The Impact of Relationship Education on the Couple Relationship: A Grounded Theory of Intentionality and Awareness

Research on relationship education (RE) programs generally shows their effectiveness, but it is important to understand what the mechanisms of change are, how they occur within programs, and what participants experience. The purpose of this study was to explore couples' perceptions of the key components of their experience as participants of a Prep-based RE program. Research questions included: How do couples describe their experience of taking an 8-hour relationship education class? What elements had the biggest impact on their relationship? How has their relationship changed as a result of participation? Interview data from 39 married and cohabitating couples who participated in RE were analyzed using grounded theory methods. Six categories emerged from the analytic process, resulting in a model that provided explanatory detail of a typical RE program experience and its impact on the participants. These categories were: intentionality and awareness, context, relationship, workshop, impact (of RE), and couple interview. Couples described these categories as developing in a relatively chronological order, with Intentionality and Awareness being a central category that cut across the process and helped explain the impact of the program on the couple relationship. Implications for research, program development, and program facilitators providing RE are discussed.     

Prerequisites to Human Activity on Mars: Scientific and Ethical Aspects

Humans want to go to Mars now. This entails many difficult but solvable challenges. However, human activity on Mars depends on the answers to three fundamental questions: (1) Is there life on Mars, does that life represent at second genesis of life? (2) Can Earth life, and humans in particular, adapt to the Martian gravity of 0.38?g, and will human generations on Mars speciate from humans on Earth? (3) Is there enough carbon, nitrogen, and water on Mars to create a global habitable environment? These answers must be determined on Mars and will decide the scope of human activities.     

Promoting Preschoolers’ Emotional Competence Through Prosocial TV and Mobile App Use

This study explored the relationship between preschoolers’ exposure to Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood television programming and its accompanying mobile app and preschoolers’ emotion knowledge and use of emotion regulation strategies. An experiment involving 121 parent-child dyads from 3 US metro areas found that children who played with the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood app, and those who both played with the app and watched episodes of the program, employed the emotion regulation strategies taught by Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood media more frequently 1 month later than children in a control condition. Preschoolers (3- and 4-year-olds) also exhibited higher levels of emotion knowledge 1 month after playing with the app. In addition, watching Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood TV episodes in the home led to increases in parents’ provision of active mediation. Implications for families, educators, and producers of educational media content are discussed.     

On the dark side of work: a longitudinal analysis using self-determination theory

As the nature of work has changed in recent decades, employees are increasingly exposed to psychological demands in the workplace, which have associated consequences for employees, organizations, and society. Using self-determination theory, this study examined the dark side of work, in which frustration of basic psychological needs is associated with higher levels of work-related stress. In this model, work-related stress is associated with higher levels of somatic symptom burden, which in turn is associated with higher levels of emotional exhaustion, turnover intention, and absenteeism. Results of a longitudinal analysis using data from four time points over 15 months supported these predictions. Taken together, this study advances the literature towards an understanding of the (potential) detrimental impact that need-thwarting work contexts can have on employee wellness and work-related outcomes.     

Exploration of likely engagement with Monetary Contingency Contracts for weight loss: a questionnaire study

Monetary Contingency Contracts (MCCs) are schemes that ask individuals to pledge money that is returned contingent on behaviour change. In relation to weight loss, this study explored likely levels of engagement with MCCs, how much individuals would be willing to pay into an MCC, and how these amounts vary under different contract conditions. Fifty-six individuals with BMI above 25 who were motivated to lose weight were recruited. The majority of participants (87.5%) indicated that they would be willing to engage with weight loss MCCs, but showed more reluctance to subscribe to pair-based MCCs which offered; (a) refunds contingent on the weight loss of a weight loss partner, and (b) ‘all or nothing refunds’ in which no reward is given for any weight loss below the target weight loss goal. This study provides preliminary evidence that individuals motivated to lose weight may be willing to engage with weight loss MCCs. Further research is needed to explore reasons for reluctance to subscribe to MCCs with certain conditions, to inform the design of future experimental studies testing the efficacy of MCCs as part of an intervention for weight loss.     

