Emotion Regulation and Social Competence in Middle Childhood: The Role of Parental Emotional Competence, Personality, and Emotion Socialization Beliefs, Attitudes, and Practices

Much of what children know about emotions is learned from their parents, so it is important to examine parental beliefs, attitudes, and practices that contribute to emotion socialization. Little is known about how parents’ own emotional competence skills and personality contribute to these beliefs, attitudes, and practices. The purpose of this study was to examine the relations among parent emotional competence (i.e., positive expression, negative expression, empathy, reappraisal, and mature defense mechanisms), parent personality (i.e., openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), emotion-related parenting style (i.e., emotion coaching) and practices (i.e., supportive reactions to children’s negative emotions), and parent-reported children’s emotion regulation and social competence (i.e., prosocial orientation), comparing mothers and fathers. One-hundred and sixty-three mothers and 29 fathers of children ages 4 to 12 were recruited to complete an online survey, consisting of self-report measures of the study variables. Mothers’ data were analyzed using structural equation modeling, whereas fathers’ data were analyzed using hierarchical regression. For mothers, partial support was found for the study hypotheses related to the impact of maternal emotional competence on mothers’ emotion-related parenting styles and practices, with higher levels of both empathy and positive expression as predictors of higher levels of emotion coaching. Higher levels of positive expression and lower levels of negative expression also predicted higher levels of supportive reactions. When examining indirect effects, only higher levels of both empathy and positive expression were indirectly related to higher levels of supportive reactions through higher levels of emotion coaching. No significant relations for mature defense mechanisms and reappraisal were found. Additionally, partial support for the study hypotheses related to the impact of mothers’ emotion-related parenting style and children’s outcomes was found. Higher levels of emotion coaching predicted higher levels of supportive reactions to children’s negative emotions, children’s emotion regulation skills, and children’s prosocial orientation. Contrary to the study hypotheses, higher levels of positive expression and lower levels of negative expression directly predicted higher levels of child emotion regulation skills. Although no model was retained for personality, correlations revealed a pattern of relations that show partial support for the study hypotheses, including positive correlations between emotion coaching and each openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Analysis of fathers’ data was exploratory because of the small sample size and low power, but revealed similarities to the mothers’ results, including higher levels of positive expression and empathy predicting higher levels of emotion coaching, higher levels of emotion coaching predicting higher levels of supportive reactions and children’s emotion regulation skills, higher levels of negative expression predicting lower levels of supportive reactions, and higher levels of positive expression predicting higher levels of child emotion regulation skills. In contrast to the mothers’ results, higher levels of negative expression and reappraisal predicted better child emotion regulation skills and higher levels of empathy and positive expression were indirectly related to higher levels of child emotion regulation through higher levels of emotion coaching. For personality, positive correlations between emotion coaching and both agreeableness and conscientiousness were found. Results have implications for the importance of expression variables on the overall family emotional climate, emotion socialization, and children’s emotional and social skills

Maternal Personality, Socialization Factors and the Relations with Children\u27s Social Skills

To examine relations between maternal factors and children\u27s social skills, twenty-six mothers of children, ages 3 to 12, completed online questionnaires about their personality, emotion socialization (emotion coaching), coping socialization, parental stress, and their children\u27s social skills. Emotion coaching mediated each of the positive relations between two personality factors (agreeableness and conscientiousness) and supportive coping socialization; however, these mediational findings became non-significant when controlling for parental stress. Children\u27s social skills were positively associated with maternal agreeableness and conscientiousness and negatively associated with distress reactions to children\u27s negative emotions, but these results also became non-significant when controlling for parental stress. Additionally, parental stress was negatively associated with agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotion coaching, and children\u27s social skills. These findings highlight the importance of maternal personality and parental stress for mothers\u27 emotion and coping socialization behaviours and children\u27s social skills

Cellular and Molecular Bases of the Initiation of Fever

All phases of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced fever are mediated by prostaglandin (PG) E(2). It is known that the second febrile phase (which starts at ~1.5 h post-LPS) and subsequent phases are mediated by PGE(2) that originated in endotheliocytes and perivascular cells of the brain. However, the location and phenotypes of the cells that produce PGE(2) triggering the first febrile phase (which starts at ~0.5 h) remain unknown. By studying PGE(2) synthesis at the enzymatic level, we found that it was activated in the lung and liver, but not in the brain, at the onset of the first phase of LPS fever in rats. This activation involved phosphorylation of cytosolic phospholipase A(2) (cPLA(2)) and transcriptional up-regulation of cyclooxygenase (COX)-2. The number of cells displaying COX-2 immunoreactivity surged in the lung and liver (but not in the brain) at the onset of fever, and the majority of these cells were identified as macrophages. When PGE(2) synthesis in the periphery was activated, the concentration of PGE(2) increased both in the venous blood (which collects PGE(2) from tissues) and arterial blood (which delivers PGE(2) to the brain). Most importantly, neutralization of circulating PGE(2) with an anti-PGE(2) antibody both delayed and attenuated LPS fever. It is concluded that fever is initiated by circulating PGE(2) synthesized by macrophages of the LPS-processing organs (lung and liver) via phosphorylation of cPLA(2) and transcriptional up-regulation of COX-2. Whether PGE(2) produced at the level of the blood–brain barrier also contributes to the development of the first phase remains to be clarified

