Stressors Experienced by Women Within Marine Corps Families: A Qualitative Study of Discourse Within an Online Forum

The social constructionist perspective frames this exploration of the socioemotional and relational aspects of stress experienced by significant others of active duty Marines. Interpretive methods were applied to data from an online forum for Marine Corps wives, fiancées, and girlfriends. Open coding revealed six stressors: (a) stuck in a state of flux, (b) going through changes, (c) relational uncertainty, (d) loneliness, (e) alienation, and (f) anxiety related to deployment. Axial coding revealed three properties underlying these stressors: (a) issues of control and helplessness, (b) concerns over privileging individual or relational goals, and (c) the matter of locus of blame.     

Knowledge and the value of cognitive ability

We challenge a line of thinking at the fore of recent work on epistemic value: the line (suggested by Kvanvig in The value of knowledge and the pursuit of understanding, 2003 and others) that if the value of knowledge is “swamped” by the value of mere true belief, then we have good reason to doubt its theoretical importance in epistemology. We offer a value-driven argument for the theoretical importance of knowledge—one that stands even if the value of knowledge is “swamped” by the value of true belief. Specifically, we contend that even if knowledge itself has no special epistemic value, its relationship to other items of value—cognitive abilities—gives ample reason to locate the concept at the very core of epistemology.     

The role of verbal memory in regressions during reading

During reading, participants generally move their eyes rightward on the line. A number of eye movements, called regressions, are made leftward, to words that have already been fixated. In the present study, we investigated the role of verbal memory during regressions. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to read sentences for comprehension. After reading, they were asked to make a regression to a target word presented auditorily. The results revealed that their regressions were guided by memory, as they differed from those of a control group who did not read the sentences. The role of verbal memory during regressions was then investigated by combining the reading task with articulatory suppression (Exps. 2 and 3). The results showed that articulatory suppression affected the size and the accuracy of the initial regression but had a minimal effect on corrective saccades. This suggests that verbal memory plays an important role in determining the location of the initial saccade during regressions.     

Discrepancies Between Parent and Adolescent Beliefs About Daily Life Topics and Performance on an Emotion Recognition Task

Parents and children and adolescents commonly disagree in their perceptions of a variety of behaviors, including the family relationship and environment, and child and adolescent psychopathology. To this end, numerous studies have examined to what extent increased discrepant perceptions—particularly with regard to perceptions of the family relationship and environment—predict increased child and adolescent psychopathology. Parents’ and children and adolescents’ abilities to decode and identify others’ emotions (i.e., emotion recognition) may play a role in the link between discrepant perceptions and child and adolescent psychopathology. We examined parents’ and adolescents’ emotion recognition abilities in relation to discrepancies between parent and adolescent perceptions of daily life topics. In a sample of 50 parents and adolescents ages 14-to-17 years (M?=?15.4 years, 20 males, 54 % African-American), parents and adolescents were each administered a widely used performance-based measure of emotion recognition. Parents and adolescents were also administered a structured interview designed to directly assess each of their perceptions of the extent to which discrepancies existed in their beliefs about daily life topics (e.g., whether adolescents should complete their homework and carry out household chores). Interestingly, lower parent and adolescent emotion recognition performance significantly related to greater parent and adolescent perceived discrepant beliefs about daily life topics. We observed this relation whilst accounting for adolescent age and gender and levels of parent-adolescent conflict. These findings have important implications for understanding and using informant discrepancies in both basic developmental psychopathology research and applied research in clinic settings (e.g., discrepant views on therapeutic goals).     

One ‘knows’: self-rated health and telomere length among ex-prisoners of war

Abstract

Objective: Ill-health and early mortality are amongst the most significant ramifications of trauma. Furthermore, trauma alters the subjective perception and experience of the body. The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which deteriorations in perceived health among traumatised individuals are associated with cellular health as manifested in telomere length.

Methods: Specifically, 88 former prisoners of war (ex-POWs) evaluated their health (self-rated health; SRH) at 18 (T1), 35 (T2) and 42 (T3) years after the war, and were assessed for telomere length at T3. Health behaviour, BMI, morbidity and PTSD were also examined at T3.

Results: The findings demonstrated that SRH was cross-sectionally correlated with telomere length. Furthermore, a significant sequential indirect effect was found, in which worse SRH in T1 was associated with shorter telomere length at T3, through worse SRH at T2 and at T3.

Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that long-term deteriorations in the subjective evaluations of health are implicated in actual cellular health among individuals exposed to trauma.     

