Evaluation of the effectiveness of an anti‐bullying programme in primary schools

A nationwide programme to prevent and manage bullying in Irish schools, based on that implemented in Norway in 1996, is currently being developed, and pilot work with a sample of primary schools within a single county of Ireland has been conducted and evaluated (the staff and pupils of 42 primary schools having been involved). A network of professionals (11 teachers) were trained to co‐ordinate the anti‐bullying programme in the schools, subsequent activities involving their training teachers (a total of 197) and parents in three to five schools each. In evaluation, pupils from 22 of the schools completed modified versions of the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire [Olweus, 1989; Whitney and Smith, 1993]. Teachers completed a questionnaire (concerning their knowledge and feelings about bullying [Rigby, 1997]) both before and after the implementation of the anti‐bullying training programme. Significant reductions were found in pupils' reports of having been victimised after the implementation of the programme. Overall, 19.6 per cent fewer children were victimised. There was a reduction of 50.0 per cent amongst those frequently victimised within the last school term, and of 43.0 per cent in reports of having been bullied within the last five school days. A reduction of 17.3 per cent in pupils' reports of having taken part in bullying others was also observed after the implementation of the programme. There were, in particular, significant reductions (69.2 per cent) in reports of frequently bullying others within the last school term, and of 51.8 per cent in reports of having taken part in bullying others within the last five school days. Whilst the programme was shown to reduce the incidence of pupils' involvement in bullying behaviour, the perennial challenge of attempting to increase the levels of pupils' reporting of bullying to teachers and parents remains a challenge for the authors to attend to in the further development of the nationwide anti‐bullying programme. Aggr. Behav. 00:1–14, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Adolescent well‐being and supporting contexts: A comparison of adolescents in Ireland and Florida

The purpose of this research was to examine the extent to which social support and wider community perceptions/engagements among adolescents are connected with well‐being. We compared adolescents in two different societal contexts, Florida in the United States and County Offaly, in Ireland, and posed the questions: What are the key predictors of subjective well‐being from the various sources of support, and to what extent does the impact of social support on well‐being vary across these two societies? Questionnaires were completed and returned for 607 respondents (322 in the Irish study and 285 in the Florida study). A variety of scales were adopted and designed to operationalize our key concepts of: Adolescent well‐being, social support, school satisfaction, neighbourhood quality of life and community/voluntary participation. Our results indicate that informal social support and school satisfaction were the strongest predictors of youth well‐being in both locations, despite some differences in terms of individual influencing variables. From informal sources, emotional support from friends and advice/concrete/esteem support from parents emerged as important predictive dimensions. Liking school, perceptions of doing well in school were the main predictors of school satisfaction in Ireland while, in Florida, student camaraderie and the experience of bullying emerged as significant. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cultural Threat and Anti‐immigrant Prejudice: The Case of Protestants in Northern Ireland

Cultural threat has emerged as a consistent predictor of anti‐immigrant and anti‐minority attitudes across many different national contexts. We examine this issue in the context of Northern Ireland using representative survey data, suggesting that Protestant and unionist communities experience a higher level of cultural threat than Catholic and nationalist communities on account of the ‘parity of esteem’ principle that has informed changes in the province since the Belfast Agreement of 1998. Our analyses confirm that, although there is evidence for some level of anti‐immigrant sentiment across all groups, Protestants and unionists do indeed report relatively more negative attitudes towards a range of immigrant and ethnic target groups compared with Catholics, nationalists or respondents who do not identify with any political category. The analyses further suggest that their higher level of perceived cultural threat partially accounts for this difference. We argue that cultural threat can be interpreted as a response to changes in Northern Ireland that have challenged the dominant status enjoyed by Protestants and unionists in the past. More generally, we argue that a politicised characterisation of cultural threat needs to be elaborated through future work. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predictors of Strength of In‐Group Identity in Northern Ireland: Impact of Past Sectarian Conflict,Relative Deprivation,and Church Attendance

Social identity in Northern Ireland is multifaceted, with historical, religious, political, social, economic, and psychological underpinnings. Understanding the factors that influence the strength of identity with the Protestant or Catholic community, the two predominate social groups in Northern Ireland, has implications for individual well‐being as well as for the continuation of tension and violence in this setting of protracted intergroup conflict. This study examined predictors of the strength of in‐group identity in 692 women (mean age 37 years) in post‐accord Northern Ireland. For Catholics, strength of in‐group identity was positively linked to past negative impact of sectarian conflict and more frequent current church attendance, whereas for Protestants, strength of in‐group identity was related to greater status satisfaction regarding access to jobs, standard of living, and political power compared with Catholics; that is, those who felt less relative deprivation. The discussion considers the differences in the factors underlying stronger identity for Protestants and Catholics in this context. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Schooling,the Protestant churches and the state in Northern Ireland: a tension resolved

