Academic Integrity of Millennials: The Impact of Religion and Spirituality

The majority of traditional students enrolled at most colleges and universities are a part of what has been termed the Millennial Generation, also known as Generation Y, which typically describes the group of individuals born in most of the 1980s and 1990s. This cohort’s life has been shaped by corporate scandals, economic instability, and worldwide tragedies. Concurrently, business ethics has become a popular topic in the news within the last 2 decades due to the increase in the number of high-profile business scandals. Unfortunately, this trend has also been accompanied by an increased number of reported incidents of academic dishonesty at many major universities. Two underresearched factors that may be related to academic dishonesty and cheating behavior are religiosity and spirituality. This article attempts to shed more light on the relationship between religious beliefs and unethical behavior, with a focus on millennial college students. It is posited that religiosity and spirituality influence an individual’s attitudes, views, decisions, and ultimately behaviors. The results of this study indicate that religiosity but not spirituality is a predictor of students’ attitudes toward cheating and cheating behavior.     

Evolution of the neural language network

The evolution of language correlates with distinct changes in the primate brain. The present article compares language-related brain regions and their white matter connectivity in the developing and mature human brain with the respective structures in the nonhuman primate brain. We will see that the functional specificity of the posterior portion of Broca’s area (Brodmann area [BA 44]) and its dorsal fiber connection to the temporal cortex, shown to support the processing of structural hierarchy in humans, makes a crucial neural difference between the species. This neural circuit may thus be fundamental for the human syntactic capacity as the core of language.     

Assessing the Within‐Trial Treatment Integrity of Discrete‐Trial Teaching Programs Using Sequential Analysis

Discrete‐trial teaching is a strategy frequently used to teach functional skills to individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Research has shown that the within‐trial components of the procedure should be administered with ≥90% treatment integrity to facilitate optimal learning. Usually within‐trial treatment integrity is measured using whole‐session methods such as percentage of trials correctly administered. This study demonstrated one‐step Markov transition matrices as a method of assessing within‐trial treatment integrity. All components of discrete trials were coded and time‐stamped from video recordings of therapist–learner dyads in their typical setting (home or school). Several types of within‐trial treatment integrity errors were identified using the Markov transition matrices, error sequences that could not be identified using a percentage correct analysis. Better identification of errors has the potential both to enhance treatment integrity and to gain efficiency by targeted retraining of therapists. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The differential outcomes effect in children with autism

The differential outcomes procedure uses reinforcement unique to each alternative in a conditional discrimination, leading to faster and more accurate learning relative to non‐differential outcomes procedures. In this study, the differential outcomes procedure was used to teach novel tacts of musical instrument sounds to children with autism. For one set of instruments, response‐specific reinforcers were used in combination with social reinforcement. For the other set, reinforcers were provided non‐differentially. Two out of three participants showed enhanced learning in the differential outcomes condition, providing some support of the differential outcomes procedures as a useful tool for teaching individuals with autism. Future research into the differential outcomes effect is warranted to identify the procedural and individual factors that predict its effectiveness.     

Keeping up day-specific effects of transformational leadership: the role of followers’ emotion regulation

This diary study examines the role of day-specific transformational leadership for followers’ personal initiative. Building on Affective Events Theory, we proposed a direct effect of day-specific transformational leadership on followers’ personal initiative on the same day. Furthermore, we took a closer look at lagged effects of day-specific transformational leadership. More specifically, we hypothesized that positive effects of one day’s transformational leadership can endure until the next day for followers who apply beneficial emotion regulation strategies. We conducted a diary study over five consecutive working days among 97 employees. Two-level hierarchical linear modelling supported our hypotheses. As expected, day-specific transformational leadership positively predicted followers’ personal initiative on the same day. Furthermore, concerning the association between day-specific transformational leadership and followers’ personal initiative on the following day, there was a positive relation for followers applying beneficial emotion regulation strategies in terms of high cognitive reappraisal and low expressive suppression, respectively.     

