Temperament and attachment security in the strange situation: an empirical rapprochement

In response to Frodi and Thompson's recent demonstration that infants classified A1-B2 in the Strange Situation differ significantly in emotional expression from infants classified B3-C2, several longitudinal data sets were examined to determine whether these group differences might be a function of infant temperament. Data from 3 separate samples revealed significant concordance between infant-mother and infant-father Strange Situation classifications when scored in terms of A1-B2 versus B3-C2, but not when scored in terms of the traditional A-B-C system. In addition, in 2 samples on which newborn behavioral data were available, A1-B2 infants displayed more autonomic stability than B3-C2 infants, and in one of the samples the former infants were more alert and positively responsive as newborns (with means in the same direction in Sample 2). Moreover, mothers of A1-B2 infants described their babies as less difficult to care for at 3 months of age. Considered together, these findings suggest that infant temperament affects the manner in which security or insecurity is expressed rather than whether or not the infant develops a secure or insecure attachment. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the study of the interactional antecedents and the developmental consequences of attachment security.     

Application of the strange situation attachment paradigm to a neurologically impaired population

Mother-infant attachment was studied in 24 mother/impaired infant dyads. The infants, from 12 to 26 months chronological age, manifested primary neurological impairment or undiagnosed delay in gross and fine motor development. Measures of general development and degree of child impairment significantly differentiated "classifiability" of attachment in the Ainsworth scheme; thus, the most severely impaired infants were rated "not classifiable." For those infants who were fully classifiable (80% of the sample), only 1 measure of general development or degree of impairment differentiated quality of attachment classification. Infants rated higher on a measure of social responsiveness were more likely to possess secure attachments than those receiving lower ratings on the measure.     

Temperament, emotion, and social interactive behavior in the strange situation: a component process analysis of attachment system functioning

This study examines the contributions of temperamentally and nontemperamentally based emotional reactions to the organization of social interactive behavior within the Strange Situation to better understand the emotional underpinnings of attachment system functioning. At 12 1/2 and 19 1/2 months, temperamental fear (assessed via maternal report) was related to independent per-episode dimensions of social interactive and distress behavior. Fear was moderately correlated with both distress and interactive dimensions at each age. Path-analytic models revealed that temperamental fear had direct effects on interactive behavior and also indirect effects mediated by preceding distress reactions. However, residualized measures of "context-specific" distress (with temperamental variance removed) were still highly consistent across Strange Situation episodes and also significantly predicted subsequent social interactive behavior; furthermore, stable distress reactions from 12 1/2 to 19 1/2 months significantly predicted concurrent stability in social interactive behavior. We discuss likely sources of "context-specific" emotional influences on Strange Situation behavior and also age-related differences in these findings.     

Academic attachment: Predicting students' affective reactions to the university

In attempting to develop a predictive model of student attachment to the university, this research concentrates on four variable sets: perceptions of university goals, perceptions of university academic climate, perceptions of university academic environment, and feelings of academic alienation. Using a sample of 460 university students, multiple discriminant analytic results indicate that of these four variable sets, perceptions of the academic climate and feelings of academic alienation exert more influence on students' attachment to the university than do perceptions of university goals and perceptions of the academic environment. These findings are discussed within the context of a model of the university student operating very much as a democratic citizen in the university political system.     

The relative effects of maternal and child problems on the quality of attachment: a meta-analysis of attachment in clinical samples.

In this meta-analysis of 34 clinical studies on attachment the hypothesis is tested that maternal problems such as mental illness lead to more deviating attachment classification distributions than child problems such as deafness. A correspondence analysis on 21 North American studies with normal subjects produced a baseline against which the clinical samples could be evaluated. Separate analyses were carried out on studies containing the traditional A, B, C classifications and on studies that also included the recently discovered D or A/C category. Results show that groups with a primary identification of maternal problems show attachment classification distributions highly divergent from the normal distributions, whereas groups with a primary identification of child problems show distributions that are similar to the distributions of normal samples. The introduction of the D or A/C classifications (about 15% in normal samples) reveals an overrepresentation of D or A/C in the child problem groups, but the resulting distribution still is much closer to the normal distributions compared to the samples with maternal problems. In clinical samples, the mother appears to play a more important role than the child in shaping the quality of the infant-mother attachment relationship.     