Dynamic GABAergic afferent modulation of AgRP neurons

Agouti-related peptide (AgRP) neurons of the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus (ARC) promote homeostatic feeding at times of caloric insufficiency, yet they are rapidly suppressed by food-related sensory cues prior to ingestion. Here we identify a highly selective inhibitory afferent to AgRP neurons that serves as a neural determinant of this rapid modulation. Specifically, GABAergic projections arising from the ventral compartment of the dorsomedial nucleus of the hypothalamus (vDMH) contribute to the pre-consummatory modulation of ARCAgRP neurons. In a manner reciprocal to ARCAgRP neurons, ARC-projecting leptin receptor (LepR)-expressing GABAergic DMH neurons exhibit rapid activation upon availability of food that additionally reflects the relative value of the food. Thus, DMHLepR neurons form part of the sensory network that relays real-time information about the nature and availability of food to dynamically modulate ARCAgRP neuron activity and feeding behavior

Domesticating the Virgin: vernacular depictions of Mary and their reception in late medieval society

This thesis is concerned with the didactic function of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century vernacular religious literature and art in contemporary medieval English society, and particularly the ways in which texts and images participate in emergent lay religious culture and inform social practices of the time. The focus is on apocryphal and legendary depictions of episodes in the Life of the Virgin Mary in vernacular works of the later Middle Ages and special consideration is given to the ways in which certain female audiences in England may have received and responded to Mary narratives. An introductory chapter outlines the process and means by which biblical and extra-biblical knowledge was disseminated to the late medieval laity via the range of literary and pictorial material brought into comparison in this thesis. Additionally, the introductory chapter surveys existing research on the socio-economic and spiritual circumstances that made accounts of Mary’s life particularly useful to ‘merchant-class’ wives whose way of life, it is argued, is emblematic of change in the period. Five central chapters each provide interpretations of common motifs in a key event in Christian history involving Mary and assess their engagement with the experiences and aspirations of lay unlearned audiences, primarily (though not exclusively) domesticated bourgeois women. The events referred to and discussed in chronological order in this thesis are the Annunciation, Nativity, Passion of Christ, and the Death, Assumption and Coronation of Mary. The material analysed comprises biblical drama, sermons, poetry, lyrics, wall-paintings, manuscript illustrations, and tapestries. A number of core works are referred to throughout and, as detailed in the introduction, include texts such as the four extant mystery cycle plays, Nicholas Love’s Mirror, John Mirk’s Festial, the Cursor Mundi, and art works such as contained in the Biblia Pauperum, and books of hours

Tangible evidence, trust and power: Public perceptions of community environmental health studies

Communities with environmental health concerns in the USA frequently request studies from their local or state departments of public health. This paper presents findings from three focus groups conducted in communities north of Boston that have been the subject of two different environmental health studies. The focus groups were designed to elicit residents' perceptions of environmental health, and of the particular studies conducted in their communities. In all focus groups, participants had difficulty accepting the findings of health studies that contradicted their own experiences of environmental exposures and illness. Our results suggest that lay knowledge, informed in varying degrees by the experience of what we term "tangible evidence," creates a lens through which communities interpret a health study's findings. The differences in reliance on tangible evidence were related to participants' sense of trust in public officials, and the institutions responsible for conducting health studies. Participants from the wealthier, predominantly white communities discussed trust in study design and methodologies used. In contrast, participants from the lower-income, higher-minority communities assessed health studies with reference to their trust (or lack thereof) in study sponsors and public health institutions. Participants' experience of tangible evidence, trust or distrust in health agencies and research institutions, and a sense of relative community power, influence how they assess the findings of environmental health studies and may have implications for pubic health.USA Environmental health Environmental justice Focus groups Lay knowledge Power Trust

Field data and numerical modeling: A multiple lines of evidence approach for assessing vapor intrusion exposure risks

USEPA recommends a multiple lines of evidence approach to make informed decisions at vapor intrusion sites because the vapor intrusion pathway is notoriously difficult to characterize. Our study uses this approach by incorporating groundwater, soil gas, indoor air field measurements and numerical models to evaluate vapor intrusion exposure risks in a Metro-Boston neighborhood known to exhibit lower than anticipated indoor air concentrations based on groundwater concentrations. We collected and evaluated five rounds of field sampling data over the period of one year. Field data results show a steep gradient in soil gas concentrations near the groundwater surface; however as the depth decreases, soil gas concentration gradients also decrease. Together, the field data and the numerical model results suggest that a subsurface feature is limiting vapor transport into indoor air spaces at the study site and that groundwater concentrations are not appropriate indicators of vapor intrusion exposure risks in this neighborhood. This research also reveals the importance of including relevant physical models when evaluating vapor intrusion exposure risks using the multiple lines of evidence approach. Overall, the findings provide insight about how the multiple lines of evidence approach can be used to inform decisions by using field data collected using regulatory-relevant sampling techniques, and a well-established 3-D vapor intrusion model