Immigration Policies in Italy: Their Impact on the Lives of First-Generation Moroccan and Egyptian Migrants

This paper analyzes the impact of Italian immigration policies on migrants’ lives. Policies and changes in policies can affect migrants’ capabilities to stabilize themselves in the host country, in terms of legal residence and secure labor conditions, as well as their chances of becoming part of the host society. We argue that, together with border controls, these are crucial ways through which immigration policies may have the postulated effects on the lives of migrants. We use data from 59 in-depth interviews conducted with first-generation Moroccan and Egyptian migrants living in two Italian cities, Turin and Rome, in the period 2011–2013. The results show that Italian immigration policies do not successfully control migration inflow, but effectively hinder the stability of migrants’ legal status and the status transition from temporary residence to permanent residence and subsequent Italian citizenship. In this way, Italian immigration policies largely affect migrants’ capabilities to be part of the host country; this gets in the way of integration, social cohesion, and future migration projects.     

Revised Diagnostic Profile 2016: Revisions,Rationale, and Further Thoughts

ABSTRACT

In 2001, a working party at the Anna Freud Centre undertook the task of looking at Anna Freud’s original Provisional Diagnostic Profile and seeing if, in the light of current knowledge, modifications should be made. A broad view of the mind as a complex dynamic system sculpted out of biopsychosocial forces underpins the chapter with reference to allied disciplines and research. The chapter considers the rationale for adding certain features and highlighting and/or reframing others. In shifting the emphases from the original drive theory perspective to an explicitly object relational one, the authors acknowledge the altered metapsychology while arguing that the revisions preserve the original psychoanalytic and developmental template, including the importance of the psychosexual organization. The authors offer their suggestions to the question in 2015: would yet further revisions need to be made and if so which? The working party reconvened in 2016 to further revise the Provisional Diagnostic Profile.     

The efficacy of cognitive-behavioral interventions for reducing anxiety sensitivity: a meta-analytic review

The present study meta-analytically reviewed the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) vs. control conditions in the reduction of anxiety sensitivity. A computerized search was conducted to indentify CBT outcome studies that included the Anxiety Sensitivity Index as a dependent variable. Of the 989 studies that were identified, 24 randomized-controlled trials with a total of 1851 participants met inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. Data were extracted separately for treatment-seeking (16 studies) and at-risk (eight studies) samples. Results indicated large effect sizes for treatment-seeking samples, Hedges' g=1.40, SE=0.21, 95% CI: 1.00-1.81, p<0.001, and moderate to large effect sizes for at risk samples Hedges' g=0.74, SE=0.18, 95% CI: 0.39-1.08, p<0.001. Additionally, both the amount of therapist contact and control modality (waitlist vs. psychological control) moderated the effect sizes for treatment-seeking samples. Our review indicates that CBT is efficacious in reducing anxiety sensitivity. However, more research is needed to determine the mechanisms by which CBT exert its effects on anxiety sensitivity.     

Partner effects of Mexican cultural values: the couple and parenting relationships

In this investigation, the authors explored the impact of individuals' cultural values on their partners' relationship adjustment and perceptions of their parenting relationship. The authors examined Mexican cultural values of simpatía (i.e., harmonious interpersonal relationships) and respeto (i.e., respect for authority figures) using a sample of 50 Mexican-origin couples in southern Arizona. Congruent with their hypotheses, results supported the proposition that fathers' simpatía is positively associated with both relationship adjustment and the parenting relationship as reported by mothers, whereas fathers' respeto is negatively associated with both relationship adjustment and the parenting relationship as reported by mothers. However, the authors found little evidence of a contribution of mothers' cultural values to fathers' perceptions of either relationship adjustment or the parenting relationship. They interpret these findings to suggest that mothers' relationship adjustment and parenting relationship are more sensitive to and dependent on fathers' degree of traditional cultural values among Mexican-origin families.     

Some brief considerations on the relationship between theory and practice

The present crisis in models of training and in psychoanalytical education in general can be linked to the gulf that has come to be created between analytical theory and clinical practice. The paper(1) examines the historical facts that have led to this split and suggests the need to return to the models of Freud and Jung. Both these fathers of depth psychology stressed the dangers inherent in the dogmatic use of theory and both insisted that theory must always spring from and be able to account for clinical practice rather than vice versa, as is so often the case today. The paper also looks at how theory should be taught in our analytical institutes in order to ensure that what we transmit to our candidates is not knowledge in the form of dogma but rather a way of proceeding that will enable them to think creatively about their clinical practice and thus produce new knowledge, essential if depth psychology is to remain relevant to our post-modern culture.