“I feel I can live every minute if I choose to”: participants’ experience of a positive mindfulness programme

Both separately and together, mindfulness and positive psychological interventions have been found to increase wellbeing against a number of measures. Research has been primarily based on the application of self-report scales, and little has been done to examine the lived experience of participants. The aim of this study was to apply an interpretative phenomenological approach to the experience of participants in a Mindfulness Based Flourishing (MBF) programme, which combines positive psychological interventions with mindfulness in order to more fully understand the impact of their experience on them. Three participants from a completed MBF programme each had a one-off semi-structured interview, the results of which were transcribed verbatim. The resulting texts were analysed, with five themes emerging, which demonstrated the impact of the programme on participants’ sense of self and on the nature of their connections with others. While all participants identified benefits accruing from the course, it also presented challenges emotionally as well as in terms of the embedding of knowledge and skills. Future research should look to examine the impact of such programmes in wider cultural and temporal frameworks and should explore the application of grounded theory to identify more theoretical level explanations of the phenomenon.     

“I Don’t feel like melting butter”: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the experience of ‘inorgasmia’

Inorgasmia is under-studied in the domain of sexual health psychology. This study explores women's experiences of inorgasmia and the meanings giving to this experience. Interviews with six inorgasmic women were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The analysis showed that the absence of orgasm was experienced as problematic and disturbing. A search for reasons for their condition, and its effects on self-image and self-confidence underpinned the experience of inorgasmia as a problem. The spectrum of meanings surrounding female orgasm demonstrates that, far from being perceived as a merely physical experience, the moment of orgasm takes on relational significance and it has implications for the women's identities. The paper identifies areas for future research and theorising.     

“I need to skip a song because it sucks”: Exploring mobile phone use while driving among young adults

BackgroundMobile phone use while driving is a well-recognized area of concern. However, while texting/calling among young adult drivers has received much research attention, more research is needed regarding other phone functions used by young adults while driving.Study aimTo explore mobile phone functions used by young adult drivers while driving.ResultsAn online survey of 17–24 year old drivers (N = 612; 428 females) and focus groups with drivers aged (N = 18; 8 females) revealed that mobile phone use while driving was a very common behavior, with more full licence drivers compared with Learner/Provisional drivers using their phone to make/answer calls, send/read text messages and for internet browsing. This nature of mobile phone use while driving was varied, with phones commonly used for entertainment (e.g., to play music), to connect with others (via texting and/or voice calls) and for navigation.Concluding remarksYoung adults use a variety of functions on their phone while driving. It is important that young driver-targeted intervention efforts acknowledge that multiple functions of the mobile phone are used during the drive and it serves multiple purposes. Examining the inhibitors and facilitators of mobile phone use and its various functions while driving is needed, in addition to elucidating if the usage of particular mobile phone functions is similar across different driver cohorts.     

Episodic recollection in animals: “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”

In humans, episodic memory is most commonly defined as the subjective experience of recollection, presenting a major challenge to the identification of episodic memory in animals. Here we take the position that episodic memory also has several other distinctive qualities that can be assessed objectively in animals, as well as humans, and the examination of these properties provides insights into underlying mechanisms of episodic memory. We focus on recent evidence accumulated in this laboratory indicating that recognition in rats involves a threshold retrieval process, similar to that observed in human episodic recall. Also, rats can remember the temporal order of unique events, characteristic of the replay of vivid episodic memories in humans. Furthermore, rats combine elements of “when” and “where” events occur, as well as the flow of events within a memory, to distinguish memories that share overlapping features, also characteristic of human episodic memory. Finally, all of these capacities are dependent on the hippocampus, which also plays a critical role in human episodic memory. This combination of findings strongly suggests that animals have the same fundamental information processing functions that underlie episodic recall in humans.     

There’s no “I” in team: Adolescent emotions as a space for organizing feminine identity

Despite the work that has been done to understand women’s subordinate status in Western culture, women continue to struggle to recognize their own worth and convince others of the same. The following qualitative research examines the ways that girls’ emotional socialization impacts their potential future success as adult women. I present a case study of a girls character development program, designed to empower girls through physical activity, as one important context in which girls are socialized into feminine emotional displays. My ethnographic data is drawn from three seasons spent as a coach and participant observer in the organization where I engaged in observations, interviews with coaches and girls participating in the program, and a textual analysis of organizational documents. I analyze emotional intersections in response to expressions of encouragement, negativity, and pride that highlight the communication girls receive about emotions, the ways those messages enable and constrain emotional displays and attendant gendered identities, and the challenges of providing girls with alternate narratives. I suggest ways that girls might be socialized into a wider range of emotion as a potential space for women’s empowerment. Additionally, I demonstrate the importance of youth as a consequential space for understanding the process of female development and empowerment.     

