The Impact of Teasing on Children’s Body Image

Being teased about one’s physical appearance in childhood has been found to have a strong impact on the way in which adolescent and adult women perceive their bodies. Teasing is also strongly related to self-esteem in children. However, little is known about the impact of teasing on the development of body image in childhood. Through a quantitative study of the experience of being teased and body image satisfaction in a group of 431 primary aged children, we examined the prevalence, type and impact of teasing on children’s perceived body image satisfaction. The results of our study indicated that many children, especially those who are over or underweight experience being teased. This experience does have a negative impact on children’s body image. This is especially significant for young girls and boys who are overweight. Underweight young boys also suffer negatively from this experience. It is important for parents and others to understand that what may be perceived as friendly banter with their children may not necessarily be innocuous. Further research exploring the concept and construct of teasing in childhood is warranted.     

Impact of Tourette’s Disorder on Parent Reported Stress

We examined the relationship between Tourette’s Disorder (TD) and parent reported stress. About 84 parents of children with TD participated by completing questionnaires assessing parental stress, TD symptom severity, co-morbid disorders, services received by the child, and parents’ perception of their child’s academic ability. The results indicate that parent reported stress reached clinically significant levels when a co-morbid disorder was present, but not with a diagnosis of TD alone. Similarly, parents report higher levels of stress when they view their child as performing below other students academically. Finally, the types of services that the child receives were found to have little or no relationship to parent reported stress. Limitations of this study, directions for future research, and implications for intervention are discussed.     

The Impact of P-hacking on “Redefine Statistical Significance”

In their proposal to “redefine statistical significance,” Benjamin et al. claim that lowering the default cutoff for statistical significance from .05 to .005 would “immediately improve the reproducibility of scientific research in many fields.” Benjamin et al. assert specifically that false positive rates would fall below 10% and replication rates would double under the lower cutoff. I analyze these claims here, showing how the failure to account for P-hacking and other widespread reporting issues leads to exaggerated and misleading conclusions about the potential impact of the .005 proposal.     

The Impact of ‘the Dream’ on Women's Experience of the Midlife Transition

Daniel Levinson's claim for the universality of age-linked periods is considered highly controversial considering that his theory evolved from a study consisting of males only. Theories relating to women's development, particularly at midlife, are somewhat scarce and restricted. Using Levinson's theory of adult development as a framework, the present study retrospectively examined the Dream and its impact on women's psychological health and adjustment to the Midlife Transition. Three hundred midlife women completed a questionnaire examining Dream Status, Dream Content, Dream Success, and the psychological health variables, depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and life satisfaction. Dream Success was significantly related to psychological health on dimensions of well-being and composure, and interesting changes were observed in Dream Content across the early and current Dream. Our findings revealed that, despite the overall greater complexity of women's Dreams, Levinson's theory is largely applicable to women's development.     

Mock Jurors’ Perception of Stalking: The Impact of Gender and Expressed Fear

Two experiments investigated mock-juror perceptions of intimate stalking using Kentucky’s (United States) anti-stalking legislation. Experiment 1 used a mock-juror methodology in which 177 undergraduates (87 men and 90 women) from a large southeastern US university read a stalking trial summary and rendered individual judgments as mock jurors. The main research question of Experiment 1 was how participant gender impacted trial judgments (e.g., verdict) when the gender of both the defendant and victim were manipulated. Overall, the results showed that men rendered significantly fewer guilty verdicts than women, particularly in conditions that included the prototypical type of intimate stalking (female victim/male defendant). In Experiment 2, also using a mock-juror methodology, 129 undergraduates (51 men and 78 women) from a large southeastern U.S. university read a stalking trial summary (involving a female victim and male defendant) and rendered individual judgments as mock jurors. The main research question of Experiment 2 focused on whether victim fear (high or low) impacted trial judgments (e.g., verdict). The results yielded an interaction of participant gender and victim fear. Specifically, whereas different levels of fear did not impact women, men yielded fewer guilty verdicts in the low victim fear condition compared to the high victim fear condition. The results of the present experiments are discussed in terms of the implications of stalking allegations brought to trial.     

