ISSN : 1229-0718
Although it is well established that childhood trauma presents a risk factor for borderline personality disorder in later life, its specific mechanism has been relatively underexplored. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the association between childhood trauma and borderline personality traits, focusing on the mediating roles of early attachment and adult attachment. A total of 233 college students (100 men, 133 women) participated in the study and completed self-report questionnaires assessing childhood trauma, early attachment, adult attachment, and borderline personality traits. Results indicated that early attachment and adult attachment sequentially mediate the relationship between childhood trauma and borderline personality traits among college students. These findings support the role of attachment in the development of borderline personality traits and related problems.
Number sense refers to the ability to read numbers and understand numerical magnitudes and their relations, and is a foundational skill for math learning. This study examined 1st (n=47) and 2nd (n=34) graders’ number sense acuity and their mental representation and problem-solving strategies using a numberline estimation (NLE) task. First graders completed the 0-100 NLE task and 2nd graders completed both the 0-100 and 0-1000 NLE tasks. Results showed that 2nd graders are more precise when representing numbers on the numberline than 1st graders. Additionally, 2nd graders applied more benchmark-based strategies (e.g., midpoint) in the NLE task than 1st graders. Finally, a linear model was found to be more suited for depicting the patterns of 1st and 2nd graders’ numerical estimates in the 0-100 and 0-1000 NLE tasks than a logarithmic one. Taken together, these findings suggest that as students grow older, their number sense and problem-solving strategies tend to be increasingly articulate and that the linearity of their mental representation becomes more obvious. Moreover, the high precision and linearity of numerical estimates in the current study can be interpreted as reflecting a positive influence of the transparency of the base-ten number structure in the Korean language.
In this study, kindergarteners and first-to-third graders were assessed in Korean literacy (word reading, word reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension) and cognitive skills (phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness, as well as naming speed, left-right reversal, and vocabulary). This study aimed to compare the literacy skills between poor readers and all children in each grade, as well as to determine the rate of cognitive deficits that appear in poor readers. We found that the average score of poor readers was more than a year below that of all children on all literacy tests. In particular, the proportion of children who could not read CV and CVC Gulja (written syllable) in the test immediately prior to entering elementary school was 48% and 95%, respectively, in the poor readers, whereas it was 7% and 24%, respectively, in all children, demonstrating a significant difference between the two groups. More than 30% of poor readers in the second and third grades had deficits in all types of cognitive skills except left-right reversal. The findings of this study suggest that it is necessary to identify and intensively train children who have not mastered how to read CV and CVC Gulja in the early first grade.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediation effects of rejection sensitivity and ambivalence over emotional expressiveness regarding the effects of behavioral inhibition temperament on social anxiety. To verify this, behavioral inhibition temperament, rejection sensitivity, ambivalence over emotional expressiveness, and social anxiety were measured in 386 adults. The results of this study are summarized as follows. First, a statistically significant positive correlation was found between behavioral inhibition temperament in adulthood, rejection sensitivity, ambivalence over emotional expressiveness, and social anxiety. Second, behavioral inhibition temperament had a direct significant effect on social anxiety. Third, behavioral inhibition temperament had a significant indirect effect on social anxiety by mediating both rejection sensitivity and ambivalence over emotional expressiveness. Finally, it was found that behavioral inhibition temperament had an indirect significant effect on social anxiety by sequentially mediating the rejection sensitivity and ambivalence over emotional expressiveness. The results of this study are meaningful for understanding the causes of social anxiety in adults and the interaction of individual internal variables including adult temperament. Further, the findings suggest that a multifactorial perspective is needed to understand social anxiety in adults. The research findings also suggest that social anxiety can be alleviated through counseling strategies that deal with adults’ psychological characteristics.
This short-term longitudinal study examined the structural relationship between children’s pragmatic language, self-esteem, externalizing problem behavior, and school adaptation. Data on 1,148 children and their mothers from 11th and 12th Panel Study on Korean Children were used. Data were analyzed using SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 23.0 with the application of Pearson’s correlation, structural equation modelling, bootstrapping and the AMOS user-defined estimand function. The main results were as follows. Firstly, children’s pragmatic language was positively correlated with self-esteem and school adaptation but negatively correlated with externalizing problem behavior. Secondly, children’s pragmatic language was found to exert an influence upon self-esteem, externalizing problem behavior, and school adjustment. Thirdly, the relationship between children’s pragmatic language and school adjustment was mediated by their self-esteem and externalizing problem behavior. Results are discussed in terms of the protective factor and risk factors for children’s school adjustment.
This study aimed to determine the differential effect of the parentification sub-factor (injustice, caretaking) on college student interpersonal ability (IA). Self-discrepancy (SD) and cognitive empathy (CE) were utilized as parameters to validate the structural relationship. Regarding demographic characteristics, both types of parentifiaction revealed statistically significant differences between family type structure and birth order, respectively. Parentification-injustice was negatively correlated with the IA and CE but positively correlated with the SD. In contrast to injustice, Parentification-caretaking was negatively correlated with the IA and CE but not significantly correlated with SD. These results indicated that the sub-factor of parentification (injustice, caretaking) had a differential effect on IA by mediating SD and CE. Based on these finding, the implications and limitations of this study are discussed.
The purpose of this study is to systematically search literature related to children’s playfulness published between 2011 and 2021 in Korea and classify the variables associated with it. The study calculated the average effect size and identified variables with the largest effect size in each domain using 52 studies with 160 correlation effect sizes. The study also conducted sub-group analyses to explore effect size differences according to study characteristics and domains. The average effect size between children’s playfulness and related variables was medium. The variables that had the largest effect size were the child’s happiness and emotional intelligence in the child individual domain and the mother’s acceptance of emotional expression in the maternal domain. When raters of playfulness and corresponding variables were matched, the effect size was three times larger than when they did not. The findings provide aggregated and helpful information regarding children’s playfulness with related variables. It suggests a direction for future study on children’s playfulness and provides information to teachers and parents when promoting children’s playfulness.
This study explored the effects of parental emotional invalidation and expressed emotion experienced during childhood on the psychological health of young adults. Based on a sample of 248 college and graduate students, the relationships among emotional invalidation, expressed emotion, emotional dysregulation, internalizing problems, and externalizing problems were clarified using a structural equation model. The results revealed that paternal emotional invalidation affected children’s internalizing problems, while emotional dysregulation fully mediated the relationships between parental expressed emotion and internalizing-externalizing problems. For male participants, some direct paths of parental emotional invalidation and expressed emotion leading to internalizing-externalizing problems were found to be significant, while, for female participants, emotional dysregulation mediated the paths. The implications and limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies are discussed.
In order to understand the psychological mechanisms influencing the occurrence of child abuse, this study focused on the mother’s negative parenting behavior. This study intended to examine the mediating effects of hostile attribution bias and emotion dysregulation on the relationship between mother’s experience of childhood abuse and negative parenting behavior. Data of 396 mothers with children from grade 1 to 3 in elementary school were analyzed using structural equation modeling. As a result, mother’s childhood abuse directly predicted negative parenting behavior. In addition, emotion dysregulation showed significant mediating effects on the path between mother’s childhood abuse and negative parenting behavior. Furthermore, the double mediating effect was significant for the relationship between mother’s childhood abuse and negative parenting behavior. In other words, mother’s childhood abuse predicted an increase in hostile attribution bias, which in turn contributed to a high level of emotion dysregulation, further leading to an increase in negative parenting behavior. Finally, effective prevention strategies along with the implications of these findings are discussed.