Doing and Being: Mindfulness,Health, and Quiet Ego Characteristics Among Buddhist Practitioners

We examined the relationship between meditation experience, psychological mindfulness, quiet ego characteristics, and self-reported physical health in a diverse sample of adults with a range of Buddhist experience (N = 117) gathered from a web-based survey administered to Buddhist practitioners around the world between August 1, 2007 and January 31, 2008. Practicing meditation on a regular basis and greater experience with Buddhism was related to higher psychological mindfulness scores. Psychological mindfulness was correlated with a latent variable called “quiet ego characteristics” that reflected measures based on Bauer and Wayment’s (Transcending self-interest: psychological explorations of the quiet ego. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, pp 7–19, 2008) conceptual and multidimensional definition of a “quiet ego”: wisdom, altruism, sense of interdependence with all living things, need for structure (reversed), anger/verbal aggression (reversed), and negative affectivity (reversed). In turn, quiet ego characteristics were positively related to self-reported health. Our findings provide continuing support for the key role psychological mindfulness may play in psychological and physical well-being.     

Updating process of internal model of action as assessed from motor and postural strategies in young adults

Internal models are constantly updated based on the actions and experiences of a person in the world. In the present study, we proposed to assess the updating process of internal models of action by providing new environmental constraints for motor planning, postural control, and execution processes in daily tasks such as STS and BTS. STS and BTS tasks were performed with different inclinations of the support surface on which the participant and the chair were positioned: horizontal support, support tilted 10° to the right, or forward. Twelve healthy adults participated in this experiment. Kinematic characteristics were recorded using an optoelectronic motion analysis system. Movement duration and trunk inclination amplitudes were analyzed for STS and BTS as well as trunk orientation and strategies of head stabilization. Concerning the movement analysis our results showed (1) temporal asymmetry between STS and BTS, attributed mainly to the integration of the mechanical effects of gravity, and (2) a decrease of trunk movements when the support was tilted forward, attesting to an immediate adaptation process. Concerning the postural analysis our study revealed that adults adopted selective head stabilization on space strategy with respect to balance constraints. To conclude, young adults were able to immediately update their internal model of action in order to optimize motor control and vertical body orientation.     

How linguistic and cultural forces shape conceptions of time: English and Mandarin time in 3D

In this paper we examine how English and Mandarin speakers think about time, and we test how the patterns of thinking in the two groups relate to patterns in linguistic and cultural experience. In Mandarin, vertical spatial metaphors are used more frequently to talk about time than they are in English; English relies primarily on horizontal terms. We present results from two tasks comparing English and Mandarin speakers' temporal reasoning. The tasks measure how people spatialize time in three-dimensional space, including the sagittal (front/back), transverse (left/right), and vertical (up/down) axes. Results of Experiment 1 show that people automatically create spatial representations in the course of temporal reasoning, and these implicit spatializations differ in accordance with patterns in language, even in a non-linguistic task. Both groups showed evidence of a left-to-right representation of time, in accordance with writing direction, but only Mandarin speakers showed a vertical top-to-bottom pattern for time (congruent with vertical spatiotemporal metaphors in Mandarin). Results of Experiment 2 confirm and extend these findings, showing that bilinguals' representations of time depend on both long-term and proximal aspects of language experience. Participants who were more proficient in Mandarin were more likely to arrange time vertically (an effect of previous language experience). Further, bilinguals were more likely to arrange time vertically when they were tested in Mandarin than when they were tested in English (an effect of immediate linguistic context).     

Athlete or Sex Symbol: What Boys Think of Media Representations of Female Athletes

Little research has investigated males?? reactions to non-objectified media images of women, including those that depict women in instrumental activities like playing a sport. Using a survey methodology, this study examined U.S. adolescent boys?? open-ended responses to images of performance athletes, sexualized athletes, and sexualized models. Participants were 104 adolescent boys from California (ages 12?C17, primarily European-American). They remarked on the performance athletes?? physical competence and focused on the athletic context depicted in the photograph. In contrast, participants focused on the physical appearance and attractiveness of the sexualized athletes and sexualized models. Overall, findings suggest that performance images of women evoke instrumental evaluations of women from male viewers, while sexualized images induce objectified appraisals.     

Memories of Me: Comparisons from Osnabrueck (Germany) and Delhi (India) Students and Their Mothers

The present study explores the dialogical relationship between autobiographical remembering, self and culture from a developmental and trans-generational perspective. It draws on a comparative design including self-describing memories of 10 Indian students from Delhi and 13 German students from Osnabrueck. Moreover, stories often told about oneself during childhood were investigated from the students’ as well as from their mothers’ perspective. Analysis revealed not only culture-specific ways of telling about one’s past that point to different prevailing socio-cultural philosophies, but also trans-generational similarities of stories repeatedly told to and about the child. The findings suggest that self-defining stories develop and are dialogically intertwined with the cultural narrative practices that children engage in during the course of socialization. Theoretical implications for our understanding of self-development are discussed from a Bakhtinian perspective.     

Classroom emotional climate as a moderator of anxious solitary children's longitudinal risk for peer exclusion: a child × environment model

This study tests the ability of classroom emotional climate to moderate anxious solitary children's risk for peer exclusion over a 3-year period from 3rd through 5th grade. Six hundred eighty-eight children completed peer nominations for anxious solitude and peer exclusion in the fall and spring semesters of each grade, and observations of classroom emotional climate were conducted at the same time points. Results revealed a positive relation between anxious solitude and peer exclusion in the fall semester of each grade. However, in classrooms with supportive versus unsupportive emotional climates, this relation demonstrated a different pattern of change from fall to spring semesters. In classrooms with supportive emotional climates, children with high versus low levels of anxious solitude experienced relative elevation in fall peer exclusion, but this disappeared by the spring, such that spring peer exclusion levels were equalized among children who differed in anxious solitude. This result is consistent with hypotheses guided by the Child × Environment model. However, in classrooms with unsupportive emotional climates, results did not conform to expectations that children with high anxious solitude would experience stable or increased peer exclusion over time.     

Schutzraum Familie

Extensively presented is the case history of an internationally noticed incest offender who incarcerated his daughter over a time span of 24 years, fathering 7 children and keeping her and most of the children successfully unnoticed by anyone over the whole period of time. The case history is followed by a brief compilation of some aspects of the phenomenon known as the family tyrant.     

Why We Need Qualitative Research in Suicidology

Using the differentiation between explanations and understanding from philosophy of science as the point of departure, a critical look at the current mainstream suicidological research was launched. An almost exclusive use of quantitative methodology focusing on explanations is demonstrated. This bias in scope and methodology has to a large extent taken the suicidological field into a dead‐end of repetitious research. It is argued that an increased focus on understanding and thus extended use of qualitative methodology is essential in bringing the suicidological field forward.     

Developing an Occupation-Centred Framework for Trauma Intervention

Abstract

Experiencing work-related trauma can negatively impact coping abilities and daily life participation. Occupational therapists (OTs) often provide health services to workers who have experienced trauma, including military members, veterans, and public safety personnel. The Occupational Therapy Trauma Intervention Framework (OTTIF) is a novel clinical reasoning framework that matches a client’s level of readiness to engage with a spectrum of evidence-based OT approaches. Using surveys at two time points, evaluation of therapist experiences of using the OTTIF elicited positive feedback that suggests the OTTIF provides a useful occupation-centred framework for evidence-informed occupational therapy practice with clients who have experienced trauma.