Emma Otta

Relação entre depressão pós-parto e disponibilidade emocional materna

Postpartum depression is a highly prevalent disorder that can interfere in the mother-infant relationship. This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of postpartum depression in our sample to compare mother-infant interaction in depressed and non-depressed mothers and to assess the relationship between maternal depression, social support, attachment style, and emotional availability. Participants were pregnant women who planned to deliver at the University of Sao Paulo Hospital between December 2006 and December 2008. Postpartum depression prevalence in our sample was 28%. No difference was found in emotional availability between depressed and non-depressed mothers. There was a positive correlation between maternal sensitivity and education, and between sensitivity and some dimensions of social support and attachment styles. We conclude that postpartum depression prevalence in our sample was higher than the average international rates, but that depressive symptoms do not impair mother-infant interaction. Maternal sensitivity is affected by socio-cognitive and emotional factors.

Age Differences Between Spouses in a Brazilian Marriage Sample

Abstract Age differences between spouses were investigated in a Brazilian marriage sample. A study was made of 3,000 announcements of forthcoming marriages sampled from the newspaper Diario de Noticias de Sao Paulo , in September and October 1996. These announcements published in newspapers are a legal requirement for marriage. Men married women younger than themselves, and this tendency became more pronounced over the lifespan. There was only one exception: young men

Pretend Play of Brazilian Children A Window Into Different Cultural Worlds

This study compared pretend play of Brazilian children (41 girls and 35 boys, 4 to 6 years old) of five different cultural groups: (a) Indians, (b) seashore, (c) low socioeconomic status (SES) urban, (d) high SES urban, and (e) mixed SES urban. This cross-cultural investigation was based in naturalistic observation and conducted within a methodological framework that considered the content and the meaning of symbolic transformation and its structure. Although pretend play occurred in all groups, high and mixed SES urban children engaged in more pretending than the others. In accordance with the theoretical claim that make believe is a universal phenomenon, the differences among cultural groups were expressed more in the content than in the structure of pretend play.

Emotional and sexual jealousy as a function of sex and sexual orientation in a Brazilian sample.

The goal of the present study was to compare the relative distress of homosexual and heterosexual Brazilian men and women on scenarios in which they imagined their partners sexually or emotionally involved with another person, using a forced-choice paradigm and continuous measures. Participants were 68 heterosexual men, 72 heterosexual women, 42 homosexual men, and 35 homosexual women. On the forced-choice questions heterosexual men (39 on one question and 37 on the other) were more upset than their female counterparts (21 on one question and 15 on the other) by scenarios of sexual infidelity than those of emotional infidelity. On questions using continuous measures no significant difference was found between pleasurable sex and attachment scenarios for heterosexual women or heterosexual men. On the highly upsetting scenarios heterosexual men discriminated between flirting and both pleasurable sex and attachment scenarios, being less disturbed by the former. In contrast, heterosexual women were equally distressed by the three scenarios. Scores for the homosexual men and homosexual women fell in between those of the heterosexual men and heterosexual women and did not show a clear cut preference for the sexual infidelity or the emotional alternative on the forced-choice paradigm. However, on the continuous measures of jealousy homosexuals resembled heterosexuals of the opposite sex. There was no evidence that jealousy would be less intense among homosexuals although reproductive outcomes were not at risk.

Razao, emoção e ação em cena : A mente humana sob um olhar evolucionista

Biological and cultural aspects, psychological and neurological aspects, emotional and rational aspects were privileged separately in different times and perspectives - the vision of mind was sometimes focused and sometimes relegated to the black box of the psychological science. Presently, integration between mind and human behavior is sought. Mind is seen as an object of science and a product of the natural selection in the evolution of Homo sapiens. Our essay presents a brief history of the main transformations in the conception of mind and of evolutionary models of mind which contemplate reason, emotion and human actions. An effort is made to integrate and discuss the research evidence from various disciplines (anthropology, ethology, primatology, and psychology), offering an evolutionary comprehension of the human mind, of its phylogeny and ontogeny. Cooperative and competitive behavior are discussed within such framework.

