Self-Efficacy and Declines Over Time in Attachment Anxiety During the Transition to Parenthood

Attachment anxiety can decline in relationships but little is known about how or why. A new framework—the Attachment Security Enhancement Model (ASEM)—suggests that what allays current (momentary) insecurity may not necessarily reduce attachment anxiety across time. This article differentiates momentary versus extended attachment processes by examining concurrent versus longitudinal associations. Cohabitating partners (N = 137 couples) were examined over a 2-year period as they became first-time parents, a transition that could change attachment tendencies. Consistent with ASEM predictions: (1) Anxiously attached spouses who perceived more proximal and sensitive reassurance from their partners felt less concurrent attachment anxiety but not less anxiety across time, and (2) attachment anxiety declined across time when spouses derived personal competence and self-efficacy from their new parenting role. These results document an important distinction between mitigating insecure thoughts and feelings that might reinforce attachment anxiety, versus encountering new experiences that may actually revise chronic insecurity

Compassionate pedagogy: the ethics of care in early childhood professionalism

This paper builds upon an earlier attempt (Taggart, 2011) to articulate a rationale for professional training in early childhood education and care (ECEC) which is ethical as opposed to one which is purely instrumental or rooted in a patriarchal notion of women’s supposed unique suitability. The argument proposes that a feminist approach to ethics, as both socially critical and psychologically affective or flexible, has a particular relevance to professional identity in ECEC. In particular, compassion, as a concept which has both sociological and psychological connotations, foregrounds the ethical dimension of the work whilst overcoming false dichotomies between discourses of ‘children’s rights’ and ‘care’. The implications for the training and professional identity of practitioners are discussed

An update of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on systemic insecticides. Part 2: impacts on organisms and ecosystems

New information on the lethal and sublethal effects of neonicotinoids and fipronil on organisms is presented in this review, complementing the previous WIA in 2015. The high toxicity of these systemic insecticides to invertebrates has been confirmed and expanded to include more species and compounds. Most of the recent research has focused on bees and the sublethal and ecological impacts these insecticides have on pollinators. Toxic effects on other invertebrate taxa also covered predatory and parasitoid natural enemies and aquatic arthropods. Little, while not much new information has been gathered on soil organisms. The impact on marine coastal ecosystems is still largely uncharted. The chronic lethality of neonicotinoids to insects and crustaceans, and the strengthened evidence that these chemicals also impair the immune system and reproduction, highlights the dangers of this particular insecticidal classneonicotinoids and fipronil. , withContinued large scale – mostly prophylactic – use of these persistent organochlorine pesticides has the potential to greatly decreasecompletely eliminate populations of arthropods in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. Sublethal effects on fish, reptiles, frogs, birds and mammals are also reported, showing a better understanding of the mechanisms of toxicity of these insecticides in vertebrates, and their deleterious impacts on growth, reproduction and neurobehaviour of most of the species tested. This review concludes with a summary of impacts on the ecosystem services and functioning, particularly on pollination, soil biota and aquatic invertebrate communities, thus reinforcing the previous WIA conclusions (van der Sluijs et al. 2015)

Security enhancement, self-esteem threat, and mental depletion affect provision of a safe haven and secure base to a romantic partner

We recently showed that security priming facilitates safe haven support and overrides the detrimental effects of mental depletion (Mikulincer, Shaver, Sahdra, & Bar-On, 2013, Can security-enhancing interventions overcome psychological barriers to responsiveness in couple relationships? Attachment & Human Development, 15, 246–260.). Here, we extend these findings by examining another contextual barrier to caregiving (self-worth threat) and the effects of security priming on secure base support. In Study 1, participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions based on self-worth threat (yes, no) and security priming (yes, no) manipulations, and their behaviors were video recorded while they interacted with their romantic partner who was disclosing a personal problem. In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions based on depletion (yes, no) and security priming (yes, no) manipulations, and their behaviors were videotaped while they interacted with their romantic partner who was exploring personal goals. In both studies, independent judges rated participants’ responsiveness to their partner’s needs during the videotaped interaction. Self-esteem threat and mental depletion adversely affected responsiveness to a partner’s disclosures. Security priming facilitated responsiveness in both studies and overrode the detrimental effects of mental depletion on secure base support

Hydrogen sorption in TiZrNbHfTa high entropy alloy

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. High Entropy Alloys (HEA), where five or more elements are mixed together in near equiatomic ratios offer promising properties as hydrogen storage materials due to their ability to crystallize in simple cubic structures in the presence of large lattice strain originating from the different sizes of the atoms. In this work, the hydrogen absorption and desorption as well as the cycling properties of the TiZrNbHfTa HEA have been studied by in situ Synchrotron X-Ray diffraction, Pressure-Composition-Isotherm, Thermal Desorption Spectroscopy and Differential Scanning Calorimetry. The alloy crystallizes in a cubic bcc phase and undergoes a two-stage hydrogen absorption reaction to a fcc dihydride phase with an intermediate tetragonal monohydride, very similar to the V-H system. The hydrogen absorption/desorption in TiZrNbHfTa is completely reversible and the activation energy of desorption could be calculated. Furthermore, we have observed an interesting macrostructure following parallel planes after the formation of the dihydride phase, which is retained after desorption