Structuring Case-Based Ethics Training: How Comparing Cases and Structured Prompts Influence Training Effectiveness

This study examined how structuring case-based ethics training, either through (a) case presentation or (b) prompt questions, influences training outcomes. Results revealed an interaction between case presentation and prompt questions such that some form of structure improved effectiveness. Specifically, comparing cases led to greater sensemaking strategy use and decision-ethicality when trainees considered unstructured rather than structured prompts. When cases were presented sequentially, structuring prompts improved training effectiveness. Too much structure, however, decreased future ethical decision making, suggesting that there can be too much of a good thing when structuring case-based ethics education. Implications for designing ethics training programs are discussed.     

The Effects of Note-Taking and Review on Sensemaking and Ethical Decision Making

The effectiveness of case-based learning in ethics education varies widely regarding how cases are presented. Case process instruction may impact case-based ethics education to promote sensemaking processes, ethical sensemaking strategy use, and ethical decision making (EDM) quality. This study examined two teaching techniques, notes and review, and participants completed note-taking and review activities examining a case-based scenario during an ethics education course. Results suggest that providing case notes in outline form improves sensemaking processes, strategy use, and EDM quality. In addition, combining processes of provided notes and passive review results in incremental, additive performance via certain ethical sensemaking strategies and EDM quality.     

Assessing At‐Risk Youth Using the Reynolds Adolescent Adjustment Screening Inventory With a Latino Population

Factor analyses were conducted on scores from the Reynolds Adolescent Adjustment Screening Inventory (RAASI; Reynolds, 2001 ) representing at‐risk Latino youth. The 4‐factor model of the RAASI did not exhibit a good fit. However, evidence of generalizability for Latino youth was noted.     

Fathers and Perceptions of God Play an Important Role in Psychological Adjustment Among Emerging Adults in Guatemala and the United States

Interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory posits that people require parental acceptance in childhood to develop healthy psychological adjustment. People’s beliefs about and their relationship with deity also influences their psychological adjustment. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how both perceived parental acceptance and a relationship with deity are related to psychological adjustment for emerging adults in Guatemala and the United States. Participants (N?=?189) from Guatemala and the United States completed measures of perceived parental acceptance-rejection, images of God, attachment to God, and psychological adjustment. Results indicate that perceived paternal acceptance-rejection was only a significant predictor of psychological adjustment in U.S. participants, and not in Guatemalan participants. In both samples, images of God did not predict psychological adjustment. However, an anxious attachment with God predicted psychological maladjustment for both groups. The findings suggest that two important factors to be considered by researchers, educators, and mental health professionals are adults’ perceptions of their father’s level of acceptance-rejection and the amount of anxiety they experience in their relationship with God.     

Differences in Rapid Initiation and Termination of Voluntary Postural Sway Associated with Ageing and Falls-Risk

The authors examined differences between young adults (n = 25) and healthy older adults (n = 48) in reaction time and the relations between center of pressure (COP) and center of mass (COM) motions during rapid initiation and termination of voluntary postural sway. Older adults were divided into low and high falls-risk groups based on Physiological Profile Assessment scores of sensorimotor function. Low falls-risk older adults had slower reaction times during anteroposterior sway initiation and decreased COP–COM separation during anteroposterior and medialateral sway initiation and anteroposterior continuous voluntary sway compared with young adults. High falls-risk older adults had slower initiation and termination reaction times in all response directions and decreased COP–COM separation during sway initiation and continuous voluntary sway in the anteroposterior and medialateral directions compared with young adults. Compared with low falls-risk older adults, high falls-risk older adults had slower initiation and termination reaction times in all response directions and decreased COP–COM separation during medialateral continuous voluntary sway. Reaction time and COP–COM measures significantly predicted group status in discriminant models with sensitivities and specificities of 72–100%. Overall, these findings highlight important associations of age-related declines in sensorimotor function related to an increased risk of falling with slower postural reaction time and reduced postural stability.     

Discrimination, Religious Coping, and Tobacco Use Among White, African American, and Mexican American Vocational School Students

This study examined whether religious coping moderates the impact of racial/ethnic discrimination on current (past 30 day) cigarette and cigar/cigarillo use among a racially/ethnically diverse sample of 984 technical/vocational school students (47.1% women; mean age = 25 years). Results indicate that discrimination increased the likelihood of current cigarette use among African American students and current cigar/cigarillo use among white and African American students. Positive religious coping decreased the likelihood of cigarette and cigar/cigarillo smoking for white students only. Negative religious coping increased the likelihood of cigarette use for white students and cigar/cigarillo use for white and African American students. Two 2-way interactions indicate that positive and negative religious coping moderate the discrimination–cigarette smoking relationship for African American and Mexican American students, respectively.     

