Parenting stress and depressive symptoms in postpartum mothers: Bidirectional or unidirectional effects?

Despite the consistent link between parenting stress and postpartum depressive symptoms, few studies have explored the relationships longitudinally. The purpose of this study was to test bidirectional and unidirectional models of depressive symptoms and parenting stress. Uniquely, three specific domains of parenting stress were examined: parental distress, difficult child stress, and parent–child dysfunctional interaction (PCDI). One hundred and five women completed the Beck Depression Inventory and the Parenting Stress Index – Short Form at 3, 7, and 14 months after giving birth. Structural equation modeling revealed that total parenting stress predicted later depressive symptoms, however, there were different patterns between postpartum depressive symptoms and different types of parenting stress. A unidirectional model of parental distress predicting depressive symptoms best fit the data, with significant stability paths but non-significant cross-lagged paths. A unidirectional model of depressive symptoms predicted significant later difficult child stress. No model fit well with PCDI. Future research should continue to explore the specific nature of the associations of postpartum depression and different types of parenting stress on infant development and the infant–mother relationship.     

Order and Strength Matter for Evaluation of Alibi and Eyewitness Evidence

We explored the effects of presentation order and evidence strength on participants acting as investigators in a criminal context. Participants evaluated evidence and suspect guilt in a study in which alibi witness and eyewitness evidence of varying strength, presented in different orders, were compared. In contrast to research on the confirmation bias, which suggests that evidence presented early distorts subsequent evaluations of evidence, the present findings suggest that under certain circumstances, evidence received most recently can have a greater impact on decision‐making. Recency effects were observed most frequently when recent evidence was particularly strong and often when it contradicted previously encountered strong evidence. The impact of recency extended beyond the impact of evidence and to evaluations of the credibility of individual pieces of evidence. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching and the Mathematical Quality of Instruction: An Exploratory Study

This study illuminates claims that teachers' mathematical knowledge plays an important role in their teaching of this subject matter. In particular, we focus on teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT), which includes both the mathematical knowledge that is common to individuals working in diverse professions and the mathematical knowledge that is specialized to teaching. We use a series of five case studies and associated quantitative data to detail how MKT is associated with the mathematical quality of instruction. Although there is a significant, strong, and positive association between levels of MKT and the mathematical quality of instruction, we also find that there are a number of important factors that mediate this relationship, either supporting or hindering teachers' use of knowledge in practice.     

Counseling and Guided Self‐Help Outcomes for Clients With Bulimia Nervosa: A Meta‐Analysis of Clinical Trials From 1980 to 2010

This meta‐analysis included 111 clinical trials exploring the effectiveness of counseling/psychotherapy and guided self‐help approaches in the treatment of bulimia nervosa. In general, single‐group studies supported higher efficacy of counseling/psychotherapy, whereas wait‐list, treatment‐as‐usual, and placebo studies indicated both approaches were equally effective at termination (posttest) and follow‐up in altering binging, purging, laxative use, and self‐reported bulimia or body dissatisfaction perceptions in nearly all comparisons.     

Parafoveal pragmatics revisited

The results of two experiments are reported, examining eye movements as participants read the initial sentence in a sentence‐matching task. The sentences employed had a NP1‐verb‐NP2 construction and the pragmatic plausibility of the relationship between the verb and the two nouns was independently manipulated. The aim of the first experiment was to investigate the claim that the plausibility of a NP1‐verb relationship influences reading time on NP1 even before the verb is directly inspected. The data confirm the existence of such “parafoveal pragmatic” effects, but suggest that sublexical properties of the particular nouns employed may also exert a parafoveal effect on foveal processing. Experiment 2 was carried out as a control. A contingent presentation procedure ensured that the critical verb remained masked until it was directly inspected. Parafoveal‐on‐foveal effects exerted by the verb were removed by this procedure, although effects relating to properties of the nouns remained. The results confirm the presence of processing interactions involving sublexical properties of the two nouns, even though these were quite widely separated. Overall, the results of the two experiments suggest that, for this task, there is a genuine parafoveal‐on‐foveal effect attributable to purely pragmatic relationships involving the initial noun and verb in the sentences employed. In addition, there is evidence of longer range parafoveal‐on‐foveal effects of orthographic properties of the words employed.     

Capturing the Child’s Perspective: A Review of Self-Report Measures used with Children

Recent policy extends the patient-professional collaboration in making health care decisions to children. As a result, the development of self-reporting measures allowing children to express their concerns is growing. A literature review identified 33 self-report measures for children among a range of disciplines. While these tools allow children to be part of the rehabilitation process, the information obtained does not seem to capture what matters to children. This is particularly true for children with mental illness whose views are often ignored. More research is needed on clinical approaches that access the unique experiences of children with mental illness.     

Intersectionality and Crime: An Exploratory Look at How Gender and Race Influence Responses to Injustice Associated with Strain

ABSTRACT

Gender and race condition perceptions of and responses to injustice associated with strain. Yet, it is unclear how various types of injustice (distributive, procedural, and interactional) affect criminal coping by gender and race – especially among Asians and whites. A vignette of an academic group project that depicted a distributive injustice and manipulated procedural and interactional injustice was randomly assigned to a sample of undergraduates. Analyses reveal that injustice is associated with Asian and white males engaging in different types of deviance. Implications for the relationship that gender and race have in affecting perceptions of and responses to injustice are discussed.     

Occasions of Identity: The Metaphysics of Persistence,Change, and Sameness

We divide analytic metaphysics into naturalistic and non-naturalistic metaphysics. The latter we define as any philosophical theory that makes some ontological (as opposed to conceptual) claim, where that ontological claim has no observable consequences. We discuss further features of non-naturalistic metaphysics, including its methodology of appealing to intuition, and we explain the way in which we take it to be discontinuous with science. We outline and criticize Ladyman and Ross's 2007 epistemic argument against non-naturalistic metaphysics. We then present our own argument against it. We set out various ways in which intellectual endeavours can be of value, and we argue that, in so far as it claims to be an ontological enterprise, non-naturalistic metaphysics cannot be justified according to the same standards as science or naturalistic metaphysics. The lack of observable consequences explains why non-naturalistic metaphysics has, in general, failed to make progress, beyond increasing the standards of clarity and precision in expressing its theories. We end with a series of objections and replies.     

Choice as a Moderator of Placebo Expectation Effects: Additional Support From Two Experiments

Two experiments investigated the hypothesis that treatment choice enhances placebo treatment efficacy. In Experiment 1, prior to a pain task, participants were given either an expectation that two (inert) products could reduce pain or no expectation. In addition, participants either selected between the two products or were assigned a product to use. Participants given both the placebo expectation and treatment choice reported the lowest pain. Experiment 2 conceptually replicated this finding using a placebo paradigm with aversive auditory stimuli. Additional control conditions indicated that a choice availability (rather than choice restriction) explanation best accounted for these results.