In 1998, Byrne and McKeown examined the churches’ roles in Northern Ireland’s (NI) schooling system. NI was then governed by direct-rule from the UK’s Westminster Parliament. The authors concluded that the desire of the Protestant churches to re-establish their influence in schools was ‘unlikely to succeed’. This was contrasted with the ‘success-story’ of Catholic influence in schooling. This article tracks the fortunes of the Protestant churches in NI’s educational policy developments in the last 18 years. Of particular interest are the government’s proposals to establish an Education and Skills Authority (ESA) under a new Education Bill. A careful reading of the Protestant churches’ annual education reports indicates the alarm with which these proposals were met. In the early years of the new millennium it seemed that the conclusions of the 1998 paper were prescient. However, extensive lobbying by the Protestant churches in a changed (devolved) political context secured almost all their demands. This article concludes that the ‘tension’ (claimed in the 1998 paper) between the Protestant churches and the state has largely been resolved. The article evaluates the significance of recent developments for the Protestant churches and their involvement in schooling. More critically, the propriety of these developments is questioned asking if they mark an advance for the Protestant churches and/or schooling in NI.     

Understanding the foot‐in‐the‐door effect as a pseudo‐effect from the perspective of the Campbell paradigm

Compliance with a small request (a metaphorical foot‐in‐the‐door) promotes compliance with a subsequent big request. Whereas some explanations expect a drop in the behavioural costs of the big request, others suspect that the effect comes from boosting the underlying attitude. However, evidence for both explanations is equivocal and circumstantial, at best. Drawing on what Kaiser et al. (2010) call the Campbell paradigm, we present an integrative account: Compliance with any request demands a corresponding attitude to counterbalance the costs of the request. In our research, 229 participants were randomly assigned to either a foot‐in‐the‐door (i.e., initially asked to sign a pro‐environmental petition) or a control condition. Small‐request‐compliant participants were more likely than control participants to also comply with the big request and to continue filling out environmental‐issues‐related questionnaires. However, this foot‐in‐the‐door effect occurred without diminishing behavioural costs or increasing attitude levels. Accordingly, the greater likelihood of small‐request‐compliant participants to also comply with the big request can be parsimoniously explained by baseline variability in people's attitude levels that manifests in their compliance with the initial request. We conclude that several of the foot‐in‐the‐door effects reported in the literature carry the risk of representing mere pseudo‐effects.     

Physical punishment and the parenting cycle: a survey of Northern Irish parents

The intergenerational transmission of physical punishment was examined in a questionnaire study of Northern Irish parents (n=371). Participants completed measures of commitment to and use of physical punishment, hostility and a retrospective parenting report on their parents' disciplinary behaviours. The results reveal that 91% of Northern Irish parents report using physical punishment to discipline their children (including 44% who smack only ‘very rarely’). Retrospective reports of working class parents suggest that physical punishment by grandparents at low, medium and high levels corresponds to the levels of reported punishment used by participants with their own children. Middle class parents who reported low or medium levels of parental discipline displayed a similar pattern of intergenerational transmission. However, middle class parents who reported receiving higher levels of punishment were found to use lower rates of punishment with their children. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Individual differences in 10‐month‐olds' performance on the A‐not‐B task

This study used the classical A‐not‐B task (Piaget, 1954 ) to explore individual differences in cognitive flexibility in 10‐month‐old infants by: (1) examining how differences in search performance during A trials relate to search performance during B trials; (2) studying the relation between temperamental dimensions and A‐not‐B performance; and (3) investigating differences in search performance between looking and reaching responses within the same task. Forty infants were tested on a fixed‐design‐version of the A‐not‐B task, not allowing for training or individual adjustment, but instead eliciting additional search behaviors than the common correct responses in A trials and perseverative errors in B trials. Infants were also rated by their parents on the temperamental scales Activity level and Attention span. The main findings were: (1) performance on A trials affected B trial performance, with infants being more correct on A trials having more incorrect and less ‘no search’ responses on B trials; (2) activity level, but not attention span, was related to performance on the A‐not‐B task, with infants performing better on A trials having a lower activity level; and (3) there were a few differences in performance with regard to modality, indicating that responding correctly by looking may be less cognitively demanding than doing so by reaching. This study demonstrated that 10‐month‐olds show a wide variation of search behaviors on this A‐not‐B task, resulting in individual differences in performance. These differences are suggested to reflect variation in temperamental activity level as well as maturity of short term/working memory, inhibition and cognitive flexibility.     

