• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.193-210
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• 2010

This study explored the common response profiles in the narrative stories of typically developing 5 year-old Korean Children. Fourteen story stems from the MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB, Bretherton, Oppenheim, & the MacArthur Story Stem Network, 1990) were administered to 156(85 boys and 71 girls) children recruited from 8 Kindergartens in the Seoul and Gyung-gi areas. The children's responses were aggregated into 5 dimensions, based on content themes and performance scores which included emotions expressed and narrative coherence using the MacArthur Narrative Coding System (Robinson, Mantz-Simmions, Macfie, & MacArthur Narrative Working Group, 2004). Data were analyzed by means of cluster analysis. 5 response profiles emerged over the course of this research : Prosocial, Anxiety, Dysregulated aggression, Anxious/Avoidance, and Avoidance profiles. When 14 story stems were grouped into 3 story contexts (stories included interpersonal conflicts, moral conflicts, and empathy) and were analyzed separately according to the story contexts, 3 common profiles (a Prosocial profile, a Constrained profile and an Anxiety profile) emerged across the story contexts, however, there were additional, unique profiles for each of the story contexts.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.153-170
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• 2004

This study explored age and sex differences in preschoolers' narrative representations of their mothers. Subjects were 120 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-year-old children, with 15 boys and 15 girls in each age group. Using the MacArthur Story Stem Battery(Bretherton et al., 1990), observations were made to obtain children's narrative representations of their mothers. content themes and emotional responses. Boys' representations were more negative and less positive than girls' regardless of their age. Boys talked about more aggressive themes and showed more anxiety and less joy. Five and 6-year-old children had less negative and disciplinary representations of their mothers than 3- and 4-year-olds. Six-year-olds showed less prosocial themes than 3- and 5-years, and fewer aggressive themes than 3-and 4-year while they showed less joy, distress and concern responses than 3-years.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.75-87
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the preschoolers' hostile attributional bias and the narrative representation profiles. Forty five 4-year-old preschoolers (24 boys, 21 girls) participated in this study. In order to measure the children's narrative responses, MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB) was used, and "a cartoon-based social perception task" was used to obtain preschoolers' hostile attributional bias. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and cluster analysis. The results were as follows. First, the rate of hostile attributional style of the subjects was 28.89%. Second, four profiles regarding the narrative representations of 4-year olds were found including: Prosocial (33.3%), Constrained (42.2%), Anxious/Restricted (6.7%), and Dysregulated (17.8%). Third, the rate of preschoolers' hostile attributional style differed by the preschoolers' narrative representation profile. Children with a Prosocial profile showed a less hostile attributional style than children with an Anxious/Restricted profile and Dysregulated profile. In conclusion, preschoolers' hostile attributional bias is related to the narrative representation profile.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.153-171
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• 2015

The purposes of this study were to explore the relations of preschoolers' narrative representation profile types to diurnal cortisol regulation pattern at home. Fourteen story stems from the MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB, Bretherton, et al., 1990) were administered to 40 preschoolers(22 boys, 18 girls, aged 5) recruited from 8 kindergartens in the Seoul and Gyeonggi areas. And also, their saliva cortisol was collected. The children's responses were aggregated into 5 dimensions, based on content themes and performance scores, which included emotions expressed and narrative coherence using the MacArthur Narrative Coding System(Robinson, et al., 2004). Data were analyzed by means of cluster analysis. Five response profiles emerged over the course of this research: Prosocial, Anxiety, Dyregulated aggression, Restricted, and Avoidance profiles. Cortisol at home showed decrease diurnal cortisol regulation patterns, however it showed a difference according to narrative response profiles. Restricted, Prosocial, and Avoidance profiles showed decrease diurnal cortisol regulation patterns. Anxiety profiles showed flat pattern, and Dyregulated aggression profile showed rising diurnal cortisol regulation pattern. These results show the preschoolers' internal representation may affect the diurnal cortisol reaction in daytime.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.48 no.8
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• pp.1-12
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to explore and examine the relationship between mother-child emotional availability and preschoolers' story stem narrative response. Eighty two 4-year-old preschoolers and their mothers participated in this study. This study used the following translated evaluation tools: Emotional Availability Scales(EA, 3rd edition) designed by Biringen and colleagues(1998) to examine the quality of the emotional relationship between mother and her child, and the MacArthur Story Stem Battery(MSSB) developed by Bretherton and colleagues with the MacArthur Narrative Group(1990) to measure preschoolers' narrative responses. The following statistical analyses were preformed descriptive, cluster analysis, and One-way ANOVA. The findings were as follows: First, 4 clusters of the narrative responses of 4-year-old preschoolers were prosocial story tellers, avoidant/dysregulated story tellers, constrained story tellers, and anxious story tellers. Second, the preschoolers in the prosocial cluster showed a high level of mother-child emotional availability and the preschoolers in the avoidant/dysregulated cluster showed a low level of mother-child emotional availability.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.89-110
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• 2005