How Bad Is It? Perceptions of the Relationship Impact of Different Types of Internet Sexual Activities

Internet sex has become a ubiquitous phenomenon that is affecting couples and families. Eight scenarios (from visiting various adult web sites to having sex) involving a male or female character in a committed relationship were presented in a survey format. Participants (n = 242) rated each scenario in terms of emotional and physical involvement, amount of distraction from the primary relationship, and whether the respondent considered the scenario to be an affair. Results indicate that perceptions of internet activities differed depending on the type of internet sexual activity, although the majority of the internet sexual activities were considered to be highly emotional involving, a distraction to the relationship, and sexual in nature, though no physical contact was involved. The gender of the character in the scenario had no effect on participants' responses. Women tended to see the scenarios as being more serious than men. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Perceptions of Chaplains’ Value and Impact Within Hospital Care Teams

Many scholars have written about the role of spirituality in health care. One mechanism for incorporating spirituality into the care of patients is to integrate clinically trained chaplains into hospital care teams. We examined in a mixed-methods fashion, the effects of this type of integrated care team within a teaching hospital setting. The quality and impact of chaplain involvement were studied from patient and physician-in-training perspectives, using data from more than 200 patients and physicians in training. Findings clearly show that clinically trained chaplains can contribute meaningful expertise and real value to the quality and comprehensiveness of patient and physician experiences.     

The Impact of Religious Commitment on Women’s Sexual Self-Esteem

Religious commitment is associated with decreased sexual activity, poor sexual satisfaction, and sexual guilt, particularly among women. The purpose of this paper was to investigate how religious commitment is related to sexual self-esteem among women. Participants included 196 female undergraduate students, 87 % of whom identified as Christian. Participants completed the Sexual Self-Esteem Inventory for Women (SSEI-W), Religious Commitment Inventory-10, Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale, Brief Sexual Attitudes Scale, and a measure of their perception of God’s view of sex. Results suggested that women with high religious commitment held more conservative sexual attitudes. Significant relationships between religious commitment and two subscales (moral judgment and attractiveness) of the SSEI-W revealed that women with high religious commitment were less likely to perceive sex as congruent with their moral values and simultaneously reported significantly greater confidence in their sexual attractiveness. A significant relationship between religious commitment and overall sexual self-esteem was found for women whose religion of origin was Catholicism, such that those with higher religious commitment reported lower sexual self-esteem. A hierarchical regression analysis revealed that high religious commitment and perception that God viewed sex negatively independently predicted lower sexual self-esteem, as related to moral judgment. Implications of the findings are provided.     

Corporate Sponsorships of Philanthropic Activities: When Do They Impact Perception of Sponsor Brand?

We examined the benefits to a corporate sponsor of two types of philanthropic activities — cause promotions and advocacy advertising. Results from 4 laboratory studies indicate that perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are affected by consumers’ elaboration levels. Consumer perceptions of CSR are more favorable for cause promotions, which do not receive much elaboration, than they are for advocacy advertising, which prompts more elaboration. In addition, perceived congruence between the sponsor and the social issue is shown to moderate these effects: Higher congruence between the sponsor and social issue increases favorable ratings of CSR for cause promotions but only if elaboration on the sponsorship activity is facilitated. On the other hand, lower congruence increases favorable ratings of CSR for advocacy advertising as long as elaboration on the sponsorship is not constrained. We also found that higher congruence enhances CSR ratings if participants are primed to focus their attention on the sponsor brand, whereas lower congruence enhances CSR if participants are primed to focus their attention on the social issue.     

