A Longitudinal Study of Belief and Desire State Discourse During Mother–Child Play and Later False Belief Understanding

There is considerable interest in the role of mental state language in theory of mind development. This study examines cognitive and desire state discourse of 43 mothers during play interactions with their two‐year‐old children and theory of mind as indicated by a battery of false belief tasks around the age of five. Desire state comments of mothers during free play which were appropriate to the conversational context were significantly related to children's later theory of mind, and this relation was independent of other confounding variables, including a home‐based measure of maternal sensitivity, and socio‐economic status, and an estimate of child language. The child's desire state language was concurrently related to the mother's desire state language used appropriately, and the child's cognitive state language was related to the mother's appropriate cognitive state language. Although cognitive state language was not predictive of later theory of mind, this may be because this kind of language plays a later role in theory of mind development.     

Crossing the Terek,or, The Two Banks of Life's One River

Tolstoy's encounter with the Caucasus as a young man was a formative lesson in alterity, one that inculcated in him a moral vision that would permeate all of his writing.     

G.H. Mead's Understanding of the Nature of Speech in the Light of Contemporary Research

The following analysis demonstrates that G.H. Mead's understanding of human speech (what Mead often referred to as “the vocal gesture”) is remarkably consistent with today's interdisciplinary field that studies speech as a natural behavior with an evolutionary history. Mead seems to have captured major empirical and theoretical insights more than half a century before the contemporary field began to take shape. In that field the framework known as “Tinbergen's Four Questions,” developed in ecology to study naturally occurring behavior in nonhuman animals, has been an effective organizing framework for research on human speech. It is used in this paper to organize the comparison of Mead with contemporary scholars. The analysis concludes that Mead was, in a sense, “beyond” the Four Questions by recognizing the limitations of reductionist methods in understanding the nature of conscious phenomena, especially language. Mead's socially situated model of the nature of human speech makes him relevant to today's field where some see an undervaluation of the treatment of language as a social process.     

Three measures of non‐resident fathers' involvement,maternal parenting and child development in low‐income single‐mother families

This study examined the relationships among non‐resident fathers' involvement, mothers' parenting and parenting stress, and children's behavioural and cognitive development in low‐income single‐mother families. Based on the theoretical concepts of father involvement in terms of accessibility, responsibility and interaction, this study operationalizes fathers' involvement with three different measures: (i) fathers' frequency of contact with their children; (ii) fathers' amount of child support payment; and (iii) fathers' quality of parenting. Analyses used the first three waves of longitudinal data from a subsample of single and non‐cohabiting mothers with low income in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Results suggest that non‐resident fathers' child support payment is indirectly associated with both children's behaviour problems and cognitive development. Fathers' parenting is also found to be indirectly associated with children's behaviour problems. The findings further suggest that those estimated associations are transmitted through mothers' parenting. The expected associations between fathers' contact and child outcomes are not found in this sample. The study also discusses the policy and practice implications of its findings.     

Traditional Features of Russian Political Culture in Their Current Perspective

For about sixty years all Soviet economists and historians have celebrated the demise of NEP as socialism's greatest victory. You could count advocates of the opposite point of view on your fingers. The situation has changed in the last two or three years. The press today is for the most part filled with hymns of praise for NEP as the most successful period in the development of Soviet society. There is admiration for the miraculous recovery of Russia's economy after the civil war, for the economy's high effectiveness during that period, and for the establishment of a hard currency. We look to NEP for lessons that will help us to resolve our current economic problems. The termination of NEP in the late 1920s is bewailed as the turning point in Soviet history that marked the victory of the Administrative System with all its known tragic consequences for the life of Soviet society. Those responsible for the death of NEP are named: Stalin and those around him, members of the party machine [apparatchiki] infected with the ideology of War Communism, and individual social strata (poor peasants, part of the working class, and youth).     