Subjects were 66 3- to 4-year-old-Children of unemployed mothers from upper middle class families. Attachment behaviors were measured with the Preschool Strange Situation(Cassidy and Marvin, 1992) and classified as secure, avoidant, dependent, or disorganized. Narrative representations of mothers by Children were obtained by video taped interviews using the MacArthur Story-Stem Battery and coded by the MacArthur Narrative Working Group(1997) system. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and t test. Results were that children in the secure group showed more positive representations of their mothers, more prosocial story themes, had higher scores in theme coherence and showed more positive emotional expression than those in the insecure group. The attachment behaviors of the 4 groups(A, B, C, D) were closely correlated with the attachment representations shown in MSSB.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.21-33
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• 1999

The clinical assessment for preschool children who are known to have problems in selfreporting tends to be dependent on outsiders' reporting. Thus, the direct assessment of children's inner experience, thoughts and feelings is difficult. MacArthur Story-Stem Battery(MSSB) developed to learn more about preschool children's mental representation in play is used in this study to help assess clinical preschool children through developmental study of normal children's mental representation. Fifty five children(32boys and 23girls) who performed MSSB, IQ Test, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised(PPVT) were videotaped and were analyzed. The results of this study were as follows：1) Children frequently displayed negative mental representation such as atypical negative response, reparation/guilt, punishment, personal injury and so on during emotionally laden play situation. 2) Mental representation of parent appeared positive, disciplinary, and negative in respective. 3) As a result of factor analysis of MSSB content themes, aggressive, prosocial, and oppositional content theme composites were generated. Aggressive content included atypical negative response, aggression, personal injury, and exclusion. Prosocial content included affection, affiliation, and reparation/guilt. Oppositional content included punishment and non-compliance. 4) Mental representation of parent and content themes showed significant correlation. Positive, negative, and disciplinary representation were significantly correlated for prosocial(r=0.40), aggressive (r=0.52), and oppositional(r=0.75) content theme respectively. 5) Among the correlations between parental mental representations and emotional responses, positive parental representation and anxiety showed significant negative correlation(r=-0.43). 6) Among the correlations between content themes and emotional responses, there were significant positive correlations between aggressive(r=0.28) and oppositional content themes(r=0.29) and distress, and were significant negative correlations between prosocial content theme and concern(r=-0.29) and anxiety(r=-0.43). According to the above results, preschool children frequently displayed negative mental representation in emotionally conflictual play situation. Children with more prosocial themes in their stories exhibit more positive parental mental representation. Also, children with more aggressive themes tend to display more negative parental representation and negative emotional responses.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.61-74
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• 2004

Objectives：This study was performed to introduce a psychoeducational family therapy model for the families of schizophrenic patient and to investigate the effect of this model on the changes in coping style and depressive symptoms of the family members, and in perception of emotional support by families and depressive symptoms of patients. Methods：Nine preschool children, 3-5 years old, experiencing physical injuries caused by attack from a psychotic patient at kindergarten, were evaluated for psychological assessments；Intelligence test, MSSB(MacArthur Story-Stem Battery), H-T-P test(House-Tree-Person test). And their parents completed rating scale, KPI-C(Korean Personality Inventory for Children about children’s psychological conditions). Results：With respects to the contents and emotional reactions of MSSB, 9 preschool children showed generally high levels of anxiety, depression, avoidance, aggression, probably related to the traumatic experiences. Even though children couldn't verbally report directly about their traumatic experiences, in both MSSB, structured play narrative assessment tool, and HPT, free drawing and association test, they demonstrated psychiatric problems through reenactment plays, regardless of clinical diagnoses. Conclusion：Present study allowed us the chance to see beyond the outer pathological behaviors of PTSD in preschool children, through deeper evaluations of their mental representation. These preliminary data suggest deep understanding of internal representation would be of help for thorough evaluations and treatment plan for preschool children, experiencing severe trauma.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.507-528
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• 2013

The study examined the mental representation of children in foster care through the MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB) and reviewed difference between children in foster care and typical children in terms of mental representation. Subjects of the study included a total of 50 children: 25 children (11 boys and 14 girls), aged from 5 to 8, in foster care in Gyeonggi Province, and 25 typical children (11 boys and 14 girls), aged from 5 to 8, who lived in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. The research findings are summarized as follows: First, in terms of mental representation, children in foster care showed less subjects of empathic relations and more subjects of disorganized aggression than typical children. Second, children in foster care showed lower coherence mental representation than typical children. Finally, children in foster care were more likely to fail in emotional regulation than typical children in mental representation.