The emotional impact of bullying and cyberbullying on victims: a European cross-national study

Past research has demonstrated the effects of bullying can be severe and long term for the individuals involved. The main aim of this study is to analyze the emotional impact on victims of traditional bullying, both direct and indirect forms, and of cyberbullying through mobile phones and the Internet. A sample of 5,862 adolescents from three different countries, Italy (N = 1,964), Spain (N = 1,671), and England (N = 2,227), responded to a questionnaire that asked if they had experience of various forms of bullying, and the consequent emotional impact. The results show that both traditional bullying and cyberbullying have a significant prevalence in the samples. Emotional responses are linked to types of bullying. Analysis of answers identified specific emotional profiles for the different types of bullying and cyberbullying. Direct bullying and cyberbullying via mobile phone showed similar profiles, and also indirect bullying and cyberbullying using the Internet. Similarities and differences between profiles are discussed and some hypotheses are presented to explain the results. In addition, school grade, gender, country, and severity of bullying episodes were related to the specific emotional profiles of each type of bullying. Aggr. Behav. 38:342‐356, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Parenting and the dysregulation profile predict executive functioning in children with acquired brain injury

Background: Children with acquired brain injury (ABI) present with high rates of psychological disorders commonly accompanied by deficits in hot and cold executive functions (EFs). Impairments in EFs have been reported to precede mental health problems. Moreover, children who are vulnerable to developing mental health problems in adulthood frequently present with a dysregulation profile in childhood, characterized by impairments in cognitive, behavioral and emotional regulation. Objective: To identify profiles of behaviors associated with impairment in hot and cold EFs and compare injury factors, environmental stressors and dysregulation profile between them. Methods: A latent profile analysis was conducted with 77 children with ABI aged between 6 and 12. Injury factors, child IQ, environmental stressors and the dysregulation profile were compared between these behavioral profiles. Logistic regressions were conducted to predict profile membership. Results: Two profiles were identified: Profile M, with mild deficits (1–2 SD above the mean) in working memory and social skills, and profile C, presenting clinically significant deficits (2–3 SD above the mean) in shift, initiate, working memory, planning and social skills and mild deficits in inhibit, emotional control and task monitor. Proximal environmental stressors (dysfunctional parenting practices, parental stress, parent’s executive dysfunction, anxiety-trait, and depressive symptoms) and dysregulation symptoms predicted profile membership, whereas injury factors, child IQ and distal environmental stressors did not. Conclusion: Following ABI, children with profile C are at risk of mental health problems and present with more proximal stressors. The dysregulation profile may be useful as a proxy for risk for later mental health problems in children with ABI.     

Stimulus-specific dynamics of learning in conjunction search tasks

We investigated the time course of learning in visual search for within-dimension conjunctions in homogeneous (inverted V in Vs) or heterogeneous distractors (L in 90° counterclockwise-rotated Ls and 180° rotated Ls), and for across-dimension conjunctions search (green\in green/s and red\s). Two learning sessions of 10 and 5 blocks each took place three months apart. In the first session, the reduction in mean search time was greater for within-dimension conjunctions with heterogeneous distractors. Learning endured from one session to the other for all stimuli, suggesting that learning can be long-term in search for feature conjunctions. However, when the positional regularity between elements was perturbed, the effect of prior learning was reduced for homogeneous within-dimension conjunctions. This suggests that, for these stimuli, learning facilitates grouping by positional regularity. Finally, the learning effect with homogeneous withindimension conjunctions disappeared when both target and distractors were rotated to modify the orientation of conjunction patterns. This suggests that learning improves a grouping mechanism selective for the relative orientations of combined form features.     

Return of Genetic Results in the Familial Dilated Cardiomyopathy Research Project

The goal of the Familial Dilated Cardiomyopathy (FDC) Research Project, initiated in 1993, has been to identify and characterize FDC genetic cause. All participating individuals have been consented for the return of genetic results, an important but challenging undertaking. Since the inception of the Project we have enrolled 606 probands, and 269 of these had 1670 family members also enrolled. Each subject was evaluated for idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDC) and pedigrees were categorized as familial or sporadic. The coding regions of 14 genes were resequenced in 311 to 324 probands in five studies. Ninety-two probands were found to carry nonsynonymous rare variants absent in controls, and with Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment of 1988 (CLIA) compliant protocols, relevant genetic results were returned to these probands and their consented relatives by study genetic counselors and physicians in 353 letters. In 10 of the 51 families that received results >1 year ago, at least 23 individuals underwent CLIA confirmation testing for their family’s rare variant. Return of genetic results has been successfully undertaken in the FDC Research Project. This report describes the methods utilized in the process of returning research results. We use this information as a springboard for providing guidance to other genetic research groups and proposing future directions in this arena.     

Genetic Counseling/Consultation in South-East Asia: A Report from the Workshop at the 10th Asia Pacific Conference on Human Genetics

This paper reports on the workshop ‘Genetic Counseling/Consultations in South-East Asia’ at the 10^th Asia Pacific Conference on Human Genetics in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in December 2012. The workshop brought together professionals and language/communication scholars from South-East Asia, and the UK. The workshop aimed at addressing culture- and context-specific genetic counseling/consultation practices in South-East Asia. As a way of contextualizing genetic counseling/consultation in South-East Asia, we first offer an overview of communication-oriented research generally, drawing attention to consultation and counseling as part of a communicative continuum with distinctive interactional features. We then provide examples of genetic counseling/consultation research in Hong Kong. As other countries in South-East Asia have not yet embarked on communication-oriented empirical research, we report on the current practices of genetic counseling/consultation in these countries in order to identify similarities and differences as well as key obstacles that could be addressed through future research. Three issues emerged as ‘problematic’: language, religion and culture. We suggest that communication-oriented research can provide a starting point for evidence-based reflections on how to incorporate a counseling mentality in genetic consultation. To conclude, we discuss the need for creating a platform for targeted training of genetic counselors based on communication-oriented research findings.     

