Parents' ethnic-racial socialization practices: a review of research and directions for future study

Recently, there has been an emergence of literature on the mechanisms through which parents transmit information, values, and perspectives about ethnicity and race to their children, commonly referred to as racial or ethnic socialization. This literature has sought to document the nature of such socialization, its antecedents in parents' and children's characteristics and experiences, and its consequences for children's well-being and development. In this article, the authors integrate and synthesize what is known about racial and ethnic socialization on the basis of current empirical research, examining studies concerning its nature and frequency; its child, parent, and ecological predictors; and its consequences for children's development, including ethnic identity, self-esteem, coping with discrimination, academic achievement, and psychosocial well-being. The authors also discuss conceptual and methodological limitations of the literature and suggest directions for future research.     

Possible selves and academic outcomes: How and when possible selves impel action

Puzzled by the gap between academic attainment and academic possible selves (APSs) among low-income and minority teens, the authors hypothesized that APSs alone are not enough unless linked with plausible strategies, made to feel like "true" selves and connected with social identity. A brief intervention to link APSs with strategies, create a context in which social and personal identities felt congruent, and change the meaning associated with difficulty in pursuing APSs (n = 141 experimental, n = 123 control low-income 8th graders) increased success in moving toward APS goals: academic initiative, standardized test scores, and grades improved; and depression, absences, and in-school misbehavior declined. Effects were sustained over a 2-year follow-up and were mediated by change in possible selves.     

Event-related fMRI of category learning: differences in classification and feedback networks

Eighteen healthy young adults underwent event-related (ER) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain while performing a visual category learning task. The specific category learning task required subjects to extract the rules that guide classification of quasi-random patterns of dots into categories. Following each classification choice, visual feedback was presented. The average hemodynamic response was calculated across the eighteen subjects to identify the separate networks associated with both classification and feedback. Random-effects analyses identified the different networks implicated during the classification and feedback phases of each trial. The regions included prefrontal cortex, frontal eye fields, supplementary motor and eye fields, thalamus, caudate, superior and inferior parietal lobules, and areas within visual cortex. The differences between classification and feedback were identified as (i) overall higher volumes and signal intensities during classification as compared to feedback, (ii) involvement of the thalamus and superior parietal regions during the classification phase of each trial, and (iii) differential involvement of the caudate head during feedback. The effects of learning were then evaluated for both classification and feedback. Early in learning, subjects showed increased activation in the hippocampal regions during classification and activation in the heads of the caudate nuclei during the corresponding feedback phases. The findings suggest that early stages of prototype-distortion learning are characterized by networks previously associated with strategies of explicit memory and hypothesis testing. However as learning progresses the networks change. This finding suggests that the cognitive strategies also change during prototype-distortion learning.     

The aim of the training analysis

Although the training analysis is considered by many to be the most important element of a candidate's analytic training, its aim remains unclear. Some think of the training analysis as being a strictly therapeutic tool, while others assign it a more frankly educational role. This paper reviews the literature on this topic from Freud to the present, discusses the problems that lack of clarity about the aim of the training analysis generates for psychoanalytic education, and proposes future research in this area.     

Social learning in pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) and adult humans (Homo sapiens) on a two-action artificial fruit

An artificial fruit (AF) was used to test for social learning in pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) and adult humans (Homo sapiens). A monkey demonstrator opened the AF, showing alternative methods to 2 groups of cage mates. Video films of the monkey demonstrations were presented to adult humans. Compared with chimpanzees and children, the macaques watched the demonstrations significantly less and in a much more sporadic manner. They also produced only very weak and transitory evidence of social learning. In contrast, the adult humans performed as one might expect of optimum imitators, even producing evidence of components of a "ratchet effect."     

Loss aversion is an affective forecasting error

Loss aversion occurs because people expect losses to have greater hedonic impact than gains of equal magnitude. In two studies, people predicted that losses in a gambling task would have greater hedonic impact than would gains of equal magnitude, but when people actually gambled, losses did not have as much of an emotional impact as they predicted. People overestimated the hedonic impact of losses because they underestimated their tendency to rationalize losses and overestimated their tendency to dwell on losses. The asymmetrical impact of losses and gains was thus more a property of affective forecasts than a property of affective experience.     

