Development and Preliminary Evaluation of Family Minds: A Mentalization-based Psychoeducation Program for Foster Parents

Mentalization-based interventions show promise in improving mental health outcomes for children and parents through increasing a family's reflective functioning, or ability to mentalize. Mentalizing involves the ability to understand behavior in relation to mental states, such as thoughts and feelings, and typically develops within the context of secure attachment relationships. One area not given much consideration when training foster parents is their capacity to mentalize. This study evaluated Family Minds, a newly developed psychoeducational intervention for foster parents, designed to increase their ability to mentalize. The current paper reports on the development and preliminary empirical evaluation of Family Minds in a quasi-experimental study where 102 foster parents received either Family Minds or a typical foster parenting class, which served as a control group. Results indicate that parents who received Family Minds significantly increased their levels of reflective functioning as assessed with the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire and a new Five-Minute Speech Sample procedure coded using the Reflective Functioning Scale, and revealed a tendency to show decreased levels of parenting stress on the Parenting Stress Index, while the control group showed no such improvements. These findings support the hypothesis that a short-term psychoeducational intervention may improve foster parents' ability to mentalize themselves and their children. These skills are very beneficial for foster parents, as they frequently deal with children who come into their home with challenging behaviors, attachment issues, and negative internal working models of relationships. This type of intervention has the potential to lower placement breakdowns and improve the mental health of foster children.     

Dental flossing and automaticity: a longitudinal moderated mediation analysis

We investigated the role of normative support, behavioural automaticity, and action control in predicting dental flossing behaviour. Between May and October 2015, 629 Australian young adults completed a questionnaire assessing constructs of normative support and automaticity, and a 2-week follow-up of dental flossing behaviour and action control, resulting in n = 241 persons for longitudinal analysis. Findings supported the hypotheses that the effect of normative support on behaviour would be mediated via automaticity, and the effect of automaticity would be moderated by action control. Current results extend previous research to elucidate the mechanisms that help to understand predictors of oral hygiene behaviours and contribute to the cumulative evidence concerning self-regulatory and automatic components of health behaviour.     

The human message in politics: the impact of emotional slogans on subtle conformity

The present work directly tests the persuasive potential of emotions in political slogans. Previous research that distinguished emotions on the human dimension found that individuals conform differently to the opinion of members of the in-group or the out-group when these targets expressed themselves in terms of uniquely human emotions (Vaes, Paladino, Castelli, Leyens, & Giovanazzi, 2003). In line with these findings, the present experiment tested the hypothesis that political slogans that express a uniquely human emotion and that are associated with the campaign of a political candidate who has the same political affiliation as participants (i.e., in-group) will induce more conformity reactions than a candidate of the opposing coalition (i.e., out-group) who presents similar kinds of slogans. Results confirmed this hypothesis on a subtle conformity measure and are discussed as a consequence of an infrahumanization process. Finally, possible applications of the presented findings and new avenues for future research are proposed.     

Tolerance of Justice Violations: The Effects of Need on Emotional Reactions After Violating Equality in Social Dilemmas1

Equality is an important coordination rule in social dilemmas. Studies have shown that a violation of equality elicits strong negative emotions. This research addresses whether these emotional reactions occur when another group member is in need of social support. Results showed that participants reacted less negatively if equality was violated and the other person was in need. Moreover, it was shown that there are individual differences in the extent to which people are influenced by fairness violations in their emotional reactions. In particular, Conscientiousness was important for people's emotional reactions, and people low rather than high in Conscientiousness reacted more negatively. These findings are discussed in light of coordination rules and emotions in social dilemmas and individual differences.     

Explanatory pluralism in the medical sciences: Theory and practice

Explanatory pluralism is the view that the best form and level of explanation depends on the kind of question one seeks to answer by the explanation, and that in order to answer all questions in the best way possible, we need more than one form and level of explanation. In the first part of this article, we argue that explanatory pluralism holds for the medical sciences, at least in theory. However, in the second part of the article we show that medical research and practice is actually not fully and truly explanatory pluralist yet. Although the literature demonstrates a slowly growing interest in non-reductive explanations in medicine, the dominant approach in medicine is still methodologically reductionist. This implies that non-reductive explanations often do not get the attention they deserve. We argue that the field of medicine could benefit greatly by reconsidering its reductive tendencies and becoming fully and truly explanatory pluralist. Nonetheless, trying to achieve the right balance in the search for and application of reductive and non-reductive explanations will in any case be a difficult exercise.     

