The effect of meaningfulness and integrative processing in expressive writing on positive and negative affect and life satisfaction

Meaningfulness and integrative processing of expressive writing may influence the effect of expressive writing. Participants completed measures of positive affect, negative affect and life satisfaction before and after an expressive writing intervention. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four expressive writing instruction conditions, which combined higher and lower levels of meaning and integrative processing instructions. Meaningfulness and integrative processing instructions had significant effects in increasing positive affect and there was a significant interaction between meaningfulness instructions and integrative processing instructions; participants in the high meaningfulness and high integrative processing instruction condition showed the greatest increase in positive affect. Meaningfulness had a significant effect in decreasing negative affect. The intervention did not influence life satisfaction. Both meaningfulness and integrative processing instructions led to more self-reported personal meaningfulness of the writing and more cognitive, emotional, behavioural and situational changes. More self-reported meaningfulness of the writing and more cognitive, emotional, behavioural and situational changes made as a result of the writing were in turn associated with greater increases in positive affect. The results of the study affirm the importance of meaningfulness and processing in expressive writing and potentially provide information regarding how to increase the effectiveness of expressive writing.     

Affective state and event-based prospective memory

Event-based prospective memory tasks require the realisation of a delayed intention at the occurrence of a specific target event. The present research investigates how performance in this kind of prospective memory task is influenced by the current affective state. By manipulating participants' mood during intention realisation we tested two competing models of mood effects on memory (i.e., a capacity consuming account and a processing style account). Furthermore, we manipulated the valence of the target event to investigate mood-congruency effects in prospective memory. No evidence was found for a mood-congruency effect, but the results showed that prospective memory performance increased with a sad mood. This effect is consistent with recent theories on mood-dependent processing-style regulation, postulating that a sad mood produces a more analytic and detailed processing style whereas a happy mood produces a more global and less detailed processing style.     

Beyond “Empowerment”? Sexuality in a Sexist World

The subject of girls’ sexual empowerment is a fertile area for feminist debate. While most feminists are committed to the promotion of diverse and egalitarian sexual possibilities for girls (and women), we differ in our views on how to hold an aspirational vision alongside paying attention to real world constraints on its unfolding. A specific instance of this tension is posed in considering how relevant claims to individual empowerment are within a broader context that remains broadly sexist and limiting as well as saturated with racist and other forms of discrimination and inequality. In this paper, I join the dialogue opened by Lamb and Peterson (2011) to explore some of these questions. I argue that the concept of sexual empowerment, as taken up in these debates, might be too flexible to do the work we require of it. In particular, I suggest that it is unhelpful to fix our lens on claims of individual empowerment, if and where this involves eliding the broader sociocultural conditions of possibility for “intimate justice” (McClelland 2010) for girls and women; and, where it leads us to over-ride the psychosocial complexity of all individuals in ways that distract us from attending to ambivalence and understanding the “cruel attachments” that can bind us to injustice. Rather than seeking to offer an “‘expert’ view of empowerment,” I argue for the value of reflexive, empathic, and respectful feminist critique of the cultural conditions of possibility for such a thing.     

Evidence for a Needs-Based Model of Organizational-Meeting Leadership

The aim of this study was to investigate whether an association exists between 19 meeting-leader behaviors of the type that tend to meet attendee needs and attendee ratings of satisfaction with the meeting and productivity of the meeting. An observer blind to the ratings of attendees recorded which of 19 needs-related behaviors the leader showed and then collected anonymous meeting-rating data from the attendees. The study included data from 60 organizational meetings and a total of 401 meeting attendees. The results indicate that the overall level of leader behaviors shown, out of 19 different behaviors observed, was significantly associated with attendee ratings of the meeting. Several individual meeting-leader behaviors showed significant associations with ratings of either meeting productivity or satisfaction with the meeting: arriving before the start of the meeting, speaking succinctly, moving the meeting along, encouraging participation, encouraging decision making, paraphrasing someone’s, smiling more than once, saying something positive about the future of the organization, and summarizing the decisions made. The results provide preliminary support for a new needs-based model of organizational-meeting leadership. The results also suggest specific leader behaviors that may contribute to meeting productivity and satisfaction.     

Family therapy and soiling: an audit of externalizing and other approaches

This is a retrospective audit of the therapy outcome of 108 children with soiling and their families. Fifty-four children were treated by externalizing and 54 comparison children and families were treated by the usual methods in the same clinic. The results from the externalizing group were better and compared favourably with standards derived from previous studies of soiling. Externalizing was rated as much more helpful by parents at follow-up.     

What do rooks (Corvus frugilegus) understand about physical contact?

Rooks (Corvus frugilegus) do not use tools, but rapidly solve tests of physical cognition. The authors tested whether rooks understand the concept of physical contact using a task comprising a clear horizontal tube containing a stick with a disk attached to it and a piece of food. The rooks chose which side to pull the stick from to make the food accessible. Two configurations were used, with either the food or disk central along the tube. All 8 rooks solved the food-central configuration, but failed the disk-central configuration. Although they did not demonstrate an understanding of contact, further tests established that they could learn to solve these tasks provided there were salient stick cues. This result may arise because sticks are ecologically important for rooks.     

Cognitions supportive of violence and violent behavior

The role of cognitions supportive of violence is acknowledged in many theories of violent behavior. Despite this, relatively little attention has been paid in research to the cognitions that contribute to violence at an individual level. The aim here was to conduct a systematic review of studies examining the impact of violence-related cognitions on non-sexual violence. Five studies were identified and these studies reported the use of five measures of violence-related cognition, namely, the EXPAGG, a Life Map, the ‘My Life’ checklist, the Provictim Scale, and the Maudsley Violence Questionnaire. The studies indicated that scales of instrumental aggression were positively related to self-reported violence in both prison and non-offender samples. Beliefs supportive of violence were also positively related to violence. This suggests that viewing aggression as means to achieve positive outcome is a risk factor for violence. By contrast, scores on an expressive aggression scale were inversely related to violence indicting that loss of control and guilt about behavior are protective factors against violence. Also, pro-victim attitudes were inversely related to violence. These scales tap the self-conscious moral emotions and recognition of these emotions may be important in violence inhibition. There is clearly a need to extend the identification of cognitions supportive of violence. This would aid research into individual-level violence and contribute to the development of effective interventions to reduce violence.     

Making tools isn't child's play

Tool making evidences intelligent, flexible thinking. In Experiment 1, we confirmed that 4- to 7-year-olds chose a hook tool to retrieve a bucket from a tube. In Experiment 2, 3- to 5-year-olds consistently failed to innovate a simple hook tool. Eight-year-olds performed at mature levels. In contrast, making a tool following demonstration was easy for even the youngest children. In Experiment 3, children’s performance did not improve given the opportunity to manipulate the objects in a warm-up phase. Children’s tool innovation lags substantially behind their ability to learn how to make tools by observing others.