Achieving Population-Level Change Through a System-Contextual Approach to Supporting Competent Parenting

The quality of parenting children receive affects a diverse range of child and youth outcomes. Addressing the quality of parenting on a broad scale is a critical part of producing a more nurturing society. To achieve a meaningful population-level reduction in the prevalence rates of child maltreatment and social and emotional problems that are directly or indirectly influenced by parenting practices requires the adoption of a broad ecological perspective in supporting families to raise children. We make the case for adopting a multilevel, whole of population approach to enhance competent parenting and describe the essential tasks that must be accomplished for the approach to be successful and its effects measurable. We describe how a theoretically integrated system of parenting support based on social learning and cognitive behavioral principles can be further strengthened when the broader community supports parental participation. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

The dread factor: how hazards and safety training influence learning and performance

On the basis of hypotheses derived from social and experiential learning theories, we meta-analytically investigated how safety training and workplace hazards impact the development of safety knowledge and safety performance. The results were consistent with an expected interaction between the level of engagement of safety training and hazardous event/exposure severity in the promotion of safety knowledge and performance. For safety knowledge and safety performance, highly engaging training was considerably more effective than less engaging training when hazardous event/exposure severity was high, whereas highly and less engaging training had comparable levels of effectiveness when hazardous event/exposure severity was low. Implications of these findings for theory testing and incorporating information on objective risk into workplace safety research and practice are discussed.     

Aging increases inattentional blindness to the gorilla in our midst

When engaged in an attention-demanding task, people are surprisingly vulnerable to inattentional blindness--the failure to notice an unexpected event. Two theories of cognitive aging, attentional capacity models and inhibitory deficit models, make opposite predictions about age differences in susceptibility to inattentional blindness. We tested these predictions using an inattentional blindness paradigm developed by Simons and Chabris (1999) and found that older adults were more likely to experience inattentional blindness than young adults. These results are compatible with attentional capacity models of cognitive aging but not with current inhibitory deficit models.     

Healing Men and Community: Predictors of Outcome in a Men’s Initiatory and Support Organization

Men have poorer health and declining social outcomes when compared to women, and research suggests that behaviors related to restrictive and traditional male gender roles contribute to this disparity. This study is an examination of The ManKind Project International (MKPI), a community-based organization that provides alternative male gender norms and a community support system to help reinforce them. The MKPI runs an intensive, experiential “Training Adventure Weekend” (TAW), followed by voluntary, on-going peer-led support and integration groups (I-Groups). One hundred men completed a pre-TAW questionnaire, an interview, and a long-term follow-up (>18 mo.) questionnaire. The study examined if there was change on the primary study variables at follow-up, and the relationship of background characteristics (age, self-help group experience) and factors related to participation (MKPI beliefs, social support, I-Group participation) to the criterion variables (depression symptoms, gender role conflict, and life satisfaction) at follow-up. Results indicated significant change in the expected directions on the primary study variables, suggesting that for these men, participation has a positive impact. Most importantly, changes in MKPI-related beliefs and social support significantly predicted positive outcomes. Also, more positive outcomes were found among men 30–44 years of age, but not among those with more prior self-help experience or I-Group participation. Possible explanations for these findings and directions for further research are discussed.     

Mindfulness-Based Approaches with Children and Adolescents: A Preliminary Review of Current Research in an Emergent Field

Interest in applications of mindfulness-based approaches with adults has grown rapidly in recent times, and there is an expanding research base that suggests these are efficacious approaches to promoting psychological health and well-being. Interest has spread to applications of mindfulness-based approaches with children and adolescents, yet the research is still in its infancy. I aim to provide a preliminary review of the current research base of mindfulness-based approaches with children and adolescents, focusing on MBSR/MBCT models, which place the regular practice of mindfulness meditation at the core of the intervention. Overall, the current research base provides support for the feasibility of mindfulness-based interventions with children and adolescents, however there is no generalized empirical evidence of the efficacy of these interventions. For the field to advance, I suggest that research needs to shift away from feasibility studies towards large, well-designed studies with robust methodologies, and adopt standardized formats for interventions, allowing for replication and comparison studies, to develop a firm research evidence base.     

Applying discursive psychology to ‘fact’ construction in political discourse

In this paper, we show how discursive psychology can be used to show how ‘facts’ are used rhetorically by politicians. That is, they are more than neutral reflections of an objective reality—these ‘facts’ are highly attuned to the local context of political argumentation. We draw upon examples from two studies that used discursive psychology to analyse two different political contexts: (1) Islamophobia in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack and (2) debates over Great Britain and the European Union. In both contexts, the analysis uncovers how politicians challenge both the context and the relevance of a fact. The context of ‘facts’ is reconstructed to undermine their original argumentative strength, whereas questioning the relevance of a ‘fact’ undermines it both as fact and as a rhetorical tool to be used in a debate. These findings show how discursive psychology can contribute to knowledge about political communication, as well as the benefits of applying discursive psychology to political discourse.     

Age-related differences in emotion matching are limited to low intensity expressions

Multi-label tasks confound age differences in perceptual and cognitive processes. We examined age differences in emotion perception with a technique that did not require verbal labels. Participants matched the emotion expressed by a target to two comparison stimuli, one neutral and one emotional. Angry, disgusted, fearful, happy, and sad facial expressions of varying intensity were used. Although older adults took longer to respond than younger adults, younger adults only outmatched older adults for the lowest intensity disgust and fear expressions. Some participants also completed an identity matching task in which target stimuli were matched on personal identity instead of emotion. Although irrelevant to the judgment, expressed emotion still created interference. All participants were less accurate when the apparent difference in expressive intensity of the matched stimuli was large, suggesting that salient emotion cues increased difficulty of identity matching. Age differences in emotion perception were limited to very low intensity expressions.     

Reciprocal Relationships Between Parenting Behavior and Disruptive Psychopathology from Childhood Through Adolescence

Theoretical models suggest that child behaviors influence parenting behaviors, and specifically that unpleasant child behaviors coerce parents to discontinue engaging in appropriate discipline. This study examined reciprocal relationships between parenting behaviors (supervision, communication, involvement, timid discipline and harsh punishment) and child disruptive disorder symptoms (ADHD, ODD and CD) in a clinic-referred sample of 177 boys. Annual measures, including structured clinical interviews, were obtained from the beginning of the study (when boys were between the ages of 7 to 12) to age 17. Specific reciprocal influence was observed; only timid discipline predicted worsening behavior, namely ODD symptoms, and ODD symptoms predicted increases in timid discipline. Greater influence from child behaviors to parenting practices was found: ODD also predicted poorer communication and decreased involvement, and CD predicted poorer supervision. ADHD was neither predictive of, nor predicted by, parenting behaviors. The results are specifically supportive of a coercive process between child behaviors and parenting behaviors, and generally suggestive of greater influence of child behaviors on parenting behaviors than of parenting behaviors on child behaviors.