The role of meaning in gastric cancer patients: relationships among meaning structures,coping, and psychological well-being

ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives: Research demonstrates that the experience of cancer invariably violates patients’ meaning structures, prompting them to use coping strategies to alleviate stress and enhance well-being. The current study aimed to examine the mediating effects of coping strategies in the relationship between global and situational meaning and psychological well-being in gastric cancer patients.

Design and Method: One hundred eighty-seven patients (96 women and 91 men) with gastric cancer completed questionnaires measuring meaning in life, changes of beliefs and goals, coping, and psychological well-being. Participants were between 27 and 82 years of age. They were diagnosed with gastric cancer from 1 to 3.2 years ago. Using Structural Equation Modeling, both the direct and indirect associations between meaning structures, coping, and psychological well-being were examined.

Results: Meaning in life exerted significant indirect effects on psychological well-being through three coping strategies: problem-, emotion-, and meaning-focused. The relationship between changes of beliefs and goals and psychological well-being was also mediated by coping.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that coping strategies are mediators in the relationship between global and situational meaning and psychological well-being. They also provide empirical evidence that in severe cancer-related stress conditions both meaning structures and coping strategies influence patients’ psychological well-being.     

Ethics in an operations management course

Graduates of the management major at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg find employment in a variety of organizations. As future managers with employees from different professions, students expressed an interest in discussing ethics cases in the operations management class. The semester starts with students familiarizing themselves with various professional and corporate codes of ethics. Throughout the semester a number of short ethics’ cases in operations’ areas such as inventory management, scheduling, facility location, and product design are introduced to illustrate ethical issues that a manager and his/her employees might face. Students prepare individual responses before the in-class discussions. The semester ends with a long group ethics case discussion and formal case presentations. In the end-of-semester survey, students responded very favorably to an ethics component in the operations management class. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting, Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, February 24–27, 2005.     

THE ABSENT JEWISH CHILD: PHOTOGRAPHY AND HOLOCAUST REPRESENTATION IN POLAND

This article considers the representations of Holocaust in Poland by discussing the ways in which photographs of Jewish children are used in literature, film and public commemoration. It shows how a “postmemorial reading” of these images by, predominantly gentile, writers, directors and social actors might be viewed as an attempt to rhetorically fill the void left after the destruction of Poland's Jewish community and to project an image of a tolerant civic society. The article examines famous images, like the photo of the Warsaw Ghetto boy, with which this discussion begins, and lesser known pictures, such as the family photographs of Henio ?ytomirski from Lublin, which are examined towards the end of this article. While looking at these images, I reflect on the interaction between the visual representations of Jewish children, the memory of the Shoah in Poland and the fashioning of Polish national identity in the wake of the accession to European Union.     

Mapping temporal constructs: actions reveal that time is a place

Many languages employ metaphors that associate temporal constructs with locations in space (e.g., back in the old days). However, whether such space-time mappings extend beyond the linguistic domain has received little empirical attention. Noting that motor action represents a pathway through which the integration of spatial and temporal information can be revealed, the current work examined the dynamics of hand movements during a time-classification task. Results revealed that when participants were instructed to process information pertaining to the past (or future), their movements were drawn towards the left (or right). This affirms that spatiotemporal processing is grounded in the sensory-motor systems that regulate human movement.     

Motor Performance in the Third,Not the Second Month,Predicts Further Motor Development

ABSTRACT. The aim was to verify if motor performance at second or third month of life better predicts further development. The global motor development was assessed by a neurologist and by a physiotherapist in 111 children at 2, 3, 6, and 9 months. At 2 and 3 months a physiotherapist also performed the assessment of qualitative elements. The physiotherapeutic assessment in the third month showed higher compatibility with the neurological assessment. Proper motor performance at third month could ensure the level of at least 7 months in the ninth month of life. Qualitative score above 7 of 15 points in the third month ensured proper development in ninth month. Third month of life is a better predictor of further motor development.     

Auditory spectral integration in nontraditional speech cues in diotic and dichotic listening

Underlying auditory processes in speech perception were explored. Specifically of interest were the stages of auditory processing involved in the integration of dynamic information in nontraditional speech cues such as the virtual formant transitions. These signals utilize intensity ratio cues and changes in spectral center-of-gravity (instead of the actual formant frequency transitions) to produce perceived F3 glides. 6 men and 8 women (M age = 24.2 yr., SD = 2.1), recruited through posted materials from graduate students at The Ohio State University, participated in two experiments. The results for frequency-based formant transitions (Exp. 1) indicated that spectral cues to syllable identification are combined at more central levels of auditory processing. However, when the components of the virtual formant stimuli were divided between the ears in a dichotic listening task (Exp. 2), the results indicated that auditory spectral integration may occur above the auditory periphery but at stages more intermediate rather than central.     

Positive experiences in the parent–child relationship during the COVID-19 lockdown in Poland: The role of emotion regulation,empathy, parenting self-efficacy,and social support

Despite the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak being largely negative on parents and children, for some families, lockdown could also bring about some positive effects, for example, increased emotional closeness, and more time for joint activity. The aim of the current study was to investigate cross-sectionally the most important correlates of the positive experiences in the parent–child relationship among Polish mothers and fathers during the lockdown in the initial phase of the COVID-19 outbreak. In May 2020, 228 mothers and 231 fathers completed the Brief version of the Empathic Sensitivity Questionnaire, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale Short Form, Social Support Scale, Parenting Self-Agency Measure, and Scale of Positive Experiences in Parent–Child Relationship during the COVID-19 lockdown. Our results showed that parenting self-efficacy and social support were the strongest correlates of positive experiences in the parent–child relationship in both mothers and fathers during the lockdown. Perspective-taking was positively related to the positive experiences in mothers, whereas personal distress was positively associated with the positive experiences in the parent–child relationship in fathers. Our results point to factors of potential importance in designing preventive and therapeutic interventions for mothers and fathers to enhance positive experiences in the parent–child relationship during the pandemic.