Parenting Self‐Construals of Mothers With a Serious Mental Illness: Efficacy,Burden, and Personal Growth1

We explored parenting self‐construals among mothers with serious mental illness (n= 379). Mothers reported feeling moderately positively about themselves as parents, more efficacious than inefficacious, more positive than negative, more valued than disvalued; but also at least somewhat restricted and burdened by motherhood. Factor analyses revealed 3 parenting self‐construal factors: efficacious, burdened, and parenting as a personal growth experience. In hierarchical regression analyses, parenting self‐construal factors significantly added to prediction of parenting behaviors and attitudes (nurturance, explanatory parenting style, and parenting stress), once demographic, mental health history, and current social context variables (support, stress, and current mental health) were taken into account. Maternal parenting self‐efficacy increased (while self‐construal of parenting as a burden decreased) positive parenting style.     

Temporal changes in the affective experience of new fathers and their spouses

Our aim was to study temporal changes in fathers' affective experience during the first year of parenthood. For comparison, data also were collected from their spouses. Fifty‐five Israeli couples comprised the initial sample, and both partners were interviewed during the prepartum period and at 3, 6, and 12 months' postpartum. Measures of emotionality, positive affect, negative affect, and mood regarding self, infant, and spouse/marriage were derived by finely coding parents' answers to interview questions. Analyses show that, for fathers and mothers, time effects were most substantial between the prepartum period and 3 months postpartum, and most of the changes were in a positive direction. Fathers and mothers showed continuity in positive affect and in negative affect, respectively. Overall, the sample experienced heightened positive affect and more positive moods after the birth of their infant than prior to it.     

The Shield of Defense or the Sword of Prosecution?How Self‐Regulatory Focus Relates to Responses to Crime

People can strive to attain goals in one of two ways: They can be tolerant of risk and focus on attaining successes, or they can be intolerant of risk and focus on avoiding pitfalls and failures. These differences, termed promotion focus and prevention focus, respectively, have been related to differences in how personal goals are understood, but not yet applied to policy issues. Two studies examine the implications of chronic (Study 1) and experimentally induced (Study 2) promotion vs. prevention goals for a law‐and‐order mind set. Participants high in promotion focus assigned more punishment to a criminal (Study 1). Compared to prevention‐focused participants, experimentally induced promotion focus increased the likelihood of arresting a suspect and justifying this choice (Study 2).     

Interorganisational Relationships in Times of Decline: Implications for Organisational Resilience

We seek to delineate the processes by which work relationships between employees from buyer and supplier organisations can enhance the supplier's resilience. A micro-foundations perspective is taken to study the effect of individual-level relationships on these higher-level processes in the context of a declining organisation—a supplier that has been experiencing a period of size decline, following the transition of some of its stronger competitors to a more advanced generation of products. The findings of a qualitative study indicate that the work relationships built between employees from the supplier and the customers around current product and services offerings can help a declining organisation to cope with setbacks and difficulties. Expanding on the three C's of hardiness (challenge, control, and commitment), we discuss the implications of our research for the study of resilience through the lens of interorganisational work relationships and highlight the different pathways that build these coping and adaptation qualities for the organisation. Specifically, the challenge of transitioning to new products can negatively influence these work relationships unless the supplier organisation provides supportive context by allowing employees to retain the necessary control over what it takes to serve their customers. Furthermore, the supplier should display strong commitment to integrate the new offerings while customers need to mirror this commitment by developing a willingness to adopt these new offerings by the supplier. The findings further suggest that these new offerings can be translated into higher levels of adaptation.     

Searching high and low: domestic dogs’ understanding of solidity

Animal Cognition - Physical reasoning appears central to understanding how the world works, suggesting adaptive function across the animal kingdom. However, conclusive evidence for inferential...