Object relations and ego development: comparison and correlates in middle childhood

Toward a More Nuanced Perspective on Detachment: Differentiating Schizoid and Avoidant Personality Styles through Qualities of the Self-Representation

Avoidant personality disorder was introduced in DSM-III (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1980), and debate persists regarding the utility of having two separate variants of the "detached personality." The present study addressed this issue through ratings of open-ended self-descriptions provided by community adults with high scores on schizoid versus avoidant personality traits (N = 229). The self-concept of individuals with avoidant personality style reflected a lack of positive self-regard and low self-efficacy/agency. Regarding schizoid personalities, neither positive nor negative self-regard, self-complexity, or self-efficacy/agency was found. Examination of specific variables yielded a relationship between avoidant personality styles, depression, and anxiety, consistent with literature noting simultaneous desire and fear of interpersonal relationships in avoidant patients (APA, 1980; Sheldon & West, 1990). Similarly, examination of individual variables yielded a negative association between schizoid personality styles and tolerance for contradictory aspects of the self, consistent with theoretical writings in this area (Kernberg, 1976; McWilliams, 2006). Results support the argument that these two personality styles represent distinct constructs. Findings support the utility of self-concept assessment to assist treatment planning and differential diagnosis. Treatment implications include using open-ended descriptions of patients' self-concepts to explore changes that may not be accessible via more structured forms of patient self-report.

The Relationship Between Parents' Enjoyment of Parenting and Children's School Motivation

This paper examines parents' perceptions of their child's school-related motivation and their enjoyment of parenting. Drawing on Martins (2003a) Student Motivation Wheel, 10 facets of motivation were explored among a sample of 481 parents. These facets comprised six motivation boosters (self-belief, value of schooling, learning/mastery focus, planning, study management, persistence), two motivation mufflers (anxiety, failure avoidance), and two motivation guzzlers (uncertain control, self-sabotage/self-handicapping). Parents rated girls significantly higher than boys in value of schooling, learning focus, planning, and study management. Of the boosters, children's persistence was the strongest predictor of respondents' enjoyment of parenting. Of the mufflers, failure avoidance was the strongest (negative) predictor of parenting satisfaction. In terms of guzzlers, uncertain control was the strongest (negative) predictor of respondents' enjoyment of parenting. Compared with mothers' enjoyment of parenting, fathers' satisfaction in their role was more strongly related to their children's school-related motivation.

Mother and self-representations: investigating associations with symptomatic behavior and academic competence in middle childhood

This article reports two studies examining the content and structural aspects of maternal and self-representations in middle childhood in two prospective studies of 9 to 11-year-old children, their stability over time and interrelations, and their contribution to symptomatology and academic functioning. In Study 1 (N=169), content and structural dimensions of participants' open-ended narratives of self and mother were assessed, and their factor structure was replicated across two consecutive measurement waves carried out a year apart. In Study 2 (N=137), using an independent sample, the authors investigated the associations of self- and maternal representations with teachers' subsequent reports of children's internalizing and externalizing symptomatology and academic competence. It was assumed that dimensions of self-representations played a mediating role in the prediction of children's symptomatology and competence by their maternal representations. Results corroborated the existence of interdependent but distinct representations of self and mother in middle childhood, as well as the stability over time of the structural and thematic aspects within each representation. The content of the self- and maternal representations was found to associate with observed symptomatic behavior, while their structure associated with children's academic competence. In addition, results indicated that self-representation content mediates the association of maternal representation content with subsequent symptomatic behavior. Findings are discussed in the light of the differentiation and interdependence of self- and maternal representations in middle childhood.

Intelligence and maturity: meta-analytic evidence for the incremental and discriminant validity of Loevinger's measure of ego development

This review examined whether Loevinger's measure of personality (ego) development is equivalent to the measurement of intelligence. The authors conducted a meta-analysis of 52 correlations between ego level scores and intelligence test scores (retrieved from 42 studies involving 5,648 participants). The weighted average correlation between ego level and intelligence ranged from.20 to.34, depending on the intellectual ability assessed (e.g., verbal intelligence). Adjusting for measurement unreliability increased these values only minimally. The authors also reviewed 16 studies that examined the association between ego level and various criterion variables (e.g., aggressive behavior) after statistically controlling for the effects of intelligence. Ninety-four percent of the tests revealed significant relations between ego level and criterion variables after controlling for intelligence, indicating that ego development and intelligence are not interchangeable constructs. These findings do not support recent speculations concerning the limited value of stage models of maturity, social development, and moral reasoning.

A developmental analysis of self-reported fears in late childhood through mid-adolescence: social-evaluative fears on the rise?

BACKGROUND

The frequently reported decline in the overall frequency and intensity of fears during late childhood and adolescence may mask different developmental patterns for two broad subclasses of fears: fears concerning physical danger and fears concerning social evaluation. It was investigated if physical fears decrease between late childhood and mid-adolescence, while social-evaluative fears increase during this period. It was also studied if changes in both sets of fears are more strongly related to socio-cognitive maturity than to age, which itself is only a proxy measure of maturity.

