Interpersona (E-Journal - PsychOpen)
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Cognitive and Language Development in Preschoolers Is Related to Maternal Cognitive Performance: A Study of Young Mothers in an Urban Area of a City in Southern Brazil
To evaluate the relationship between maternal cognitive performance and language and cognitive development of children between 24 and 36 months old of mothers who became pregnant in adolescence, in the city of Pelotas, Southern Brazil. This is a cross-sectional study nested in a cohort study with adolescent mothers who received prenatal care in the city’s public health system. To assess maternal cognitive performance, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) was used and Bayley Scales of Infant Development III (BSID-III) are used to assess children's language and cognition development. Data were analyzed using SPSS (Version 22.0) software. Pearson correlation, t-test, ANOVA and linear regression were performed. We evaluated 496 mother-child dyads. In the adjusted analysis, we found that children's language remained associated with maternal cognitive performance (p = .027, CI [0.0, 0.6]) and child’s gender (p < .001, CI [−7.2, −2.4]). Besides that children cognitive development remained associated with maternal cognitive performance (p = .008, CI [0.1, 0.6]) and child’s gender (p = .030, CI [−4.5, −0.2]). Our results suggest that poor maternal cognitive performance is associated with lower levels of children's language and cognitive development. The results contributing to early identification and intervention in children of mothers with poor cognitive performance at higher risk of negative developmental outcomes
Love, Relationships and Couple Happiness: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Among Spanish Couples and Moroccan Couples in Southern Spain
Love and relationships are sociocultural constructions that, in recent times, have experienced great changes in terms of type of relationship, type of love and happiness of the couple. Few studies have analysed the love relationships immigrant population in Europe. This study aims to explore the differences and similarities in love styles between Spaniards and Moroccan immigrants, the country’s largest foreign population, and analyse the relationship between these styles and level of couple happiness. This cross-sectional study disseminated a survey to young adults between the ages of 18 and 40 in southern Spain. Of those who received the survey, 574 young adults responded, of which 182 were of Moroccan origin and 392 were Spanish. The results indicated that there are sociocultural and gender differences in the types of relationships young adults maintain and in the agents that facilitate romantic socialisation. The Spaniards describe less stable relationships, more influenced by several agents, while the Moroccans demonstrated more stability in relationships, more influenced by family and religion. In accordance with Sternberg love components, different types of love were recognised. Spanish women are the group most value love in their lives, rated higher in couple happiness, and gave special importance to intimacy (but not to commitment and passion). Moroccan women followed models of love closer to Sternberg's romantic love, giving importance to commitment, intimacy and passion. Spanish men were similar to Moroccan men regarding their type of love, although they were the only ones that included commitment as a predictor of happiness. This study reveals that the importance of an intersectional approach to analyse love and couples
Online Marriage Education During COVID-19 Home Lockdown: A Multiple-Baseline Single-Case Experimental Design
Flexible-delivery marriage education (ME) has many advantages over traditional alternatives in reaching couples during the time of COVID-19 lockdown or other national emergencies. In an effort to add to the research of flexible-delivery ME, this exploratory study evaluated an online class adapted from an empirically-validated, marriage curriculum (Four Gifts of Love Class, [FGL]) under home lockdown conditions lasting over 2 months caused by COVID-19 government restrictions. Using a concurrent multiple-baseline single-case experimental design, three distressed couples residing in the Philippines completed seven online lessons over 7 weeks while experiencing home lockdown. Visual analysis of the data suggested that all three couples responded positively to the intervention. The Tau-U and SMDall analyses for each couple ranged from a small to large effect size on measures of marital adjustment (weighted average Tau-U = .50, p < .05; BC-SMD = 0.34) and romantic love (weighted average Tau-U = .52, p < .01; BC-SMD = 0.31), with increases reaching clinical and statistical significance for one couple out of the three. In addition, there was no attrition. The promising results from this preliminary study suggested that the online adaptation of FGL as a flexible-delivery ME could mitigate marital decline, especially during times of calamity when traditional-delivery ME is unavailable and marital decline is predicted. Further study of this program and other online ME programs are recommended to expand the limited research in this area of flexible-delivery ME
Different Facets of Attitudes Towards Having Children: The Procreation Attitude Scale (PrAttS)
The attitudes towards children are more complex than simple positive/negative distinctions. In the present study, we sought in two studies (N = 445) to provide a tool to explore different facets of attitudes towards babies and procreation by developing and validating a questionnaire regarding attitudes towards procreation. Study 1 was conducted to develop an English language scale tapping into adults’ attitudes toward having offspring. A larger number of statements were formulated that expressed an emotional value and motivational attitudes towards having babies. The sample consisted of n = 157 participants. Participants’ responses were subjected to a preliminary principal components analysis with an oblique rotation. Study 1 obtained a relatively economical scale to tap into three facets of attitudes toward having children. Study 2 sought to validate a German language version of the same scale as in the previous study. A total of n = 288 participants were recruited. The 13 items of the scale were subjected to a confirmatory factor analysis. Study 2 confirmed the three-dimensional structure. The Procreation Attitude Scales (PrAttS) consists of 13 items representing three underlying dimensions: (1) unconditional positivity, (2) anticipated annoyance and (3) contingent willingness. The present investigations showed twice a gender difference in emotional attitudes, revealing that women have a stronger emotional interest in procreation and babies. The PrAttS provides an explicit method of interest for children, providing an alternative to more recently criticized implicit measures