The Meaning of Meaning in Sociology. The Achievements and Shortcomings of Alfred Schutz's Phenomenological Sociology

Phenomenological sociology was founded at the beginning of 1930s by Alfred Schutz. His mundane phenomenology sought to combine impulses drawn from Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and Weber's action theory. It was made famous at the turn of 1960s and 1970s by Garfinkel's ethnomethodology and Berger & Luckmann's social constructionism. This paper deals with the notable accomplishments of Schutz and his followers and then proceeds to a shared shortcoming, which is that the phenomenological approach is unable to understand meaning in any other way but as actors's knowledge. Therefore, phenomenological sociologists are forced to describe the actor's interpretations of meaning as transparent to the actor him/herself, even if they sometimes make heroic attempts to escape the limitations of the phenomenological conception. The limitation is apparent in Husserl's and Schutz's definition of meaning as a “reflective intentional act”, Garfinkel's use of the term “accounting” to refer to a signifying effect, and the way Berger and Luckmann describe their social theory as “sociology of knowledge”. Today, similar confusions are present in Michael Polanyi's “tacit knowledge”and in Giddens' structuration theory.     

Robert Frost's Visit to the USSR

Yesterday we saw off Robert Frost, the eminent veteran American poet, who had been our guest for ten days. This is too short a span for a close-up of the face of a country, especially when it is as large as ours. It is also impossible to establish and strengthen those bonds of cordial amity without which there is no profound and frank mutual understanding. But though this is all very true, it can also turn out otherwise. Our guest's inexhaustible and youthful curiosity enabled him even in so short a time to attain, if not a deep understanding, at least a fresh and strong feeling of our country's creative atmosphere, of the manifestations of the Soviet people's creative energies discernible in every aspect of their daily life, and—in particular and especially—the Soviet man's burning, direct, all-embracing interest in the destinies of his own literature and that of the world in general, and his keen heartfelt interest in the ringing word of poetry.     

What are the Links Between Theory of Mind and Social Relations? Review,Reflections and New Directions for Studies of Typical and Atypical Development

Twenty years after research on children's ‘theory of mind’ began, this field continues to be a leading influence in the study of developmental psychology and psychopathology. In this review we examine the contribution of research on children's theories of mind to our understanding of children's developing social relationships. Evidence shows that for both typical and atypical populations this relationship is neither uniform nor unidirectional. Theory‐of‐mind skills are multifaceted and the nature of the developmental relationship between different aspects is not yet known, and there is evidence that theory‐of‐mind skills both transform and are transformed by interpersonal and family relationships and by language communities. To understand the multifaceted and complex nature of development in this area, we need clearer definitions of the skills under investigation, as well as research designs that capture the transactional nature of the relationship between theory of mind and social relations. Addressing these issues should help to clarify (i) the processes by which children's developing understanding of others is influenced by the social environment, and (ii) issues concerning the specificity of theory‐of‐mind impairments in atypical populations and the processes by which these impairments develop.     

Examining links between affective empathy,cognitive empathy,and peer relationships at the transition to school

The current study aimed to (i) examine associations across features of affective and cognitive empathy, and (ii) explore their independent role for children's peer relationships at the transition to school. Affective empathy was measured using both observations of children's facial affect during an empathy-eliciting event and dispositional affective empathy to peer distress via teacher report. Cognitive empathy was measured using an index of children's proclivity to engage in perspective taking when witnessing the distress of another. Children's theory of mind was also assessed given close links with cognitive empathy. Participants were 114 Australian children (M_age = 67 months, SD = 5 months) assessed across two sessions during their first year of formal schooling. Findings showed that features of children's affective and cognitive empathy were unrelated, but both showed independent associations with children's positive peer relationships (assessed via peer-reported social preference and teacher-rated peer social maturity). The current study provides support for the delineation between features of affective and cognitive empathy in early school-age children, and the importance of understanding both affective and cognitive empathy for children's peer relationships at the transition to school. These findings have implications how we understand both the nature of empathy in childhood and the role it plays in supporting children's positive peer relationships.     