METHODS

A non-clinical sample of 882 children and adolescents (ages 8-18) was recruited for study. Fears were assessed using the Ollendick Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised (FSSC-R). A Principal Components Analysis (PCA) was conducted to study the factor structure of the Failure and Criticism subscale of the FSSC-R. Level of development was assessed using the Sentence Completion Test for Youth (SCT-Y), a measure of socio-cognitive maturity that is based on Loevinger's model, and measure, of ego development.

RESULTS

The PCA of the Failure and Criticism subscale revealed three factors: Social Evaluation, Achievement Evaluation, and Punishment. As predicted, the significant decrease of overall fearfulness obscured two contradictory developmental patterns: (a) fears of physical danger and punishment decreased with age, whereas (b) fears of social and achievement evaluation increased with age. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that the age effect for social-evaluative fears was explained entirely on the basis of developmental differences in socio-cognitive maturity (controlling for verbal ability). In contrast, age was a better predictor of the decrease of physical and punishment fears (although socio-cognitive maturity still added to the predictive value of age).

CONCLUSION

The expression of social evaluation fears during adolescence appears not atypical and might be a corollary of socio-cognitive maturation. At the same time, the natural presence of those fears during adolescence appears to constitute a vulnerability for developing a social anxiety disorder.

Children's expectancies and perceptions of adults: effects on rapport

Interpersonal expectancy effects are less thoroughly understood in children than in adults, yet they can have practical implications for children's interactions. To understand better children's expectancies, this study extended earlier work to include expectancies of adults, preexisting (i.e., noninduced) expectancies, and joint effects of expectancies and subsequent perceptions. Children (N = 81) in Grades 4 through 6 (i.e., 9- to 12-year-olds) indicated their expectancies of adults who subsequently interacted with them using a style of either autonomy support (AS) or control (CN). After each interaction, children reported on perceived AS and on rapport. Results indicated that children's expectancies and subsequent perceptions interact to predict rapport, adult AS is associated with increased rapport, and the effect of children's expectancies on rapport is only partially mediated by their perceptions.

Narrative representations of caregivers and emotion dysregulation as predictors of maltreated children's rejection by peers

This study examined whether maltreated children were more likely than nonmaltreated children to develop poor-quality representations of caregivers and whether these representations predicted children's rejection by peers. A narrative task assessing representations of mothers and fathers was administered to 76 maltreated and 45 nonmaltreated boys and girls (8-12 years old). Maltreated children's representations were more negative/constricted and less positive/coherent than those of nonmaltreated children. Maladaptive representations were associated with emotion dysregulation, aggression, and peer rejection, whereas positive/coherent representations were related to prosocial behavior and peer preference. Representations mediated maltreatment's effects on peer rejection in part by undermining emotion regulation. Findings suggest that representations of caregivers serve an important regulatory function in the peer relationships of at-risk children.

Mental Representations in Personality Development, Psychopathology, and the Therapeutic Process

This article considers the construct of mental representation from the perspectives of psychoanalytic object-relations theory and cognitive developmental psychology and the congruence of these formulations with research and theory in cognitive science and social cognition. Concepts of mental representation are applied to the study of psychopathology, personality assessment, interpersonal relationships or attachment styles, and therapeutic progress in the long-term, inpatient treatment of seriously disturbed adolescents and young adults. Understanding of personality development, psychopathology, and the therapeutic process is greatly enhanced by this constructivist perspective, which considers the construction of mental representations or cognitive–affective schemas to be a central constituent of personality development and organization.

Parental representations, self-view, and interpersonal functioning of older adolescents

This study examines the relationship between parental object representations, self-representations, and interpersonal relations in a nonclinical sample of older adolescents. It was hypothesized that individuals with parental representations that are conceptually low, hostile, and rejecting would be significantly related to a negative view of self and poor interpersonal relations. The results suggest that parental benevolence, ambitiousness, and conceptual level are significantly related to interpersonal functioning. Parental representations that are qualitatively poor were found to be associated with a negative view of self. However, a high conceptual level of mother was noted to be significantly related to a negative self-representation. The findings generally confirm the nature of the relationship between object representations and self, but also suggest that the structural component of parental representations may reflect a cognitive component of the self rather than an affective one. The difficulties of controlling for depression and method variance issues are also discussed.

Parental representations among preschoolers and fourth-grade children: integrating object relational and cognitive developmental frameworks

The aim of this research was the empirical study of the development of object representations among preschool and fourth-grade children. Psychometric properties and age differences on structural and qualitative dimensions of parental descriptions are reported. The relationships between the dimensions of object representations and children's self-perceptions and interpretations of situations depicting typical interferences of ongoing parent-child relations were explored. Our findings point to multidimensional representations, underlying the importance of the structural dimensions of the representation. More mature representations were related to more advanced conflict resolution strategies. More positive perceptions of self in middle childhood and less idealized self-concept among preschoolers were associated to higher conceptual levels of parental representations. The constraints, as well as the possibilities, inherent to research based on narrative models of object representations are discussed.