Emotional awareness and psychological needs

This study examined whether individual differences in two dimensions of emotional awareness (i.e., clarity of emotions, attention to emotions) are associated with individual differences in idiographic personal needs and the processing of one's psychological needs. Two types of idiographic personal needs were examined (i.e., psychologically minded, self-focused). Need processing was measured in response to nine scenarios designed to activate six different psychological needs (i.e., achievement, friendship, independence, control, respect, physical safety). There was some evidence of emotional awareness being associated with the types of needs people generated. There was strong evidence of attention to, and clarity of, emotions being associated with need processing (i.e., need activation intensity, need activation consistency, need differentiation, need processing style).     

Predictors of Engagement in Family Mediation and Outcomes for Families that Fail to Engage

An important limitation to the effectiveness of family mediation in assisting separated parents is parents failing to engage in the mediation process. In 524 parents who presented to a telephone‐based mediation service, 113 (22%) initiating parents withdrew from mediation before the other parent was invited to participate, 241 (46%) initiating parents had respondent parents who declined to participate in mediation, and 170 cases (33%) completed mediation. We tested whether socio‐demographic variables, psychological distress, coparental acrimony, parenting problems, or children's behavioral difficulties predicted mediation engagement. High interparental acrimony predicted failure to engage in mediation, but none of the other variables predicted mediation engagement. We followed a sample of 131 families that did not mediate and found they showed elevated psychological distress, acrimony, parenting problems and child adjustment difficulties, which remained unchanged 6 months later. Further research is needed to explore strategies to enhance respondent parent engagement with mediation, and to address the negative outcomes for those separated families not proceeding with mediation.     

Obligations, internalization, and excuse making: integrating the triangle model and self-determination theory

Schlenker's triangle model (Schlenker, Britt, Pennington, Murphy, & Doherty, 1994, Schlenker, Pontari, & Christopher, 2001) identifies three excuses people use to avoid taking responsibility after failure: that one had no control in the situation, that the obligation was unclear, and that it was not really one's obligation. Three retrospective studies tested the presumed negative association between excuse making and responsibility taking. The studies also examined the effects of self-determination theory's concept of motivational internalization (Deci & Ryan, 2000) upon these variables. A complex but replicable pattern emerged, such that responsibility taking and motivational internalization correlated with adaptive outcomes such as future commitment and positive expectancy and excuse making did not. Of particular interest, perceiving that the person levying the obligation internalized motivation predicted responsibility taking, in all three studies. Implications for the triangle model, as well as for theories of maturity and personality development, are considered.     

Toward Developing Laboratory-Based Parent–Adolescent Conflict Discussion Tasks that Consistently Elicit Adolescent Conflict-Related Stress Responses: Support from Physiology and Observed Behavior

Parent–adolescent conflict poses risk for youth maladjustment. One potential mechanism of this risk is that stress in the form of increased arousal during conflict interactions results in adolescents’ impaired decision-making. However, eliciting consistent adolescent stress responses within laboratory-based tasks of parent–adolescent conflict (i.e., conflict discussion tasks) is hindered by task design. This limitation may stem from how conflict topics are assessed and selected for discussion. Within a sample of 47 adolescents (ages 14–17) and parents, we investigated whether a modified version of a conflict discussion task could elicit physiological (i.e., arousal) and behavioral (i.e., hostility) displays of adolescents’ conflict-related stress responses. We assessed parent–adolescent conflict via structured interview to identify topics for dyads to discuss during the task. We randomly assigned dyads to complete a 5-min task to discuss either a putatively benign topic (i.e., control condition) or a conflict topic while undergoing direct assessments of continuous arousal. Trained raters coded dyad members’ hostile behavior during the task. Adolescents in the conflict condition exhibited significantly greater levels of arousal than adolescents in the control condition. We observed an interaction between discussion condition and baseline conflict. Specifically, higher baseline conflict predicted greater hostile behavior for adolescents in the conflict condition, yet we observed the inverse relation for adolescents in the control condition. Our modified laboratory discussion task successfully elicited both physiological and behavioral displays of adolescent conflict-related stress. These findings have important implications for leveraging experimental paradigms to understand causal links between parent–adolescent conflict and adolescent psychopathology, and their underlying mechanisms.     