Book Review: “Reconstructing Agency in Developmental and Educational Psychology: Inclusive Systems as Concentric Space”
Paul Downes has recently published “Reconstructing Agency in Developmental and Educational Psychology: Inclusive Systems as Concentric Space” (Downes, 2020), both as a hardback and as an e-book. This book is part of The Routledge Research in Educational Psychology series, which modestly aims to contributing to develop this field. The author — an Associated Professor of Education (Psychology) at DCU, the Dublin City University — has other published works on the issue, such as Structural Indicators for Developing Inclusive Systems in and around Schools (Downes, Nairz-Wirth, & Rusinaite, 2017)
Don´t Cheat Like I Did: Possessive Jealousy and Infidelity in Close Relationships
In a sample of 68 adult men and 70 adult women from Santiago, Chile, with a mean age of 29.40 years and a median age of 29, the effects of one's own infidelity and that of one's partner on different types of jealousy were examined. Of the respondents 47.1% had ever been unfaithful, and over half (56.5%) reported that their partner had been unfaithful. There were no effects of one's own infidelity and that of one's partner on reactive and anxious jealousy, but those who had been unfaithful, as well as those whose partner had been unfaithful, expressed the highest levels of possessive jealousy. These effects were not moderated by gender nor did age affect jealousy. Women were higher in all types of jealousy than men were
#HappyAnniversary: Gender and Age Differences in Spouses’ and Partners’ Twitter Greetings
Research and theory suggest that men, on average, are inhibited from expressing vulnerable emotions such as love, whereas women do so more readily. Based on theories of gender socialization and social media uses and gratifications, we conducted a content analysis of gender differences in the domain of wedding and other relationship anniversary greetings delivered on Twitter (N = 414 tweets). We tested for gender as well as age differences in three areas: symbolic (emoji), photographic, and verbal content. As hypothesized, women were more likely to use emojis than were men. Most tweeters who included photographs in their greetings used photos of themselves and their partners today, although some subgroups of men and women preferred photos from their weddings. Age-related differences were clear: young-adult tweeters preferred symbolic emojis to deliver their anniversary greetings, whereas older/middle-aged adults opted for verbal/textual communication, particularly in the areas of tribute and inspirational statements and humor. Results are discussed in terms of gender-role socialization, social and cultural norms, and modes of communication (e.g., written letters and notes, smartphone texts) during different historical eras
Relational Surprise Experiences as a Unique Form of Relational Maintenance
This study presents an initial exploration and conceptualization of relational surprise experiences (RSEs) as communication phenomenon involving strategic relational maintenance behaviors with potential for positive and negative outcomes. University students in the Southeastern United States (N = 203) described a RSE that occurred with a close relational partner (romantic partner, friend, or family member), explained how deception was used to achieve the surprise, and reported relational benefits and drawbacks in an online survey. Seven types of RSEs were reported including gifts, events, visits, and destinations. Responses revealed that people considered surprises as relationally beneficial with minimal drawbacks. Although over one-third of the participants described their partner’s pants perceived the surprise as a violation of relational rules. Some participants reported both benefits and drawbacks to RSEs, thereby illuminating a nuance for traditional relational maintenance typologies. This study establishes a path to explore implications of RSEs for individual and relational satisfaction, happiness, and well-being
United for Marriage: Dynamics of Elderly Couples
In the face of aging population and the fluidity of intimate relationships, this qualitative study aimed to understand the conjugal dynamics of elderly couples who have been together for more than 20 years. Reflections about the aging, the conjugality formation and the marriage transformations were made by the psychodynamic bias. The Mini-Exam of the Mental State was applied to five Brazilian couples aged from 60 to 83 years old, with an average marriage time of 41.6 years, who were at last interviewed. Such interviews were guided by a semi-directed script with identifying data and five questions previously elaborated according to the research objective. This content was analyzed and their results were thematized showing that couples perceive marriage as a union requiring commitment and sharing of life projects. It was concluded that even amidst a hedonist society, the elderly are not yet thoughtful of individuality, because love for them has a connotation other than a sum of pleasurable moments
Living in Cohousing Communities: Psychological Effects and Coping Strategies in Times of COVID-19
The aim of this study was to compare a sample of residents in cohousing communities (n = 180) and inhabitants in traditional neighborhoods (n = 104). During the social isolation that was decreed by the German government due to the COVID-19 pandemic, data collection was carried out through the Internet. Psychological symptoms and coping strategies were measured, and their differences were investigated by multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Results showed that residents in cohousing communities have lower levels of depressive, anxiety, compulsive and eating disorders, as well as less use of coping strategies which are based on emotional concealment, problem avoidance, and social withdrawal. Moreover, its inhabitants showed higher levels in the use of social support. It is concluded that living in a cohousing community favors, in comparison with life in traditional neighborhoods, the mental health of its inhabitants