Longitudinal Analysis of Adolescent NSSI: The Role of Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Factors

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) occurs in approximately 10 % of adolescents. To establish effective prevention and intervention initiatives, it is important to understand onset, maintenance and cessation of NSSI. We explored whether the relationships between interpersonal factors (i.e. attachment, social support) and NSSI were mediated by intrapersonal factors (i.e. emotion regulation, self-esteem, self-efficacy). Participants were 1973 students (1414 female and 559 male) aged between 12 and 18 years (M?=?13.89, SD?=?0.97) recruited from 40 Australian high schools. Participants completed a questionnaire at two time-points with a 12-month interval. At baseline, 8.3 % of adolescents engaged in NSSI, increasing to 11.9 % at follow-up. Family support was most salient in onset, maintenance and cessation of NSSI. Attachment anxiety was related to NSSI onset. Of the intrapersonal variables, self-esteem and self-efficacy were significant in predicting onset of NSSI. Self-esteem, self-efficacy and cognitive reappraisal mediated the relationship between attachment anxiety and NSSI onset. A combination of interpersonal and intrapersonal variables contributes to the onset, maintenance and cessation of NSSI in adolescence. Perceived family support appears to be an important safeguard against NSSI. Strategies targeting family functioning and teaching cognitive reappraisal techniques to adolescents may reduce the number engaging in NSSI.     

Happy babies,chatty toddlers: Infant positive affect facilitates early expressive,but not receptive language

Eighty-three mother–infant dyads participated in this study. Positive affect (PA) broadly, along with fine-grained aspects of PA, was measured at 10 months of age. Language was measured at 14 months. Infant PA predicted expressive, but not receptive, language. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Like Mike: Ability contagion through touched objects increases confidence and improves performance

Magical thinking refers to irrational peculiar beliefs, including those that conform to the laws of contagion. We propose that touching an object that was previously touched by a high performer increases confidence via magical thinking (ability contagion) and improves actual performance among individuals high in experiential processing. A series of studies provides support for this main proposition. Our results cast doubt on an alternative explanation based on priming, and are obtained controlling for participants’ level of rational processing, motivation, and affect.     

The Impact of a Digital Recorder Intervention in Pragmatic/Experiential Therapy for Couples: A Pilot Study to Assess Emotional Flooding

The present study explored the effectiveness of a unique intervention for couple therapy, the Canned Attitude Method (a technique developed by Brent Atkinson), which utilized a digital recorder in and between therapy sessions. Participant dyads were randomly assigned to the intervention group utilizing the digital recorders or the control group, in which Pragmatic/Experiential Therapy for Couples (Atkinson in J Syst Ther 17:18–35, 1998) was conducted without the use of digital recorders. Both the intervention and the control groups were composed of five couples each for a total of 20 participants. This study hypothesized that the use of the Canned Attitude Method in couple therapy would produce a significant change in marital satisfaction, emotional flooding, and positive psychological tendencies associated with intimate relationships. Findings approached significance, demonstrating decreases in the experience of emotional flooding, gains in relationship satisfaction, and a shift towards positive attributes within the couples’ relationships.     

Suffering and the Shape of Well-Being in Buddhist Ethics

This article explores the defense Indian Buddhist texts make in support of their conceptions of lives that are good for an individual. This defense occurs, largely, through their analysis of ordinary experience as being saturated by subtle forms of suffering (du?kha). I begin by explicating the most influential of the Buddhist taxonomies of suffering: the threefold division into explicit suffering (du?kha-du?khatā), the suffering of change (vipari?āma-du?khatā), and conditioned suffering (sa?skāra-du?khatā). Next, I sketch the three theories of welfare that have been most influential in contemporary ethical theory. I then argue that Buddhist texts underdetermine which of these theories would have been accepted by ancient Indian Buddhists. Nevertheless, Buddhist ideas about suffering narrow the shape any acceptable theory of welfare may take. In my conclusion, I argue that this narrowing process itself is enough to reconstruct a philosophical defense of the forms of life endorsed in Buddhist texts.     

Belief in Magic Predicts Children's Selective Trust in Informants

Children are able to distinguish between regular events that can occur in everyday reality and magical events that are ordinarily impossible. How do children respond to a person who brings about magical as compared with ordinary outcomes? In two studies, we tested children's acceptance of informants' claims when the informants had produced either magical or ordinary outcomes. In Study 1, children's skeptical or credulous stance toward magic predicted their endorsement of the claims made by the informants. Children who were more credulous were likely to accept information from the informant who had produced magical outcomes. In Study 2, a brief manipulation was only partially effective in changing children's initial stance toward magic. Their initial stance toward magic continued to predict their acceptance of information from the informant who had produced magical outcomes.     

Survivor mission: Do those who survive have a drive to thrive at work?

Are helping professionals who have experienced the same types of struggles as their clients more engaged at work? In the current investigation, we examine this question in samples of police detectives (with and without a history of violent victimization) and mental health workers (with and without a history of mental illness). Our results indicate that police detectives who have experienced violent victimization and mental health professionals who have experienced the same mental illness as their clients do indeed exhibit greater work engagement than their colleagues who lack these parallel life experiences. The link between a professional’s firsthand experience of his/her client’s hardships and work engagement appears to be partially explained by higher levels of grit among police detectives and by a greater sense of life-narrative continuity among mental health professionals.     

Feasibility and effectiveness of school-based relaxation in lowering blood pressure

Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) is a broadly useful anxiety reduction technique that has been found to lower blood pressure (BP) in essential hypertension. The present investigation is the first to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of wide-scale PMR instruction as a public health promotion strategy aimed at adolescents. Students (N = 1,400) in Grades 9 and 10 at two large Baltimore City public high schools underwent BP screening; those with BP persistently above the 85th percentile were randomly assigned to (a) 12 weeks daily PMR instruction provided in class for academic credit or (b) a control condition. The latter students had their BP measured at the same frequency as the PMR students and completed the PMR course during the following year. Approximately two thirds of eligible students entered and completed the study. Results demonstrated that treatment students (n = 51) enjoyed daily PMR, mastered the technique, and achieved reduced systolic BP at posttest relative to the untrained controls (n = 59). At follow-up 4 months later, group BP differences were not significant. Implications for use of PMR to promote cardiovascular health are discussed.     

Midline and off-midline tongue and right- and left-hand vibrotactile thresholds of stutterers and normal-speaking individuals

Vibrotactile thresholds for 7 male stutterers and 7 normal-speaking men (age range for both groups = 19 to 32 yr.) were obtained from the right, midline, and left sides of the lingual dorsum, and the thenar eminences of both hands. The stutterers showed slightly higher (less sensitive) mean thresholds than the normal speakers for all three lingual test sites. This was not the case for the thresholds obtained from both hands. The preliminary data suggest that oral peripheral sensory integrity might be somewhat different for stutterers than for normal-speaking individuals.