“I’m a runner not a smoker”: Changes in identity as predictors of smoking cessation and physical activity

This study examined associations of changes in identity with physical activity and smoking within Run to Quit, a national multiple health behaviour change intervention that utilizes group-based learn-to-run clinics to assist participants in quitting smoking. It was hypothesized that the behaviour-change curriculum and running delivered via groups, would not only help participants mitigate physical symptoms of withdrawal but would also facilitate changes in smoking- and running-related identities. Further, changes in these identities (i.e., reduced smoker identity and increased runner identity) were hypothesized to predict smoking cessation and running behaviour. Adult smokers (n = 216) completed 10-week clinics in Running Room locations across Canada. Within the pre-post design, participants completed questionnaires assessing identity, physical activity, running frequency, and smoking status (including carbon monoxide [CO] testing) at weeks 1 and 10, as well as post-program interviews. Consistent with a priori hypotheses, runner identity increased, and smoker identity decreased from beginning to end of program (p’s<.001). Regression analyses indicated that reductions in smoker identity predicted reductions in CO levels (β = 0.302, p < .001) and increases in runner identity predicted increases in running frequency (β = 0.235, p = .001). While change in runner identity was correlated with quit outcomes and change in smoker identity correlated with running frequency (p’s<.001), they were not significant predictors in the other behaviour models, and neither was the interaction between the two identities. Although future experimental research is required, these findings, along with complimentary qualitative data, suggest changes in identity may be one potential avenue through which group-based physical activity assists smoking cessation.     

Religiosity, self-control, and virginity status in college students from the “Bible Belt”: a research note

Using a sample of college students (N = 904) from the "Bible Belt," this study examines the effect of religiosity and self-control on late adolescents' delay in initiating sexual intercourse or oral sex. Findings from logistic regressions provide evidence that for each one unit increase in self-control, the odds of a male remaining a virgin or of delaying oral sex increased by a factor of 1.82 and 2.84, respectively, while for females, the odds of not engaging in oral sex increased by a factor of 1.67. In addition to the effect of self-control, a one unit increase in religiosity results in the odds of a male remaining a virgin by a factor of 3.86 and 3.30, respectively. For females the odds are increased by a factor of 4.13 and 2.60, respectively. Mediation tests also provided evidence that self-control mediated the effects by religiosity on both dependent measures. Thus, both religiosity and self-control independently and additively function as key social control mechanisms that promote late adolescent health.     

“Behave like a responsible adult” – Relation between social identity and psychosocial skills at stake in self-management of a chronic disease

We show that the development of psychosocial skills promoting self-management of a chronic disease is associated with the acquisition of a social identity valued in the ideological context of reference. To do this, we focus on a skill that is important for people suffering from a chronic disease to acquire: Assuming responsibility for self-managing one’s own pathology. Because acting responsibly is also a skill socially attributed to the identity of adults in Western liberal societies, we studied the chronically ill’s sense of belonging to the adult social group. In Study 1 (N = 102 diabetics), we suggested that behaving like a “responsible adult” in the self-management of a chronic disease is socially valued. In Study 2 (N = 261 diabetics), we suggested that identification with this group is associated with a feeling of responsibility promoting improved self-management behaviors. The results obtained from the two studies are consistent with our hypotheses. They allow us to conceptualize psychosocial skills through the identity, ideological and normative issues that underpin their development.     

Exploring the “clutch” in clutch performance: A qualitative investigation of the experience of pressure in successful performance

ObjectivesThe term “clutch” is colloquially used to describe important or crucial situations in sport, with clutch performance referring to successful performances during these pressurised circumstances. Positioning the clutch as an objective, situational variable, however, may not account for the athletes' subjective appraisal of such situations. Accordingly, this study aimed to explore athletes' perceptions of clutch situations, and further, how these perceptions influenced their performance.MethodSixteen athletes (M_age = 26.88 years) participated in event-focused, semi-structured interviews soon after a clutch performance (M = 4 days later). Data were analysed utilising reflexive thematic analysis.ResultsFour themes were generated: (1) the clutch involves situational and subjective factors, suggesting that the appraisal of the clutch is influenced by situational and subjective components; (2) the perception of the clutch comes and goes, suggesting that there may be multiple, fluctuating episodes of the clutch within an event; (3) pressure affects performance, and performance affects pressure, suggesting that the appraisal of pressure was perceived to impact performance, and that performance also influenced appraisal of pressure; and, (4) experience of anxiety during the clutch is varied, suggesting that the experience of anxiety is not inherent to clutch performance.ConclusionsThe clutch has traditionally been considered an objective, situational variable. This study suggests, however, that the clutch relies upon the athlete appraising pressure in response to these situational variables, which may not always occur. Further, other subjective factors may increase the appraisal of pressure, suggesting that the clutch cannot solely be considered as a situational variable.     

