Cancer survivors’ and partners’ key concerns and quality of life

Objective: Understanding the concerns of cancer survivors is essential for effective interventions. This study was designed to identify the primary concerns of dyads coping with cancer, how concerns differed by role and sex, and whether concerns expressed during counselling were associated with survivors’ psychosocial well-being and adjustment.

Design: Forty-three dyads with breast and prostate cancer (N = 86 participants) were enrolled in an interpersonal telephone counselling intervention. Audio recordings of 228 counselling sessions were transcribed and content analysed qualitatively to identify major themes and key concerns. A total of three 30-min sessions were coded for each study participant. Quantitative data and statistical analyses were used to predict changes in survivors’ quality of life.

Main Outcome Measures: Participants completed psychosocial well-being measures (depression, positive/negative affect, and relationship satisfaction), pre- and post-counselling.

Results: Survivors’ concerns focused on cancer- and treatment-related issues, whereas partners’ concerns centred on the well-being of their spouse/partner with cancer, and what they were doing to help their loved one cope with his/her illness. Key concerns for all consisted of relationship maintenance and communication issues. Further, discussion of these concerns was predictive of significant improvements in adjustment post-counselling for women with breast cancer.

Conclusion: Discussion of interpersonal concerns may play a more important role in the well-being of women, than men, coping with cancer.     

Developmental Trajectories of Girls’ and Boys’ Delinquency and Associated Problems

Developmental trajectories in delinquency through adolescence were studied along with family and peer relationship problems. Drawing from eight waves of data over seven years, we conducted trajectory analyses with a sample of 746 students (402 girls; 344 boys). Analyzing girls and boys together, a five-class model emerged: 60% of the adolescents rarely reported delinquency; 27.7% reported low initial levels with moderate levels of delinquency over time; 6% in the late onset group reported initially low and rising levels of delinquency; 5% in the early onset group reported moderate initial levels which increased and then decreased in later adolescence. A small group of only boys (1.3%) labeled chronic reported high initial levels of delinquency that increased over time. Group comparisons revealed problems in internalizing, parent and peer relationship problems. The findings provide direction for early identification and interventions to curtail the development of delinquency.     

Children’s and Adolescents’ Conceptions of Happiness

Previous research on children’s and adolescents’ happiness has mainly focused on the different variables that may contribute to it. However, very few studies have investigated the beliefs that children and adolescents hold about happiness. It is important to study developmental and gender differences in the conceptions of happiness as beliefs affect people’s emotions and behaviors, and they may help explain how children and adolescents strive for their own (and potentially others’) happiness. To that aim, we conducted two different studies. In Study 1a 20 people (lay judges) completed two categorization tasks to obtain categorization systems that may include all the relevant content categories identified in previous literature with adults, adolescents and children. In Study 1b, we asked 162 children and adolescents to define—in their own words—what happiness meant for them. Their responses were coded according to two different systems derived from previous finding with adults and children and to an alternative coding system derived from the qualitative analyses of children’s and adolescents’ responses. Overall, results showed that hedonic conceptualization of happiness were mainly present in late childhood; whereas eudaimonic conceptualizations were mainly present in adolescence. No significant gender differences were found.     

Infants’ and adults’ use of duration and intensity cues in the segmentation of tone patterns

Adults and 8-month-olds were presented with sequences in which every third complex tone was either longer or more intense. Segmentation was measured by comparing the detection of silent gaps inserted into three possible locations in each pattern: Silent gaps inserted at perceived segmentation boundaries are harder to detect than gaps within perceived phrases or groups. A go/no-go conditioned head-turn (hand-raising for adults) procedure was used. In Experiment 1, detection was worse for the gaps following the longer complex tones than for the gaps at the other locations, suggesting that the longer tones marked the ends of perceived groups for both infants and adults. Experiment 2 showed that an increase in intensity did not result in any systematic grouping at either age.     