The personality construct of hardiness, III: Relationships with repression, innovativeness, authoritarianism, and performance

Previous research has established hardiness as a dispositional factor in preserving and enhancing performance and health despite stressful circumstances. The present four studies continue this construct-validational process by (a) introducing a shortened version of the hardiness measure and (b) testing hypotheses concerning the relationship between hardiness and repressive coping, right-wing authoritarianism, innovative behavior, and billable hours (a measure of consulting effectiveness). Results of these studies suggest the adequate reliability and validity of the Personal Views Survey III-R, which is the shortened, 18-item measure of hardiness. Further, results support the hypothesis that the relationship of hardiness is negative with repressive coping and right-wing authoritarianism and positive with innovative behavior and billable hours. Hardiness also appears unrelated to socially desirable responding.     

The relationship between pre-treatment clinical profile and treatment outcome in an integrated stuttering program

A procedure for subtyping individuals who stutter and its relationship to treatment outcome is explored. Twenty-five adult participants of the Comprehensive Stuttering Program (CSP) were classified according to: (1) stuttering severity and (2) severity of negative emotions and cognitions associated with their speech problem. Speech characteristics (percentage of stuttered syllables, distorted speech score, and the number of correctly produced syllables on a diadochokinesis task) and emotional/cognitive states (emotional reaction, speech satisfaction, and attitudes toward speaking) were assessed before and after treatment, and at a 1- and 2-year follow-up. The results showed that: (a) there was no relationship between stuttering severity and the severity of negative emotions and cognitions, (b) the severe stuttering group had the largest treatment gains but also the highest level of regression, and (c) at post-treatment and both follow-up assessments the differences on measures of emotions between the mild and severe emotional group had disappeared, chiefly due to a large decrease in the latter group's negative emotions and cognitions. Our findings show that, based on treatment gains, specific subgroups can be identified, each requiring different treatment approaches. This underlines the necessity of developing a better understanding of how various dimensions of stuttering relate to treatment outcome. Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (1) describe why stuttering severity and negative emotions and cognitions that are related to stuttering should be investigated separately and (2) describe how treatment outcome relates to subtypes of persons who stutter.     

Life Balance and Well‐Being: Testing a Novel Conceptual and Measurement Approach

ABSTRACT Although a balanced life has always been viewed as desirable, there are problems with extant conceptualizations and measures of this construct. Here we introduce 2 new life‐balance measures, based on time‐use profiles, that address these problems. One defines life balance as objectively equitable time use across multiple life domains, and the other defines life balance as low subjective discrepancy between actual and ideal time‐use profiles. Study 1 finds that both measures predict concurrent well‐being, in both U.S. and Indian samples. Study 2 shows that fluctuations in balance predict fluctuations in well‐being over a 3‐week period. Study 3 replicates the Study 1 findings using a different time assessment technique, based on the Day Reconstruction Method. Study 4 assigns participants the month‐long goal of enhancing their life balance, finding that those who achieve this goal enhance their well‐being. In all 4 studies, the balance effects on well‐being were mediated by psychological need satisfaction associated with balance.     

Deweyan Multicultural Democracy,Rortian Solidarity,and the Popular Arts: Krumping into Presence

Curiously, while the efficacy of the arts for the development of multicultural understandings has long been theorized, empirical studies of this effect have been lacking. This essay recounts our combined empirical and philosophical study of this issue. We explicate the philosophical considerations that shaped the development of the arts course we studied, which was grounded in rather traditional humanist educational thought, informed by Deweyan considerations for pedagogy and multiculturalism. We also provide an overview of the course and of the study design: the ways in which the course worked to teach aesthetic theory through a combination of popular and canonical works, and the ways in which it sought to instill a sense of cross-cultural appreciation and solidarity among students through the inclusion of art from different cultures and generations. We then share our research findings and our return to the realm of philosophy to interpret them. Our postcolonial analysis incorporates emerging discussions of the arts as a tool for resistance and dialogue within the system of public education, and revisit and reconsider the very concept of education for pluralistic democracy. This approach problematizes traditional conceptions of pluralism, in which an attempt is made to dissolve difference in a common understanding, and instead advocates that works from among the contemporary popular arts and works drawn from the artistic “canon” alike must be considered and employed for their instrumental value to the educational process—especially for their ability to prompt an intersubjectivity that is accompanied by a heightened awareness of difference.