I crashed the boat and wept: Localizing the “field” in critical geographic practice

Geographers often practice “fieldwork” for research, physically traveling between field and the academy. While critical scholars have contemplated their positionality in the field, what gets overlooked is how academic constructions of their “field” can discount indigenous peoples’ knowledges of “home.” Because academics’ representations of “the field” affirm the subject/object binary, this ontology allows indigenous peoples’ knowledges to be criticized in their emotional expressions of their homelands. In this paper I describe my practices of “field” work to disrupt this ontology—and in so doing, what emerges is my deeply emotional engagement with this “field,” produced through the network of materialities and beings with whom I worked. Network ontologies allow more space for discussing the emotional and affective experiences of a field site, including researcher uncertainty and responsibility. Attending to both conscious and unconscious motives to action is a more rigorous critical practice, and representing emotions can at once benefit research goals (emotional engagements leading to new insights), and lead to new politics of knowledge production and representation: such as opening a space for indigenous peoples to be recognized as legitimate spokespersons about their own beloved landscapes.     

Report on work in progress: “Towards a new science of the human”

A multidisciplinary and global study of the evolutionary process of the universe in general and mankind in particular is proposed, drawing from both modern science, approached by taking into consideration its various interdependent aspects; and the study of western and eastern ancient traditions, which prove to have a common foundation that is the comprehension and the control of the evolutionary process itself.

Such a study will lead to the compilation of a “Corpus Unus” of the new science of the human, a science which does not belong to a race, a culture or an age, but is specific to the human being as such.

Such a science will imply the exploration of mankind and of the evolutionary process, and applying the results in a pragmatic way to the betterment of human beings, society, and universe.     

“I have a headache tonight”: Function of pain in marriage

This paper explores, primarily through literature review and case illustrations, the function of pain in marriage. The fact that pain is analogically used is evident in the title of this paper. Clinical exploration of this important phenomenon reveals a wide variety of meanings and purposes pain has in the context of marital relationships. These clinical observations need to be molded into testable hypotheses and subjected to systematic research. Despite the obvious lack of research, marital therapy based on an understanding of the function of pain in marriage appears to have substantial merit.     

The pre-reflective experience of “I” as a continuously existing being: The role of temporal functional binding

The present moment is of infinitesimally brief duration. In the brain, however, there are perceptual processes that bind together events occurring at different times, on a time scale of milliseconds, into a coherent and integrated temporal representation. These processes include temporal integration, as in perception of biological motion, synchronisation, and change detection. These processes are also responsible for temporal integration and coherence in inner mental life, such as in mental imagery. I argue that this gives rise to the pre-reflective experience of the self as a continuously existing being. Temporal integration is also a feature of the experience of action–outcome relations, and I argue that this produces a pre-reflective experience of the self, not just as continuously existing, but also as the doer of both physical and mental actions. This is the foundation on which the idea of the self as continuously existing on longer time scales – the narrative self – is built.     

“I get a whiz in my body as I walk past it”: Visceral imaginaries in children's everyday mobilities

This article focuses on how the visceral, sensual and the imagined shape children's everyday mobility experiences and their meaning making around their everyday mobility, thus contributing to the growing field of study on children's emotional geographies and to the field of visceral geographies. By introducing the concept of visceral imaginaries, the role of the imagined in children's spatial and mobile experiences is highlighted and developed. The children further emerge as aged bodies in these visceral processes, as the affective practices and visceral imaginaries position children as aged subjects. The findings are based on a qualitative research project on children's practices and experiences of their everyday mobilities, in which 59 children (7–13 years old) participated, predominantly from white urban middle-class families in a mid-sized municipality in Sweden.     

The development of language in genie: a case of language acquisition beyond the “critical period”

The present paper reports on a case of a now-16-year-old girl who for most of her life suffered an extreme degree of social isolation and experiential deprivation. It summarizes her language acquisition which is occurring past the hypothesized “critical period” and the implications of this language development as related to hemispheric maturation and the development of lateralization. The results of a series of dichotic listening tests administered to her are included.     

“An Unchanging God in a Changing World”: Sexual Practice and Decision-Making among Christian Women in South Africa

Journal of Religion and Health - This study explored the relationship between sexual health and religion among young, Pentecostal Christian women navigating the transition to adulthood in...     

Promoting responsible conduct in research through “survival skills” workshops: Some mentoring is best done in a crowd

For graduate students to succeed as professionals, they must develop a set of general "survival skills". These include writing research articles, making oral presentations, obtaining employment and funding, supervising, and teaching. Traditionally, graduate programs have offered little training in many of these skills. Our educational model provides individuals with formal instruction in each area, including their ethical dimensions. Infusion of research ethics throughout a professional skills curriculum helps to emphasize that responsible conduct is integral to succeeding as a researcher. It also leads to the consideration of ethical dimensions of professional life not covered in traditional ethics courses.