Filipino Americans and racism: A multiple mediation model of coping

Although the literature on Asian Americans and racism has been emerging, few studies have examined how coping influences one's encounters with racism. To advance the literature, the present study focused on the psychological impact of Filipino Americans' experiences with racism and the role of coping as a mediator using a community-based sample of adults (N = 199). Two multiple mediation models were used to examine the mediating effects of active, avoidance, support-seeking, and forbearance coping on the relationship between perceived racism and psychological distress and self-esteem, respectively. Separate analyses were also conducted for men and women given differences in coping utilization. For men, a bootstrap procedure indicated that active, support-seeking, and avoidance coping were mediators of the relationship between perceived racism and psychological distress. Active coping was negatively associated with psychological distress, whereas both support seeking and avoidance were positively associated with psychological distress. A second bootstrap procedure for men indicated that active and avoidance coping mediated the relationship between perceived racism and self-esteem such that active coping was positively associated with self-esteem, and avoidance was negatively associated with self-esteem. For women, only avoidance coping had a significant mediating effect that was associated with elevations in psychological distress and decreases in self-esteem. The results highlight the importance of examining the efficacy of specific coping responses to racism and the need to differentiate between the experiences of men and women.     

Analysing the Influence of Autonomous and Controlling Social Factors Within the Theory of Planned Behaviour

The aim of this study was to analyse the effects of autonomous (i.e., autonomy support from parents and peers) and controlling (i.e., social physique anxiety) social factors on future intention to exercise, integrating the distal (i.e., basic psychological needs satisfaction and self‐determined motivation) and proximal (i.e., attitudes, perceived behavioural control and subjective norms) determinants of intention defined in self‐determination theory (SDT) and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Self‐report questionnaires were distributed to 390 secondary school pupils (male = 218, female = 172, M_age = 15.10, standard deviation = 1.94). The results of path analysis, controlling for past behaviour of physical activity, showed that social factors predicted future intention to exercise through the influence of the distal and proximal determinants. The main contribution of the study was to provide evidence that the proximal determinants of the TPB captured the direct influence of social factors, independent of the mediating effects of psychological needs satisfaction and self‐determined motivation towards exercise. Results supported the integration of the two theories, clarifying the processes of influence of autonomous and controlling social factors within the variables of SDT and the TPB.     

Paying it forward: how helping others can reduce the psychological threat of receiving help

This paper shows that receiving help could be psychologically harmful for recipients, and passing on help to others after receiving help (“helping forward”) is a good strategy to improve and restore help recipients' self‐competence. Participants (N = 87) received autonomy‐ or dependency‐oriented help and anticipated helping forward or not. Compared to receiving autonomy‐oriented help, receiving dependency‐oriented help negatively affected participants' self‐competence and their evaluation of the helper. Anticipation of future helping increased the liking for and evaluation of the helper. After paying help forward, participants felt more self‐competent than before helping, and this effect was more pronounced among former recipients of dependency‐oriented help. These results show that helping forward can negate the psychological threat associated with receiving help.     

The representation of simple ensemble visual features outside the focus of attention

The representation of visual information inside the focus of attention is more precise than the representation of information outside the focus of attention. We found that the visual system can compensate for the cost of withdrawing attention by pooling noisy local features and computing summary statistics. The location of an individual object is a local feature, whereas the center of mass of several objects (centroid) is a summary feature representing the mean object location. Three experiments showed that withdrawing attention degraded the representation of individual positions more than the representation of the centroid. It appears that information outside the focus of attention can be represented at an abstract level that lacks local detail, but nevertheless carries a precise statistical summary of the scene. The term ensemble features refers to a broad class of statistical summary features that we propose collectively make up the representation of information outside the focus of attention.     

Effects of different practice conditions on acquisition, retention, and transfer of soccer skills by 9-year-old schoolchildren

This study was designed to examine effects of three practice models, blocked, variable, and combined, on the acquisition, retention, and transfer of new motor skills. 67 subjects (M age = 9.5 yr., SD = .3) from the fourth year of primary school (31 boys and 26 girls) were assigned at random to three different practice groups (Blocked = 22, Variable = 23, Combined = 22) to study acquisition of two skills, dribbling a soccer ball and kicking a soccer ball at a stationary target using the dominant foot. All participants received a pretest and posttest, a transfer test, and a retention test 2 wk. later. Analysis showed significant improvement after practice of kicking skills by the three groups but not in the dribbling skills, for which only the combined practice group showed any notable improvement. At the end of acquisition, the combined practice group had significantly better performance on the dribbling task than the other two groups. However, the only differences noted in performance of kicking the ball with the dominant foot were by combined practice and blocked groups.     

