Strengthening Communities: A Qualitative Assessment of Opportunities for the Prevention of Adverse Childhood Experiences in the Wake of the Opioid Crisis

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The opioid crisis is a significant challenge for health and human service systems that serve children, youth, and families across the United States. Between...     

Stress Mediates the Within-Person Longitudinal Associations Between Depression and Different Anxiety Syndromes in Youth

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Depressive symptoms predict within-person change in physical symptoms of anxiety and social anxiety symptoms; however, potential mediators of...     

Spatial Skills and Self-Perceived Masculinity: Considering College Major STEM-ness,Directionality, and Gender

Sex Roles - The sex-role mediation hypothesis suggests that a masculine self-concept promotes male-typed cognition, including spatial skills. Support for the hypothesis is mixed, limited by small...     

Black Parenting Couples’ Ethnic-Racial Socialization Profiles: Associations with Sociodemographic and Race-Related Correlates

Journal of Child and Family Studies - In light of the continued racism and oppression experienced by Black Americans in the United States, ethnic-racial socialization—explicit and implicit...     

Charting a Course,Weathering Storms,and Making Lemonade: A Person-Centered Mixed Methods Analysis of Emotional Wellbeing and Dispositional Strengths following University Graduation

Journal of Adult Development - How well emerging adults adapt to transitions, like entering or graduating from post-secondary education, may depend on individual differences. Emotional wellbeing...     

A Brief Gratitude Writing Intervention Decreased Stress and Negative Affect During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Exploring ways to mitigate the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic is important for long-term health. Expressive and gratitude-focused writing are effective methods to help individuals process traumatic or stressful events. Gratitude-focused writing may yield additional benefits because it helps individuals appraise events positively. We hypothesized that an online gratitude writing intervention would yield greater benefits than an expressive writing intervention or control group. Participants were randomized to one of three groups and completed assessments one-week and one-month post-intervention. The gratitude writing group maintained gratitude levels and decreased stress and negative affect at one-month post-intervention. The expressive writing group decreased in gratitude and showed no changes in stress or negative affect at one-month post-intervention. The control group decreased in gratitude and negative affect and showed no changes in stress at one-month post-intervention. Gratitude writing may be a better resource for dealing with stress and negative affect than traditional expressive writing methods under extremely stressful situations with uncertain trajectories.

     

Social eye gaze modulates processing of speech and co-speech gesture

In human face-to-face communication, language comprehension is a multi-modal, situated activity. However, little is known about how we combine information from different modalities during comprehension, and how perceived communicative intentions, often signaled through visual signals, influence this process. We explored this question by simulating a multi-party communication context in which a speaker alternated her gaze between two recipients. Participants viewed speech-only or speech + gesture object-related messages when being addressed (direct gaze) or unaddressed (gaze averted to other participant). They were then asked to choose which of two object images matched the speaker’s preceding message. Unaddressed recipients responded significantly more slowly than addressees for speech-only utterances. However, perceiving the same speech accompanied by gestures sped unaddressed recipients up to a level identical to that of addressees. That is, when unaddressed recipients’ speech processing suffers, gestures can enhance the comprehension of a speaker’s message. We discuss our findings with respect to two hypotheses attempting to account for how social eye gaze may modulate multi-modal language comprehension.     

Positive affect facilitates social problem solving

We conducted two experiments to test the impact of positive affect on social problem solving. In Experiment 1, participants induced to experience a positive (vs. neutral) affective state generated a greater number of relevant steps to solve fictitious interpersonal problems as well as more effective solutions to the problems. In Experiment 2, participants induced to experience a positive (vs. negative) affective state generated more functional solutions to their own social problems. The positive mood effects observed in Experiment 2 were moderated by dispositional optimism. Our findings have practical implications, as the extent to which individuals are able to generate effective solutions to social problems has far‐reaching consequences with respect to personal adjustment and social functioning.     

Out of the depths

A fundamental approach of theology as practiced within the palliative setting is care for the whole human being, with particular focus on spirituality and the spiritual dimension. Theology and medicine come together in palliative care in which the spiritual aspect is an important component together with the physical, psychological, and social. This article is based on a mixed methods study of spirituality among persons receiving palliative care. Findings revealed the importance of spirituality and its multidimensional elements by which spirituality was perceived as a complex phenomenon relating to religious and non-religious aspects of human life. Theological reflection based on the present findings indicates that a sharp distinction between the concepts of religion and spirituality is not beneficial. It also reveals the significance of the spiritual dimension and that theology has an important role in creating a deeper understanding of this complex part of human existence. Spiritual needs, expressed in various ways, were evident among the participants receiving palliative care. The findings confirm that the theological approach in palliative care, with its focus on the whole human being and emphasis on spirituality and the spiritual dimension, continues to be the hallmark of practicing theology within palliative care.