Felt obligation and the family life cycle: A study on intergenerational relationships

Since the 1990s researchers have considered as the dominant view on family obligation a set of responsibilities, duties, and obligation of care and assistance, that adult children should assume when parents are old or infirm. This concept is limited, because it assumes that family obligation is salient only in one period of life: when parents reach old age and are infirm. In contrast, a relational approach to family obligation considers family relationships as central to understanding children's duties and responsibilities. Following Stein, family obligation can be defined as felt obligation: expectations for appropriate and negotiated behaviour, perceived within the context of specific personal relationships with kin across life course. Felt obligation is conceptualized in five dimensions: a duty to maintain contact, assistance, avoidance of conflict, personal sharing, and self‐sufficiency. The purpose of the present study was to analyze perceptions of felt obligation in intergenerational relationships (parent–child and family of origin) in different phases of the family life cycle in a specific cultural context (Italy). The sample was composed of 92 parents with children of different ages (infants, school‐aged children, and young adults). The measure addressed the five dimensions of felt obligation, all assessed in various phases of family life. Results indicated differences in dimensions of felt obligation between intergenerational relationships (both parent–child and with family of origin). Some of these differences, such as self‐sufficiency and personal sharing, assumed more importance and salience in some periods of the life cycle than in others.     

Parents’ moral intentions towards antisocial parent behaviour: An identity approach in youth sport

ObjectivesGrounded in personal and social identity theory, the purpose of this study was to examine whether parents’ personal and social identity perceptions influence their moral intentions towards antisocial parent behaviour in a youth sport setting.DesignParents of competitive youth ice hockey players (N = 437) read a vignette that either described a parent from the participant’s own team (i.e., ingroup), or a parent from an opposing team (i.e., outgroup) acting antisocially towards an athlete from the participant’s own team, an opposing athlete, or their own child. Parents were asked whether they would respond to the antisocial behaviour in the form of direct or indirect criticism or report the behaviour to the coach or to the league.ResultsParents were more likely to directly criticize ingroup parents than outgroup parents and they were more likely to indirectly criticize outgroup parents than ingroup parents. Further, parents with stronger social identities reported higher intentions to indirectly criticize an outgroup parent. There were no main effects for reporting behaviour (to coach or league), and personal identity did not moderate relationships with moral intentions towards antisocial behaviour.ConclusionBy providing parents with a situation that includes antisocial parent behaviour in the immediate youth sport environment, novel insight was gathered with regard to what contextual elements might drive parents’ intention to criticize, but not report antisocial behaviour.     

What makes for a good break? A diary study on recovery experiences during lunch break

This study investigated the role of four recovery experiences during lunch break for employees’ afternoon well‐being. We hypothesized that lunch‐break recovery experiences (psychological detachment, relaxation, control, and relatedness) reduce afternoon exhaustion and enhance afternoon work engagement via replenished personal resources (i.e., state of being recovered immediately after break and subsequent self‐efficacy regarding the upcoming tasks in the afternoon). One hundred and nine employees provided daily survey data three times a day (i.e., start of work, after lunch break, end of work) over a period of two workweeks. Multilevel path analysis showed that relaxation, control, and relatedness during lunch break negatively predicted afternoon exhaustion and positively predicted afternoon work engagement via state of being recovered. For relaxation and relatedness, we additionally found positive serial indirect effects on afternoon work engagement via state of being recovered and self‐efficacy. Psychological detachment was not related to personal resources and afternoon well‐being. This study demonstrates that experiencing control over lunch break and using the lunch break to relax and to relate to others are indirectly associated with improved afternoon well‐being via replenished personal resources.

Practitioner points

• Relaxation, control, and relatedness constitute lunch‐break recovery experiences that indirectly foster feeling confident, replenished, and engaged in the afternoon.
• Employees should strive to spend their lunch breaks in ways that help them feel relaxed, related, and in control.
• Organizations should provide their employees with sufficient break control and offer environments that facilitate relaxation and socializing during lunch break.