Infants' responses to strangers: midget, adult, and child.

Infants respond differentially, and at times with fearlike behavior, to unfamiliar persons. This study was designed to see how infants discriminate among strangers. Since it has been shown that infants respond differently to children and adults, the physical characteristics of persons used to make such differentiations were of interest. Facial configuration and height were systematically varied as 4 different strangers--a male and female child, a female adults, and a small female adult the same height as the children (midget)--each approached 40 different infants. The infants responded as if there were 3 classes of persons--adult, child, and small adult, suggesting that both size and facial configuration cues were used. Infants as young as 7 months of age reacted to the size-facial configuration discrepancy of the small-adult condition.     

Differential effects of delay of reinforcement on acquisition of affective and instrumental responses

Thirsty rats were allowed to choose between a striped arm of a T-maze that contained water and a black arm that contained a saccharin solution. After each exposure to the saccharin solution, half of the animals received a lithium chloride injection 1 min later and half received the same injection 30 min later. Comparable saline injections at these same delays were given after each exposure to the striped, water, arm. The results from saccharin aversion, spatial aversion, and instrumental learning tests generally supported the hypothesis that delayed reinforcement has a substantially greater negative impact on the acquisition of an instrumental response than it has on affective conditioning.     

Online peer assessment: effects of cognitive and affective feedback

This study reports the effects of online peer assessment, in the form of peer grading and peer feedback, on students’ learning. One hundred and eighty one high school students engaged in peer assessment via an online system—iLap. The number of grade-giving and grade-receiving experiences was examined and the peer feedback was coded according to different cognitive and affective dimensions. The effects, on both assessors and assessees, were analyzed using multiple regression. The results indicate that the provision by student assessors of feedback that identified problems and gave suggestions was a significant predictor of the performance of the assessors themselves, and that positive affective feedback was related to the performance of assessees. However, peer grading behaviors were not a significant predictor of project performance. This study explains the benefits of online peer assessment in general and highlights the importance of specific types of feedback. Moreover, it expands our understanding of how peer assessment affects the different parties involved.     

Child emotionality and maternal responsiveness as predictors of reunion behaviors in the strange situation: links mediated and unmediated by separation distress

Children's emotionality--fear, anger, and joy--observed outside of the relationship with the mother (in standard laboratory paradigms), and within that relationship (in mother-child interactions), and mothers' responsiveness, all at 9 and 14 months, were examined as predictors of the reunion behaviors in the Strange Situation at 14 months in 112 children. Many predictors were linked to the reunion behaviors, but most of those relations were at least partially mediated by children's separation distress, which itself strongly predicted the reunion behaviors. Those relations were no longer significant when distress was controlled. Several links, however, remained significant, and they were unmediated by distress: Almost all involved measures assessed within the context of the mother-child relationship. In particular, possible markers of a suboptimal relationship (children's dampened joy and increased anger in interactions with the mother, poor maternal responsiveness) were associated with more avoidance and resistance upon reunion, even after accounting for the strong impact of distress. Studying how factors measured outside of and within early relationships influence the components of the attachment system may foster understanding of child behavior in the Strange Situation.     

试析WTO/GATT幼稚产业保护条款兼论中国的幼稚产业保护

幼稚产业是指为一国经济发展计划所促进但缺乏竞争力的产业,为帮助成员方建立和发展幼稚产业,WTO/GATT协议在自由竞争规则之外遵循情势变更原则订立了幼稚产业保护条款,允许成员方在关税和数量限制等方面对幼稚产业进行保护。中国具备援引该条款的条件,但援引该条款只是权宜之计,经济发展的根本仍在于深化改革,提高综合国力和产业竞争力。     

Joint attention and infant toy exploration: effects of Down syndrome and prematurity

12-month-old infants with Down syndrome (n = 14) and mental and motor age-matched high-risk preterm infants (n = 14) were studied with respect to their ability to attend to and explore their environment in interactions with their mothers. The effectiveness of particular maternal attention-directing techniques in modifying infant responses to toys was expected to vary across the 2 infant groups. In general, higher-level responses to toys were expected to be associated with mother's attempts to maintain rather than redirect the child's attention and the mother's use of structured verbal and nonverbal attention-directing techniques. Results indicated that mothers of the 2 groups of infants used different attention-directing strategies, and their use of particular strategies was differentially related to the attentional capacity of the 2 groups. Differences in the infants' responses to particular maternal strategies were related to the amount of structure provided and to the demands placed on their capacity to shift attention between objects. Fewer specific maternal techniques for directing attention elicited higher-level play behavior from the Down syndrome infants, compared to the preterm group.     