Adolescent Diabetic Control: Using the Process‐Person‐Context‐Time Model

This investigation used the Process‐Person‐Context‐Time Model (U. Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1995) to study adolescent diabetic control. The dependent variable was a blood test measuring diabetic control (i.e., HbA1 C [glycosylated hemoglobin]). Independent variables included adolescent/maternal perceptions of family environment and communication, blood glucose monitoring frequency, age of disease onset, disease duration, race/ethnicity, gender, and mother's education level. Stepwise regression revealed that glucose monitoring and problem communication explained 17% of the variance.     

Age and the Better‐Than‐Average Effect

People generally evaluate their own attributes and abilities more favorably than those of an average peer. The current study explored whether age moderates this better‐than‐average effect. We asked young (n = 87), middle‐aged (n = 75), and older adults (n = 77) to evaluate themselves and an average peer on a variety of trait and ability dimensions. On most dimensions, a better‐than‐average effect was observed for young, middle‐aged, and older adults. However, on dimensions for which older individuals have clear deficiencies (i.e., athleticism, physical attractiveness), a better‐than‐average effect was observed for young and middle‐aged adults, while a worse‐than‐average effect was observed for older adults. We argue that egocentrism accounts for these age differences in comparative self‐evaluations.     

Gerry Adams and the Northern Ireland Peace Process

This research note uses Hermann's personality-at-a-distance (PAD) method and applies it to negotiating behavior. Gerry Adams's personality and its effect upon his negotiating behavior in the current peace process in Northern Ireland is used as an illustration of the expanded application of PAD in a negotiating context.     

ON THE WHAT‐IT‐IS‐LIKE‐NESS OF EXPERIENCE

It is common for philosophers to hold that experience can be characterized in a basic way as being something it is like for someone to undergo. In the paper it is argued that when this slogan is examined it is in some respects trivial and in others mistaken. It is concluded that the slogan should be abandoned.     

Relative Persuasiveness of Gain‐ Versus Loss‐Framed Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Messages for the Present‐ and Future‐Minded

This research examines how young adults' attitudes toward human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination and their intentions to get the vaccine are influenced by the framing of health messages (gain vs. loss) and time orientation (i.e., the extent to which people value immediate vs. distant consequences of their decisions). Results of an experiment showed an overall persuasive advantage for loss‐framed messages. Attitudes and behavioral intentions toward HPV vaccination were found to be more favorable among future‐minded individuals. Moreover, an interaction between framing and time orientation was found to predict persuasive outcomes. Present‐minded participants responded more favorably to the loss‐framed message, whereas future‐minded participants were equally persuaded by both frames. Implications of the findings for vaccine risk communication are discussed.     

First‐Person Shooters and the Third‐Person Effect

A sample of 118 U.S. 6th and 7th graders was used to examine early adolescents’ views of whether video games negatively influence themselves, others of the same age, and younger others. Six specific games ranging in rating from E for Everyone to M for Mature were listed for the early adolescents to respond to, with questions asked about both potential influence and whether young people should be allowed to play the games. Results support a third‐person perception that grew as the rating of the game became more restrictive and as the “other” group in question became younger. The presence of rules set by parents about video game use was a positive predictor of perceptions of influence on self and others.     

Speech‐perception‐in‐noise deficits in dyslexia

Speech perception deficits in developmental dyslexia were investigated in quiet and various noise conditions. Dyslexics exhibited clear speech perception deficits in noise but not in silence. Place‐of‐articulation was more affected than voicing or manner‐of‐articulation. Speech‐perception‐in‐noise deficits persisted when performance of dyslexics was compared to that of much younger children matched on reading age, underscoring the fundamental nature of speech‐perception‐in‐noise deficits. The deficits were not due to poor spectral or temporal resolution because dyslexics exhibited normal ‘masking release’ effects (i.e. better performance in fluctuating than in stationary noise). Moreover, speech‐perception‐in‐noise predicted significant unique variance in reading even after controlling for low‐level auditory, attentional, speech output, short‐term memory and phonological awareness processes. Finally, the presence of external noise did not seem to be a necessary condition for speech perception deficits to occur because similar deficits were obtained when speech was degraded by eliminating temporal fine‐structure cues without using external noise. In conclusion, the core deficit of dyslexics seems to be a lack of speech robustness in the presence of external or internal noise.