A free software package for a human onlineconditioned suppression preparation

Martians V2 is both a language syntax in which experiments can be written and an implementation of this syntax in a runtime application that, when fed a valid experiment text file, will execute the given experiment. It is based on the original Martians preparation, which has proven a valuable tool for assessing human online-conditioned suppression performance through research on a wide array of learning phenomena. This article can be read as a manual, both for using the Martians paradigm in general and for getting started with MartiansV2.     

Vacationers Happier,but Most not Happier After a Holiday

The aim of this study was to obtain a greater insight into the association between vacations and happiness. We examined whether vacationers differ in happiness, compared to those not going on holiday, and if a holiday trip boosts post-trip happiness. These questions were addressed in a pre-test/post-test design study among 1,530 Dutch individuals. 974 vacationers answered questions about their happiness before and after a holiday trip. Vacationers reported a higher degree of pre-trip happiness, compared to non-vacationers, possibly because they are anticipating their holiday. Only a very relaxed holiday trip boosts vacationers’ happiness further after return. Generally, there is no difference between vacationers’ and non-vacationers’ post-trip happiness. The findings are explained in the light of set-point theory, need theory and comparison theory.     

Toward a Domain-Specific Approach to the Study of Parental Psychological Control: Distinguishing Between Dependency-Oriented and Achievement-Oriented Psychological Control

ABSTRACT Theory and research suggest that psychologically controlling parenting can be driven by parental concerns in two different domains, that is, interpersonal closeness and achievement. Three studies addressing this hypothesis are presented. Study 1 provides evidence for the validity of the Dependency-Oriented and Achievement-Oriented Psychological Control Scale (DAPCS), a new measure assessing psychological control in these two domains. Study 2 showed that dependency-oriented and achievement-oriented psychological control were related in expected ways to parental separation anxiety and perfectionism in a sample of mothers and fathers. Finally, Study 3 showed that dependency-oriented and achievement-oriented psychological control were differentially related to middle adolescent dependency and self-criticism and that these personality features act as specific intervening variables between the domain-specific expressions of psychological control and depressive symptoms. It is argued that the distinction between two domain-specific expressions of psychological control may allow for a more intricate analysis of the processes involved in intrusive parenting.     

Extrinsic Motives as Moderators in the Relationship Between Fairness and Work-Related Outcomes Among Temporary Workers

Purpose

This study assessed how motives for having a temporary job influence the effects of experienced fairness on work-related attitudes.

Design/methodology/approach

We examined the moderating effect of three motives for being in temporary employment (the autonomous or voluntary motive, the stepping-stone motive, and the controlled or involuntary motive) on the relationship between experienced fairness and outcomes. Hierarchical multiple regressions were performed on questionnaire data of a sample of 299 Dutch temporary workers.

Findings

For temporary employees who accepted temporary employment voluntarily, low fairness is related to lower self-reported performance. For employees who use their temporary job as a way to obtain permanent employment, fairness is not related to work-related attitudes and behavioral intentions. Those who are involuntarily in a temporary job react stronger on fairness and have a higher intention to quit.

Implications

Fairness is weakly related to work-related attitudes and behavioral intentions under two conditions: when perceived goal attainment is high, and when the worker is dependent on the temporary job to reach that goal. This study provides support for the assumption that motives may override automatic responses to fairness.

Originality/value

This article is one of the first studies that provide evidence for the influence of motives on reactions to fairness. Additionally, this study considers reactions to fairness in a growing contingent of the workforce, that is temporary workers. It provides evidence that the dynamics in fairness perceptions may be different for temporary workers in comparison to their counterparts with permanent contracts.     

The relationship between cognitive emotion regulation strategies and emotional problems: comparison between a clinical and a non‐clinical sample

This study focuses on the relationship between the use of specific cognitive emotion regulation strategies and emotional problems. Two samples were included: 99 adults from a clinical population and 99 matched non‐clinical adults. Data was obtained in both groups on the use of nine cognitive emotion regulation strategies: self‐blame, other‐blame, rumination, catastrophizing, putting into perspective, positive refocusing, positive reappraisal, acceptance, and refocus on planning. Logistic regression analyses show that self‐blame, catastrophizing, and positive reappraisal were, relative to the other strategies, the most important variables for distinguishing between the two samples. While the first two strategies were reported significantly more often by the clinical than by the non‐clinical sample, positive reappraisal was reported significantly more often by the non‐clinical sample. The results suggest that cognitive emotion regulation strategies may be a useful target for prevention and intervention. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.