The importance of cognitions and attachment in family therapy has long been recognized but attachment to parental figures apparently does not affect the way that family events are cognitively processed. Given the large body of literature suggesting the importance of attachment and cognition, McCarthy speculated that the lack of significance for…

Past research has supported the idea that involvement in extracurricular activities has a positive impact on students' evaluation of their college lives. This study investigated whether involvement, as measured by time commitment to campus activities, had a differential impact on the students' adjustment to various aspects of college life,…

As part of a longitudinal study of postpartum adjustment and infant development, this study examined whether securely attached 12-month-old infants show greater object mastery motivation and social-object mastery motivation than do insecurely attached infants. Object mastery relates to infants' goal-directed behavior that is oriented toward…

Research on the effectiveness of the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) in enhancing the mother-newborn relationship has had inconsistent results. A study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of an NBAS intervention with a high-risk mother group. The study focused on low-income, drug-using mothers, measuring the effectiveness of the…

A study examined how maternal separation anxiety contributes to the mother's departure actions and how those behaviors affect the child during separation. Subjects were 40 mothers and their toddlers, age 15 to 24 months, who were observed before and during separation. After completing the Maternal Separation Anxiety Questionnaire, mothers were…

Using an interdisciplinary perspective that combines research in psychology, sociology, and anthropology, this book examines the composition and role of the family with respect to young children, adolescents, and adult children of elderly parents. Following a preface discussing the major themes of the book--parent-child attachment, transitions and…

Reporting recent information from research and service programs, this report presents issues concerning young children and their families. The report includes six sections; contents focus on the growth and developmental needs of children under 3 years of age. Section 1 discusses the importance of attachment between a baby and one or two…

The paper examined the impact of maternal personality and maternal social support variables on the security of mother-infant attachment. The influence of maternal intelligence, affect balance, and life stress were also examined. Measures used included Loevinger's Ego Development Scale, Crnic's Satisfaction with Social Support, the Peabody Picture…

To validate a new approach to research on the attachment behavior of children beyond toddler age, this study investigated relations between Q-sort outcomes and preschool children's affective perspective-taking; prosocial responsiveness to emotion; social competence, as rated by their teachers; and their mothers' expression and handling of…

Effects of maternal-neonatal extended contact or separation were examined in 76 children (8 to 10 years old), five of whom were receiving special education services, and 28 who had been retained in their grade. Of the five Ss requiring special services, three were classified as slow learners and two as speech impaired, two conditions linked by…

This study was designed to identify some of the individual physical features of the mother that promote adaptive responding of 2-year-old children in a novel environment. Previous studies have suggested that any ambiguous stimulus configuration might be effective if the child can be led to perceive it as his mother. After being separated from…

This paper discusses a series of three studies investigating the influence of infants' characteristics and signaling behavior on parents. Videotapes of either smiling/cooing/gurgling or crying infants were used to elicit parents' physiological and affective responses. Measured physiological responses included skin conductance, heart rate, and…

Examined was the transition made by parents to the "empty nest" phase of family development. Two basic hypotheses were tested: children's growing independence and departure from the home does not represent loss for most parents, but rather is experienced as a gain; and men and women appear to experience the transition differently and…

Analysis of the verbal content of 48 Hispanic and Anglo mothers revealed that questions about a newborn infant's gender were more frequent than comments about family resemblance. The contradiction with previous research may be a result of (1) different time intervals for recording conversations or (2) different sociological backgrounds of mothers.…

Combines and examines evidence from two longitudinal studies of infant and family development to determine whether experience of extensive nonmaternal care in the first year is associated with heightened risk of insecure infant-mother attachment and, in the case of sons, infant-father attachment. (Author/RWB)