The helping relationship and program participation in early childhood home visiting

As researchers have focused on better understanding those circumstances under which home visiting can lead to positive effects on parent and child outcomes, there has been growing interest in examining variation in the experiences of families within these programs, including the quality of the helping relationships between home visitors and parents. The current study examined how participating mothers perceive the helping relationship, using information collected from the Early Head Start National Research and Evaluation Project. Results suggest that although maternal report of the helping relationship is biased towards positive ratings, it remains a significant predictor of program participation, over and above general program satisfaction. Implications for measurement development and program interventions are discussed.     

Young children associate novel words with complex objects rather than salient parts

How do children learn associations between novel words and complex perceptual displays? Using a visual preference procedure, the authors tested 12- and 19-month-olds to see whether the infants would associate a novel word with a complex 2-part object or with either of that object's parts, both of which were potentially objects in their own right and 1 of which was highly salient to infants. At both ages, children's visual fixation times during test were greater to the entire complex object than to the salient part (Experiment 1) or to the less salient part (Experiment 2)--when the original label was requested. Looking times to the objects were equal if a new label was requested or if neutral audio was used during training (Experiment 3). Thus, from 12 months of age, infants associate words with whole objects, even those that could potentially be construed as 2 separate objects and even if 1 of the parts is salient.     

Physician Beliefs about Physical and Mental Competency of Patients Applying for Concealed Weapon Permits

Law enforcement officials have asked health care providers to evaluate patient applications for concealed weapon permits. The current study was designed to examine physician beliefs regarding competency to carry a concealed weapon for patients with specific physical and mental conditions. Among 222 North Carolina physicians who participated in this survey (40% response rate), large variation and uncertainty existed for determining competency. Physicians most frequently chose mild dementia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and recent depression as conditions that would render a patient not competent to carry a concealed weapon. Male physicians and those owning a gun were more likely to deem a patient competent. Almost a third of physicians were unsure about competence for most conditions. Physicians asked to assess competency of patients to carry a concealed weapon have quite disparate views on competency and little confidence in their decisions. If physicians are expected to assess patient competence to carry a concealed weapon, more objective criteria and training are needed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measuring the combined risk to young children's cognitive development: An alternative to cumulative indices

In studies of child development, the combined effect of multiple risks acting in unison has been represented in a variety of ways. This investigation builds upon this preceding work and presents a new procedure for capturing the combined effect of multiple risks. A representative sample of 2,899 British children had their cognitive development measured at 36 and 58 months of age along with 10 potential risks during this period of development. Comparing a cumulative index of these risks against the previously undocumented alternative of confirmatory factor analysis using formative measurement, this study found differences favouring the factor analysis. The factor analysis procedure demonstrated greater predictive power of children's cognitive development while it systematically tested two of the assumptions implicit in cumulative risk indices.     

A Towel Less: Social Norms Enhance Pro-Environmental Behavior in Hotels

Previous research has shown that normative appeals to engage in environmentally friendly behavior were most effective when they were accompanied by a provincial norm (e.g., when norms matched individuals’ immediate situational circumstances). Analyzing hotel guests’ towel-use during their stay, the current study tests whether messages employing provincial norms were more effective in reducing towel-use than standard environmental messages. In line with previous findings, guests of two hotels used significantly fewer towels when provincial normative appeals—rather than standard environmental messages—were communicated. These findings corroborate to the body of research demonstrating the power of social norms on environmental behavior.     

Whole Lives and Good Deaths

This article discusses two views associated with narrative conceptions of the self. The first view asserts that our whole life is reasonably regarded as a single unit of meaning. A prominent strand of the philosophical narrative account of the self is the representative of this view. The second view—which has currency beyond the confines of the philosophical narrative account—is that the meaning of a life story is dependent on what happens at the end of it. The article argues that the connection between these two views is more tentative than often supposed: philosophical narrativists that see life as a single unit of value and meaning nonetheless provide grounds for arguing that the end of life is not the best and may be a particularly bad time to approach and intervene in the matter of how well one's life as a whole has gone.     

Let's kōrero (talk): The practice and functions of reminiscing among mothers and children in Māori families

Māori adults recall earlier memories than New Zealand European or Chinese adults, highlighting the importance of memory in Māori culture. In this study, Māori preschool children and their mothers (N = 41) reminisced about a diverse range of past events, including everyday events, the child's birth, cultural rituals and the child's misbehaviour. Mothers also reported how frequently they discussed past events with their children, as well as their level of affiliation with Māori culture. Mothers who reported higher levels of cultural affiliation also reported reminiscing more frequently about a diverse range of past events. Mothers reminisced in more elaborative ways about everyday events with their children compared to birth stories, cultural rituals and misbehaviours. Maternal reminiscing about cultural rituals and misbehaviours, however, along with maternal reminiscing about everyday events and birth stories, were significantly correlated with children's memory across conversations. These results underscore the continued importance of reminiscing about culturally relevant events in Māori culture, and the newfound importance for Māori families of reminiscing about everyday events.