It's a wonderful life: mentally subtracting positive events improves people's affective states, contrary to their affective forecasts

The authors hypothesized that thinking about the absence of a positive event from one's life would improve affective states more than thinking about the presence of a positive event but that people would not predict this when making affective forecasts. In Studies 1 and 2, college students wrote about the ways in which a positive event might never have happened and was surprising or how it became part of their life and was unsurprising. As predicted, people in the former condition reported more positive affective states. In Study 3, college student forecasters failed to anticipate this effect. In Study 4, Internet respondents and university staff members who wrote about how they might never have met their romantic partner were more satisfied with their relationship than were those who wrote about how they did meet their partner. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for the literatures on gratitude induction and counterfactual reasoning.     

Physical therapists' nonverbal communication predicts geriatric patients' health outcomes

Two studies explored the link between health care providers' patterns of nonverbal communication and therapeutic efficacy. In Study 1, physical therapists were videotaped during a session with a client. Brief samples of therapists' nonverbal behavior were rated by naive judges. Judges' ratings were then correlated with clients' physical, cognitive, and psychological functioning at admission, at discharge, and at 3 months following discharge. Therapists' distancing behavior was strongly correlated with short- and long-term decreases in their clients' physical and cognitive functioning. Distancing was expressed through a pattern of not smiling and looking away from the client. In contrast, facial expressiveness, as revealed through smiling, nodding, and frowning, was associated with short- and long-term improvements in functioning. In Study 2, elderly subjects perceived distancing behaviors of therapists more negatively than positive behaviors.     

Bayesian Mixture Model of Extended Redundancy Analysis

Psychometrika - Extended redundancy analysis (ERA), a generalized version of redundancy analysis (RA), has been proposed as a useful method for examining interrelationships among multiple sets of...     

Internet-addicted kids and South Korean government efforts: boot-camp case

Computer overuse has been a serious problem for the past several years. One aspect of the information age has been the novel concerns deriving from advanced IT technology--which include Internet addiction, gambling, and so on. These Internet-based problems have emerged in many countries, including South Korea. In an effort to solve this problem, the South Korean government has created a variety of programs designed to cure teenagers' Internet addictions, most notably the Jump Up Internet Rescue School, a camp designed to cure Internet-addicted or online game-addicted children. In this study, we review this boot-camp program and present a brief review of the literature concerning Internet addiction and habit theory. Additionally, we provide some useful implications for the Korean government and other countries, practitioners, and researchers. It is also anticipated that the findings from this study will provide us with a better understanding of how case-study-based research into Internet addiction curative programs can be regarded as a burgeoning field of Internet-related research.     

Relationships of Pubertal Development Among Early Adolescents to Sexual and Nonsexual Risk Behaviors and Caregivers' Parenting Behaviors

Using a school-based sample of Washington, DC, fifth graders (mean age 10.38, SD = 0.66) and their parents (N = 408), we examined associations of pubertal development with early adolescents' sexual and nonsexual risk behaviors and their caregivers' parenting behaviors; and of these risk behaviors with parenting behaviors. Youths reporting signs of pubertal development were more likely to engage in these risk behaviors than students reporting no signs. Pubertal development was not related to parenting behaviors; however, parents of youths who reported multiple nonsexual risk behaviors reported more parent-child communication about sexual topics. These results highlight the need to begin risk prevention efforts early, prior to pubertal development. Research is needed to understand how parents can help youths better cope with pubertal development to avoid involvement in sexual and nonsexual risk behaviors.     

Values of Children, Parent–Child Relationship, and Social Change in Korea: Indigenous, Cultural, and Psychological Analysis

Les recherches sur les valeurs que les parents attribuent aux enfants se demandent pourquoi les gens décident ou non d’avoir des enfants et s’intéressent au nombre d’enfants qu’ils choisissent d’avoir. On décrit dans la première partie de cet article la relation parents‐enfants traditionnelle, la structure familiale et les changements sociaux qui se sont produits ces cinquante dernières années en Corée du sud. On présente dans la deuxième partie les résultats de l’étude de 1972 sur les valeurs attribuées aux enfants réalisée en Corée du sud (Lee & Kim, 1975). Dans la dernière partie, on expose une recherche empirique sud‐coréenne portant sur un échantillon de 314 jeunes mères et 395 mères plus âgées. Il apparaît que les bénéfices psychologiques sont les raisons majeures qui justifient le choix d’avoir un enfant et que les contraintes personnelles et financières sont les motifs dominants de ne pas en avoir. Ces résultats mettent en défaut les modèles économiques et utilitaires et soulignent l’importance des facteurs psychologiques, relationnels et culturels. Research on parents’ attribution of value to children examines why people decide to have children or not and the number of children they choose to have. In the first part of this paper, the traditional parent–child relationship, family structure, and social changes that have occurred in South Korea during the past 50 years are reviewed. In the second section, the results of the 1972 Values of Children Study conducted in South Korea ( Lee & Kim, 1975 ) are reviewed. In the final section, an empirical study conducted in South Korea with a sample of 314 young mothers and 395 older mothers is reported. The results indicate that psychological benefits are the most important reasons for having a child and personal and financial constraints are the most important reasons for not having a child. These results challenge the economic and utilitarian models and suggest the importance of understanding the psychological, relational, and cultural factors.