Mothers’ and Adolescents’ Perceptions of Family Environment and Adolescent Social-Emotional Functioning

Research has emphasized the importance of the relationship between family functioning and adolescent behavioral development. The present study examines family environment and social-emotional functioning of primarily minority adolescents, viewed from both adolescents’ and mothers’ perspectives. Participants were a school-based sample of adolescents with and without risk for emotional and behavioral disabilities and their mothers (N = 86 dyads). Results suggested an association between the mothers’ views of their adolescent children’s problem behaviors and the adolescents’ self-ratings of risk-taking behaviors across 5 years. Overall, mothers of the at risk youth receiving special education services reported higher ratings of youth problem behaviors, but results also indicated that mothers of the at risk adolescent boys not receiving special education services perceived greater depressive symptoms in their children and more family conflict in their homes. Mothers of youth at risk but not receiving special education services experienced higher levels of stress associated with being a parent than mothers of the not-at-risk adolescents. The parent measures of adolescent behavior and depressive symptoms, family conflict, and parental stress were not predictive of the social-emotional functioning of these adolescents in the multilevel models. Implications of these findings for early identification and family focused intervention programs are discussed.     

Metaphor and readers’ attributions of intimacy

Previous theorists have suggested that figurative language may be an especially salient means by which speakers and addressees establish and recognize specific feelings of interpersonal closeness. To explore readers' sensitivity to this interpersonal function of figurative language use, brief stories were created that described interactions between two ambiguously related characters. In the course of these conversational narratives, one character always used either a metaphoric or literal referring expression to refer to some antecedent information from the story. Across three experiments, readers consistently judged these story characters as knowing each other better when their interactions contained metaphoric references. Moreover, this occurred even when addressees failed to give explicit evidence of having understood the critical expressions. To the extent that language use highlights assumptions about commonalities, readers may generate inferences about social relationships alongside more meaning-driven comprehension processes.     

Parents’ Understanding of Genetics and Heritability

Parents have the opportunity to educate their children to facilitate behaviours and lifestyle habits that may prevent or delay genetic disease, or mitigate predispositions within the family. We sought to determine parents’ understanding of genetic knowledge and heritability. Using a quantitative survey methodology 108 volunteer participants were surveyed from a convenience sample of all parents/caregivers within the waiting room of a general children’s outpatient clinic. Results indicated that average genetic knowledge levels were fairly high, with the majority of participants scoring 70–80 % correct on knowledge-based questions. Further, scores were found to be positively correlated with education, but inversely correlated with self-perceived knowledge. This finding suggests that participants with less experience tended to overestimate their knowledge. We suggest that gaps in knowledge of genetics and heritability could be improved by using educational interventions such as media campaigns, provision of informational brochures, or changes to current high school curriculum which would increase exposure to genetics and heritability for both parents and children.     

The Impact of Clients’ and Therapists’ Characteristics on Therapeutic Alliance and Outcome

Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy - This article investigates distances between therapists and their clients in their experience of the therapeutic alliance across the duration of the...     

Biopsychosocial and Physical Correlates of Middle School Boys’ and Girls’ Body Satisfaction

Boys (n?=?629) and girls (n?=?659) in grades 6 through 8 in the U.S. completed self-report measures of pubertal development, weight pressures, internalization, social appearance comparison, self-esteem, depression, and physical self-concept, and objective measures of cardiorespiratory fitness and BMI. Regression analyses revealed that gender moderated the strength of the relationships between the variables and body satisfaction (girls—Adj. R ²?=?.49; boys—Adj. R ²?=?.20), though BMI, pressures, physical self-concept, and self-esteem were related significantly for each gender. Girls were most affected by pressures related to weight loss, whereas gaining weight and musculature was most salient for boys. Future research needs to examine longitudinally how these variables contribute to the development of body satisfaction.     