The Psychological Impact of Prenatal Diagnosis and Disclosure of Susceptibility Loci: First Impressions of Parents’ Experiences

Genomic microarray may detect susceptibility loci (SL) for neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and epilepsy, with a yet unquantifiable risk for the fetus. The prenatal disclosure of susceptibility loci is a topic of much debate. Many health care professionals fear that reporting susceptibility loci may put a psychological burden on pregnant couples. It is our policy to disclose prenatal susceptibility loci as we recognize them as actionable for prospective parents. The aim of this report was to evaluate the psychological impact of disclosing a prenatal diagnosis of susceptibility loci. The psychological impact of disclosing susceptibility loci was evaluated in the first patients who received such results. Eight out of 15 women who had a susceptibility locus disclosed and four of their partners consented to share their experiences through a telephonic evaluation (n?=?12). Follow-up time ranged from 3 to 15 months after their prenatal test result. The reporting of susceptibility loci was initially ‘shocking’ for five parents while the other seven felt ‘worried’. Ten out of 12 participants indicated they would like to be informed about the susceptibility locus again, two were unsure. Most had no enduring worries. Participants unanimously indicated that pregnant couples should have an individualized pre-test choice about susceptibility loci (non)disclosure. We observed no negative psychological impact with the prenatal diagnosis and disclosure of SL on participants. A key factor in mitigating parental anxiety with SL disclosure appears to be post-test genetic counseling. Our report confirms that pregnant women and their partners prefer an individualized choice regarding the scope of prenatal testing.     

Investigating the Impact of Uncertainty About Item Parameters on Ability Estimation

Asymptotic expansions of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) and weighted likelihood estimator (WLE) of an examinee’s ability are derived while item parameter estimators are treated as covariates measured with error. The asymptotic formulae present the amount of bias of the ability estimators due to the uncertainty of item parameter estimators. A numerical example is presented to illustrate how to apply the formulae to evaluate the impact of uncertainty about item parameters on ability estimation and the appropriateness of estimating ability using the regular MLE or WLE method.     

Not Much More Than g? An Examination of the Impact of Intelligence on NFL Performance

The purpose of this study was to determine the efficiency and equity of general mental ability (GMA) in a nontraditional employment setting—professional football. The National Football League (NFL) uses a measure of GMA, the Wonderlic Personnel Test, to evaluate potential draftees in an assessment-style environment. A total of 762 NFL players, represented from three draft classes, were included in our sample. In terms of efficiency, results indicated that GMA was unrelated to (a) future NFL performance, (b) selection decisions during the NFL Draft, and (c) the number of games started in the NFL. In regards to equity, differential prediction analyses by race suggested only the existence of intercept bias. The implications of these findings to the NFL and the selection literature are further discussed.     

Professionals’ Reflections About the Impact of Digital Technologies on Eating Disorders

The aim of this study was to explore how professionals working with clients who suffer from eating disorders reflect the impact of digital technologies on their clients. Interviews with 30 professionals were conducted. A qualitative analysis revealed the following areas: (a) the attributes of technologies that influence people with eating disorders, (b) the characteristics of people with eating disorders that influence their interaction with digital technologies, (c) the risks of technology usage, and (d) the benefits of technology usage. The results are discussed with respect to the Rodgers’s theoretical model explaining technology–eating disorder relations and the implications for practice.     

Counting One’s Blessings Can Reduce the Impact of Daily Stress

Participants in the present study, adults living in the community, described their well-being and the stress they experienced each day for 2 weeks. Before completing these diaries each day, half of the participants described the things for which they felt grateful that day, and half completed the diaries without doing this. Multilevel modeling analyses found that daily feelings of gratitude were positively related to well-being at the within-person level, and lagged analyses suggested a causal link from well-being to gratitude. In addition, relationships between daily stress and daily well-being were weaker for people who had been asked to think about the things for which they were grateful than they were for those who had not been asked. These results suggest that counting one’s blessing can reduce the negative effects of daily stress, which in turn may have positive long-term effects on mental health.     

Alpha Inflation? The Impact of Eliminating Scale Items on Cronbach''s Alpha

In this paper, we study the effect of the elimination of items from a scale so that only those items that correlate highly are chosen. Using a simulation, we estimate the impact on Cronbach's alpha as a function of the total number of items in a scale, the number of items chosen, the true correlation among the items, and the sample size. The results suggest that a substantial effect can exist. Not surprisingly, the effect is larger when sample sizes are smaller, when a smaller fraction of the original items is retained, and when there is greater variation in the true item-total correlations of the measures.     