     

家长投入对中小学生学业投入的影响:有中介的调节模型

以北京市12所中小学的4160名学生为调查对象,采用层次回归方法考察了家长投入对子女学业投入的影响以及家长自主支持/控制的教养风格和子女的学业心理需要满足在其中的作用。结果发现:(1)中小学生的家长投入程度随学段升高而降低;(2)家长注重在家辅导方面的投入,在参与社区及学校活动等方面的投入较为欠缺;(3)家长投入对子女的学业投入具有显著的正向预测作用;(4)家长自主支持/控制的教养风格在家长投入与子女学业投入的关系中起调节作用,且该调节效应部分地通过子女的学业心理需要满足这一中介变量产生作用。     

PARENTAL CHILDHOOD ADVERSITY,DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS,AND PARENTING QUALITY: EFFECTS ON TODDLER SELF‐REGULATION IN CHILD WELFARE SERVICES INVOLVED FAMILIES

Parents who are involved with child welfare services (CWSI) often have a history of childhood adversity and depressive symptoms. Both affect parenting quality, which in turn influences child adaptive functioning. We tested a model of the relations between parental depression and child regulatory outcomes first proposed by K. Lyons‐Ruth, R. Wolfe, A. Lyubchik, and R. Steingard (2002). We hypothesized that both parental depression and parenting quality mediate the effects of parental early adversity on offspring regulatory outcomes. Participants were 123 CWSI parents and their toddlers assessed three times over a period of 6 months. At Time 1, parents reported on their childhood adversity and current depressive symptoms. At Time 2, parents’ sensitivity to their child's distress and nondistress cues was rated from a videotaped teaching task. At Time 3, observers rated children's emotional regulation, orientation/engagement, and secure base behavior. The results of a path model partly supported the hypotheses. Parent childhood adversity was associated with current depressive symptoms, which in turn related to parent sensitivity to child distress, but not nondistress. Sensitivity to distress also predicted secure base behavior. Depression directly predicted orientation/engagement, also predicted by sensitivity to nondistress. Sensitivity to distress predicted emotion regulation and orientation/engagement. Results are discussed in terms of intervention approaches for CWSI families.     

Ethnicity differences in child and parental outcomes following involvement the PACE program

This study investigated ethnic differences in the extent to which engagement (i.e., attendance and quality of participation) in the PACE (Parenting our Children to Excellence) program predicted positive child and parent outcomes. PACE is an 8-week preventive intervention aimed at parents of preschool children. The study investigated the relation of engagement to outcomes in an ethnically diverse sample of 298 African American and 280 European American parents. Overall results demonstrated that engagement in PACE significantly improved child and parent outcomes for both African American and European American participants. Some improvements were evident at post-assessment already and were maintained or became stronger at a one-year follow-up assessment, whereas others only became evident at follow-up. Specifically, results revealed that attendance in PACE significantly improved child coping competence and parenting stress for both the African American and European American samples. PACE attendance also significantly improved child behavior problems, parental satisfaction and parental efficacy for the European American sample. Findings indicate that PACE is a promising intervention for parents of African American and Caucasian preschoolers; although further research and program refinement is necessary in order to understand the mechanisms with the PACE intervention that seem to vary for African American compared to Caucasian families.     

Psychological Empowerment,Work Engagement and Turnover Intention: The Role of Leader Relations and Role Clarity in a Financial Institution

This study investigated the relationship between leader-member exchange, role clarity, psychological empowerment, engagement and turnover intention within a financial institution in South Africa. A cross-sectional survey design was used. A convenience sample (N = 278) was taken (males =31%, females =60%; 88% younger than 35 years; 57% with 2–5 years service) from the total population (N = 889). They completed the Leader-Member Exchange Questionnaire (Liden, Wayne, & Stilwell, 1993) Role Conflict and Ambiguity Questionnaire (Rizzo, House, & Lirtzman, 1970), Measuring Empowerment Questionnaire (Spreitzer, 1995), Engagement Questionnaire (May, Gilson, & Harter, 2004) and Intention-to-leave Scale (Sjöberg & Sverke, 2000). A path model was tested with SPSS to determine the relationships of the variables. Furthermore, a theoretical model was tested through the use of structural equation modelling (Arbuckle, 2008). The latent variables included LMX (consisting of two parcels), role clarity (consisting of two parcels), psychological empowerment (consisting of four variables, namely meaning, competence, impact, and self-determination), work engagement (consisting of two parcels), and turnover intention (a manifest variable). Role clarity mediated the relationship between leader-member exchange and psychological empowerment, while psychological empowerment mediated the relationship between role clarity and work engagement as well as turnover intention. Leader-member relations lead to better understanding of roles, while role clarity empowers and engages employees.     

