Predictors of Support for Women in Military Roles: Military Status,Gender, and Political Ideology

The repeal of combat restrictions by gender raises the importance of understanding factors related to the acceptance of women serving in the full range of military jobs. Previous research shows military affiliated cadets, especially males, are substantially less approving of women serving in military jobs, especially those involving exposure to direct combat or command positions, than are other college students. The current study extends these findings by considering political ideology in addition to gender and military affiliation, as related to attitudes toward women’s roles in the military overall and in combat roles in particular. Survey data from Service Academy cadets (n = 3,116), Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets (n = 1,367), and nonmilitary affiliated college students (n = 2,648), provided measures of whether a woman should or should not be allowed to serve in 9 different military job areas. In addition to overall approval, a scale for combat jobs was created from a subset of 4 of the jobs. Regression analysis indicated that once gender, political party, political position (left/right), and attitudes toward mothers in the workforce overall were controlled, type of college did not add to the prediction of acceptance of women in various military roles. In general, nonmilitary affiliated respondents, women, and those identifying as Democrat offered higher approval scores. Our findings suggest more aggressive programs, designed to educate and socialize these future leaders about women’s roles in the military, may require development.     

Does treatment modality affect career counseling effectiveness?

This meta-analysis involved the direct comparison of treatment modalities used in career interventions. In general, interventions that did not involve a counselor were found to be less effective than other modalities. Results also indicated that workshops or structured groups tended to produce better outcomes than non-structured career counseling groups. Furthermore, participants who used a career computer system supplemented by counseling had better outcomes than those who just used a computer system. Many of the comparisons involved comparing counselor-free interventions to other counselor-free interventions; however, this analysis did not find any significant moderators to effect size variation. There was also significant variation in workshops/structured groups and additional research is needed to analyze workshop content and client attributes.     

Social anxiety and emotion regulation flexibility: considering emotion intensity and type as contextual factors

Background and objectives: Individuals with social anxiety disorder have often been considered inflexible in their emotion regulation. The aim of this study was to investigate emotion regulation flexibility in socially anxious individuals in response to two contextual factors, namely different levels of emotion intensity and emotion type.

Methods: A daily diary approach was employed, investigating emotion regulation (i.e., experiential avoidance, expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal) in college students scoring high (N?=?62; HSA) and low (N?=?52; LSA) on social anxiety.

Results: Results revealed that HSAs were found to use more experiential avoidance than LSAs, especially at higher levels of negative intensity. The use of this emotion regulation strategy appeared to be driven by guilt, nervousness, and sadness. There were no between-group differences concerning the other strategies in response to varying levels of emotional intensity.

Conclusions: Together, the results provide evidence for inflexible emotion regulation in HSAs, reflected in an unwillingness to experience negative emotions.     

The Adult Attachment Interview and observed couple interaction: implications for an intergenerational perspective on couple therapy

One of the assumptions of intergenerational family therapy is that how a person thinks and talks about family-of-origin experiences has important implications for current family relationships. The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) is a measure of attachment security based on how coherently the person can discuss attachment experiences in childhood. This study examined the relationship between attachment security, as measured by the AAI, and couple interaction, as measured by the Georgia Marriage Q-Sort (GMQ), in a sample of 28 couples in therapy for relationship problems. During a conflict resolution discussion, those individuals who were less coherent in discussing their family of origin expressed more negative affect, less respect, less openness, more avoidance, and less willingness to negotiate when interacting with their partner. No evidence of intra-couple effects or "buffering" was found. The findings support a key assumption of intergenerational approaches to family therapy and suggest that applying attachment theory is a promising direction for refining and developing new interventions for couples.     

Building Leadership,Capacity, and Power to Advance Health Equity and Justice through Community‐Engaged Research in the Midwest

The Health Equity Advancement Lab (HEAL) at the University of Iowa College of Public Health began in 2012 to support students, researchers, and community members interested in tackling persistent health inequities through a community‐based participatory research (CBPR) approach. Using concepts from critical consciousness theory, we developed an approach to building students’, faculty members’, and community partners’ capacity to engage in CBPR to promote health equity that involved immersion in developing CBPR projects. Our paper describes the evolution of HEAL as a facilitating structure that provides a support network and engages diverse stakeholders in critical reflection as they participate in research to advance health equity, and resulting political efficacy and social action. We describe one HEAL‐affiliated research project that employs a CBPR approach and has a strong focus on providing transformative learning experiences for students, faculty, and community members. We highlight challenges, successes, and lessons learned in the application of critical consciousness as a framework that engages diverse academic and community partners seeking to promote health equity. We argue that critical consciousness is a relevant theoretical framework to promote transformative learning among students, faculty, and community partners to promote health equity research in diverse communities.     

