Evaluations of a bullying case involving a victim with autism spectrum disorder

We investigated how people determine whether a specific occurrence of aggression between students constitutes bullying and how they think perpetrators should be treated. In two experiments, we examined perceptions of relational bullying at a university involving a victim who admits to engaging in socially inappropriate behavior. Participants were assigned to one of three victim disability conditions: autism spectrum disorder (ASD), dyslexia, or no disability. They listened to a recording of a disciplinary hearing and made several evaluations (e.g., verdict). Participants' judgments were more likely to favor the victim if they learned that he had ASD rather than dyslexia or no disability. Observers may view an ASD diagnosis as a reasonable explanation for behaving inappropriately and therefore excuse the victim's conduct.     

How Might I Have Been?

What would my life have been like if I had been born more intelligent? Or taller? Or a member of the opposite sex? Or a non‐biological being? It is plausible that some of these questions make sense, while others stretch the limits of sense making. In addressing questions of how I might have been, genetic essentialism is popular, but this article argues that genetic essentialism, and other versions of origin essentialism for organisms, must be rejected. It considers the prospects for counterpart theory and shows how counterpart theory can be used to illuminate volitional accounts of identity as proposed by Harry Frankfurt. This enables one to make sense of claims that, say, being gay, or Deaf, or Black, can be essential to someone's identity. The discussion is then extended to show how it can be made applicable to the transworld identity theorist who denies that individuals possess essential properties.     

Carers’ beliefs about counselling: a community participatory study in Wales

This interpretivist community participatory study explores carers’ beliefs about the potential usefulness of counselling in relation to the caring role. Twenty semi-structured interviews with carers were transcribed and analysed thematically. All participants thought counselling could potentially be helpful to carers, but their ideas about the ways in which it would help varied according to whether or not they had personal experience of counselling. Only carers with counselling experience had an awareness of counselling as focussing on changing feelings, thoughts, attitudes and behaviours. The implications of the findings for the provision of counselling services are discussed.     

Support for a Modified Tripartite Dual Pathway Model of Body Image Concerns and Risky Body Change Behaviors in French Young Men

The aim of the present study was to extend the extant literature by testing a modified Tripartite Dual Pathway Model of the development of male body image and eating concerns among French young men. A sample of 147 French male college students (M _age = 22.09 years-old, range = 18–30) completed a questionnaire assessing sociocultural influences, internalization of the lean/low body fat ideal and the muscular/athletic ideal, appearance comparison, body fat and muscularity dissatisfaction, muscularity enhancement behaviors, drive for thinness, and bulimic symptoms. The revised and final model was an adequate fit to the data, and included separate pathways for muscularity- and leanness-related concerns. This model shows that sociocultural pressures perceived from the media, family members, and peers were associated, through appearance comparison and internalization of the lean and muscular ideal, with body image concerns, disordered eating, and muscularity enhancement behaviors. Results reveal a strong and direct relationship between the internalization of the muscular/athletic ideal and muscularity enhancement behaviors. These findings contribute to the refinement of sociocultural models of the development of body image concerns and unhealthy body change behaviors including disordered eating among men, provide additional support for the usefulness of these models, and extend them to non-English speaking Western contexts.     

The Hopkins Verbal Learning Test: an in-depth analysis of recall patterns

One of the earliest signs of dementia is memory issues and verbal word lists, such as the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT), are successfully used for screening. To gain insight in how memory is affected in dementia, and to further improve the efficacy of the HVLT, in-depth analysis of the recall patterns of dementia cases and controls was conducted. Dementia cases and controls were matched for factors that can affect performance, such as age, gender and education level. Word frequency, syllable length, and orthographic neighbourhood size did not differ in the Indonesian version of the HVLT, nor did these characteristics affect recall. However dementia cases showed consistent and poor recall across the three trials; with the worst recall for the “human shelter” category and best recall for the “animals” category. Dementia cases also showed impaired accessibility of all categories with reduced subsequent recall from accessed categories and reduced primacy and recency levels. Finally, dementia cases exhibited lower levels of re-remembering and recalling new words, and higher levels of immediate forgetting and never recalling words. It was concluded that utilising the extra information provided by the in-depth analyses of the recall patterns could be beneficial to improve dementia screening.     

Exploring perspectives of well-being in Latina/o migrant workers

Migrant workers enter the United States to meet the agricultural labor needs of the US, seeking a better life and an escape from poverty. However, little is known about the factors that influence well-being in this population as they transition to a new society. The purpose of this study was to describe Latina/o migrant workers’ perceptions regarding the individual, communal, and contextual factors that influence their well-being. A community-based qualitative approach was taken to describe perceptions of well-being in the Latina/o migrant worker population. Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted with 12 South Florida Latina/o migrant workers using a semi-structured interview guided by the Developmental Systems Theory and Prilleltensky’s conceptualization of well-being. Conventional content analysis identified five themes: children as a point of connection, a mosaic of informal support, navigating a multi-stressed life context, awareness of lack of agency, and toward the promotion of well-being. This study is one of the first explorations of well-being in Latina/o migrant workers and includes recommendations for providers, researchers, and advocates.     

Examining the Link Between Exercise and Positive Relationship Events in Clinical Couples

This study contributes to the literature on potential interventions couple therapists can use outside therapy for couples. We examine this research question: Are couples that exercise on a given day more likely to experience positive events in their relationship that day? Participants were 33 couples in a treatment-as-usual setting who completed the Daily Diary of Events in Couple Therapy for up to the first 28 days they are in therapy. Multinomial logistic regression showed increased women's daily hours of exercise were significantly associated with an increased report of daily positive events for both men and women. Men's daily hours of exercise were not significantly related to daily positive events reported by either partner.     

Sympathetic Under-Arousal and Externalizing Behavior Problems in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) commonly exhibit co-occurring externalizing behavior problems, which can impede learning opportunities and contribute significantly to caregiver stress. Substantial theory and research has linked under-arousal of the sympathetic nervous system to increased externalizing problems in children without ASD, but under-arousal has not been considered as an explanatory mechanism for individual differences among children with ASD. We tested the notion that lower electrodermal activity (EDA) would predict more externalizing problems in children with ASD, and considered the degree to which parent co-regulatory support could buffer this risk. Forty children with ASD between the ages of 4 and 11 years and their primary caregivers participated in a laboratory visit that included various play, compliance, and problem-solving regulatory tasks. EDA was measured through wireless wrist sensors, parental scaffolding was observed during a dyadic problem-solving task, and parents rated their children’s externalizing behavior problems. As predicted, low EDA during the compliance-oriented tasks directly predicted higher child externalizing problems. Parental scaffolding moderated the link between under-arousal during the problem-solving regulatory tasks and externalizing problems such that the relation was observed in the context of low, but not high, support. Implications for relevant theories (e.g., fearlessness theory, stimulation-seeking theory) are discussed, and the potential for psychophysiological patterns to inform intervention with these children is considered.     

Religiousness and Quality of Life Among Older Adults of Different Ethnic Groups in Malaysia: A Five-Year Follow-up Study

Journal of Religion and Health - Research has shown that religion is associated with a better quality of life (QoL). This study aims to examine ethnic differences in the association between...     

The homophily and centrality of LGBQ youth: A new story?

Social Psychology of Education - The social acceptance of LGBQ individuals changed dramatically over the past several decades, which calls into question extant research suggesting that LGBQ youth...