Empathy,Perspective Taking and Prosocial Behaviour: The Importance of Parenting Practices

The current study analyzed the relationships among maternal empathy (emotional and cognitive), parenting that encourages the child to take the perspective of others, child cognitive empathy and child prosocial behaviour. Participants were 72 typically developing children (66 Caucasian, six Asian) aged between 47 and 76 months (M = 61.5 months, SD = 8.3 months). Results support the facilitative effect of parenting that encourages the child to take the perspective of others. Thus, the role played by parents in the development of prosocial behaviour extends beyond warm/sensitive/responsive parenting in infancy. Together these forms of parenting are key factors that facilitate the development of prosocial behaviour. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differences in cognitive processes underlying the collaborative activities of children and chimpanzees

We compared the performance of 3- and 5-year-old children with that of chimpanzees in two tasks requiring collaboration via complementary roles. In both tasks, children and chimpanzees were able to coordinate two complementary roles with peers and solve the problem cooperatively. This is the first experimental demonstration of the coordination of complementary roles in chimpanzees. In the second task, neither species was skillful at waiting for a partner to be positioned appropriately before beginning (although children did hesitate significantly longer when the partner was absent). The main difference between species in both tasks was in children's, but not chimpanzees’, ability to profit from experience as a collaborator in one role when later reversing roles. This difference suggests that as they participate in a collaboration, young children integrate both roles into a single “birds-eye-view” representational format in a way that chimpanzees do not.     

Common barriers to healthcare for transgender people in the U.S. Southeast

Abstract

Background: Transgender and non-binary people are more likely to face barriers to healthcare than their cisgender counterparts. The majority of work in this area centers on the experiences of transgender people in northern cities and urban enclaves, yet over 500,000 transgender people live in the U.S. Southeast.

Aims: The purpose of this study is to explore barriers to healthcare among transgender people in the U.S. Southeast.

Methods: The research team conducted four 120-minute focus groups (eligibility criteria: 18?years or older, self-identify as transgender, live in the U.S. Southeast). Participants completed a demographic questionnaire prior to the start of the focus group. Each focus group explored access to and experiences of receiving basic healthcare as a transgender person in the U.S. Southeast. Established qualitative methods were used to conduct the focus groups and data analysis.

Results: Participants (n?=?48) ranged in age from 19 to 65, with the majority identifying as trans women (43.8%) and non-binary (33.3%). The sample was racially diverse: White (50%), Black (37.5%), and Latinx or Multiracial (12.5%). Multiple barriers to care were identified: (1) fear and mistrust of providers; (2) inconsistency in access to healthcare; (3) disrespect from providers; and, (4) mistreatment due to intersecting experiences of gender, race, class, and location.

Discussion: Transgender Southerners face barriers to care at the structural, cultural, and interpersonal levels. The study results have implications for researchers, as well as providers, practices, and health care systems throughout the region.     

Wholistic and analytic stimulus processing: The development of selective perceptual strategies

This experiment reports an investigation of the development of selective processing strategies as subjects become increasingly more practised at a serial self-paced RT task. It demonstrates the effect a preceding stimulus can have on the analysis of a current signal and the development of active analytic strategies in favour of passive wholistic processing, with practice. The stimuli used were letters with irrelevant visual noise dot patterns superimposed on them. The letter, or the dot pattern, or both, could be repeated on successive trials. Early in practice repetition of both stimulus components simultaneously produced short reponse latencies relative to repetition of the letter alone. The number of noise dots markedly affected RT. Late in practice, however, letter repetition RTs were small, irrespective of whether or not the noise dot pattern was repeated. Furthermore, the number of noise dots no longer had an effect on the RT to these stimulus transitions. The results suggest that subjects appear to be able to select relevant information to process as they become progressively more practised, even though there is evidence that they compare the current stimulus with an iconic representation of the immediately preceding one.