Coping with body image changes following a disfiguring burn injury.

The influence of emotion-focused coping on distress following disfiguring injury was examined. Two types of emotion-focused coping (i.e., venting emotions vs. mental disengagement) were assessed in 78 patients with burn injury at baseline during acute hospitalization. Body image dissatisfaction (BID) was assessed 1 week and 2 months following discharge. Use at baseline of both venting emotions and mental disengagement, compared with use of only one or neither of these coping methods, was associated at the 2-month postdischarge follow-up with significantly higher BID related to nonfacial aspects of appearance and with a greater negative social impact of disfigurement. D. M. Wegner's (1994) theoretical model of mental control and a proposed motivational analysis are used to interpret these findings.     

Doctors and diversity: Using interfaith literacy and interfaith dialogue to improve patient care

In an increasingly diversifying world, how can doctors and other healthcare professionals improve patient care? Currently, many doctors do not understand how to approach religious differences or recognize their effect on patient health. Doctors must acquire interfaith literacy in medical school through required courses and learn the skills necessary to engage in interfaith dialogue with patients in their practice in order to provide the best patient care in areas with growing diverse patient populations.     

Stress in Relation to Anxiety and Depression Among Racial/Ethnic Minority Women: The Differential Impact of Cultural Mismatch on Somatic and Cognitive Symptoms

The study examined the interactive effects of stress and cultural mismatch, as evidenced by low independent self‐construal, in relation to cognitive/somatic symptoms of anxiety and depression among racial/ethnic minority women. Results showed that stress and independent self‐construal work synergistically to differentially affect cognitive, rather than somatic, symptoms of anxiety and depression. Findings highlight the importance of investigating the interplay between stress and contextual factors to improve current treatment models for marginalized groups. El estudio examinó los efectos interactivos del estrés y la discordancia cultural, probados por un bajo autoconcepto independiente, en relación con los síntomas cognitivos/somáticos de la ansiedad y la depresión entre mujeres de minorías raciales/étnicas. Los resultados mostraron que el estrés y el autoconcepto independiente trabajan en sinergia para afectar diferencialmente a los síntomas cognitivos, no así a los somáticos, de la ansiedad y la depresión. Los hallazgos subrayan la importancia de investigar la interacción entre el estrés y los factores contextuales para mejorar los modelos de tratamiento actuales para grupos marginalizados.     

Children lose confidence in their potential to “be scientists,” but not in their capacity to “do science”

Over the course of middle childhood, children's interest and beliefs about their own capacities for success in science often decline. This pernicious decline is especially evident among underrepresented groups, including girls, members of some racial and ethnic minorities, and children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The present research (N = 306, ages 6–11) found that while children lose interest and feelings of efficacy about their potential to “be scientists” across middle childhood, they maintain more robust interest and efficacy about “doing science.” These patterns were confirmed in both longitudinal and cross‐sectional analyses; effects were stable or increased across time and age. Mediation analyses revealed that the positive effect of action framing is partially accounted for by children's views that the group of people who do science is more inclusive than the category of scientists. These findings suggest that using action‐focused language to encourage children in science is more inclusive and may lead to more science engagement across middle childhood than language that emphasizes scientists as an identity category. Implications for educational practices will be discussed.     

My Heart Made Me Do It: Children's Essentialist Beliefs About Heart Transplants

Psychological essentialism is a folk theory characterized by the belief that a causal internal essence or force gives rise to the common outward behaviors or attributes of a category's members. In two studies, we investigated whether 4‐ to 7‐year‐old children evidenced essentialist reasoning about heart transplants by asking them to predict whether trading hearts with an individual would cause them to take on the donor's attributes. Control conditions asked children to consider the effects of trading money with an individual. Results indicated that children reasoned according to essentialism, predicting more transfer of attributes in the transplant condition versus the non‐bodily money control. Children also endorsed essentialist transfer of attributes even when they did not believe that a transplant would change the recipient's category membership (e.g., endorsing the idea that a recipient of a pig's heart would act pig‐like, but denying that the recipient would become a pig). This finding runs counter to predictions from a strong interpretation of the “minimalist” position, an alternative to essentialism.     

Continued Participation in Youth Sports: The Role of Achievement Motivation

This study explored the antecedents of enjoyment and intention to continue in youth sports using the social-cognitive model of achievement motivation with the 2 × 2 achievement goal modification. Participants were 327 sports participants between 11 and 15 years of age. Individuals high in incremental beliefs reported greater enjoyment and intention to continue. This was perhaps due to endorsing mastery-approach goals. Individuals relatively high in entity beliefs reported relatively less enjoyment. This was perhaps due to endorsing performance-avoidance goals. These individuals also reported relatively less intention to continue regardless of their achievement goals. Findings could have implications for preventing dropout from youth sports.     