Professional Journeys of International Medical Graduates in Quebec: Recognition,Uphill Battles,or Career Change

In Quebec and Canada, immigration policies are designed to attract “the best and the brightest.” Once migration occurs, however, the “brain waste” is challenging. This research focuses on the professional trajectories of international medical graduates (IMG) who migrate to Quebec. The main goal is to understand why certain individuals of a similar occupational group can easily access the doctoral profession while others cannot. Following a qualitative approach, and stemming from IMGs’ perspectives, this article explores the interplay of economic, social, and symbolic resources in a context of highly fragmented institutional resources and protectionism. We are critical of the individual-centered approaches that ignore social norms and constraints. If migrants are free to choose their paths and manner of integration, the “human capital” approach is limited in explaining the heterogeneous pathways within the same professional group. The current structure for professional recognition places unusual constraints on IMGs, whereby some encounter more obstacles than others. The “battle” for professional recognition takes shape in a highly competitive context, one which—although presented as a neutral process—is underlain with ideological, relational, and subjective currents.     

Visual search for arbitrary objects in real scenes

How efficient is visual search in real scenes? In searches for targets among arrays of randomly placed distractors, efficiency is often indexed by the slope of the reaction time (RT) × Set Size function. However, it may be impossible to define set size for real scenes. As an approximation, we hand-labeled 100 indoor scenes and used the number of labeled regions as a surrogate for set size. In Experiment 1, observers searched for named objects (a chair, bowl, etc.). With set size defined as the number of labeled regions, search was very efficient (~5 ms/item). When we controlled for a possible guessing strategy in Experiment 2, slopes increased somewhat (~15 ms/item), but they were much shallower than search for a random object among other distinctive objects outside of a scene setting (Exp. 3: ~40 ms/item). In Experiments 4–6, observers searched repeatedly through the same scene for different objects. Increased familiarity with scenes had modest effects on RTs, while repetition of target items had large effects (>500 ms). We propose that visual search in scenes is efficient because scene-specific forms of attentional guidance can eliminate most regions from the “functional set size” of items that could possibly be the target.     

To teach or to tell? Consequences of receiving help from experts and peers

Previous research has stressed the positive effects of receiving autonomy‐oriented help over dependency‐oriented help but has overlooked a potential downside in terms of recipients' evaluations of the helper. Participants in the current experiment (n = 77) requested help while working on difficult puzzles and received either autonomy‐ or dependency‐oriented help from either an expert or a peer. In line with previous findings, receiving autonomy‐oriented help led to more self‐competence and positive feelings than dependency‐oriented help. However, in support of our prediction, participants also felt angrier, had less respect for and less trust in the peer who provided autonomy‐oriented help than the peer who provided dependency‐oriented help. No differences in the evaluation of the expert helper were found. These findings highlight the importance of considering both the helpers' characteristics and the type of help provided when investigating the psychological consequences of receiving help. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Which preventive interventions effectively enhance depressed mothers' sensitivity? A meta‐analysis

Improving depressed mothers' sensitivity is assumed to be a key element in preventing adverse outcomes for children of such mothers. This meta‐analysis examines the short‐term effectiveness of preventive interventions in terms of enhancing depressed mothers' sensitivity toward their child and investigates what type of intervention is most effective. Thirteen interventions, reported in 10 controlled outcome studies, met the inclusion criteria (N = 918). Meta‐analytic results showed a small to medium, significant mean effect size (g = 0.32) with large variation in individual effect sizes (?0.56–1.76). Interventions including baby massage were highly effective in improving maternal sensitivity (g = 0.85). In contrast, individual therapy for the mother proved ineffective in terms of improving maternal sensitivity (g = ?0.00). Two other significant predictors of greater effect sizes were the inclusion of a support group and the use of a higher number of intervention methods; however, the significance of these results was largely accounted for by one single study. Our meta‐analysis confirms that depressed mothers' sensitivity can be improved by preventive intervention and suggests that baby massage may be an effective intervention method to evoke short‐term changes in maternal sensitivity. It is unclear whether these changes are maintained over time.