Facilitation of attitude formation through communication: how perceived source expertise enhances the ability to achieve cognitive closure about complex environmental topics

Attitudes on which people have achieved cognitive closure are better predictors of future attitudes and behavior than open attitudes. In two experiments, we found that factors in communication (source identity, source consensus) can enhance people's ability to achieve cognitive closure on complex environmental topics through an increase in perceived source expertise. Results showed that participants perceived higher levels of source expertise and felt better able to achieve cognitive closure on the environmental technology of carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) when the information source had an expert identity compared to a non‐expert identity. The communication of consensus by the information source increased the level of expertise ascribed to the non‐expert source, resulting in an enhanced ability to achieve closure.     

Improved Parental Emotional Functioning After Circle of Security 20-Week Parent–Child Relationship Intervention

This study examined the effectiveness of the attachment-based Circle of Security 20-week intervention (COS) in improving parent emotional functioning in 83 families referred to a community clinical service with concerns about their young children’s behavior. Parenting stress and parent psychological symptoms were assessed pre and post intervention and mixed design repeated measures ANOVAs were used to assess change. Severity of presenting problems was considered as a moderator. Results showed clinically significant improvements in both aspects of parent emotional functioning, with changes accounted for by for those with more severe problems at the outset. Improvements for parents were associated with improved child behavior and more positive parent representations of the child and of parenting capacity. Findings suggest the intensive COS intervention is effective in reducing parenting stress and psychological symptoms in parents of children from aged 1–7 years. Questions remain about the mechanisms of change and the direction of effects.     

Quantitative Meta-Analyses: Lateralization of Memory Functions Before and After Surgery in Children with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Neuropsychology Review - Memory deficits in children with epilepsy have been reported in some but not all studies assessing the effects of side of seizures and resection from the temporal lobe on...     

Alberto G. Urquidez, (Re-)Defining Racism: A Philosophical Analysis,Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, Viii +421 Pp. the Concept of Racism and the Adjective Racist

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice -