Effects of Maternal Responsiveness on Infant Responsiveness and Behavior in the Still‐Face Task

The effects of maternal responsiveness on infant responsiveness and behavior in the Still‐Face Task were longitudinally examined through infants' first 3 months. Maternal vocal responsiveness and infant vocal and smiling responsiveness significantly increased when infants were 2 months of age. Mothers showed continuity of individual differences in vocal responsiveness from the infants' newborn period. Maternal responsiveness predicted infant responsiveness within and across sessions. Compared with infants with low‐responsive mothers, infants with high‐responsive mothers were more attentive and affectively engaged during the Still‐Face Task from 1 month of age. Infants with high‐responsive mothers discriminated between the task phases with their smiling at 1 month, a month before infants with low‐responsive mothers did so. Infants in both groups discriminated between the phases with their attention and nondistress vocalizations throughout their first 3 months. Results suggest that maternal responsiveness influences infant responsiveness and facilitates infants' engagement and expectations for social interaction.     

A small sociology of maternal memory

Memory is an enormously important resource for the social sciences. This paper takes the subject of maternal memory to examine a corpus of work in the sociology of childbirth concerned with how women remember the experience of childbirth. It suggests that the sociology of memory has been more concerned with collective than individual experiences, and that women's memories of childbirth have generally been treated as a special case, rather than as a route to enhanced understandings of how memory works in relation to the all‐important topics of time, identity and social change. Drawing on data from a 37‐year follow‐up to a study of childbirth conducted in the 1970s, it argues that maternal memory shares key characteristics with other kinds of memory, but can be significant in allowing women to reposition themselves as active social selves in a process that is remembered as not allowing much agency or autonomy.     

‘Some people are not allowed to love’: intimate citizenship in the lives of people labelled with intellectual disabilities

Disability helps us think differently about the ‘ideal’ neoliberal-able citizen who may not equate to ideas of productive, sexual, ‘normal’. Intimate citizenship – our rights and access to intimacy – is often ignored by those working with people labelled with intellectual disabilities and in research. In this article, we discuss the outcome of a dialogue between self-advocates labelled with intellectual disabilities, academics, service providers, Aboriginal leaders, students and artists about intimate citizenship through love, intimate work and consumption.     

‘Family money’ and ‘business money’: bankrupt entrepreneurs in a ‘question situation’

This paper addresses the question of bankruptcy and honesty in local contexts, and especially the problem of the bankrupt small businessman in conveying ‘honesty’ to the local community. Studying bankrupt entrepreneurs, the analysis explores a tacit dialogue between the failed businessmen and the small town communities where they live and work. The bankrupts respond to their seemingly mistrustful surroundings by demonstrating their respect for the dividing line between two social categories of money: ‘company money’ and ‘family money’. This discursive resource expresses business ethics and respectability, both essential for the bankrupt entrepreneur to start another business in the local community. The empirical material in the study consists of interviews with 22 businessmen who had created small businesses and experienced at least one bankruptcy, half of them in small towns. The entrepreneurs were found through court records and word of mouth. Interviews were conducted by the author and by graduate students from the Department of Sociology in Lund. All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim.     

Spousal,Family and Gender Effects on Expected Retirement Age for Married Pre-retirees

The overall purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which retirement is a contextually embedded, family decision rather than an individualized, male-centric one. Using data from a 2010 survey of married pre-retirees ages 35–70 in Michigan, US, we created a General Linear Model to predict expected retirement age. The model incorporated the effect of spousal and family variables on expected retirement age, and because the work/family interface is highly gendered, we explored interactions with gender. The study used a life course perspective in its framing and analysis, and found that expected retirement age was related to both personal and family characteristics and that the relationship of spousal and family factors were gendered and complex.     

“Know What to Do If You Encounter a Flash Flood”: Mental Models Analysis for Improving Flash Flood Risk Communication and Public Decision Making

Understanding how people view flash flood risks can help improve risk communication, ultimately improving outcomes. This article analyzes data from 26 mental models interviews about flash floods with members of the public in Boulder, Colorado, to understand their perspectives on flash flood risks and mitigation. The analysis includes a comparison between public and professional perspectives by referencing a companion mental models study of Boulder‐area professionals. A mental models approach can help to diagnose what people already know about flash flood risks and responses, as well as any critical gaps in their knowledge that might be addressed through improved risk communication. A few public interviewees mentioned most of the key concepts discussed by professionals as important for flash flood warning decision making. However, most interviewees exhibited some incomplete understandings and misconceptions about aspects of flash flood development and exposure, effects, or mitigation that may lead to ineffective warning decisions when a flash flood threatens. These include important misunderstandings about the rapid evolution of flash floods, the speed of water in flash floods, the locations and times that pose the greatest flash flood risk in Boulder, the value of situational awareness and environmental cues, and the most appropriate responses when a flash flood threatens. The findings point to recommendations for ways to improve risk communication, over the long term and when an event threatens, to help people quickly recognize and understand threats, obtain needed information, and make informed decisions in complex, rapidly evolving extreme weather events such as flash floods.     

Famine Mortality in Nineteenth-Century Japan: The Evidence from a Temple Death Register

Economic and demographic historians who have studied Japan's early modern period argue that preventive checks to fertility were the primary cause of Japan's stationary population in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and that the role of ‘positive’ checks was negligible. This paper presents evidence and a claim that mortality crises – famines in particular – also played an important role in checking population growth during this period. It analyses data from the death register of Ogen-ji, a Buddhist temple in the Hida region of central Japan. These data provide a remarkably detailed picture of the short-term demographic consequences of Japan's last great famine, the Tenpō famine of the 1830s. ‘Normal’ mortality patterns, by age and sex, are compared with patterns of mortality during the famine. Mortality of males rose considerably more than that of females, with the greatest rise occurring among young boys aged 5–14 and adult men aged 30–59. A surprising finding was that mortality at ages 0–4 rose relatively little, in part a consequence of a marked fall in the number of births during the famine. The Tenpō subsistence crisis was not the sole cause of population stagnation in the Ogen-ji population, but it was a prominent feature of the ‘high mortality regime’ that this population experienced during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.     

Engagement strategies and change: an intentional practice response for the child welfare worker in cases of domestic violence

In order to engage mothers who are victims of domestic abuse, the child welfare worker needs to be challenged to develop an intentional practice response that includes knowledge and skill concerning the complexities of domestic violence, as well as the process of change. Developing a supportive relationship, understanding the stages of change (SOC) and engaging mothers as leaders in the change process are essential to successful child protection outcomes. Within the context of the SOC model, this practice‐based paper focuses on the importance of engaging mothers who are victims of domestic violence in conversations about their own unique dilemmas, challenges and barriers regarding change. Through the inclusion of engagement strategies such as signs of safety, active listening and cost/benefit analysis, in concert with the SOC theory, the child welfare worker would be equipped with an approach to successfully assist mothers through their change journey, ultimately keeping children safe.     

The Development of Peer Interaction in Infancy: Exploring the Dyadic Processes

Peer interaction is an important component of children's social repertoires that is associated with a variety of developmental outcomes and life skills. The present study provides an in‐depth study of early dyadic peer behaviors during the infancy period, during which social competence with peers is first being developed. Results from variable‐centered analyses highlight the effectiveness of behaviors, such as offering objects to peers, and point to the importance of the social context set by a peer's prior social behavior and processes for eliciting peer responses. Findings from person‐centered analyses reveal marked individual differences in the processes through which infants are successful in eliciting responses from their peers, illustrating the presence of multiple pathways to achieving social competence with peers.