Family routines and rituals in the context of chronic conditions: A review

This paper is a systematic review of 39 empirical studies on family routines and rituals in the context of a chronic condition of a family member. The search strategy encompassed a wide spectrum of chronic conditions affecting family members from childhood/adolescence to adulthood. Twenty quantitative, 13 qualitative, 3 mixed‐methods, and 3 intervention studies published between 1995 and 2012 were reviewed. A conceptual framework of routines and rituals as key elements of family health was adopted, resulting in three main findings. First, a chronic condition in a family member impacted the frequency and nature of family's routines and rituals. Second, these whole‐family interactions held important functions for individuals and families, constituting strategic resources in the condition's management and opportunities for emotional support exchanges, and providing the family with a sense of normalcy amid the challenges posed by chronic conditions. Third, family routines and rituals were linked to positive health and adaptation outcomes for both patients and family members. Implications for future research include the need for the distinction between routines and rituals against a conceptual background, use of validated assessment methods, and empirical examination of predictors of changes in routines and rituals throughout the course of the condition and of the mechanisms linking these family events to positive outcomes. Conclusions support the inclusion of routines and rituals in a family‐centered care approach to the understanding and treatment of chronic conditions.     

Implicit affectivity and rapid processing of affective body language: An fMRI study

Previous research has revealed affect‐congruity effects for the recognition of affects from faces. Little is known about the impact of affect on the perception of body language. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship of implicit (versus explicit) affectivity with the recognition of briefly presented affective body expressions. Implicit affectivity, which can be measured using indirect assessment methods, has been found to be more predictive of spontaneous physiological reactions than explicit (self‐reported) affect. Thirty‐four healthy women had to label the expression of body postures (angry, fearful, happy, or neutral) presented for 66 ms and masked by a neutral body posture in a forced‐choice format while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants' implicit affectivity was assessed using the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test. Measures of explicit state and trait affectivity were also administered. Analysis of the fMRI data was focused on a subcortical network involved in the rapid perception of affective body expressions. Only implicit negative affect (but not explicit affect) was correlated with correct labeling performance for angry body posture. As expected, implicit negative affect was positively associated with activation of the subcortical network in response to fearful and angry expression (compared to neutral expression). Responses of the caudate nucleus to affective body expression were especially associated with its recognition. It appears that processes of rapid recognition of affects from body postures could be facilitated by an individual's implicit negative affect.     

Cross-Cultural Measurement of Positive and Negative Emotions in Adolescence: Evidence from Three Countries

Journal of Happiness Studies - Cross-cultural assessment of affective well-being among adolescents has received scarce attention in positive psychological research. The present study investigated...     

Differences in adults’ spatial scaling based on visual or haptic information

Cognitive Processing - The present study examined differences in adults’ spatial-scaling abilities across three perceptual conditions: (1) visual, (2) haptic, and (3) visual and haptic....     

The Satisfaction with Life Scale in Adolescent Samples: Measurement Invariance across 24 Countries and Regions,Age, and Gender

Measurement of adolescent life satisfaction across cultures has not received much attention in previous empirical research. The present study evaluated measurement invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) among adolescents in 24 countries and regions (N = 22,710; age range = 13–19 years; 53% female). A single-factor model with residual covariance between a pair of items tapping past life satisfaction fitted well in 19 countries and regions and showed a partial metric invariance. In a subset of nine countries and regions, partial scalar invariance was supported. Partial metric invariance across all 24 countries and regions was achieved when custom model modifications in five countries and regions were included. Three SWLS items showed evidence of noninvariance across cultures. The measurement model was found to operate similarly across gender and age. Our findings suggest that caution is needed when using the SWLS for measuring life satisfaction among adolescents from different cultures.

     

Salience and asymmetric judgments of physical distance

Previous research has shown that distance estimates made from memory are often asymmetric. Specifically, when A is a prominent location (a landmark) and B is not, people tend to recall a longer distance from A to B than from B to A. Results of two experiments showed that asymmetric judgments of distance are not restricted to judgments made from memory but occur also for judgments made when all relevant visual cues are still present. Furthermore, results indicated that situational salience is sufficient to produce asymmetric judgments and that distinctiveness (such as in the case of architectural landmarks) is not necessary.     

Dividing the self: distinct neural substrates of task-based and automatic self-prioritization after brain damage

Facial self-awareness is a basic human ability dependent on a distributed bilateral neural network and revealed through prioritized processing of our own over other faces. Using non-prosopagnosic patients we show, for the first time, that facial self-awareness can be fractionated into different component processes. Patients performed two face perception tasks. In a face orientation task, they judged whether their own or others' faces were oriented to the left or right. In the 'cross' experiment, they judged which horizontal or vertical element in a cross was relatively longer while ignoring a task-irrelevant face presented as background. The data indicate that impairments to a distinct task-based prioritization process (when faces had to be attended) were present after brain damage to right superior frontal gyrus, bilateral precuneus, and left middle temporal gyrus. In contrast, impairments to automatic prioritization processes (when faces had to be ignored) were associated only with left hemisphere damage (the cingulate gyrus, superior parietal lobe, and superior temporal gyrus). In addition, both automatic and task-based self-prioritizations were affected by damage to left supramarginal and angular gyrus. The results for the gray matter analyses also extended to the adjacent white matter fiber tracts including the inferior occipital-frontal fasciculus, cingulum, and optic radiation. The data provide the first empirical evidence for separate functional roles of the left and right hemispheres in different aspects of self-face perception and suggest distinct functional processes respectively for paying attention to and for ignoring self-related information.     

Understanding and philosophical methodology

According to Conceptualism, philosophy is an independent discipline that can be pursued from the armchair because philosophy seeks truths that can be discovered purely on the basis of our understanding of expressions and the concepts they express. In his recent book, The Philosophy of Philosophy, Timothy Williamson argues that while philosophy can indeed be pursued from the armchair, we should reject any form of Conceptualism. In this paper, we show that Williamson??s arguments against Conceptualism are not successful, and we sketch a way to understand understanding that shows that there is a clear sense in which we can indeed come to know the answers to (many) philosophical questions purely on the basis of understanding.     

Associations between personality traits, physical activity level, and muscle strength

Associations among personality as measured by the Five Factor Model, physical activity, and muscle strength were assessed using data from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (N = 1220, age: mean = 58, SD = 16). General linear modeling with adjustment for age, sex, race, and body mass index, and bootstrapping for mediation were used. We found neuroticism and most of its facets to negatively correlate with strength. The extraversion domain and its facets of warmth, activity, and positive-emotions were positively correlated with strength, independent of covariates. Mediation analysis results suggest that these associations are partly explained by physical activity level. Findings extend the evidence of an association between personality and physical function to its strength component and indicate health behavior as an important pathway.