The Wisdom Acquired During Emergencies Scale - Development and Validity.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its related lockdown restrictions had repercussions on health status, psychological states of mind, and emotion regulation. Attitudes towards these restrictions, beliefs, emotions and behaviours could be wise, as in the acceptance of, and adaptation to, these constraints. On the other hand, they could be unwise, as in the rejection of rules and limitations, denial of the consequences, irrational beliefs, self-accusation, rage and general intolerance. This study aims to introduce the development and validation of the 25-item Wisdom Acquired During Emergencies Scale (WADES). It is a measure to assess the wisdom and self-regulation that are needed to cope with unexpected and unpredictable emergency situations. On the basis of a preliminary study (N1 =212 Italian adults), a multiple-choice scale of 52 items was developed. In the reliability study (N2 =1777), items were scaled, analysed according to the optimal score technique and selected to provide a final and reliable version (Cronbach's α=0.83). The validity study (N3 =1,345, N4 =1,445, N5 = 878) provided correlations with established scales measuring, for example, traditional wisdom, emotion regulation, empathy, post-traumatic growth, collectivism, conscientiousness and satisfaction with life. The results confirmed that high scores on the WADES are associated with the ability to regulate emotions, control impulses and develop goals in emotional situations, to tolerate current difficulties, while developing new attitudes, values and behaviours, entailing changes in self-perception and relationships. It was thus confirmed that high WADES scores indicate a higher degree of acquired wisdom.

Exploring the relation between maternal mind-mindedness and children's symbolic play: A longitudinal study from 6 to 18 months.

Relations between mothers' mind-mindedness (appropriate attunement to their infants' internal states) at 6 and 12 months and infants' early symbolic play during infant-mother pretense at 12 and 18 months were investigated in a sample of 43 mothers and infants. Mothers' appropriate mind-related comments were associated with average level, length, complexity, and maturity level of symbolic play. Specific sub-categories of appropriate mind-related comments were identified as independent predictors of children's symbolic play. Appropriate comments about desires and cognitions at 6 months were associated with average level and length of episodes, as well as with maturity level of symbolic play at 12 months. Longitudinal stability in the appropriateness and content of mothers' mind-related comments was also investigated. The results are discussed in terms of the proposal that attunement to specific types of internal state should vary as a function of infant age in order to index mind-mindedness.

Attachment Networks in Committed Couples.

This study explored attachment networks in committed couples who differed in parenting choice and relationship status. Attachment networks were defined in terms of attachment functions, attachment strength, the presence of a primary figure, and full-blown attachments. Participants were 198 couples, married or cohabiting, either expecting their first child or childless-by-choice. Results indicated that participants relied most strongly on partners for all attachment functions except secure base, for which they relied on mothers to a similar extent. Furthermore, expectant women reported more proximity seeking and stronger attachments to mothers, while expectant men relied more on fathers for safe haven. Married participants indicated less proximity seeking to partners than cohabiting couples, and married women reported less reliance on partners for safe haven than married men and cohabiting women. This study supports previous findings underlining the particular importance of partners for members of committed couples. Further, it extends past research by showing the robustness of this finding across parenting choice, and by revealing gender differences in the attachment networks of committed couples.

Attachment, Social Value Orientation, Sensation Seeking, and Bullying in Early Adolescence.

In this study, bullying is examined in light of the "prosocial security hypothesis"- i.e., the hypothesis that insecure attachment, with temperamental dispositions such as sensation seeking, may foster individualistic, competitive value orientations and problem behaviors. A group of 375 Italian students (53% female; Mean age = 12.58, SD = 1.08) completed anonymous questionnaires regarding attachment security, social values, sensation seeking, and bullying behaviors. Path analysis showed that attachment to mother was negatively associated with bullying of others, both directly and through the mediating role of conservative socially oriented values, while attachment to father was directly associated with victimization. Sensation seeking predicted bullying of others and victimization both directly and through the mediating role of conservative socially oriented values. Adolescents' gender affected how attachment moderated the relationship between sensation seeking and problem behavior.

Like grandparents, like parents: Empirical evidence and psychoanalytic thinking on the transmission of parenting styles.

The authors discuss the issue of intergenerational transmission of parenting from an empirical and psychoanalytic perspective. After presenting a framework to explain their conception of parenting, they describe intergenerational transmission of parenting as a key to interpreting and eventually changing parenting behaviors. Then they present (1) the empirical approach aimed at determining if there is actually a stability across generations that contributes to harsh parenting and eventually maltreatment and (2) the psyphoanalytic thinking that seeks to explain the continuity in terms of representations and clinical phenomena. The authors also discuss the relationship between the attachment and the caregiving systems and hypothesize a common base for the two systems in childhood experience. Finally, they propose the psychoanalytic perspective as a fruitful theoretical framework to integrate the evidence for the neurophysiological mediators and moderators of intergenerational transmission. Psychoanalytically informed research can provide clinically relevant insights and hypotheses to be tested.