Sex differences over age groups in self-posed smiling in photographs.

The present study was designed to investigate self-posed smiling behavior in photographs as a function of both sex and age. The photographs of 1,171 Brazilian middle-class people, taken in a wide variety of informal social settings were examined. Only 25 7% of the girls and 25.0% of the boys of 2- to 5-yr.-age group were seen smiling in the photographs. Older children, adolescents, and adults were much more expressive than young children. Furthermore, significantly more females were seen smiling than males. Females also smiled more expansively than males. Finally, smiling was less frequent among middle-aged and older groups, especially among males. The present study replicated the sex difference in self-posed smiling behavior consistently reported by American researchers examining college yearbook photographs. Further, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that, besides being associated with emotional experience, smiling has a strong social motivation.

Perception of men's personal qualities and prospect of employment as a function of facial hair.

The present study investigated the contribution of mens facial hair to impression formation. Participants evaluated photographs of one of four versions of a man—clean shaven, mustached, goateed, or bearded—on a 7-point scale. In Study 1, participants were 106 Brazilian undergraduates (68 men and 38 women). Beardedness was associated with older age, greater responsibility, and leftist political ideas. In Study 2, respondents were 50 Brazilian personnel managers (28 men and 22 women) who made hiring decisions at different companies in the city of São Paulo. Personnel managers clearly preferred clean shaven over bearded, mustached, or goateed men as prospective employees. In a hiring situation for a conservative occupation, a man who signals disposition to conform to rules may be preferred by personnel managers over another who signals nonconformity.

Social stress and reproductive success in the female Syrian hamster: Endocrine and behavioral correlates

In many mammal species, reproduction is not shared equally among the members of a social unit. Even though reproductive skew seems unlikely in females of solitary species, this phenomenon could result from environmental factors. Although solitary in the wild, captive Syrian hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) are generally housed in groups. We investigated whether social stress produces some degree of reproductive skew in this solitary species and whether female reproductive success varies as a function of social rank. To assess the physiological relationship between social stress and fertility, we monitored reproductive hormones and glucocorticoids of solitary and pair-housed females during pregnancy by means of recently established non-invasive methods for measuring hormone metabolites in the feces. The patterns of fecal progesterone, estrogen and glucocorticoid metabolites were similar to those found in blood and reported in the literature for pregnant hamsters. As expected, dominant females had higher breeding success than subordinate females. However the rate of reproductive failure was also very high among the singly housed females of our control group. The number of pups per litter, the average sex-ratio in each group, and the mean weight of pups did not differ significantly among groups. Glucocorticoid concentrations were unaffected by housing and social rank and the few differences between the endocrine profiles of singly- and pair-housed females are not sufficient to explain the observed difference in breeding success. It is likely that social isolation impairs reproduction in the same manner as subordination. Our findings suggest that social isolation of animals accustomed to group living was equally as disturbing as cohabitation with an unknown conspecific.

Grafitos de banheiro: um estudo de diferenças de gênero

Restroom graffiti: A study of gender differences. Gender differences in restroom graffiti (N = 1349) were analyzed, focusing on aspects of the human sexuality. Graffiti were

MUSA LATRINALIS: GENDER DIFFERENCES IN RESTROOM GRAFFITI

The purpose was to analyze gender differences in the graffiti written on restroom walls by Brazilian students. We compared graffiti produced by men and women at secondary schools and on the university campus. We expected that the gender gap would be narrower in the older and more schooled group of undergraduates. Of the total of 1349 graffiti collected in 56 restroom stalls, 37% came from the university and 63% from secondary schools. At secondary schools we found less graffiti in womens than in mens restrooms, but no significant difference on the university campus In both places romantic contents predominated in womens restrooms but in mens restrooms they were virtually absent. A striking finding, which is contrary to previous studies, was the high frequency of sexual graffiti in womens restrooms on campus, comparable to that found in mens restrooms. Sex became a more central theme of both mens and womens graffiti on campus than in secondary schools. On the whole, a greater number of categories distinguished the sexes at the secondary school than on campus (7 vs 2). This supports the hypothesis of a narrower gender gap with increasing education.