“Running on fumes”: emotional exhaustion and burnout of teachers following a natural disaster

This study reports on the emotional exhaustion and burnout of five teachers who acted as first responders when a large earthquake struck their city during school hours. Eighteen months after the earthquake, these teachers recounted, then discussed their earthquake experiences. Teachers used a mood meter (Brackett and Kremenitzer, Creating emotionally literate classrooms: an introduction to the RULER approach to social and emotional learning, Dude Publishing, New York, 2011) to indicate their core affect for three situations; in the early aftermath of the earthquake (recollected); at the time of the interview, and in their present teaching. They also completed a series of questionnaires, including the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (Watson et al. in J Pers Soc Psychol 54(6):1063–1070, 1988), and the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, Adapted for Teachers (Milfont et al. in Soc Indic Res 89(1):169–177, 2008.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-007-9229-9). The mood meter was a valuable tool for tracking the core affect of a group of teachers as a whole, over time and in different contexts. Generally, teachers showed improved core affect over time. However, the mood meter also revealed individual variations and differences in core affect over time and in different contexts. The findings revealed the individual nature of teachers’ current emotional exhaustion and burnout in response to the unique antecedents that each teacher experienced during this period. With a new and innovative use of the mood meter as part of the interview process, it has revealed insightful qualitative data for understanding and making sense of the teachers’ emotional responses and ways to interpret these. Overall, this study confirms the importance and value of within-teacher experiential research examining the experiences, emotional exhaustion and burnout of individual teachers.     

A Pilot Study Assessing the Effectiveness of Equine-Assisted Learning with Adolescents

This study contains an observation of six female participants (N = 6) who completed 8 weeks of a psychoeducational life skills program. The program included psychoeducational sessions that covered life skills related to partnership, respect, boundaries, communication, emotional regulation, problem-solving, and teamwork followed by an Equine-Assisted Learning (EAL) session. A paired sample t-test was conducted to measure the effectiveness of the equine therapy program with the psychoeducation lesson. A mental health professional, equine specialist, and a ranch worker observed and scored participants’ behaviors after each session. A paired-samples t-test was conducted after week 4 and week 7; the results indicated that participants showed improvement in communication, confidence, and respect scores. The participants demonstrated improvements with emotional regulation t(11) = 2.862, p = .015.     

Specificity of the Association between Marital Discord and Longitudinal Changes in Symptoms of Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder in the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing

This longitudinal study was conducted to evaluate actor and partner effects of marital discord on changes in symptoms of depression and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) in a large population sample of Irish adults (N = 1,445 couples), adjusting for the potential confounds of quality of other social relationships and other psychopathology symptoms. The Actor–Partner Interdependence Model was used to examine actor and partner effects of marital discord on changes in symptoms of depression and GAD at a 2‐year follow‐up. Additional models examined these associations adjusting for family and friend discord and symptoms of the other type of psychopathology (depressive or GAD symptoms). Actor effects of marital discord on depressive and anxiety symptoms were greater for men than for women. There were significant, positive actor effects of marital discord on depressive symptoms for husbands and wives, which remained significant when adjusting for family and friend discord and GAD symptoms. There were significant, positive actor effects of marital discord on GAD symptoms for husbands, which remained significant when adjusting for family and friend discord and depressive symptoms. Results demonstrate that longitudinal associations between marital discord and depressive symptoms (for wives and husbands) and GAD symptoms (for husbands) are incremental to other rival explanations (family and friend discord and the other set of symptoms). Findings provide evidence for a potential causal association leading from marital discord to symptoms of depression and GAD.     

Effects of a 12-month pedometer walking program on gait, body mass index, and lower extremity function in obese women

This study evaluated the effects of a self-reported pedometer-walking program on gait, lower extremity function, and Body Mass Index for 33 obese women, ages 31-65 years (M = 48.0, SD = 8.0) and whose initial average Body Mass Index was 40.30 +/- 9.60 kg/m2. During the 12-mo. intervention participants wore pedometers and reported the number of daily steps walked. Body Mass Index, three gait parameters, steps/day, and lower extremity function were taken over 3-mo. intervals. All participants increased in gait velocity, % single-leg support, and lower extremity function, and decreased in Body Mass Index over time. Those whose steps/day increased by 2000 over 6 mo. had significantly faster velocities and longer step lengths than those whose steps/day did not increase. The 1-yr. walking program stimulated changes in gait, Body Mass Index, and lower extremity function for these obese women. Ultimately, these changes may reduce the risk of falls for this group of women.