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Biomedical subjects

E M Cummings

Publications and source records attributed to E M Cummings.

31 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1989

Responding to anger in aggressive and nonaggressive boys: a research note.

Responding to adults' behavior was examined in 40 first- through third-grade boys. Boys were divided into aggressive, nonaggressive and control groups. In the experimental conditions, boys were exposed to laboratory simulations of prosocial and angry interactions between adults. Following each simulation, boys were interviewed. Aggressive boys reported greater aggressiveness towards a hypothetical peer following exposure to anger and, across several indices, reported being more highly aroused. Based on reports of arousal, a high responding category of reacting to anger was created. High responders were more likely than other boys to have been from the aggressive group and reported more aggression towards a hypothetical peer.

Aggression↗
PubMed1987

Coping with background anger in early childhood.

Normative patterns, individual styles, and developmental changes in coping with background anger (anger between others) were examined in preschoolers. Live models expressed verbalized anger toward each other while pairs of same-sex friends played in an adjacent room. 85 4- and 5-year-olds participated, playing took place in the presence of mothers, and a 7-episode sequence of background conditions (no emotion, positive, no emotion, anger, no emotion, positive, no emotion) described the experimental situation. Children were also interviewed concerning their feelings during others' anger. Preschoolers evidenced heightened arousal, that is, greater distress, social sharing, preoccupation, and positive affect, concurrent with exposure to background anger. Increased verbal aggressiveness in play occurred in the period following exposure. Coping styles initially identified from behavioral emotional responses to the adults' quarrel were further delineated by contrasts on other aspects of functioning. Concerned emotional responders (46%) showed negative emotions concurrent with exposure, and later reported that they had felt sad during the fight and wanted to intervene. Unresponsive children (15%) showed no evidence of emotion, but later reported that they were angry. Ambivalent responders (35%) showed high emotional arousal during exposure, typified by both positive and negative emotions. Later they reported feeling happy but disregulated and were most likely to become physically and verbally aggressive in play with a friend. Analyses on a subsample (N = 43) also seen as toddlers showed that responses to background anger changed markedly, but precursors of preschoolers' coping styles were evident in toddlers' behavioral responses.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1987

Effects of sugar and aspartame on aggression and activity in children.

Habitual sugar consumption and behavior following challenge by sugar and aspartame were studied in 30 preschool boys. The 18 subjects whose parents considered them sugar reactive had more disruptive behavior problems at baseline than the other 12 subjects. Habitual sugar consumption correlated only with duration of aggression against property in alleged responders. Double-blind crossover challenges with aspartame, saccharin, sucrose, and glucose produced no significant effect on aggression or observers' ratings of behavior. Lower actometer counts followed the trials of aspartame, but the difference was not apparent to observers. It is unlikely that sugar and aspartame are clinically significant causes of disruptive behavior.

Aggression↗
PubMed1985

Patterns of attachment in two- and three-year-olds in normal families and families with parental depression.

Patterns of attachment were examined in normal and depressed mothers. Mother's diagnosis (bipolar, major unipolar, or minor depression, or no psychiatric disorder), self-reported current mood states, and affective behavior in interaction with the child were considered. A modified version of Ainsworth and Wittig's Strange Situation was used to assess attachment. Insecure (A, C, and A/C patterns) attachments were more common among children of mothers with a major depression (bipolar or unipolar) than among children of mothers with minor depression or among children of normal mothers. Insecure attachment was more frequent in children of mothers with bipolar depression than in children of mothers with unipolar depression. A/C attachments were associated with histories of most severe depression in the mother. In families in which mothers were depressed, depression in the father did not increase the likelihood of anxious attachment between mother and child. However, if mothers with a major affective disorder were without a husband in the household, risk of an insecure mother-child attachment was significantly increased. The mothers' expressed emotions (positive vs. negative) in interaction with their children in situations other than the Strange Situation, and independent of diagnosis, predicted patterns of attachment: mothers of insecurely attached children expressed more negative and less positive emotion. Mothers' self-reports of moods on the days they were observed were unrelated to attachment. Results are discussed in terms of the transmission of social and emotional disorders in relation to mothers' affective functioning.

Bipolar Disorder↗
PubMed1984

Developmental changes in children's reactions to anger in the home.

Developmental trends in children's reactions to anger and affection between others in the home were examined. School-age children evidenced greater emotional self-control and more effective and planful strategies for attempting to alter the course of others' conflicts. Children's responses to anger appeared to be mediated by individual differences in emotionality, which evidenced continuity across settings and between age periods. However, there was evidence that experience could modify reaction patterns to anger. Boys become less likely than girls to react emotionally to affection as they got older, but otherwise there were no developmental changes in responding to affection. Continuity across settings in reacting to affection was also apparent, but there was no relationship between patterns of responding to anger and affection.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1984

Problem behaviors and peer interactions of young children with a manic-depressive parent.