Friendship, transactive dialogues, and the development of scientific reasoning

This study investigated the significance of friendship for scientific reasoning. We had two main goals: First, assess whether collaborations between friends fostered greater development of scientific reasoning than collaborations between acquaintances, and second, identify which features of friends' collaborative dialogues mediated their greater problem solving accuracy. Fifth graders collaborated on isolation of variables problems of varying difficulty with either a friend or an acquaintance. The results showed that adolescents paired with friends obtained higher problem solving accuracy than adolescents paired with acquaintances during both the collaborative and the posttest sessions. However, the cognitive advantages of working with a friend were only evident in the most difficult isolation of variables problems. Analyses of friends' and acquaintances' dialogues showed that friends were more likely than acquaintances to evaluate their solutions, justify their proposals spontaneously, elaborate and critique each other's reasoning, and engage in transactive discussions. Evaluating outcomes and participating in transactive conflicts were significantly associated with better problem solving, and consequently these may be the two key mechanisms through which friendship effects developmental changes in scientific reasoning. The results are discussed in terms of the need to understand developmental features of relationships and how these features mediate cognitive development and the need to take a longitudinal approach to the study of the relation between transactive dialogues and the development of scientific reasoning.     

Threat, Group Identification, and Children's Ethnic Prejudice

This experiment tested predictions from social identity development theory (SIDT, Nesdale, 1999 ), that children's tendency to show out‐group prejudice depends on the strength of their in‐group identification and/or their perception of threat from the out‐group. Anglo‐Australian children (N= 480) aged 6, 7, or 9 years were assigned to a high‐status team and their identification with the in‐group (high vs. low) was manipulated together with threat from the out‐group (present vs. absent). The members of the out‐group were revealed to be of the same (Anglo‐Australian) or different (Pacific Islander) ethnicity to the in‐group. Results supported the SIDT predictions. In addition, consistent with socio‐cognitive theory (ST, Aboud, 1988 ), dislike for the out‐group at 6 years gave way to increasingly neutral reactions by 9 years of age. Ethnic composition of the out‐group did not impact differentially on liking but it did affect the children's desire to change groups. Strongly identified children were reluctant to leave their group regardless of the ethnicity of the out‐group, whereas children with low in‐group identification were more willing to change into a same‐ than into a different‐ethnicity out‐group. It is concluded that both social identity and social cognitive processes are implicated in the development of prejudice in middle childhood.     

He Knew How to Make Himself Irreplaceable

Now that Sobchak is no longer with us, the remarks he made not long before his premature death take on the force of an invocation, a prophecy. I met with him—just think!—only last Monday in his small office on Nevskii Prospekt. It was Valentine's Day, and I felt that I was not intruding too much in Sobchak's family plans. "Lana," he told his wife on his mobile phone, "you didn 't know, but I am talking with Sosnov. No, I won't be late for dinner."     

Megalomania: A Mingled Tale

Predictably, certain patients present treatment issues which resonate strongly with issues that are still problematic (unconscious and/or only partially resolved) for the therapist. This paper examines the author's professional/personal development over forty years, beginning with reflections about a countertransference enactment triggered by an acting-out African American child whose father, his primary caregiver, had abandoned him at age 18 months. The potential dangers and benefits of therapist grandiosity are also considered.     

Impact of child care arrangements on Australian children's cognitive outcome: moderation effects of parental factors

This study examines the effects of child care arrangements on children's cognitive outcomes. It is a secondary analysis, using data on 5107 children born in 2004 and their families from Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Data were collected in 2004 (Wave One), in 2006 (Wave Two) and in 2008 (Wave Three). This study asks (i) Do children receiving non‐parental child care have different cognitive developmental outcomes at ages 4–5, compared with those who never had non‐parental child care during the first 3 years of life? Do parental factors affect these associations?; and (ii) among children with non‐parental child care, do child care characteristics such as types of care, quantity, entry age and stability of child care affect child outcomes? Do parental factors affect child outcomes? The study's findings suggest that children in non‐parental child care had higher Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test scores at age 5. Among children in non‐parental child care arrangements, quantity and entry age of non‐parental child care affected children's cognitive developmental outcomes. Along with child care arrangements, parental mental health was associated with children's cognitive outcomes.     

