Asociatia Psihologilor din Romania

Nathan A. Fox, Ph.D. is Professor of Human Development at the University of Maryland College Park. He received his Ph.D from Harvard University in Developmental Psychology and his area of research interest is in social and emotional development of infants and young children. Professor Fox has completed research on the biological bases of social and emotional behavior developing methods for assessing brain activity in infants and young children during tasks designed to elicit a range of emotions. He has published over 100 empirical papers plus chapters. His work is funded by the National Institutes of Health that recently awarded him a MERIT award for excellence of his research program examining social and emotional development of young children. Professor Fox has served as Associate Editor of the journals Developmental Psychology and Psychophysiology and as Editor of the journal Infant Behavior and Development. He is past President of the International Society of Infant Studies and is currently President-Elect of Division 7 (Developmental Psychology) of the American Psychological Association.

In continuare va invitam sa parcurgeti interviul cu Dr. Nathan Fox realizat de Mihaela Chraif studenta anul III (F.P.S.E).

Dr. Fox: No, I’ve been coming to Romania over the last 7 years, several times a year, most of the time in Bucharest. So, this is my first time in Cluj.

APR: About your research area in Maryland, U.S.A. What can you tell us in general, latest studies?

Dr. Fox: I study the development of anxiety behaviors in young children, and trying to understand the underlining biology of the anxiety behavior and also the way attention affects the development of anxiety and anxiety affects attention.

APR: What can you tell us about your future projects in attention-emotion, researches in U.S.A.?

Dr. Fox: So, for the first time I’m doing MRI work in which I’m putting children who have anxious temperament behavioral inhibition and children with anxiety disorders and we are looking at the activity of their brains during different kinds of tasks and we are asking the questions what areas of the brain are involved in the development of anxious behavior and what areas of the brain are involved in attention – emotion interaction.

Dr. Fox: So, in attention bias when you see a threatened stimulus you are more likely to keep your attention towards to that stimulus and less able to disengage to turn away from that stimulus. What we have found is that bias, that attention bias is traveling in all anxiety disorders so, in straight anxiety in PTSD, in clinical anxiety problems, in social anxiety, in generalized anxiety even in phobia, across all of this different kinds of anxious behavior including all disorders, all show this attention bias and so this attention bias mean a very elementary process which underline anxious behavior.

APR: The inhibition of the children could be influenced by the cultural environment?

Dr. Fox: Yes, the answer is yes. It should be extend that the cultural values outgoing behavior and social interaction which other, behavioral inhibition will be devalued, and will be seen as negative thing in children. To extend to the children to be quiet and reserved and not interacting is a positive thing. Than in fact behavioral inhibition may be valued as a positive thing. So, for example in China if you ask parents whether they think behavior inhibition, social reticent children are valued or not they say are valued. If you ask the same question in U.S.A. maybe also in Romania thy will probably say: “No! We would like our children to be outgoing!”, so depend upon the culture contact if the inhibition is valued or devalued.

APR: About your research projects in U.S.A. What can you tell us regarding the latest researches?

Dr. Fox: The latest research findings that we have tell us two things: one that the attention bias of the child will determine weather or not, they will continue to show behavioral inhibition and anxious behavior over childhood or weather they will change. Number two: we also found that the way in which parents treat their child also has a very strong affect whether or not children remain behavioral inhibited or change over time.

APR: What are the tendencies in the study of attention and emotion in U.S.A. now?

Dr. Fox: I think the tendencies are to see them as very related. It used to be that people who studied attention never thought about emotion and people who studied emotion never thought about attention and attention processes. What I think is changed and will continue to get better is people understanding interaction between emotion and attention by directional affects each other and the importance to study both together at the same time.

APR: Are you planning future collaboration between the Maryland University – U.S.A. and Bucharest University-Faculty of Psychology?

Dr. Fox: I hope so, and I hope that I can work with the people at the Department of Psychology at Bucharest University. We are waiting for you and we have a great pleasure to have you with us.