Parental conflict and children's coping styles in litigating separated families: Relationships with children's adjustment

The influence of interparental verbal and physical aggression, children's coping styles, and relevant demographic factors on children's adjustment was examined in a group of 52 families who were disputing custody and/or access arrangements after separation. It was hypothesized that parental conflict and specific children's coping strategies (i.e., cognitive redefinition and social support seeking) would be important predictors of children's adjustment. Consistent with previous research, aggressive styles of resolving conflict between parents were related to more frequent and severe behavior problems and diminished competence among children. Conversely, greater flexibility in coping and greater use of cognitive coping strategies among children were related to decreased behavioral disturbance. The unique and combined influence of these variables is discussed.This research was supported in part through a grant from the LaMarsh Research Programme on Violence and Conflict Resolution, York University, Toronto, Ontario. The author acknowledges the help of Cathy Melville and Susan Dickens in the data analyses. In addition, the author thanks the staff and families at the Toronto and London, Ontario, Family Court clinics who participated in this project.     

On two arguments for the indeterminacy of personal identity

Both arguments are based on the breakdown of normal criteria of identity in certain science-fictional circumstances. In one case, normal criteria would support the identity of person A with each of two other persons, B and C; and it is argued that, in the imagined circumstances, A=B and A=C have no truth value. In the other, a series or spectrum of cases is tailored to a sorites argument. At one end of the spectrum, persons A and B are such that A=B is clearly true; at the other end, A and B are such that the identity is clearly false. In between, normal criteria of identity leave the truth or falsehood of A=B undecided, and it is argued that in these circumstances A=B has no truth value.These arguments are to be understood counterfactually. My claim is that, so understood, neither establishes its conclusion. The first involves a pair of counterfactual situations that are equally possible or tied. If A=B and A=C have no truth value, a counterfactual conditional with one of them as consequent and an antecedent that is true in circumstances in which either is true should have no truth value. Intuitively, however, any such counterfactual is false. The second argument can be seen to invite an analogous response. If this is right, however, there is an important disanalogy between this and the classical paradox of the heap. If the disanalogy is only apparent, the argument shows at most that the existence of persons can be indeterminate.     

A Constructive Formulation of Gleason's Theorem

In this paper I wish to show that we can give a statement of a restricted form of Gleason's Theorem that is classically equivalent to the standard formulation, but that avoids the counterexample that Hellman gives in Gleason's Theorem is not Constructively Provable.     

Gender,politics, and the theoretical virtues

Traits like simplicity and explanatory power have traditionally been treated as values internal to the sciences, constitutive rather than contextual. As such they are cognitive virtues. This essay contrasts a traditional set of such virtues with a set of alternative virtues drawn from feminist writings about the sciences. In certain theoretical contexts, the only reasons for preferring a traditional or an alternative virtue are socio-political. This undermines the notion that the traditional virtues can be considered purely cognitive.I am grateful to participants in the Indiana University Workshop on Social Values in the Context of Justification for their comments on an earlier, spoken, version of this paper.     

The self-narrative and acute psychosis

The aim of this study was to apply the narrative approach in analyzing family therapy meetings in cases of acute psychosis. The self-narrative is essential in acute psychosis since it is either collapsed or not coherent enough. The results indicate that it is important to create concrete practices that produce stories concerning the patient in relation to others. The self-narrative must be re-authored by the patient even though it is socially constructed. This is achieved by creating multiple perspectives of self-narratives in so-called therapy meetings with the patient, family members, and staff members representing different professionals.     