Effects of Equine-Facilitated Psychotherapy on Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms in Youth

Equine-assisted therapy has become an increasingly popular complementary mental health treatment approach, but there is limited empirical research assessing the effectiveness of this practice. In particular, equine-facilitated psychotherapy has many potential benefits for the treatment of trauma in youth. The purpose of the proposed study was to investigate changes in levels of post-traumatic stress symptomatology and levels of the human-animal bond in children and adolescents ages 10–18 over the course of a 10-week equine-facilitated psychotherapy (EFP) intervention. Youth in the treatment group (n?=?36) participated in 10 weekly two hour EFP sessions, and were compared on changes in post-traumatic stress symptoms with a control group of participants (n?=?32) who continued to receive the already existing traditional therapeutic services provided by their treatment facility or outpatient therapist. Findings suggested a significant decrease in post-traumatic stress symptoms across the intervention for both the treatment and control group, but the treatment group did not decrease significantly more than the control group. These findings suggest that EFP may be an effective additional treatment modality for post-traumatic stress symptoms, but there was no evidence from this initial study that EFP was significantly more effective than traditional office-based therapy. Further research and discussion of the relative benefits of EFP compared to traditional treatment modalities is warranted.     

Parenting Programs for the Prevention of Child Physical Abuse Recurrence: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Child physical abuse is an issue of global concern. Conservative estimates set global prevalence of this type of maltreatment at 25%, its consequences and cost to society escalating with increasing frequency and severity of episodes. Syntheses of the evidence on parenting programs for reducing rates of physical abuse recidivism have, to date, not been able to establish effectiveness. Paucity of data and inconsistent inclusion criteria in past reviews made meta-analysis often impossible or uninformative. The current systematic review updates prior reviews and overcomes some of the methodological issues they encountered by pooling trial-level data from a well-defined scope of trials of parenting interventions aimed at preventing the re-abuse of children by parents with substantiated or suspected physical abuse history. Randomized controlled trials and rigorous non-randomized designs were sought via nine online databases, two trial registries, several clearinghouses and contact with experts. A total of fourteen studies of variable quality were included in this review, four of which had outcomes that enabled meta-analysis. Overall, this review presents evidence supporting the effectiveness of parenting behavioral programs based on social learning theory for reducing hard markers of child physical abuse recidivism. Meta-analysis found that the absolute risk reduction in risk of recidivism was 11 percentage points less for maltreating parents who undergo parenting programs (RD = ?0.11, 95% CI [?0.22, ?0.004], p = 0.043, I ² = 28.9%). However, the pooled effect size was not statistically significant when calculated as a risk ratio (0.76, 95% CI [0.54, 1.07], I ² = 38.4%). Policy makers and practitioners should be made aware that this intervention method is backed by promising evidence featuring modest yet significant reductions in hard markers of child physical abuse, even though the methodological robustness of these findings should be further explored in future research.     

Exploring the trajectory of personal,moral and spiritual values of 16- to 18-year-old students taking religious studies at A level in the UK

This study set out to explore the trajectory of personal, moral and spiritual values of students taking Religious Studies at A level in the UK. A sample of 150 students completed a battery of measures at the beginning of their period of A level study and again at the end. The data found no difference over this period of time in personal values (purpose in life, self-esteem, and empathy) in some moral values (concerning anti-social behaviour and concerning substance use) and in levels of religious exclusivism or frequency of private prayer. The areas in which significant differences were observed were concerned with attitude toward sex and relationships, religious pluralism, belief in life after death, and mystical orientation. Between the ages of 16 and 18 years, following two years’ engagement with Religious Studies at A level, the participants became more liberal in their approach toward sex and relationships, less convinced about the truth claims of religious pluralism, less likely to adhere to traditional Christian teaching on life after death, and less open to mystical experience. They are also less certain of ever having had a religious experience, and less frequent in their practice of religious attendance.     

The moderating effect of perceived organizational support on the relationships between organizational justice and objective measures of cardiovascular health

This paper builds on a recent meta-analytic review on the relationships between organizational justice and health. Specifically, we examine the moderating role of perceived organizational support (POS) on the relationships between organizational justice and three objective cardiovascular health measures, namely, heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure, among a population of 290 public construction workers. The interaction between justice and POS was statistically significant using procedural justice, demonstrating that procedural justice is associated with improvements in the three health outcomes only when POS is relatively high. In other words, higher levels of both procedural justice and POS were needed for reduced heart rate and reduced systolic and diastolic blood pressure. However, the interaction between distributive justice and POS did not significantly relate to the health outcomes. This study makes a contribution to the field by focusing the effects of psychosocial workplace variables on measures of cardiovascular health, and demonstrating an important boundary condition of the relationships between procedural justice and cardiovascular risk factors.