Everyday worry in adolescents with and without chronic pain: a diary study

Young people report frequent worry, but we know little about the extent, character, or consequence of worry in adolescence, or individual differences associated with worry. Adolescents with chronic pain are one population that are known to have high levels of anxiety, which is associated with higher levels of disability and depression, impairing function. In this study we report a diary study: adolescents (N = 60; aged 16–18) recorded their worry over seven days. Our first aim was to describe the characteristics of adolescent worry and its consequences in a community sample. Our second aim was to compare the experience of girls to boys, and to compare the experience of those with and without chronic pain. Adolescents reported characteristics of each worry they had throughout the week, including content, frequency, strength, interference, emotion, and the strength of emotion associated with worry content. Adolescents reported the consequence for each content and the strength of the consequence. Worry content and consequences were categorised into four categories; health, relationship, personal competence, and other. Adolescents reported 675 unique episodes of worry over the seven-day period that were predominantly about personal competence. The strength of worry content was (M = 6.61, SD = 1.27) and the strength associated with the worry consequence was (M = 5.59, SD = 1.41). Worries were not reported as highly interfering (M = 4.14, SD = 1.61). Contrary to predictions, there were no differences in worry characteristics between adolescents with and without chronic pain. To conclude, worry is a frequent occurrence in older adolescents and the characteristics of worry are discussed. Adolescents worry mostly about personal competence. Adolescents with and without chronic pain reported similar worry characteristics.     

Genetic and environmental influences on early literacy skills across school grade contexts

Recent research suggests that the etiology of reading achievement can differ across environmental contexts. In the US, schools are commonly assigned grades (e.g. ‘A’, ‘B’) often interpreted to indicate school quality. This study explored differences in the etiology of early literacy skills for students based on these school grades. Participants included twins drawn from the Florida Twin Project on Reading (n = 1313 pairs) aged 4 to 10 years during the 2006–07 school year. Early literacy skills were assessed with DIBELS subtests: Oral Reading Fluency (ORF), Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF), Initial Sound Fluency (ISF), Letter Naming Fluency (LNF), and Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF). School grade data were retrieved from the Florida Department of Education. Multi‐group analyses were conducted separately for subsamples defined by ‘A’ or ‘non‐A’ schools, controlling for school‐level socioeconomic status. Results indicated significant etiological differences on pre‐reading skills (ISF, LNF, and PSF), but not word‐level reading skills (ORF and NWF). There was a consistent trend of greater environmental influences on pre‐reading skills in non‐A schools, arguably representing ‘poorer’ environmental contexts than the A schools. Importantly, this is the case outside of resources linked with school‐level SES, indicating that something about the direct environment on pre‐reading skills in the non‐A school context is more variable than for A schools.     

Spirituality and religion in psychiatry: the impact of policy

ABSTRACT

Research and debate on the importance of spirituality and religion in psychiatry has led to a number of national and international policy initiatives, intended to clarify the boundaries of good practice and improve the way in which such matters are managed for the benefit of patients. Significant amongst these is the 2015 position statement of the World Psychiatric Association, the only such policy statement to date which has been internationally agreed. Preliminary evidence available suggests that this is having good effect in generating professional debate and further national policy initiatives in different countries. There is a need for further research on such policy initiatives to confirm whether or not they have the intended impact upon clinical practice and whether or not this in turn is beneficial for patients.     

Caregivers’ Positive Emotional Expression and Children’s Psychological Functioning after Parental Loss

The death of a loved one, particularly a parent, has been identified as not only the most common, but also the most distressing form of adversity youth may experience in their lifetime. Surviving caregivers’ communication with their children may play a critical role in shaping bereaved children’s psychological functioning. However, few studies have examined the specific content (e.g., word usage) of caregivers’ verbal communication as a predictor of psychological functioning in bereaved youth. In a sample of 39 parentally-bereaved children and their surviving caregivers, we investigated whether the frequency of caregivers’ use of positive emotion words (e.g., “love”, “happy”, “hope”) during a reminiscing task about the deceased was associated with children’s psychological functioning and coping. In a cross-sectional analysis, we specifically examined whether these associations were moderated by the amount of time passed since children lost their parents. The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Program (LIWC) was used to code and evaluate the percentage of positive emotion words caregivers used during the discussion. When caregivers used more positive emotion words, children were less likely to experience depression, anxiety, and avoidant coping. Those associations were present for children who had experienced parental loss at least 105 days prior to the study.     

Treatment of self‐injurious behavior using differential punishment of high rates of behavior (DPH)

The purpose of the current investigation was to explore the effectiveness of differential punishment of high rates of behavior (DPH) to treat the severe self‐injury of a 28‐year‐old man with autism in an adult day program setting. DPH procedures involve the use of an established criterion related to a rate of responding within some time interval at which a punisher is delivered. The implementation of DPH in this study resulted in a substantial long‐term reduction of severe self‐injurious behavior. These findings are significant in that they provide a model for the design and implementation of punishment procedures that can be adopted in applied settings where staff resources are limited. The results of this study have implications for the treatment of severe problem behavior among individuals with autism across settings and age groups.