The role of temperament in children's affective and behavioral responses in achievement situations

Although students' affects and behaviors in achievement situations have been shown to be influenced by their previous learning experiences, less is known about how they relate to students' dispositional characteristics, such as temperament. This study examined to what extent children's temperament is related to their affective and behavioral responses in achievement situations. Teachers rated first-graders' (n = 153) temperamental characteristics in the Fall semester. Children's active task avoidance, anxiety, and helplessness were rated in test situations in the Fall and Spring semesters. The results showed that the more easily distracted the children were, the more task avoidance they showed, and the more their task avoidance increased during the first grade. Moreover, children's high level of inhibition was related to high levels of anxiety and helplessness. The findings suggest that characteristics that are related to students' behavioral regulation and inhibition are particularly important for their affective and behavioral responses in achievement situations.     

Social attachment of the infant guinea pig to its parents in a two-choice situation

Twenty-four domestic guinea pigs (12 of each gender) served as subjects in this study, which investigated attachment by testing amount of time (maximum 5 min) the infants spent close to either the mother or the father in a two-choice situation during Weeks 2, 4, 6, and 8 after birth. Significantly more time was spent close to the mother during Weeks 2 and 4; reaction to the father appeared random. Time spent close to the mother declined across weeks, suggesting that maternal attachment weakens as the infant matures.     

Psychosocial stress,performance, and affective and somatic responses in college students

A survey of 164 college students assessed their aptitudes, performance, outside work commitments, as well as their perception of their environment, satisfaction, and affective and somatic complaints. Several causal themes linking environment perceptions, performance, and affective and somatic complaints were apparent.     

The quality and frequency of mother-toddler conflict: links with attachment and temperament.

The goal of this study was to examine the links among attachment, child temperament, and the quality and frequency of mother-toddler conflict. Sixty-four mothers and children took part in a series of laboratory tasks when the child was 30 months of age and an audiorecorded home observation when the child was 36 months of age. All episodes of conflict were identified from the videotapes/audiotapes, transcribed, and coded for conflict strategies, resolution, and themes. Mothers also completed measures of attachment security and child temperament. Concurrent attachment security was related to the quality of mother-toddler conflict (including resolution, justification, and compromise) at both periods but not to the frequency of conflict. In addition, aspects of child temperament (i.e., negative reactivity and activity level/impulsivity) were related to both the quality and the frequency of mother-toddler conflict.     

The effects of affective pedagogical agent in multimedia learning environments: A meta-analysis

Affective pedagogical agent (PA) is an image of a character embedded in multimedia lessons with the ability to influence learners' affective experiences and learning performance. Prior studies on the effects of affective PA have shown inconsistent findings. In this study, we conducted four separate meta-analyses to address whether adding an affective PA to multimedia lessons can increase learners' retention performance, transfer performance, positive emotions, and intrinsic motivation, and to explore several moderators that may have contributed to the inconsistencies of previous studies. The research framework mainly includes introducing the concept of affective PA, reviewing research on the impact of affective PA on learning performance, emotions, and motivation, analyzing the moderators that may affect the effects of affective PA, performing a meta-analysis, and discussing the results based on the findings of the meta-analysis. We found 36 articles met the inclusion criteria. The results of the meta-analysis indicated that affective PA could increase learners’ positive emotions (k = 25, g = 0.26), improve intrinsic motivation (k = 26, g = 0.26), and facilitate learning performance (retention: k = 35, g = 0.26; transfer: k = 45, g = 0.34). Furthermore, moderator analysis found that affective PA characteristics (i.e., appearance, the number of emotional cues, and body movement) and learning materials characteristics (i.e., subject domain, pacing of presentation) moderated the effects of affective PA. We discussed these findings from different theoretical perspectives. In general, affective PA could help students be happier and more motivated to learn in multimedia learning environments.