American and Chinese Students’ Calibration of Comprehension and Performance

In the present study we examined the ability of American and Chinese undergraduate students to calibrate their understanding of textbook passages translated into their native languages. Students read a series of texts and made predictions of their understanding of each text as well as the number of questions they would be able to answer correctly. Students also made postdictions of their test performance. Chinese students were significantly better than American students in calibrating their understanding of passages and predicting how many comprehension items they would answer correctly. Chinese students also outperformed American students on comprehension tests. All students were able to make more accurate postdictions of comprehension test scores than predictions. Results are related to possible instructional differences between American and Chinese students. Several possible directions for future research are discussed.     

Neuroimaging of Wernicke’s Encephalopathy and Korsakoff’s Syndrome

There is considerable evidence that neuroimaging findings can improve the early diagnosis of Wernicke's encephalopathy (WE) in clinical settings. The most distinctive neuroimaging finding of acute WE are cytotoxic edema and vasogenic edema, which are represented by bilateral symmetric hyperintensity alterations on T2-weighted MR images in the periphery of the third ventricle, periaqueductal area, mammillary bodies and midbrain tectal plate. An initial bout of WE can result in Korsakoff's syndrome (KS), but repeated bouts in conjunction with its typical comorbidity, chronic alcoholism, can result in signs of tissue degeneration in vulnerable brain regions. Chronic abnormalities identified with neuroimaging enable examination of brain damage in living patients with KS and have expanded the understanding of the neuropsychological deficits resulting from thiamine deficiency, alcohol neurotoxicity, and their comorbidity. Brain structure and functional studies indicate that the interactions involving the thalamus, mammillary bodies, hippocampus, frontal lobes, and cerebellum are crucial for memory formation and executive functions, and the interruption of these circuits by WE and chronic alcoholism can contribute substantially to the neuropsychological deficits in KS.     

Eliciting children’s and adults’ accounts of road accidents

Psychological knowledge from eye-witness research is applied here to the particular problem of reporting road accidents. Thereby the paper highlights some of the assumptions in eye-witness research. The interface between that research and the reporting of road accidents is examined by reference to existing social psychological notions. These are notions about questioning and about hypothesis testing. The paper makes special reference to the questioning of child witnesses because problems therein are particularly acute.     

Multiracial Children’s and Adults’ Categorizations of Multiracial Individuals

Research has explored how multiracial individuals are categorized by monoracial individuals, but it has not yet explored how they are categorized by multiracial individuals themselves. We examined how multiracial children (aged 4–9 years old) and adults categorized multiracial targets (presented with and without parentage information). When parentage information was provided, multiracial targets were more likely to be categorized as neither wholly Black nor wholly White. However, both multiracial adults and children more often categorized multiracial targets as Black than as White regardless of the absence or presence of parentage information. For multiracial children, increased contact with White people predicted the tendency to categorize multiracial targets as Black. These data suggest that multiracial children’s categorizations are more flexible than those of monoracial children in previous research and that the tendency to categorize multiracial targets as Black emerges early in development within multiracial samples and is especially likely in predominantly White contexts.     

Teachers’, LGBTQ Students’, and Student Allies’ Perceptions of Bullying of Sexually-Diverse Youth

In this study, educators, LGBTQ (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or questioning their sexuality) students, and their allies in a southwestern Pennsylvania sample reported their perceptions of bullying of LGBTQ youth and school climate and awareness of anti-bullying laws and policies within their school systems. Results indicate differences in students’ and educators’ perceptions of the frequency of bullying of LGBTQ students and support for LGBTQ students. LGBTQ students report significantly more bullying of LGBTQ students than their straight allies as well as educators for all forms of bullying assessed. Additionally, educators perceive higher levels of support for students from school personnel and students than reported by students. The importance of educator understanding and intervention in the bullying experiences of LGBTQ students is discussed.     

Reply to Critiques of Hippocrates’ Oath and Asclepius’ Snake

Philosophia - In what follows, I reply to critical appraisals of my book entitled Hippocrates’ Oath and Asclepius’ Snake: The Birth of the Medical Profession (Cavanaugh 2018)....     