Does Self-esteem Negatively Impact Crime and Delinquency? A Meta-analytic Review of 25 Years of Evidence

Self-esteem has been deemed an important variable in many theories over the past 100 years, and several interventions are aimed at improving self-esteem in order to prevent criminal and delinquent behavior. However, no systematic attempt to quantify the collective results of this variable’s effect on criminal and delinquent behavior has been undertaken, and only one narrative literature review has taken place. This meta-analysis seeks to inform the research by focusing on 48 effect sizes from 42 studies spanning 25 years (1990–2015) and 71,130 individuals. Our findings indicate that self-esteem has a small, negative but significant effect on crime and delinquency.     

Does Motivation Impact OCD Symptom Severity? An Exploration of Longitudinal Effects

Understanding the role of patient motivation in OCD treatment is of clinical importance given the requisite autonomous role of patients in Exposure and Response Prevention. The present study investigated state- and trait-like relations between three variables: two previously established motivational constructs, readiness to change (RTC) and committed action (CA), derived from the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment, and OCD symptom severity as measured by the self-report Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS-SR). Utilizing a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) design, we assessed autoregressive, within-time correlations, and cross-lagged effects of RTC, CA, and Y-BOCS-SR scores at admission, month 1 of treatment, and discharge from an intensive/residential treatment program for OCD. Results revealed significant autoregressive (i.e., state-like) effects for CA and Y-BOCS-SR, negative within-time correlations between state CA and Y-BOCS-SR across all time points, a positive within-time correlation between state CA and RTC at admission, and a cross-lagged effect between state Y-BOCS-SR at month 1 of treatment and state RTC at discharge. Results also demonstrated that the stability of the RTC variable was attributable to trait-like factors in the present sample. This study is novel in its use of RI-CLPM in an OCD sample and represents an important addition to the literature on the longitudinal impacts of dynamic constructs of motivation. Our findings may provide future researchers with strategies to supplement ERP with CA-driven motivational interviewing.     

The Impact of Acculturation and Cultural Values on Hispanic Immigrants’ Parenting

This study explored the process Hispanic immigrant families undergo when immigrating to the United States through the implementation of a constructivist grounded theory methodology. The theory illustrates the process in three phases: Arriving to a new country, Integrating new values, and Maintaining values. Through these phases the constant interaction between cultures and its influence in family dynamics is illustrated. More specifically, this theory suggests immigrant families are open to include elements of the new culture encountered while keeping elements of their native culture present once their basic necessities are met. The sample of the study consisted of 16 parents. These parents incorporated the English language, granted greater freedom to their children, became more involved with the school system, included American traditions in their celebrations, and altered their discipline methods based on their interaction with the new culture. Additionally, parents maintained the value of respect, the Spanish language, fostered family cohesion, and instilled their spiritual beliefs to their children.     

Impact of Incredible Years® on teacher perceptions of parental involvement: A latent transition analysis

The purpose of the present study was to examine the impact of the Incredible Years® Teacher Classroom Management (IY TCM) training on teacher perceptions of parental involvement. A cluster randomized design was used to assign 42 classroom teachers to either an IY TCM training (n = 19) or a control condition (n = 23). Teachers rated parental involvement (i.e., bonding with teacher, parental involvement at school) for the families of 805 low income students (IY TCM = 504, control = 301). A latent profile transition analysis framework was used to model the effect of IY TCM on teacher perceptions of parental involvement from pre to posttest. Four profiles consisting of various patterns of high, medium, and low teacher perceptions of bonding with and involvement of parents emerged. Analyses of teacher profiles at baseline revealed teachers who felt parental involvement and bonding was low were also likely to rate students as having more externalizing behaviors, fewer social competencies, more attention deficit symptoms, and disruptive behaviors towards adults and peers compared to teachers with more adaptive profiles. Further analysis revealed that parents of teachers randomly assigned to IY TCM were more likely to transition to a more adaptive view of parental involvement at follow-up compared to teachers in the control condition. Because teacher perceptions of parental involvement may adversely impact teacher attitudes towards difficult students, findings from the present study support the promise of teacher training as an avenue for conferring protections for struggling students.