Group Identification under Conditions of Threat: College Students' Attachment to Country, Family, Ethnicity, Religion, and University Before and After September 11, 2001

Three classes of introductory psychology students at the University of Pennsylvania completed a survey including several measures of group identification on 20 March 2001, 15 September 2001, and 24 March 2003. Importance of country and university were rated higher four days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks than six months before or 18 months after. Scores on a 9-item scale of identification with country were higher immediately after 9/11 than at the other two assessments. Four theories (group dynamics, CORFing, TMT, SIT) are considered; none predicts the whole pattern of results observed. Discussion highlights group dynamics theory for understanding the increase in identification with country and introduces the possibility that the increase in identification with university might have been a response to experiencing 9/11 as loss of control. Discussion also highlights the value of assessing level of identification with multiple identity groups in order to see the complexity of identity dynamics.     

Childhood obesity and parental reflective functioning: Is there a relation?

Background/ObjectiveIn recent decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has increased, with the major implications for public health. However, the factors that contribute to obesity in children are still poorly understood. The present study aimed to investigate the role of parental reflective functioning (PRF) in childhood obesity.MethodIn a cross-sectional design, 120 sets of parents of 60 children (n = 30 with obesity, age range 6–11) were recruited by local paediatricians. Parents completed the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire. Children's and parents’ weight (assessed by BMI), as well as their socio-economic status (SES), were assessed to explore the contribution of PRF in the prediction of children's weight, controlling for parents’ weight and SES.Resultst-test showed significant differences with medium effect sizes in BMI, SES and PRF between parents of children with and without obesity. The best model resulted from hierarchical multiple regression analyses and showed that mothers’ PRF predicted children's BMI above and beyond the prediction by parents’ BMI and SES.ConclusionsLow maternal PRF could be an important target for intervention strategies, highlighting the need to consider parental responses to children's emotions in the treatment of childhood obesity, particularly in parents with low SES and high BMI.     

“You Shouldn’t Look at Us Strangely”: An Exploratory Study on Personal Perspectives on Quality of Life of Adolescents with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders in Residential Youth Care

Applied Research in Quality of Life - Adolescents with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD) have complex needs and experience challenges in various developmental areas and life domains. The...     

The Meaning of ‘Good’ and the Possibility of Value

Philosophical Studies - Moore held that to call something good is to ascribe a property to it. But he denied that the property could be expressed in non-evaluative terms. Can one accept this view...     

Science undergraduates’ and graduates’ epistemologies of science: the notion of interpretive frameworks

First-year science (biology, chemistry, physics) undergraduates’ and advanced graduate students’ understanding of the scientific research process was assessed using two clinical interviews: the “Nature of Science Interview” (International Journal of Science Education 11 (1989) 514; Cognition and Instruction 18 (2000) 349) and the “Nature Nurture Interview” (Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, 1992) which offered a context (a fictitious conflict of a nature and a nurture theorist about the causes of nervousness in dogs). The participants’ answers were then subjected to a categorical analysis using a coding scheme that progresses from an undifferentiated understanding of science as action (Level 1) to an understanding of science as an iterative process of theory formation, testing, and revision with increasing depth of explanation (Level 5). Results indicate that neither group had a clear understanding of the necessity of framework theories for the scientific research process. While no clear developmental progression was found, differences between students majoring in different fields emerged.