Vasopressin, glucose homeostasis, and sucrose taste preferences

Previous research indicates that vasopressin-containing (LE) rats are capable of adapting to the stress of food restriction, whereas vasopressin-deficient (DI) rats cannot adapt to this stressor. It has been postulated that abnormalities in glucose metabolism may be one of the factors leading to the demise of food-restricted DI rats. The present study was conducted to determine if taste preferences are altered in DI animals and if the presentation of exogenous glucose, in the form of sucrose solutions, can ameliorate the effects of the stress of food restriction. Four different concentrations of sucrose solutions were presented to LE and DI rats under the food-restricted condition. In both strains, an 8% sucrose solution was preferred over 0%, 16%, and 32% concentrations, with DI rats consuming more of this concentration than LE rats. Thus, when DI rats had the opportunity of maintaining glucose homeostasis by exogenous supplements, they maintained body weight, displayed no stomach pathology, and survived.     

Involving the family in the evaluation and treatment of the child patient: A psychodynamic approach

The purpose of this article is to provide psychotherapists with a tool for family evaluation using the basic principles of psychodynamic work; and to introduce a transitional format for therapists who have practiced family evaluations in their training institutions and now need to adapt this model to the private practitioner's office. A case example illustrates: (1) Use of the therapist's unconscious for diagnosis of the child and its family, (2) joining the family's intersubjective space, and (3) use of play and therapist's neutrality as ways that the psychodynamically oriented clinician involves the family in the evaluation and treatment of the child.     

Stress and family support as predictors of distress and rejection in people who care for a relative with schizophrenia

Relatives (N=121) of adult schizophrenia patients were interviewed to investigate predictors of their level of psychological distress and of rejecting attitudes toward the sufferer. The relatives' total stress, particularly that associated with poor communication skills in the sufferer, predicted several measures of their psychological distress, and the same variables plus turbulence of sufferer behavior (i.e., violence and disruptiveness) predicted rejection of the sufferer by the relative. In each case, adequacy of family support moderated the influence of the stressors, although this effect was more marked for distress outcomes than for rejection. The results have important implications for the sorts of professional and peer support which relatives may need to encourage their performance of this potentially burdensome role. In addition, the results fit a classic stress management model and provide a feasible alternative to the Expressed Emotion Model of the relationship between relatives' rejection and patients' illness severity.     

Gender,psychological well-being and somatic cardiovascular risk factors

The purpose of this study is to determine associations between cardiovascular risk factors and subjective experience of psychological general well-being with special reference to gender-related differences. One hundred fifty white-collar workers in a car manufacturing plant in Sweden participated in a health care screening program. Subjective experience of psychological well-being was significantly correlated with cardiovascular risk factors among both men and women. There were, however, marked differences between the genders. For men, the following specific psychological variables were significantly correlated with cardiovascular risk factors: estimation of general health, anxiety, self-control and vitality. For women, more complex significant relationships between the two sets of variables were found. Moreover, the direction of the correlations differed between the genders. For example, men with cardiovascular risk factors, such as increased blood pressure, blood lipids and body mass index, reported significantly morepositive estimation of their general health. For women the relation was the opposite with a significantly positive correlation (p-0.004) between experience of good health and a low risk factor profile indicating the concordance between physiological and psychological parameters. Possible reasons for these sex differences are discussed.     

Social-Cognitive and Behavioral Correlates of Aggression and Victimization in Boys' Play Groups

A contrived play group procedure was utilized to examine the behavioral and social-cognitive correlates of reactive aggression, proactive aggression, and victimization via peers. Eleven play groups, each of which consisted of six familiar African-American 8-year-old boys, met for 45-min sessions on five consecutive days. Social-cognitive interviews were conducted following the second and fourth sessions. Play group interactions were videotaped and examined by trained observers. High rates of proactive aggression were associated with positive outcome expectancies for aggression/assertion, frequent displays of assertive social behavior, and low rates of submissive behavior. Reactive aggression was associated with hostile attributional tendencies and frequent victimization by peers. Victimization was associated with submissive behavior, hostile attributional bias, reactive aggression, and negative outcome expectations for aggression/assertion. These results demonstrate that there is a theoretically coherent and empirically distinct set of correlates associated with each of the examined aggression subtypes, and with victimization by peers.