Principles of composition and criteria of identity1

I argue that, despite van Inwagen's pessimism about the task, it is worth looking for answers to his General Composition Question. Such answers or ‘principles of composition’ tell us about the relationship between an object and its parts. I compare principles of composition with criteria of identity, arguing that, just as different sorts of thing satisfy different criteria of identity, they may satisfy different principles of composition. Variety in criteria of identity is not taken to reflect ontological variety in the identity relation; I discuss whether variety in principles of composition should be taken to reflect ontological variety in the composition relation.     

Knowledge: Value on the Cheap

We argue that the so-called ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Value Problems for knowledge are more easily solved than is widely appreciated. Pritchard, for instance, has suggested that only virtue-theoretic accounts have any hopes of adequately addressing these problems. By contrast, we argue that accounts of knowledge that are sensitive to the Gettier problem are able to overcome these challenges. To a first approximation, the Primary Value Problem is that of understanding how the property of being knowledge confers more epistemic value on a belief than does the property of being true. The Secondary Value Problem is one of understanding how, for instance, the property of being knowledge confers more epistemic value on a belief than does the property of being jointly true and justified. We argue that attending to the fact that beliefs are continuing states reveals that there is no difficulty in appreciating how knowledge might ordinarily have more epistemic value than mere true belief or mere justified true belief. We also explore in what ways ordinary cases of knowledge might be of distinctive epistemic value. In the end, our proposal resembles the original Platonic suggestion in the Meno that knowledge is valuable because knowledge is somehow tied to the good of truth.     

Sense of meaning and study perseverance and completion: a brief report

The study examines sense of meaning influences on study perseverance and course completion among students within a faculty of management sciences at a South African university (n = 40). Participants were selected for high scores on the Purpose in life (PIL) scale (n = 20; 50%) and contrasting low scores on the same (n = 20; 50%) (age range = 27 to 30 years, females = 73%, majority ethnicity = 70% Sotho speaking). Data were analysed using independent-samples t-test group comparison procedure. The results suggest that a high sense of meaning can explain study perseverance and completion.     

“I control my own emotions for the sake of the team”: Emotional self-regulation and interpersonal emotion regulation among female high-performance curlers

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to examine emotional self-regulation and interpersonal emotion regulation within a team of competitive athletes.DesignInstrumental case study approach (Stake, 1995).MethodData collection involved multiple semi-structured interviews with all four members of a female high-performance curling team, as well as observation of team meetings, practices, and games over the entire season.ResultsAnalyses produced the main themes of emotional self regulation (body language and self-censorship) and interpersonal emotional regulation (providing positive and/or technical feedback, humour, cueing teammates about their emotions, prosocial actions and indirect actions). We also identified factors influencing emotional regulation (length of time together, team dynamics/cohesion, context, social norms and team roles, and seeking support outside the team).ConclusionsAthletes were aware of and took into account social and contextual factors (e.g., social norms and role on team) when regulating emotions in a team context, and they also identified challenges associated with emotional regulation within the team. Findings highlight the complex interplay between athletes' emotions, emotional expression, and self-regulation to achieve multiple goals (e.g., positive performances, positive social relationships), as well as the importance of examining interpersonal processes related to emotion and emotion regulation within team sports.     

Exploring adversity and the potential for growth among elite female athletes

ObjectivesThe purposes of this study were to (a) explore experiences of adversity and (b) to examine perceptions of growth following adversity among elite female athletes.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with five elite female athletes (ages 18–23 years) who competed internationally in track and field, swimming, long-distance running, and basketball. Interviews were analyzed using an interpretative phenomenological approach (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009).ResultsIncidents of performance slumps, coach conflicts, bullying, eating disorders, sexual abuse, and injuries were reported. The shared ‘essential’ features of participants’ experiences of adversity were isolation/withdrawal, emotional disruption, questioning identity as an athlete, and understanding experiences within a context of perceived expectations. It appeared that as participants sought and found meaning in their experiences, they identified opportunities for growth associated with social support and also as they realized the role of sport in their lives. Aspects of growth include realizing strength, gaining perspective of their problems, and gaining a desire to help others. Athletes’ experiences with adversity were seen as part of an ongoing journey through elite sport.ConclusionsAthletes’ experiences of adversity may have initiated a process of questioning their identities and searching for meaning in their experiences. Findings highlighted the complexity associated with social support and athletes’ growth following adversity. Growth following adversity appears to be a valuable area of research among elite athletes.