Memories of paternal relations are associated with coping and defense mechanisms in breast cancer patients: an observational study.

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer diagnosis and treatment represent stressful events that demand emotional adjustment, thus recruiting coping strategies and defense mechanisms. As parental relations were shown to influence emotion regulation patterns and adaptive processes in adulthood, the present study investigated whether they are specifically associated to coping and defense mechanisms in patients with breast cancer. METHODS: One hundred and ten women hospitalized for breast cancer surgery were administered questionnaires assessing coping with cancer, defense mechanisms, and memories of parental bonding in childhood. RESULTS: High levels of paternal overprotection were associated with less mature defenses, withdrawal and fantasy and less adaptive coping mechanisms, such as hopelessness/helplessness. Low levels of paternal care were associated with a greater use of repression. No association was found between maternal care, overprotection, coping and defense mechanisms. Immature defenses correlated positively with less adaptive coping styles, while mature defenses were positively associated to a fighting spirit and to fatalism, and inversely related to less adaptive coping styles. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that paternal relations in childhood are associated with emotional, cognitive, and behavioral regulation in adjusting to cancer immediately after surgery. Early experiences of bonding may constitute a relevant index for adaptation to cancer, indicating which patients are at risk and should be considered for psychological interventions.

Maternal depression and attachment: the evaluation of mother-child interactions during feeding practice.

Internal working models (IWMs) of attachment can moderate the effect of maternal depression on mother-child interactions and child development. Clinical depression pre-dating birthgiving has been found to predict incoherent and less sensitive caregiving. Dysfunctional patterns observed, included interactive modes linked to feeding behaviors which may interfere with hunger-satiation, biological rhythms, and the establishment of children's autonomy and individuation. Feeding interactions between depressed mothers and their children seem to be characterized by repetitive interactive failures: children refuse food through oppositional behavior or negativity. The aim of this study was to investigate parenting skills in the context of feeding in mothers with major depression from the point of view of attachment theory. This perspective emphasizes parents' emotion, relational and affective history and personal resources. The sample consisted of 60 mother-child dyads. Mothers were divided into two groups: 30 with Major Depression and 30 without disorders. Children's age ranged between 12 and 36 months The measures employed were the Adult Attachment Interview and the Scale for the Evaluation of Alimentary Interactions between Mothers and Children. Insecure attachment prevailed in mothers with major depression, with differences on the Subjective Experience and State of Mind Scales. Groups also differed in maternal sensitivity, degrees of interactive conflicts and negative affective states, all of which can hinder the development of adequate interactive patterns during feeding. The results suggest that IWMs can constitute an indicator for the evaluation of the relational quality of the dyad and that evaluations of dyadic interactions should be considered when programming interventions.

Implicit Attitude Toward Caregiving: The Moderating Role of Adult Attachment Styles.

Attachment and caregiving are separate motivational systems that share the common evolutionary purpose of favoring child security. In the goal of studying the processes underlying the transmission of attachment styles, this study focused on the role of adult attachment styles in shaping preferences toward particular styles of caregiving. We hypothesized a correspondence between attachment and caregiving styles: we expect an individual to show a preference for a caregiving behavior coherent with his/her own attachment style, in order to increase the chance of passing it on to offspring. We activated different representations of specific caregiving modalities in females, by using three videos in which mothers with different Adult Attachment states of mind played with their infants. Participants' facial expressions while watching were recorded and analyzed with FaceReader software. After each video, participants' attitudes toward the category "mother" were measured, both explicitly (semantic differential) and implicitly (single target-implicit association task, ST-IAT). Participants' adult attachment styles (experiences in close relationships revised) predicted attitudes scores, but only when measured implicitly. Participants scored higher on the ST-IAT after watching a video coherent with their attachment style. No effect was found on the facial expressions of disgust. These findings suggest a role of adult attachment styles in shaping implicit attitudes related to the caregiving system.

The 'I' and the 'Me' in self-referential awareness: a neurocognitive hypothesis.

The nature of the 'self' and self-referential awareness has been one of the most debated issues in philosophy, psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Understanding the neurocognitive bases of self-related representation and processing is also crucial to research on the neural correlates of consciousness. The distinction between an 'I', corresponding to a subjective sense of the self as a thinker and causal agent, and a 'Me', as the objective sense of the self with the unique and identifiable features constituting one's self-image or self-concept, suggested by William James, has been re-elaborated by authors from different theoretical perspectives. In this article, empirical studies and theories about the 'I' and the 'Me' in cognition and self-related awareness are reviewed, including the relationships between self and perception, self and memory, the development of the self, self-referential stimulus processing, as well as related neuroimaging studies. Subsequently, the relations between self and different aspects of consciousness are considered. On the basis of the reviewed literature and with reference to Block's distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness, a neurocognitive hypothesis is formulated about 'I'-related and 'Me'-related self-referential awareness. This hypothesis is extended to metacognitive awareness and a form of non-transitive consciousness, characteristic of meditation experiences and studies, with particular reference to the notion of mindfulness and other Buddhist constructs.