Alice Bonechi

A distant mirror: Memories of parents and friends across childhood and adolescence

Memories that were easily accessible (i.e., quickly retrieved in a memory-fluency task) of Italian university students were assessed. They were from four periods of life: preschool, elementary school, middle school, and high school/university. Half of the participants were instructed to recall only memories involving parents, and the other half memories involving friends. Across age at the time of remembered events, only memories of friends increased in frequency. For parental memories (but not friend memories), the proportion with negative affect increased over age, especially for males. There were also differences related to whether memories were episodic or generic. It was concluded that memories of different periods of childhood and adolescence can serve as a reflective mirror for developmental changes in parent-child and friendship relationships.

Parental Influences on Memories of Parents and Friends

ABSTRACT The authors evaluated the role parent–child relationship quality has on two types of memories, those of parents and those of friends. Participants were 198 Italian university students who recalled memories during 4 separate timed memory-fluency tasks about their preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school and university years. Half were instructed to recall memories involving parents and the remainder memories involving friends. Moreover, parent–child relationships were assessed by the Network of Relationships Inventory (NRI; W. Furman & D. Buhrmester, 1985) and Adolescents’ Report of Parental Monitoring (D. M. Capaldi & G. R. Patterson, 1989). Results showed that men with positive parent–son relationships had more memories of parents and more affectively positive memories of friends, supporting a consistency model positing similarity between parent–child relationships and memories of friends. Women with positive parental relationship quality had more affectively positive memories of parents but for friends, positive relationship quality only predicted positive memories when young. At older ages, especially middle school-aged children, negative parent–daughter relationships predicted more positive memories of friends, supporting a compensatory model. The gender of parent also mattered, with fathers having a more influential role on affect for memories of friends.

La violenza all’interno della coppia: uno studio narrativo

La violenza di genere all’interno della famiglia, che costituisce un serio problema a livello mondiale, puo assumere diverse forme: fisica, psicologica, economica e sessuale. L’obiettivo principale di questo studio e rilevare le specifiche modalita lessicali attraverso cui donne vittime di violenza ricostruiscono l’esperienza della loro relazione di coppia e degli abusi subiti. L’indagine si e svolta su un campione di 51 donne, reclutate in tre Centri Antiviolenza della Toscana, secondo un metodo narrativo. Alle partecipanti e stato chiesto di scrivere due resoconti: il primo sulla loro relazione sentimentale e il secondo sull’episodio di maltrattamento ritenuto piu significativo. L’analisi delle narrazioni ottenute ha evidenziato come queste varino significativamente in funzione del loro status attuale e della durata dei maltrattamenti subiti. Le differenze riguardano soprattutto le dimensioni linguistiche relative alle esperienze percettive e sensoriali, ai processi psicologici e alla coerenza temporo-spaziale. L’analisi di contenuto ha, inoltre, permesso di evidenziare i fattori di rischio scatenanti e le caratteristiche specifiche dell’episodio di maltrattamento ritenuto piu grave.