Spiritual Coping in American Buddhists: An Exploratory Study

Researchers in the United States have examined spiritual coping in Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Muslims, but rarely Buddhists. Using qualitative methodology, the present study represents an initial investigation into Buddhist forms of coping. Twenty-four Buddhists from across the United States were interviewed by phone, examining how their spirituality is used to cope with stress. Thematic analyses revealed six forms of Buddhist coping—right understanding, meditation, mindfulness, spiritual struggles, morality, and finding support in one's sangha. Implications of the study are discussed, including possibilities for future research on Buddhist coping.     

Therapists’ perspectives about working with meaning in life in psychotherapy: A survey

Of 212 practicing therapists who completed a survey about working with meaning in life (MIL) in psychotherapy, 129 (61%) had recently worked with MIL with at least one client and reported on their work with a client in this survey. Those therapists who had worked with a client on MIL as compared with those who had not were older, more experienced, more humanistic/existential/experiential in orientation; reported more MIL training; and felt more competent working with MIL. Clients reported on primarily had internalizing, interpersonal, and career issues. Only 12% of clients explicitly labeled MIL as an issue coming into therapy. The three most frequently used interventions involved offering support; helping clients examine thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to discover hopes and goals; and facilitating exploration of MIL cognitions and experiences. Therapists reported many positive consequences from working with MIL. Therapists reported minimal training in MIL and moderate competence in working with MIL. Implications for practice, training, and research are presented.     

Effects of aging on interference control in selective attention and working memory

Working memory decay in advanced age has been attributed to a concurrent decrease in the ability to control interference. The present study contrasted a form of interference control in selective attention that acts upon the perception of external stimuli (access) with another form that operates on internal representations in working memory (deletion), in order to determine both of their effects on working memory efficiency in younger and older adults. Additionally, we compared memory performance under these access and deletion functions to performance in their respective control conditions. The results indicated that memory accuracy improved in both age groups from the access functions, but that only young adults benefited from the deletion functions. In addition, intrusion effects in the deletion condition were larger in older than in younger adults. The ability to control the irrelevant perception- and memory-elicited interference did not decline in general with advancing age; rather, the control mechanisms that operate on internal memory representations declined specifically.     

Aesthetic preferences and the attribution of meaning: Environmental categorization processes in the evaluation of urban scenes

In the context of research into scenic quality, the purpose of the present paper is to establish categories of urban landscapes on the basis of users' aesthetic judgements. It also explores the role that the restorative capacity of a place—in terms of the attentional restoration theory (ART)—together with a set of aesthetic attributes, may play in more or less valued places in a city. A total of 132 residents from Málaga (Spain) were chosen, with the city providing the physical framework for environmental reference. A questionnaire designed for easy self‐administration by subjects was used to collect information. Subjects were asked to identify three places in Málaga that they considered to be most attractive and three that they considered least attractive. Participants were asked to evaluate both the restorative properties—in terms of the ART—and the extent to which their first choice displayed certain environmental characteristics. Participants expressed a clear aesthetic preference for recreational sites for leisure/walking as well as those closely linked to the city's historical‐cultural identity. The research also identified other categories of visual settings that could be used as a focal point around which to centre future samples of scenes in a city context. Finally, the results obtained from the characterization of more and less attractive places, from the variables used in this study, shed light on the dimensions of underlying meaning that individuals use to categorize their environment and reinforce the idea that environmental aesthetics seem to play an important role in individuals' general well‐being.     

Environmentalism,right‐wing extremism,and social justice beliefs among East German adolescents

This study uses a representative population (N = 3331) of East German mainstream adolescents to examine how the competing worldviews of environmentalism and right‐wing extremism differently structure social justice beliefs. Integrating three theoretical considerations (object of worry, scope of justice, and underlying values) it suggests that these two worldviews have implicit assumptions that associate them in subtler ways with some specific conceptions of justice. The environmentalist worldview was found to be associated with egalitarianism, which may be explained by environmentalism's concern with societal and global problems, its broad inclusionary scope of justice, and the self‐transcendent values it advocates. In contrast, right‐wing extremism was found to be associated with anti‐egalitarianism, which can be attributed to its concern with the welfare of the in‐group, its relative narrow exclusionary scope of justice, and its self‐interest values of competition and individualism. After controlling for the possible effects of gender and socioeconomic status, these claims were mostly supported by hierarchical regression empirical analyses. Moreover, findings showed that endorsement of the environmentalist stance is more common than endorsement of the right‐wing extremist stance. Finally, females tend to endorse the environmentalist stance and prefer egalitarianism, while males tend to endorse the right‐wing extremist stance and prefer the equity principle. Further internal and external validation of the constructs by means of the examination of their nomological network is recommended. Moreover, results of this study are discussed in light of globalization processes and recent developments regarding a “third position,” according to which pro‐environmental and right‐wing extremist views are intermingled, i.e., right‐wing extremist groups can advocate a pro‐environmental view just as pro‐environmental groups can adopt a right‐wing extremist position.