The Ways of ‘Being’ and ‘Becoming’ Human

We argue that developing integrative models of psychological phenomenon require dealing simultaneously with information-theoretic and meaning making processes at the individual and group levels. Attempts to fuse these across levels based on intentionality become difficult because phenomena at the lower level organisms are conceptualized employing concrete systems language, while in case of human and social systems both concrete and abstracted systems concepts are used. Intentionality also needs to be looked at as arising out of the processes of both being and becoming. Fusing of psycho-and socio-logics necessarily requires taking into consideration psychological processes and notions of intentionality and future within cultural contexts in a more holistic manner. It is also argued that both at personal and collective levels, human intentionality operate as bounded intentionality alternating between states of being and becoming.     

The Crimes and Punishments of the ‘Enemies of the Church’ and the Nature of Russia’s Desecularising Regime1

Following a longstanding sociological tradition, this paper looks at reactions to nonconformity in order to understand the nature of social norms. In particular, it explores the patterns and scope of intolerance towards the perceived ‘enemies of the Church’ in order to understand social norms emerging in post-atheist Russia. Utilising the ‘social drama’ approach, the paper offers a comparative case study of increasingly repressive reactions by the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and state to two art exhibitions at the Sakharov Museum and anti-clerical publications by a blogger in Karelia, along with an in-depth analysis of the recent (2012) Pussy Riot action at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow and the resulting trial and punishment of three of the band’s members, as well as of a variety of events that have followed this initial action. We then utilise national and cross-national representative survey data to suggest that these repressive reactions were congruent with an intolerant public sentiment towards opponents of the ROC. Ultimately, we draw on Durkheim’s dialectic of norm and deviance, work on disciplinary modalities of power by Foucault and Agamben, desecularisation analysis and social identity theory to argue that the severe punishment of the perceived ‘enemies of the Church’ and the popular support for it reflect the crystallisation of a new normative system brought about by the desecularising regime in Russia, a regime which is characterised by a symbiosis of the ROC and the state.     

Goethe’s Polarity of Light and Darkness

Rarely does research in the history and philosophy of science lead to new empirical results, but that is exactly what has happened in one of the essays of this special issue: Rang and Grebe-Ellis have developed new experimental techniques to perform measurements Goethe proposed 217 years ago. These measurements fit neatly with Goethe’s idea of polarity—his complementary spectrum is not only an optical, but also a thermodynamical counterpart of Newton’s spectrum. I use the new measurements, firstly, to argue against the asymmetries between light and darkness posited by Lyre and Schreiber; and, secondly, to explicate the alternative theory (the heterogeneity of darkness) that Goethe had introduced to urge scientific pluralism. In my replies to exegetical criticism by Böhler, Hampe and Zemplén, I show that the main goal of Goethe’s Farbenlehre was indeed to expose symmetries between light and darkness. Furthermore, I argue that it is worthwhile to focus on the experiments, arguments and hypotheses of the Farbenlehre, and not merely on rhetorical, narrative or stylistical aspects, as Böhler and Hampe would have it. Goethe’s criticism of Newton is often dismissed, but it is in fact surprisingly relevant today.     

Formality of logic and Frege’s Begriffsschrift

This paper challenges a standard interpretation according to which Frege’s conception of logic (early and late) is at odds with the contemporary one, because on the latter’s view logic is formal, while on Frege’s view it is not, given that logic’s subject matter is reality’s most general features. I argue that Frege – in Begriffsschrift – retained the idea that logic is formal; Frege sees logic as providing the ‘logical cement’ that ties up together the contentful concepts of specific sciences, not the most general truths. Finally, I discuss how Frege conceives of the application of Begriffsschrift, and of its status as a ‘lingua characteristica’.     

Tables of d’ for detection and localization

A detection and localization (DAL) procedure (Hershman and Lichtenstein, 1967) is one in which at most one of k noisy observation intervals contains a signal. The observer must detect the signal (if present) and locate it in the proper interval. Tables are given for the extraction of d’ values from the percentage of correct responses made in such experiments.