Children's understanding of belief as a normative concept

The variety of accounts of theory of mind development, arising from distinct theoretical perspectives, have focused on children's causal-explanatory views on the mind and have not developed accounts of children's normative judgments of the mental domain. This review maintains that such a focus is unfortunate and leaves our understanding of belief as a concept incomplete. First, by presenting an alternative framework that treats belief as a normative concept, this account discusses the central importance of children's understanding of epistemic justification and their appreciation of the normative significance of others’ reasons for belief. Next, this review of the relevant theory of mind literature proposes a new way of thinking about the findings of various domains in this field and gives particular attention to prior work on false belief, origins or sources of belief, and the distinctions between fantastical and epistemic states. On the basis of this review, it is concluded that in order to accurately assess the development of the concept of belief, further research is required on children's views of how beliefs ought to be formed, their evaluation of justified and unjustified believers, and the notions of duty or responsibility they associate with epistemic agents.     

Predictors of the Peer Acceptance of Children with Diabetes: Social Behavior and Disease Severity

Objective. Investigated illness severity (medical control, disease impact, obviousness) and social behavior style as predictors of the peer acceptance of children with diabetes. Method. Sixty-five children (10–12.5 years old) with diabetes and their parents, teachers, and physicians participated. Physician ratings and laboratory tests indicated medical control. Parents and children reported disease impact and teachers rated disease obviousness. Children and teachers rated social behavior. Teachers reported peer acceptance. Results. Consistent with hypotheses, favorable social behavior positively predicted acceptance and disease impact negatively predicted acceptance; medical control did not relate to acceptance. Disease obviousness and social behavior interacted to predict acceptance. Children with more obvious disease were not stigmatized by unfavorable social behavior. Conclusions. Aspects of disease severity and social behavior influence peer acceptance and may be appropriate predictors and targets for remediation of peer problems.     

Emotional display rules in Palestine: Ingroup/outgroup membership,status of interaction partner and gender

This study investigates emotional display rules within the Palestinian context, focusing on the seven basic emotions in a sample of 150 college students from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Overall, participants felt that it was more appropriate to express positive emotions (happiness and surprise) than negative powerful (anger, contempt and disgust) or negative powerless (fear and sadness) emotions. They also perceived it to be more appropriate to express positive and negative powerless emotions to ingroup than outgroup members and to express negative powerful emotions to lower status compared to higher status individuals. Gender differences were also found: men endorsed greater expression of both powerful and, surprisingly, powerless emotions than women, but only when interacting with outgroup members. Results are interpreted in terms of the cultural values of individualism–collectivism and power distance as well as cultural differences in emotional expressiveness between collectivistic societies. This study is one of the first to examine emotional display rules in an Arab population, thus expanding our current knowledge base.     

Resilience-Based Intervention with Underserved Children: Impact on Self-Regulation in a Randomized Clinical Trial in Schools

Resilience and emotion regulation are crucial for optimal psychosocial functioning in children. This study assessed whether a group-based intervention, the Resilience Builder Program (RBP), improved student report of emotion regulation when administered in elementary schools. Sixty-seven students aged 9–12 years (M = 10.50, SD =.74; 82.1% male, 98.5% ethnic/racial minority) were randomly assigned to receive the RBP intervention immediately or following a semester delay. Participants reported their emotional control using the How I Feel scale. Students who received the RBP reported a significant increase in their emotional control and a significant decrease in negative emotion compared to those students in the delayed treatment sample who had not yet received the intervention. Further, students indicated a strongly positive perception of the therapy.     

Promoting intergroup openness and support for equality in a new cultural context: Replicating the effects of internal criticism

Exposure to an outgroup member voicing criticism of his or her own group fosters greater openness to the outgroup’s perspective. Research suggests that this effect owes its influence to a serial process in which participants’ perception of the risk involved in voicing internal criticism leads to an increase in the perceived credibility of the speaker. The credibility makes it possible for the speaker to be viewed as open-minded, which subsequently inspires greater hope. This process culminates in an increased openness to the outgroup. These findings have been restricted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but here we examine their generalizability to racial conflict in the United States. Results reveal that White Americans exposed to internal criticism expressed by a Black authority figure express greater openness to African-American perspectives on race relations and are more willing to support policies of racial equality. Replicating past research, this effect is serially mediated by risk, credibility, and hope.     

Substance Use Research with Indigenous Communities: Exploring and Extending Foundational Principles of Community Psychology

Many Indigenous communities are concerned with substance use (SU) problems and eager to advance effective solutions for their prevention and treatment. Yet these communities also are concerned about the perpetuation of colonizing, disorder‐focused, stigmatizing approaches to mental health, and social narratives related to SU problems. Foundational principles of community psychology—ecological perspectives, empowerment, sociocultural competence, community inclusion and partnership, and reflective practice—provide useful frameworks for informing ethical community‐based research pertaining to SU problems conducted with and by Indigenous communities. These principles are explored and extended for Indigenous community contexts through themes generated from seven collaborative studies focused on understanding, preventing, and treating SU problems. These studies are generated from research teams working with Indigenous communities across the United States and Canada—inclusive of urban, rural, and reservation/reserve populations as well as adult and youth participants. Shared themes indicate that Indigenous SU research reflects community psychology principles, as an outgrowth of research agendas and processes that are increasingly guided by Indigenous communities. At the same time, this research challenges these principles in important ways pertaining to Indigenous–settler relations and Indigenous‐specific considerations. We discuss these challenges and recommend greater synergy between community psychology and Indigenous research.     

Thriving and Ethnic Discrimination: A Mixed‐Methods Study

Using mixed methodology, the authors examined facilitators to psychological thriving—or positive changes after adversity—in the context of ethnic discrimination among Latina/o adults. Several themes emerged from qualitative interviews (n = 10), including proving others wrong, ethnic identity, and community involvement. Quantitative analyses (n = 97) indicated that U.S. identity moderated the relationship between ethnic microaggressions and thriving such that high levels of U.S. identity were associated with lower thriving. Implications and future directions are discussed. Usando una metodología mixta, los autores examinaron los facilitadores de la prosperidad psicológica (o cambios positivos tras la adversidad) en el contexto de la discriminación étnica en personas latinas adultas. Varios temas surgieron de las entrevistas cualitativas (n = 10), entre los que se incluyen demostrar que otros estaban equivocados, la identidad étnica y la implicación de la comunidad. Los análisis cuantitativos (n = 97) indicaron que la identidad estadounidense moderó la relación entre las microagresiones étnicas y la prosperidad de tal modo que unos altos niveles de identidad estadounidense se asociaron con una baja prosperidad. Se discuten las implicaciones y direcciones futuras.