that use exactly the same terms, held by communities that assume that they are referring to the same thing and with little infrastructure to help them discover otherwise. When we talk past one another, the different communities with a stake in knowledge of attachment are obstructed from genuinely learning from one another, drawing on their respective strengths and pursuing collaborations. One factor contributing to this situation has been the use of attachment terminology with technical meanings, but often without setting out clear definitions. We here introduce a guide to attachment terminology used by the academic community, which has recently been published on the website of the Society for Emotion and Attachment Studies. The guide is meant for researchers, clinicians and everyone concerned with attachment to increase understanding of the technical meaning of important terminology used by researchers, and support the quality of discussions between researchers, and between researchers and clinicians and other publics.
Topics: Humans; Terminology as Topic; Object Attachment; Psychology, Developmental; Psychology, Social; Behavioral Research
PubMed: 35916428
DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.13675