Infant Behavior and Competence Following Prenatal Exposure to a Natural Disaster: The QF2011 Queensland Flood Study

This study utilized a natural disaster to investigate the effects of prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) arising from exposure to a severe flood on maternally reported infant social–emotional and behavioral outcomes at 16 months, along with potential moderation by infant sex and gestational timing of flood exposure. Women pregnant during the Queensland floods in January 2011 completed measures of flood‐related objective hardship and posttraumatic stress (PTS). At 16 months postpartum, mothers completed measures describing depressive symptoms and infant social–emotional and behavioral problems (n = 123) and competence (n = 125). Greater maternal PTS symptoms were associated with reduced infant competence. A sex difference in infant behavioral problems emerged at higher levels of maternal objective hardship and PTS; boys had significantly more behavioral problems than girls. Additionally, greater PTS was associated with more behavioral problems in boys; however, this effect was attenuated by adjustment for maternal depressive symptoms. No main effects or interactions with gestational timing were found. Findings highlight specificity in the relationships between PNMS components and infant outcomes and demonstrate that the effects of PNMS exposure on behavior may be evident as early as infancy. Implications for the support of families exposed to a natural disaster during pregnancy are discussed.     

Researchers Behind Policy Development: Comparing ‘Age-Friendly Cities’ Models in Quebec and Wallonia

Based on a reflexive method, this article explores the roles of researchers behind Age-Friendly Cities and Environments. Referring to Michael Burawoy's division of sociological work (professional, critical, policy and public sociology), it is structured around the international comparison of two empirical case studies: Walloon region (Belgium) and Quebec (a province of Canada). While the first case shows some difficulties faced by a limited policy sociology perspective with little room for research, the latter presents a more developed public sociology approach with larger involvement from research. If both cases started with policy links, the latter presents a special interest for praxis, through knowledge transfer as an ongoing public dialogue. Based on this comparison, the article concludes with a twofold use of praxis: on one side – knowledge in action – a public sociology position offers an original perspective on what AFC/AFE may mean and produce to avoid a limited field of actions focusing only on some stakeholders or advocates for older people. On the other side – action in knowledge – policy and public sociology question professional and critical sociology facing AFC/AFE programmes: is a purely academic knowledge of such a programme epistemologically realistic or should it necessarily be empirically fuelled?     

One is Not Enough: Multiple Exemplars Facilitate Infants' Generalizations of Novel Properties

Across three experiments, we examined 9‐ and 11‐month‐olds' mappings of novel sound properties to novel animal categories. Infants were familiarized with novel animal–novel sound pairings (e.g., Animal A [red]–Sound 1) and then tested on: (1) their acquisition of the original pairing and (2) their generalization of the sound property to a new member of a familiarized category (e.g., Animal A [blue]–Sound 1). When familiarized with a single exemplar of a category, 11‐month‐olds showed no evidence of acquiring or generalizing the animal–sound pairings. In contrast, 11‐month‐olds learnt the original animal–sound mappings and generalized the sound property to a novel member of that category when familiarized with multiple exemplars of a category. Finally, when familiarized with multiple exemplars, 9‐month‐old infants learnt the original animal–sound pairing, but did not extend the novel sound property. The results of these experiments provide evidence for developmental differences in the facilitative role of multiple exemplars in promoting the learning and generalization of information.     

The Relationships Between Sense of Belonging to a Community GLB Youth Group; School,Teacher, and Peer Connectedness; and Depressive Symptoms: Testing of a Path Model

Research indicates belonging to a gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) support group is indirectly associated with fewer depressive symptoms, via higher levels of sense of belonging to the general community. The current study extended this research by testing a path model to determine whether school, teacher, and peer connectedness are influenced by sense of belonging to a community GLB youth group. A sample of 82 Australian GLB adolescents aged 14 to 18 years who currently attend high school completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, the Psychological Subscale of the Sense of Belonging Instrument, and the Social Questionnaire for Secondary Students. Results indicated very good model fit. Higher levels of belonging to a community GLB youth group were associated with higher levels of school, teacher, and peer connectedness, but only peer connectedness was directly associated with depressive symptoms. Higher levels of school and teacher connectedness were associated with higher levels of peer connectedness. Interventions aimed at increasing belonging to a community GLB youth group may have indirect benefits for the mental health of GLB adolescents, via higher levels of school, teacher, and peer connectedness.     

Monogamy,the Protective Fallacy: Sexual versus Emotional Exclusivity and the Implication for Sexual Health Risk

The authors examined the hypothesis that many individuals define monogamy based on emotional rather than sexual fidelity. Participants, 373 heterosexual college students and 282 gay men, read three vignettes of decreasing mitigation in which they imagined committing an act of infidelity against a hypothetical partner and where half the participants were cued to their emotional attachment toward the partner. Despite the infidelity, relationships in the emotional attachment–cued vignettes were rated as monogamous to a greater degree than relationships in the vignettes where emotional attachment was not cued. In addition, over one-third of the participants in our study reported infidelity in their current self-defined monogamous relationships yet also reported feeling more protected from sexual health risks and reported less condom use than individuals who defined their relationship as nonmonogamous. The implications for monogamy as a protective fallacy are discussed.     

The Intersubjective Experience of the Physical Body in the Clinical Setting of Eating Disorders

This paper will illuminate one dimension of self-disclosure as it relates to the inescapable presence of the body in treatment, and the female clinician’s ability to bring her physical body into clinical discussions during an encounter with a female client with an eating disorder. Although the clinical literature on eating disorders validates that transference and countertransference issues are particularly powerful, it generally neglects the exploration of these issues specific to the body’s physical presentation. Since body dissatisfaction is increasingly normative for women today, female clinicians need to have a theoretical road map on which to rely when they encounter a shared body experience. Thus, in order to encourage discussions of the therapist’s body in clinical social work practice, the body needs to be situated in a larger theoretical framework within which it can be explained and located; this framework is object relations theory viewed through an intersubjective lens. Concepts from object relations theory will demonstrate the importance of the body in the clinical exchange by highlighting the parallel between Winnicott’s ‘good enough’ mother and the ‘good enough’ therapist’s body. When the therapist is able to judiciously invite discussions of her body into the clinical arena, the client is given the opportunity to move from object relating to object usage. A case presentation exemplifies how this conceptual framework can be applied to clinical social work practice, strengthening the relationship between knowing and doing.