Strategies for the Study of Individual Development within Naturally-Existing Peer Groups*

The investigation of peer influences on children's development in natural settings rests squarely on appropriate methods to identify those individuals who are influential for a given child. Traditional methods of sociometric ratings or assessments of friendship choices are not intended to identify reciprocal influences in children's peer groups of social interrelationships. In the study of networks within sociology, researchers have focused on the structural properties of children's networks, instead of the psychologically meaningful characteristics of the children who comprise a target child's network. To complement these strategies, a method is presented that can reliably identify those individuals who constitute children's natural peer groups in a setting. This information is used to form composite maps that represent the psychological peer context of a given child. Strategies are outlined for analyzing processes of group selection and socialization among developing individuals and their changing peer contexts.     

Major, Blair and the Third Way in Social Policy

Tony Blair's adoption of the catchphrase ‘the Third Way’ to précis New Labour's policy orientation allowed him to distance ‘New’ Labour from ‘Old’ Labour and to appropriate many of John Major's modifications to Thatcherism, albeit framed within a new political language. This article sets out the basic similarities and differences between the social policies of the Major and Blair governments, arguing that, although the policies have been presented within different discourses, there has been a marked similarity in policy content, with Major espousing Third Way policies if not Third Way rhetoric. Indeed, towards the end of his second term of office, Blair started to go beyond the Third Way and towards Margaret Thatcher's favoured model of spirited competition between public and private suppliers.     

Conservatorship:

The term "protective services" for older adults has often implied the complete faking over of an impaired elderly person's life. In the past, the only way to protect an even partially impaired elderly person was to have him or her judicially declared incompetent. This was frequently followed by institutionalization. The social work profession's commitment to preserving as much of the client's right to self-determination as possible has made practicioners reluctant to pursue this course of action. Conservatorship, the authors believe, is a viable alternative to this.     

Scaffolding and the zone of proximal development: A problematic relationship

For nearly four decades, a variety of social science disciplines have assumed that the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and the metaphor of scaffolding reflect more or less the same process. However, we will argue that any similarity is at best partial and at worst superficial. Equating the processes adds nothing to Vygotsky's general theory and in fact may weaken and dilute the robustness of the theory. To make the non‐equivalence case, the paper first presents an overview of Vygotsky's approach to psychology that includes an expansive discussion of the ZPD not only as the activity in which instruction leads development, but also as the key to his approach to experimental research. This is followed by a critical review of the relevant statements that have appeared in the literature on the nature of scaffolding, its presumed link to the ZPD and that brings to the fore the inadequacies of the metaphor itself that disqualify it as an equivalent process. While the ZPD can be understood to include the kind of interaction that is described in the scaffolding literature, it is a much broader and far more robust process than scaffolding, as is made apparent when the two processes are compared, which is the focus of the concluding section of the article. In the comparison we summarize the analyses presented, especially with regard to the implications and relevance of the metaphors underlying each concept.     

Supervision With Rose: A Tribute

A clinical supervisor can offer the fledgling clinician a rich education, including a foundation in clinical theory, guidance on clinical technique, and an awareness of the use of countertransference. Yet there may be no greater gift that a supervisor can bestow than bolstering the neophyte's self-confidence. In this brief essay, the author fondly remembers what his supervisor said to him that was so essential when he was at an early stage in his professional development.     

Mother–Child Interaction as a Cradle of Theory of Mind: The Role of Maternal Emotional Availability

The present longitudinal study investigated the relative importance of emotional availability (EA) in 56 mother–child dyads when the child was 7 months and four‐year old as predictors of child's Theory of Mind at 4 years while controlling for early maternal mind‐mindedness (MM). Dyadic EA at 7 months predicted the child's Theory of Mind, even when controlling for child temperamental and cognitive characteristics as well as dyadic EA at 4 years and early maternal MM. Results indicate the specific importance of high emotional connectedness between mothers and infants for preschoolers' Theory of Mind development.