Parent-adolescent health conversations as action: Theoretical and methodological issues

Abstract

A qualitative research method based on action theory is proposed and illustrated for use in health psychology and health promotion research. Action refers to the goal-directed and intentional behaviors of individual and groups. Action theory has the advantage of using the perspectives provided by manifest behavior, internal processes, and social meaning in the analysis of action. In this article, the actions under consideration are the health-related conversations of parents and their adolescent children. The approach is premised on an understanding of health promotion as a family task constructed through actions such as conversations between family members. Health conversations in two parent-adolescent dyads are used to illustrate the method. The analysis includes the identification of goals, functional steps, and elements and their relation to the family health promotion project. Specific attention is paid to data gathering and analysis issues and their implications for health promotion research.     

Kali's child and Krishna's lover: An anatomy of Ramakrishna's Caritas Divina

The famous 19th‐century Bengali saint Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa has almost universally been regarded as a Shakta (sometimes confused with Tantrika) devotee of the Mother Goddess Kali. His association with the Kali temple at Daksineshvar, in the northern suburb of Calcutta, has no doubt been a powerful argument behind his Shakta/Tantrika affiliation. This paper argues that Ramakrishna was essentially a bhakta (devotee) in the Vaisnava tradition and his cultural and family inheritance. His idea of the divine and his career and logia as a priest and a saint provide ample justification to consider him essentially a Vaisnava whose spiritual battle‐cry was to demand to have dalliance with God.     

The Effect on Coping of Monitoring,Blunting, and the Ability to Achieve Cognitive Structure

The effects of monitoring and blunting on individuals' choices of coping strategies and their effectiveness were examined. In addition, the authors explored the effect of the ability to achieve cognitive structure (AACS), defined as either or both of the following: (a) the ability to avoid information that either cannot be categorized or clashes with the individual's existing knowledge; (b) the ability to organize knowledge to fit an already existing cognitive structure. The results showed that in addition to the main effects of monitoring on problem-focused coping and social support seeking behaviors and of blunting on the use of wishful thinking, AACS was found to moderate blunting's influence on problem-focused coping as well as the effectiveness of distancing and avoidance coping. Finally, the results showed that the combination of high monitoring and high blunting sometimes contributes to coping effectiveness.     

Testing causal models of the relationship between childhood gender atypical behaviour and parent–child relationship

An association between childhood gender atypical behaviour (GAB) and a negative parent–child relationship has been demonstrated in several studies, yet the causal relationship of this association is not fully understood. In the present study, different models of causation between childhood GAB and parent–child relationships were tested. Direction of causation modelling was applied to twin data from a population‐based sample (n= 2,565) of Finnish 33‐ to 43‐year‐old twins. Participants completed retrospective self‐report questionnaires. Five different models of causation were then fitted to the data: GAB → parent–child relationship, parent–child relationship → GAB, reciprocal causation, a bivariate genetic model, and a model assuming no correlation. It was found that a model in which GAB and quality of mother–child, and father–child relationship reciprocally affect each other best fitted the data. The findings are discussed in light of how we should understand, including causality, the association between GAB and parent–child relationship.     

Temporal dissociation between distractors and targets: the impact of residual distractor processing on target responses

The authors manipulated the extent of distractor interference with learned, mapped responses by presenting distractors to participants (N = 16) before, simultaneously with, or after the target. Interference was significantly less when the distractor preceded the target's presentation by 200 ms than when distractor and target were presented simultaneously. Interference decreased progressively with increasing intervals. For both simultaneous and temporally separated distractor-target presentations, incongruent distractors were associated with the greatest interference, and neutral and congruent distractors interfered to a lesser degree. Distractors at fixation had a crucially greater impact on goal-directed responses to the target than did distractors at periphery. The authors discuss the findings in the context of (a) the time course of the processing of all inputs, (b) the subsequent enhancement of target-related information and responses, and (c) the inhibition of distractor-related information and responses.     

Napping reduces emotional attention bias during early childhood

Sleep loss alters processing of emotional stimuli in preschool‐aged children. However, the mechanism by which sleep modifies emotional processing in early childhood is unknown. We tested the hypothesis that a nap, compared to an equivalent time spent awake, reduces biases in attention allocation to affective information. Children (n = 43; M = 55.40 months, SD = 8.05 months) completed a Dot Probe task, which provides a measure of attention biases to emotional stimuli, following a mid‐day nap and an equivalent interval spent awake. No emotional attention biases emerged when children napped. However, when nap‐deprived, children exhibited biases towards negative and positive stimuli. This emotional bias after wake was greater in children who napped habitually. Gender differences also emerged such that females were more attentive to positive emotional stimuli whereas males showed heightened attention to negative emotional stimuli, regardless of having napped or not. Moreover, greater slow wave activity (SWA) during the nap was associated with faster responding, which suggests that SWA may promote efficiency of attention allocation. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIoZ8mzxQgg