Objective: To investigate cross-sectional associations of food neophobia and pickiness in preschoolers and in their mothers with regard also to food consumption, proposal of new foods, feeding, and weaning modes. Design: Matched child and maternal data collected by means of self-report questionnaires administered to mothers. Setting: Kindergartens of the City of Rome Municipality, Italy. Subjects: One hundred twenty-seven mother-child pairs. Children were aged from 2 to 6 years. All participants were normal weight or obese. Measures of Outcome: Mothers' and children's food neophobia and pickiness. Results: Pickiness and neophobia were related within both children's (r_o = 0.528, p = 0.001) and mothers' (r_o = 0.186, p = 0.037) samples. Mothers' and children's neophobia and pickiness were significantly although modestly associated (neophobia r_o = 0.223, p = 0.012; pickiness r_o = 0.311, p = 0.001). Overweight and obese children were significantly more neophobic (18.8 ± 6.4 vs 15.7 ± 7.6; p = 0.03) and picky (6.87 ± 2.2 vs 5.72 ± 2.7; p = 0.03) than normal-weight children. Conclusions: Preschoolers' food neophobia and pickiness were correlated. Mothers and children displayed similarities in food neophobia, pickiness, and dietary habits. Genetics and environmental cues jointly contribute to shape preschoolers' attitudes toward familiar and unfamiliar foods. Hence, future longitudinal studies of larger samples are necessary to better define the role of genetics, parental feeding practices, and environmental characteristics in the development of food neophobia and pickiness.

How couples regulate their emotions and how they converge emotionally with one another can critically affect relationship quality. We examined individual differences in two different classes of interaction-relevant processes—emotion regulation (ER) and emotional contagion (EC), the tendency to catch and converge with the emotions of others—in long-term marital relationships. Results from the actor–partner interdependence model analyses indicated that (a) actors’ and partners’ levels of cognitive reappraisal (but not suppression) and EC were independently associated with higher marital satisfaction and (b) both partners’ and actors’ levels of EC moderated associations between cognitive reappraisal (but not suppression) and marital satisfaction, such that this association significantly increased for lower levels of EC. EC at couple level had a direct effect on marital satisfaction and overrode individual-level effects of EC. These results indicate that both automatic (EC) and controlled (ER) processes have independent and conjoint effects on marital satisfaction in long-wed couples and, to an extent, coincide in attempts to synchronize couples’ emotional linkage. The results point to intrapersonal and interpersonal mechanisms in the regulation of emotion in longer term marital relationships.

This study aims to explore rates of deliberate self-harm (DSH) behaviors and their psychological and psychopathological correlates within a sample of nonclinical young adults (N = 365; 63% women; M age = 23 ± 4.06). Participants completed the Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory and other self-report questionnaires assessing clinical (borderline personality, dissociative, and depersonalization traits) and nonclinical (body perception, behavioral inhibition and activation, cognitive emotional regulation, and the Big Five traits) dimensions of their personality. The rate of DSH in the present sample was 39%, comparable to that found in previous studies of young adults in other countries. Further, consistent with past research, DSH was found to be associated with clinical dimensions of personality pathology, including borderline personality and dissociative symptoms. Finally, results revealed an association between DSH and nonclinical dimensions of personality, including the behavioral activation dimension of fun-seeking, more negative body perception and lower body protection, the use of more nonadaptive cognitive strategies for regulating emotions, higher levels of openness to experience, and lower levels of emotional stability. This pattern of results is consistent with those found for other impulsive behaviors and impulse control disorders.