Review Essay on the Roots of Evil

I consider two essays by Joel Feinberg: his treatment of the moral obligation to obey the law, and his exploration of the evils of the Holocaust.     

Kindergartners' understanding of additive commutativity within the context of word problems

Baroody and Gannon (1984) proposed that children's understanding of additive commutativity progresses through several levels of understanding based on a unary view of addition (change meaning) before developing a "true" level of understanding based on a binary conception (part-whole meaning). Resnick (1992) implied that children have both a unary and a binary conception of additive commutativity from the earliest stages of development. Fifty-three 5- and 6-year-old (M = 6-0) kindergartners' unary and binary understanding of additive commutativity was investigated using performance on tasks involving change-add-to and part-part-whole word problems, respectively. The data were inconsistent with the predictions of both models and suggest three alternate theoretical explanations. Moreover, the data indicate that success on a task involving change-add-to problems may be a more rigorous test of understanding of additive commutativity than that involving part-part-whole problems.     

Wearable Activity Technology And Action-Planning (WATAAP) to promote physical activity in cancer survivors: Randomised controlled trial protocol

Background/Objective: Colorectal and gynecologic cancer survivors are at cardiovascular risk due to comorbidities and sedentary behaviour, warranting a feasible intervention to increase physical activity. The Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) is a promising theoretical framework for health behaviour change, and wearable physical activity trackers offer a novel means of self-monitoring physical activity for cancer survivors. Method: Sixty-eight survivors of colorectal and gynecologic cancer will be randomised into 12-week intervention and control groups. Intervention group participants will receive: a Fitbit Alta? to monitor physical activity, HAPA-based group sessions, booklet, and support phone-call. Participants in the control group will only receive the HAPA-based booklet. Physical activity (using accelerometers), blood pressure, BMI, and HAPA constructs will be assessed at baseline, 12-weeks (post-intervention) and 24-weeks (follow-up). Data analysis will use the Group x Time interaction from a General Linear Mixed Model analysis. Conclusions: Physical activity interventions that are acceptable and have robust theoretical underpinnings show promise for improving the health of cancer survivors.     

Clinical Cardiovascular Genetic Counselors Take a Leading Role in Team-based Variant Classification

We sought to delineate the genetic test review and interpretation practices of clinical cardiovascular genetic counselors. A one-time anonymous online survey was taken by 46 clinical cardiovascular genetic counselors recruited through the National Society of Genetic Counselors Cardiovascular Special Interest Group. Nearly all (95.7%) gather additional information on variants reported on clinical genetic test reports and most (81.4%) assess the classification of such variants. Clinical cardiovascular genetic counselors typically (81.0%) classify variants in collaboration with cardiologist and/or geneticist colleagues, with the genetic counselor as the team member who is primarily responsible. Variant classification is a relatively recent (mean 3.2 years) addition to practice. Most genetic counselors learned classification skills on the job from clinical and laboratory colleagues. Recent graduates were more likely to have learned this in graduate school (p?<?0.001). Genetic counselors are motivated to take responsibility for the classification of variants because of prior experiences with variant reclassification, inconsistencies between laboratories, and incomplete laboratory reports. They are also driven by a sense of professional duty and their proximity to the clinical context. This practice represents a broadening of the skill set of clinical cardiovascular genetic counselors and a unique expertise that they contribute to the interdisciplinary teams in which they work.     

Increasing prosocial behavior and academic achievement among adolescent African American males

African American adolescents disproportionately perform poorly compared to peers in both behavioral and academic aspects of their educational experience. In this study, African American male students participated in an after-school program involving tutoring, group counseling, and various enrichment activities. All students were assessed regarding their behavioral changes using attendance, discipline referrals, suspensions, and expulsions reports. The Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (KBIT) and the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement (KTEA) were used to assess the adolescents' improvement in their skills in reading and mathematics. After the end of the two-year program, initial results showed that the adolescents had increased their daily attendance, decreased discipline referrals, and had no suspensions or expulsions. These results also indicated that although the students entered the program at different skill levels, they were assessed to have the ability to function at their appropriate grade level. Their average improvement in basic skills was at least two grade levels. Implications drawn from the findings include: (a) there is a need to emphasize appropriate assessment prior to beginning a skill improvement program; (b) a need to emphasize the use of individualized learning plans and tutors; and (c) a need to further investigate the role of assessment and intervention in after-school programming in order to close the achievement gap.     