Maintaining Order and Following the Rules: Gender Differences in Punishing Inmate Misconduct

For this article, we examine gender differences in how staff members address inmate misconduct. Using in-depth interviews with forty-three correctional employees, we focus on how their various disciplinary styles create interpersonal conflict between staff members. We find that over half of interviewees are identified as “formal responders” who consistently punish inmate misconduct with formal sanctions, even if doing so creates conflict within the organization. However, female formal responders also claim that they work closely with male inmates to explain the importance of following the rules. They state that this puts them at odds with their male co-workers who misinterpret this behavior as instigating sexual relationships.     

Personality and social attitudes: Evidence for positive-approach motivation

Extensive research has linked general personality factors to social attitudes, but there has been comparatively little work on the roles played by specific approach-avoidance personality factors, especially positive-approach ones. Here we relate such factors to the two main clusters of social attitudes (Right-Wing Authoritarianism, RWA; and Social Dominance Orientation, SDO), and related cognitive constructs (Need for Cognition and Need for Closure). Results revealed: (a) positive-approach motivation is consistently related to both RWA and SDO, with little contribution from negative-avoidance motivation; and (b) negative-avoidance motivation played a part in Need for Cognition (negatively related) and Need for Closure (positively related). These data challenge previous theorizing concerning the role of fear/anxiety in social attitude formation and prejudice more generally. We conclude that, to a larger extent than previously thought, approach-related personality factors underpin the positive reinforcement of social attitudes and prejudice. Our results may help to account for the failure of programmes designed to reduce prejudice which have been based on the reduction of negative emotion and motivation.     

Labeling: A study of an “autistic” child

Abstract

In this issue we are able to present reports from two very different meetings which, nevertheless, have particular significance for the developing field of family therapy, particularly as it relates to theory and practice. The first is a report by Professors Jeanne L. Thomas and Cecil J. Simons of West Virginia University on the eighth biennial conference on Life-Span Developmental Psychology, held in May 1982, in Mor-gantown, West Virginia. This conference was one of a series sponsored by West Virginia University since 1970 dealing with theoretical and empirical issues in the study of life-span human development. This particular conference highlighted two themes involving the impact of specific historical context on family development as well as the influence of the family on the individual's own experience of these historical events. This kind of broad and in-depth exploration of the multiple factors involved in the historical as well as the personal context of an individual's development promises to provide exciting new opportunities for clinicians and teachers in our field.

The second report from James E. Durkin, Ph.D., of Lincoln University deals with a recent conference on Epistemology, Psychotherapy, and Psychopathology in Houston, September 1982, sponsored by the Houston Galveston Family Institute. Outstanding theoreticans and clinicans in the field of family therapy and systems theory were present, and their exciting discussions have been put into an interesting framework by Dr. Durkin, who has his own way of integrating these issues based on his long work in the application of general systems theory to the field of group psychotherapy. —I. A.     

Predicting early emotion knowledge development among children of colour living in historically disinvested neighbourhoods: consideration of child pre-academic abilities,self-regulation,peer relations and parental education

ABSTRACT

Emotion knowledge, the ability to accurately perceive and label emotions, predicts higher quality peer relations, higher social competence, higher academic achievement, and fewer behaviour problems. Less is known, however, about predictors of early development of emotion knowledge. This study examines emotion knowledge development among children attending pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten programmes in high-poverty urban schools. The study considers child pre-academic abilities, self-regulation, peer relations and parental education as predictors of emotion knowledge development over two years. The sample (n?=?1034) of children living in historically disinvested neighbourhoods was primarily Black (85%) and low-income (～61%). The sample was part of a longitudinal follow-up study of a cluster (school) randomised controlled trial in ten public elementary schools. Children’s emotion knowledge was assessed with a series of tasks three times over a two-year period. At baseline, parents and teachers reported on peer relations, children completed a test of pre-academic abilities, independent observers rated child self-regulation, and parents reported on their educational attainment. Results demonstrate that emotion knowledge increases over time, and pre-academic abilities, self-regulation, peer relations, and parent education independently predict children’s emotion knowledge. This study highlights multiple factors that predict emotion knowledge among primarily Black children living in historically disinvested neighbourhoods.