Advancing the assessment of parent-child interactions: development of the Parent Instruction-Giving Game with Youngsters

This study investigates the validity of the Parent Instruction–Giving Game with Youngsters (PIGGY), a newly developed direct-observation system. The PIGGY is a derivative of the Dyadic Parent-Child Interaction Coding System II [DPICS-II; Eyberg, S. M., Bessmer, J., Newcomb, K., Edwards, D., Robinson, E. (1994). Manual for the Dyadic Parent-Child Interaction Coding System-II. Social and Behavioral Sciences Documents (Ms. No. 2897)] and the Behavior Coding System [BCS; Forehand, R. L., McMahon, R. J. (1981). Helping the noncompliant child. New York: Guilford Press] and utilizes a format similar to the more structured Compliance Test [Roberts, M. W., Powers, S. W. (1988). The Compliance Test. Behavioral Assessment, 10, 375–398]. Using the PIGGY, parents provide standardized commands to their child (e.g., “Put the book on the table”). The parenting skills used to gain compliance (e.g., instruction giving, praise, discipline techniques) as well as child behavior (e.g., noncompliance) are coded on an observation form. In Study 1, 14 “noncompliant” and 14 “compliant” children and their mothers were selected based on parent report of child behavior. The PIGGY differentiated between the two groups on repeat commands, defiant child behavior, and overreactive parenting. Other forms of validity are also reported. In Study 2, the PIGGY was used to monitor the effectiveness of behavioral parent training with a mother and her 3-year-old daughter with oppositional-defiant disorder. Changes in both child and parent behavior were reflected in PIGGY scores. Overall, these studies suggest that the PIGGY may be valuable as both a screening tool and a measure of response to treatment.     

Theory‐of‐Mind development and early sibling relationships after the birth of a sibling: Parental discipline matters

This study investigated relations among children's Theory‐of‐Mind (ToM) development, early sibling interactions, and parental discipline strategies during the transition to siblinghood. Using a sample of firstborn children and their parents (N = 208), we assessed children's ToM before the birth of a sibling and 12 months after the birth, and sibling interactions (i.e., positive engagement and antagonism) and parental discipline strategies (i.e., child‐centred and parent‐centred discipline) at 4 and 8 months in the first year of siblinghood. Structural equation modelling analyses revealed that children's ToM before the birth of the sibling predicted children's positive engagement with the infant sibling, whereas children's antagonistic behaviours towards the infant sibling negatively predicted children's ToM at 12 months, but only when mothers used low levels of child‐centred discipline. These findings emphasize the role of parents in the development of young children's social‐cognitive understanding in the context of early sibling interactions.

Highlights

• This study investigated relations among firstborns' Theory‐of‐Mind (ToM), early sibling relationships, and parental discipline during the first year of siblinghood.
• Multigroup analyses showed that ToM predicted higher sibling positive engagement, and early sibling antagonism predicted poorer ToM when mothers used low child‐centred discipline.
• Parental discipline plays an important role in the development of young children's social understanding and sibling relationships as early as the first year of siblinghood.

     

Parental Reactions to Their Child's Psychological Evaluation Findings Conference

ABSTRACT

While school psychological practice continues to be dominated by assessment activities, the post-assessment conference with the evaluated child's parents has been neglected by researchers. This study sought to determine the possible relationships between parental recall of findings with background variables and collected parent/psychologist's post-assessment conference ratings of persuasiveness and satisfaction. How accurately parents recall evaluation findings was not found to be significantly related to child or parental background variables (e.g., socioeconomic status), further supporting the value of post-assessment conferences for a diverse parent population. However, a link between parental recall of findings and parent/ psychologist's conference ratings was not established. Given the importance of post-assessment conferences, future studies investigating these complex parent and psychologist meetings are clearly needed.     

Flourishing is Associated with Higher Academic Achievement and Engagement in Filipino Undergraduate and High School Students

Flourishing emphasizes the importance of integrating subjective well-being and psychological well-being to offer a more comprehensive view of mental health. Recognizing the potential advantage of flourishing, previous empirical studies have examined the relations of flourishing to positive psychological outcomes such as hope, life satisfaction, mental health, and positive emotions. However, it appears that limited research has been carried out to assess the role of flourishing in the educational context. Hence, the current research examined the association of flourishing with relevant academic outcomes (i.e., perceived academic achievement, academic achievement, behavioral engagement, and emotional engagement) after controlling for relevant demographic variables, life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect among Filipino undergraduate and high school students. Study 1 showed that flourishing positively predicted self-report academic achievement of Filipino undergraduate students after controlling for age, gender, and subjective well-being domains (life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect). Similarly, Study 2 showed that flourishing positively predicted objective measure of academic achievement, behavioral engagement, and emotional engagement in Filipino high school students even after controlling for the influence of demographic variables and subjective well-being domains. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The adaptive effect of personal control when facing breast cancer: Cognitive and behavioural mediators

