Preschoolers' Inhibition in Their Home: Relation to Temperament

Researchers assessed 58 preschoolers' reactions to an unfamiliar person and unfamiliar objects in their familiar home environment. Children participated in a 30-min procedure designed to elicit behavioral inhibition, including (a) a free-play period with a stranger present, (b) a structured interaction with the stranger, and (c) uncertainty-eliciting tasks. Behaviors representing the child's reactions toward the mother, stranger, and novel objects were coded. Mothers completed a temperament scale. Preschoolers exhibited behaviors indicative of inhibition toward unfamiliar social and nonsocial stimuli; behaviors remained stable across increasingly intrusive episodes. The approach/withdrawal component of temperament was related to behavioral inhibition. Individual differences in mood did not appear to be related to differences in inhibition. Parent reported temperament was related to researcher-observed behaviors.     

Adverse childhood experiences,religious/spiritual struggles,and mental health symptoms: examination of mediation models

Emerging research has documented greater risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression among young adults with prior adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Building upon prior findings, we hypothesised that religious/spiritual (R/S) struggles may serve as an intervening pathway through which accumulation of ACEs impacts mental health symptom severity in this population. Young adults (N?=?458) were recruited from a southeastern university to complete an online self-report survey that assessed for ACEs, lifetime trauma exposure, R/S struggles, PTSD and depressive symptomatology. Bivariate correlations yielded significant positive relationships between ACEs and all six types of R/S struggles, depression, and PTSD. Additionally, when accounting for non-childhood trauma exposure, the mediational analyses indicated an indirect effect of struggles with ultimate meaning on the well-establish association between ACEs and mental health symptoms. Clinical implications (such as the importance of fostering meaning making), study limitations, and future research directions are discussed.     

Age and schooling effects on early literacy and phoneme awareness

Previous research on age and schooling effects is largely restricted to studies of children who begin formal schooling at 6 years of age, and the measures of phoneme awareness used have typically lacked sensitivity for beginning readers. Our study addresses these issues by testing 4 to 6 year-olds (first 2 years of formal schooling in the United Kingdom) on a sensitive dynamic measure of phoneme awareness and tests of early literacy. There were significant effects of both age and schooling on the dynamic measure of phoneme awareness, word reading, spelling, and letter name knowledge, but there were no significant Age × Time interactions. This indicates that older children within this age group generally outperform their younger classmates (although they do not make faster progress) and that this advantage is developed prior to the start of school.     

Divine Therapy: Teaching Reflective and Meditative Practices

Abstract. Reflective and meditative practices, whether Eastern or Western, are being taught in multiple places – retreat houses, hospitals, Zen centers – but are rarely included in the theology classroom. What would be the rationale for inclusion of reflective/meditative practices in a theology curriculum that does not include such a theory/praxis course? What might a mystical tradition/reflective practice course look like? The author first explores the implications of a three‐semester pilot program – using guided imagery, spiritual journaling, iconography, and centering prayer – that was conducted with volunteers outside the classroom. Then, based on the experimental project, the author describes a course that blends global traditions with the best of the practices. The author concludes with an evaluation of the reflective/meditative practices and the praxis‐inclusive course in terms of possible long‐term effects on the personal development of the participants and the ministry of teaching and learning itself.     

Predicting psychological health: assessing the incremental validity of emotional intelligence beyond personality,Type A behaviour,and daily hassles

Although some research has linked emotional intelligence (EI) and psychological health, little research has examined EI's ability to predict health outcomes after controlling for related constructs, or EI's ability to moderate the stressor–strain relationship. The present study explored the relationships among EI (as assessed by a trait‐based measure, the EQ‐i), Big Five personality factors, Type A Behaviour Pattern (TABP), daily hassles, and psychological health/strain factors (in terms of perceived well‐being, strain, and three components of burnout). The EQ‐i was highly correlated with most aspects of personality and TABP. After controlling for the impact of hassles, personality, and TABP, the five EQ‐i subscales accounted for incremental variance in two of the five psychological health outcomes. However, the EQ‐i scales failed to moderate the hassles–strain relationship. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differential Daily Writing Conditions and Performance on Major Multiple-Choice Exams

Students (N=153) in three equivalent sections of an undergraduate human development course compared pairs of related concepts via either written or oral discussion at the beginning of most class sessions. A writing-for-random-credit section achieved significantly higher ratings on the writing activities than did a writing-for-no-credit section. The writing-for-random-credit section also obtained significantly higher correlations between the writing ratings and scores on multiple-choice exam items related to the conceptual pairs (r=.74) and on total exam scores (r=.78) than did the writing-for-no-credit section (rs=.45 and .43, respectively). Finally, the writing-for-random-credit condition produced significantly higher scores on exam items related to the conceptual pairs than did the oral-discussion-only condition. Plus, effect-size comparisons showed weak to medium differences between exam scores under the writing-for-random-credit and the writing-for-no-credit condition.     

Drug-associated psychoses and criminal responsibility

At present, the law draws a distinction when assigning criminal responsibility to those who commit offences while experiencing psychotic symptoms: if the symptoms are believed to arise because of ingesting drugs (an external cause), the offender is generally convicted of the offence; if the symptoms arise from a mental illness (an internal cause), the offender may be afforded a defence of insanity. In practice, drawing such a distinction can be problematic. There are difficulties for example in determining criminal responsibility when the use of drugs is followed by the emergence of a psychotic illness process that then continues to have an independent existence even in the absence of the ongoing substance use. This article analyses legal, policy, and expert witness perspectives relating to liberal, conservative, and intermediate approaches to this problematic area of jurisprudence.