The Escape Theory of Suicide in College Students: Testing a Model That Includes Perfectionism

A model of the escape theory of suicide was tested, using the following measures: the Life Experiences Survey, the Socially Prescribed Perfectionism subscale, the Self-Rating Depression Scale, the Hopelessness Scale, the Reasons for Living Inventory, and the Scale for Suicide Ideation. College students (N = 114) completed all of these measures, and results were correlated. LISREL path analysis failed to validate the proposed model. All proposed paths were significant, except for the reciprocal path proposed between negative life events and socially prescribed perfectionism. Two residual paths were also significant: from socially prescribed perfectionism to suicide ideation, and from hopelessness to suicide ideation. A revised model constructed from these significant paths had a good overall fit, which suggests that an interactional model is more appropriate than a linear one.     

Cognitive Processing and Self-Report of Lateral Preference

Our knowledge of the human brain has increased more during the past 40 years than at any other time in history. Of particular interest have been the findings of a correspondence between cognitive functions and individual structures of the brain. Similar from a gross anatomical point of view, the hemispheres of the brain have been shown to serve specialized cognitive functions. This work offers an overview of the cognitive aspects of cerebral lateralization as a context for considering this issue, followed by a review of specific self-report techniques in the appraisal of lateral preference.     

Much More Than PTSD: Mothers’ Narratives of the Impact of Trauma on Child Survivors and Their Families

This study examined the narratives of ten Caucasian mothers whose children had been impacted by ‘traumatic’ events and referred to a specialist trauma service in N. Ireland. The research question was whether the PTSD construct adequately represented the broad ‘lived’ experience of the impact of trauma on survivors’ wellbeing and their family relationships as articulated by mothers post trauma. Narrative Interviewing methodology was employed and the resulting data inductively organised into an evolving thematic framework. A quantitative analysis of the prevalence of particular themes is presented supplemented by qualitative quotations to illustrate the complexity of reported impact. The major components of the mothers’ narratives included family and relational distress (35.7%), non-pathological individual distress (24.4%), resilience (16.7%) and a prior history of adversity (16.6%). Prior history of adversity was resent in 8 out the 10 cases including a high level of suicide. PTSD symptomatology constituted a small proportion of the narratives (6.6%) and this suggests that the PTSD construct does not adequately represent the broad ‘lived’ experience of the impact of trauma. Although a small and heterogeneous study sample, the findings are sufficiently robust to suggest further investigation is required to understand the phenomenological experience of trauma of child victims/survivors and their families.     

Train the child and teach the adult: Developing intervention strategies for increasing seafood consumption

Despite increasing levels of per capita seafood consumption globally, consumption levels across the population vary with many consumers eating less than recommended weekly intakes. This study investigates the influence of childhood patterns of seafood consumption, consumer confidence in selecting and preparing seafood, adult eating habits, and lifestyle on seafood consumption. Partial least squares structural equation modelling analysis was conducted using a sample of 1,318 Australian adults. The results show that consuming seafood regularly in childhood and developing the confidence to select and prepare seafood as an adult contribute to the development of seafood eating habits. Subsequently, a habit of consuming seafood leads to a lifestyle involving regular consumption of seafood. The results indicate the need to develop and implement intervention strategies for encouraging childhood seafood consumption (“train the child”) and increasing adults' confidence in selecting and preparing seafood (“teach the adult”). Intervention strategies proposed include educational programmes targeted at both children and adults, combined with the development of seafood products that appeal to children and suit the changing lifestyle needs of today's 21st century consumers.     

Reading Without Words: Eye Movements in the Comprehension of Comic Strips

The study of attention in pictures is mostly limited to individual images. When we ‘read’ a visual narrative (e.g., a comic strip), the pictures have a coherent sequence, but it is not known how this affects attention. In two experiments, we eyetracked participants in order to investigate how disrupting the visual sequence of a comic strip would affect attention. Both when panels were presented one at a time (Experiment 1) and when a sequence was presented all together (Experiment 2), pictures were understood more quickly and with fewer fixations when in their original order. When order was randomised, the same pictures required more attention and additional ‘regressions’. Fixation distributions also differed when the narrative was intact, showing that context affects where we look. This reveals the role of top‐down structures when we attend to pictorial information, as well as providing a springboard for applied research into attention within image sequences.Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Why Ockham’s Razor should be preferred to the Laser

Philosophical Studies - Ockham’s Razor advises us to not multiply entities (or kinds of entities) without necessity. Recently, Jonathan Schaffer and Karen Bennett have argued that we ought to...     

“Coming Out” to Parents in a Christian Context: A Consensual Qualitative Analysis of LGB Student Experiences

Disclosures of same-sex attraction are some of the most difficult experiences for lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals. For LGB individuals of faith, disclosure to parents is often complicated by the intersection of religion/spirituality and sexuality. This study presents a grounded theory about a particular subgroup to address gaps in the literature concerning how LGB students on Christian college campuses describe and experience their parental disclosures. Consensual qualitative research analysis (Hill, Knox, Thompson, Williams, & Hess, 2005; Hill, Thompson, & Williams, 1997) revealed themes related to predisclosure influencing factors, the disclosure event experience, and longer term impacts of the disclosure. Implications for parents, counselors, and college faculty/staff are provided.     

Configural information in facial expression perception

Composite facial expressions were prepared by aligning the top half of one expression (e.g., anger) with the bottom half of another (e.g., happiness). Experiment 1 shows that participants are slower to identify the expression in either half of these composite images relative to a "noncomposite" control condition in which the 2 halves are misaligned. This parallels the composite effect for facial identity (A. W. Young, D. Hellawell, & D. C. Hay, 1987), and like its identity counterpart, the effect is disrupted by inverting the stimuli (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 shows that no composite effect is found when the top and bottom sections contain different models' faces posing the same expression; this serves to exclude many nonconfigural interpretations of the composite effect (e.g., that composites are more "attention-grabbing" than noncomposites). Finally, Experiment 4 demonstrates that the composite effects for identity and expression operate independently of one another.