This prospective study examines the cognitive and behavioural mediators of the relation between personal control and the initial response to a breast cancer diagnosis as well as subsequent psychological adjustment. A total of 143 patients participated immediately after diagnosis (T1), after surgery (T2) and 2 months after the end of treatment (T3), of whom 92 also completed a questionnaire pre-diagnosis (T0). The buffering effect of personal control on psychological distress shortly after diagnosis was mediated by cancer-specific cognitions, i.e. threat appraisal and coping self-efficacy. Moreover, a strong sense of personal control predicted lower levels of anxiety 2 months after the end of treatment, but was unrelated to distress at T3. The adaptive effect on anxiety was mediated by threat appraisal and active engagement in social life after surgery, but not by active patient participation or coping self-efficacy. These results confirm and explain the adaptive effect of control. Apparently, women with a low sense of control appraise cancer and their personal coping skills more negatively, which makes them vulnerable to distress in response to diagnosis. Furthermore, women with a strong sense of control might regulate anxiety by remaining engaged in social life.     

General self-efficacy and control in relation to anxiety and cognitive performance

The present investigation employed a general measure of self-efficacy, a measure of perceived control, and items relating to expectation and evaluation (pre and post). The purpose was to determine whether general self-efficacy or perceived control best predicted the criterion variables of state anxiety and performance on a stressful cognitive task (solving anagrams) under conditions of high versus low control. These relationships were tested under the experimental conditions of high and low objective control (i.e., the actual control afforded by the situation). Results showed that general self-efficacy, relative to perceived control was a better predictor of state anxiety in the high and low control conditions but neither predicted actual performance. Participants’ expectations of task difficulty, their own performance, and their performance relative to the performance of others taken before the task were compared with their evaluations of difficulty and performance after completing the task. Participants indicated that the task was easier than anticipated, but rated their own performance more poorly after completion of the task. The study reported in this article was supported, in part, by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Grant No. 410-94-1473 to Norman S. Endler.     

General self-efficacy and control in relation to anxiety and cognitive performance

The present investigation employed a general measure of self-efficacy, a measure of perceived control, and items relating to expectation and evaluation (pre and post). The purpose was to determine whether general self-efficacy or perceived control best predicted the criterion variables of state anxiety and performance on a stressful cognitive task (solving anagrams) under conditions of high versus low control. These relationships were tested under the experimental conditions of high and low objective control (i.e., the actual control afforded by the situation). Results showed that general self-efficacy, relative to perceived control was a better predictor of state anxiety in the high and low control conditions but neither predicted actual performance. Participants’ expectations of task difficulty, their own performance, and their performance relative to the performance of others taken before the task were compared with their evaluations of difficulty and performance after completing the task. Participants indicated that the task was easier than anticipated, but rated their own performance more poorly after completion of the task. The study reported in this article was supported, in part, by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Grant No. 410-94-1473 to Norman S. Endler.     

Anxious children and their parents: what do they expect?

Assigned 73 children, ages 7 to 14, to 1 of 3 groups (anxious, clinical control, and nonclinical control) according to their diagnostic status. Within the anxious group, children were assigned to 1 of 2 further groups on the basis of self-reported parental anxiety--either the child anxiety only group or the child + parent anxiety group. All children completed an experimental task (giving a brief talk in front of a video camera), which was the focus for a series of structured family discussions between the child and his or her parents. The aims of the study were to measure and compare across groups (a) the evaluations of children and their parents regarding the child's predicted anxiety and skill level and (b) the effect of the family discussion on children's expectations. Results indicated that, prior to the family discussion, anxious children's expectations of their future performance did not differ from those of control children. Similarly, there were no differences in children's expectations between the child anxiety group and the child + parent anxiety group. Second, compared to mothers in the child anxiety group, mothers in the child + parent anxiety group expected that their children would be more anxious and more likely to choose an avoidant problem solution (but not less skilled). Finally, the family discussion was found to produce no changes in anxious children's expectations of their future performance. The implications of these findings are discussed.