By the age of 2 years, children with a manic-depressive parent were already found to be experiencing substantial psychiatric problems. The authors examined the ways in which these early problems then become embedded in social relationships. Naturalistic observations and experimental manipulations of the emotional environment were used to measure 2-year-old children's regulation of emotion, aggression, and altruism during peer interactions. Children with a manic-depressive parent had difficulty in sharing with their friends and in handling hostility, showing maladaptive patterns of aggression. The social and emotional problems of these children were similar to the interpersonal problems of their manic-depressive parents.

Aggression↗
PubMed1984

Altruism, aggression, and social interactions in young children with a manic-depressive parent.

This is an exploratory study of the emotional and social functioning of young children with a manic-depressive parent. Seminaturalistic observations and experimental manipulations of the affective environment were used to assess 2-year-old children's regulation of emotion, as well as their aggression, altruism, and affiliative interactions. Children with a bipolar parent sometimes showed heightened distress and preoccupation with the conflicts and suffering of others, especially disturbances in adults. These children had difficulty in maintaining friendly social interactions, in sharing, and in helping their playmates. They also had difficulty modulating hostile impulses; they showed more maladaptive patterns of aggression toward peers and adults. These interpersonal and emotional problems of offspring of manic-depressives were often similar to those problems of manic-depressives that have been implicated in the clinical literature as possibly associated with the transmission of the disorder. This apparent congruence of findings obtained from different disciplines employing very different research strategies and studying people of different ages, attests to the utility of an explicit interdisciplinary approach in the area of developmental psychopathology.

Affective Symptoms↗
PubMed1983

Children's emotions and behaviors in response to infants' cries.

Infant crying can elicit in others both a range of emotions and contrasting behavioral reactions, such as altruistic caregiving versus aggression. Variations in reactions to young infants' cries were examined in 60 children ranging in age from late preschool to preadolescence. Each child over-heard either a preterm or a full-term tape-recorded cry from an adjacent room. Then a mother, carrying her infant, came looking for her (previously) "crying" infant's bottle. Later each child was interviewed after hearing a tape recording of a preterm and a full-term cry. Children's emotions and behaviors thus were assessed in response to simulated, real distresses and hypothetical representations of distress. Children's self-reports of empathy, their verbalized intentions to help, their actual helping responses, and observers' ratings of negative emotion were common responses to cries at all ages. In addition there were significant increases with age in prosocial, behavioral interventions. Expressions of negative emotion were inversely related to subsequent forms of prosocial behavior that required direct interaction with the infant. The emotions and behaviors of most children were not influenced by whether they heard preterm or full-term cries. They were, however, able to discriminate between such cries and some articulated "theories" about the impact of the cries on the listener.

Arousal↗
PubMed1978

Positive evaluation of stressful experiences.

Two studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that the more stressful an experience is, the more positively it will be evaluated. Stressfulness was manipulated in the two studies by means of threat of shock, and both self-report and physiological measures of stress indicated that these manipulations were highly successful. In both studies subjects who were exposed to the more stressful situation evaluated their experience as significantly more worthwhile and somewhat more interesting than did subjects exposed to the less stressful situation. Furthermore, as expected, subjects did not like the high stress experience more than the low stress experience. Implications and qualifications of these findings are discussed.

Anxiety↗
PubMed1976

Short-term memory and equivalence judgments in normal and retarded readers.

Matched groups of normal and disabled readers were required to perform same/different judgments in which the interval between standard and comparison stimuli was either 0, 1, or 6 sec. Standard and comparison stimuli were either the same, different in element order, or different in actual elements present. Retarded readers performed as well as controls on same tasks in all 3 delay conditions. Difference tasks discriminated retarded readers on 1- and 6-sec conditions, but not on 0-sec conditions. Differences in order and gross element distinguished retarded from adequate readers equally well. The results are interpreted to indicate a deficit in short-term memory in retarded readers, but only for tasks requiring a difference judgment.

Attention↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A secure base from which to explore close relationships.

The theory of attachment as a secure-base relationship integrates insights about affect, cognition, and behavior in close relationships across age and culture. Empirical successes based on this theory include important discoveries about the nature of infant-caregiver and adult-adult close relationships, the importance of early experience, and about stability and change in individual differences. The task now is to preserve these insights and successes and build on them. To accomplish this, we need to continually examine the logic and coherence of attachment theory and redress errors of emphasis and analysis. Views on attachment development, attachment representation, and attachment in family and cross-cultural perspective need to be updated in light of empirical research and advances in developmental theory, behavioral biology, and cognitive psychology. We also need to challenge the theory by formulating and testing hypotheses which, if not confirmed, would require significant changes to the theory. If we can accomplish these tasks, prospects for important developments in attachment theory and research are greater than ever, as are the prospects for integration with other disciplines.

Child↗