Group identification moderates attitudes toward ingroup members who confront discrimination

Three studies examined the hypothesis that group identification moderates African Americans’, Asian Americans’, and women’s attitudes toward fellow ingroup members who challenge an outgroup member’s discriminatory comments or who do not speak up about the comments. Highly identified racial minorities expressed more positive attitudes toward ingroup members who confronted discriminatory comments compared to those who did not confront; whereas weakly identified minorities did not express different attitudes across the two conditions. Among women, the weakly identified expressed more negative attitudes toward other women who confronted discrimination relative to those who did not confront; whereas highly identified women did not differentially evaluate ingroup members in the two conditions. The less women identified with their group, the more negatively they evaluated ingroup members who confronted sexism. This research highlights the important role of group identification in understanding how members of devalued groups respond toward ingroup members who take a stand against discrimination.     

What is the temperamental basis of humour like in China? A cross-national examination and validation of the standard version of the state–trait cheerfulness inventory

The State–Trait Cheerfulness Inventory–trait version (STCI-T60) consists of three dimensions of cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood integrated to measure the temperamental basis of the sense of humour. The present study replicated the three-dimensional factor structure of the STCI in China using 60 items consistent with other standard trait versions (e.g., English, Chilean-Spanish). Closer examination of associations between traits suggested bad mood showed curvilinear associations with both cheerfulness and seriousness, such that cheerfulness and bad mood were negatively associated for those low and average in trait bad mood but not for those with high trait bad mood. Seriousness was positively associated with bad mood at high levels of trait bad mood, but not at average or low levels of bad mood. Associations between the STCI traits and major personality dimensions, humour styles, and well-being were further examined. Cheerfulness and seriousness showed positive associations with satisfaction with life and emotional well-being (EWB) while bad mood showed a curvilinear association with EWB. Using multi-group confirmatory factor analyses, partial metric invariance was found between English and Chinese versions of the STCI-T60, but structural invariance was not observed. Implications based on the empirical literature in dialecticism and cross-cultural assessment were thoroughly discussed.     

Evaluating the “possums” health professional training in parent–infant sleep

Infant sleep problems are among the most common issues reported by parents in the postnatal period. Yet, infant sleep and infant sleep interventions remain controversial. This study evaluated health professional training in a novel approach to parent–infant sleep: the Possums Sleep Intervention. Health professionals (n = 144) completed a short survey before and after the training, which focused on the sleep component. The Possums Sleep Intervention training included the following topics: sleep science, cued care, sleep hygiene, relaxation for parents and babies, problem solving, and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Health professionals reported: improvements in knowledge on infant sleep regulation, the mother–infant relationship and ACT; improvements in health professionals’ own sleep quality; improvements in psychological flexibility; and a reduction in professional burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Moreover, the health professional training was received positively. Overall, this study is supportive of the Possums Sleep Intervention health professional training.     

From Gaze to Outrage: The Role of Group-Based Anger in Mediating the Relationship between Sexual Objectification and Collective Action

Numerous studies have demonstrated the harmful effects of sexual objectification on well-being. However, despite the rapid growth of the #MeToo movement, which has raised public awareness about sexual harassment, there has been much less research investigating the role of sexually objectifying behaviours in motivating people to try to tackle this issue through collective action (e.g., signing petitions, engaging in protests) and the process through which this occurs. Across two studies, we tested whether experiencing sexually objectifying behaviours motivates women to be willing to engage in collective action against sexual objectification via feelings of anger toward women being the target of such actions (i.e., group-based anger). In Studies 1 (n?=?127) and 2 (n?=?159), female participants rated the extent to which they had been the target of sexually objectifying behaviours, their feelings of group-based anger, and their willingness to engage in collective action against sexual objectification. We found that sexual objectification positively predicted the willingness to engage in collective action and that this relationship was mediated by feelings of group-based anger. This pattern suggests that experiencing numerous instances of sexual objectification is likely to result in women feeling group-based anger and that this anger, in turn, promotes collective action against sexual objectification. Therefore, our research demonstrates one process through which sexual objectification promotes a willingness to engage in collective action.

     

Beyond the family system

This paper comes from a workshop we ran at the 1980 A.F.T. Annual Conference at Bangor. It looks at the wider context of family therapy and the systemic view and attempts to open up areas for further investigation.