Whose voice are we hearing,really?

This article, written from the position of someone who has lived experience of therapy for ‘psychosis’ and an interest in participation, explores the degree to which qualitative research truly conveys the voice and perspective of research participants. By exploring five papers focused on diverse experiences of psychotherapy, from the perspective of clients and therapists, it draws out some of the tensions inherent in making interpretations and connections within research papers and the impact this may have on the quality of any conclusions drawn. Finally, it makes some suggestions for ways of meaningfully involving research participants in the process and argues for an ongoing dialogue to prevent our own assumptions and theoretical frameworks from obscuring the importance of this involvement to improve the quality of future research.     

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.     

Children's Adjustment in a Climate of Political Violence: Comparing Mother and Child Reports

There is a dearth of research on parent and child reports regarding a parent’s parenting and its contribution to a child’s adjustment. Therefore, the current study examined: (a) the differences between mother and child reports of aspects of maternal parenting (i.e., care and control), among both boys and girls; (b) which parenting report (i.e., mother’s or child’s) makes a stronger contribution to mother and child reports of the child’s adjustment in the context of political violence. One hundred and twenty-one mother-child dyads (children aged seven to 12 years old (M?=?10.02, SD?=?1.03)), who were exposed to prolonged political violence, participated in this study. Maternal care and control were assessed by mother and child reports on the Parental Bonding Instrument. Child’s adjustment was assessed both by mother’s report of child’s total difficulties and child’s self-report of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). Results revealed that both the mothers of girls and the girls themselves reported higher care, in comparison to mothers of boys and the boys themselves, while mothers of boys and the boys themselves reported higher control. Higher maternal control, as reported by the child, was associated with the child’s self-reported PTSS. Higher maternal control, as reported by the mother, was associated with the child’s total difficulties, as reported by the mother. However, maternal care, whether reported by mother or child, was not found to be associated with the child’s adjustment. School-aged children and their mothers were in agreement regarding maternal dimensions and their contribution to children’s adjustment.     

Activating Veterans Toward Sources of Reward: A Pilot Report on Development,Feasibility, and Clinical Outcomes of a 12-Week Behavioral Activation Group Treatment

This pilot study evaluates a 12-week group Behavioral Activation protocol adapted to meet the needs of a Veteran population seeking treatment in an outpatient mental health clinic at a Veteran Affairs Medical Center. In a detailed Method we describe the treatment structure. Acceptability and feasibility are addressed by providing data on referral sources, treatment retention, attendance, and patient satisfaction. Initial clinical outcomes are presented, focusing on symptom reduction, improved quality of life, and changes in the hypothesized mechanism of treatment: improving motivated behavior to pursue rewards (decisional anhedonia). Finally, feedback from individual exit interviews is presented. We conclude with implementation tips and challenges in the service of continuing to improve our evidence-based interventions in Veteran Affairs facilities.     

Screening for and Preventing Perinatal Depression

New York City (NYC) public hospitals recently mandated that all pregnant women be screened for depression, but no funds were allocated for screening or care coordination/treatment, and research suggests that unfunded mandates are not likely to be successful. To address this, we implemented an on-site depression prevention intervention (NYC ROSE) for positive depression screens among pregnant, mostly Black and Hispanic, lower-income women in one public hospital. In this paper, we used Aarons’ implementation model to describe the successes and challenges of screening and intervention. Patient tracking sheets and electronic medical records were abstracted. Key informant interviews and an informal focus group were conducted, and staff observations were reviewed; common implementation themes were identified and fit into Aarons’ model. We found that a lack of funding and staff training, which led to minimal psychoeducation for patients, were outer context factors that may have made depression screening difficult, screening results unreliable, and NYC ROSE enrollment challenging. Although leadership agreed to implement NYC ROSE, early involvement of all levels of staff and patients would have better informed important inner context factors, like workflow and logistical/practical challenges. There was also a mismatch between the treatment model and the population being served; patients often lived too far away to receive additional services on site, and economic issues were often a higher priority than mental health services. Screening and interventions for perinatal depression are essential for optimal family health, and a detailed, thoughtful and funded approach can help ensure effectiveness of such efforts.     

The effects of perceived social norms on handwashing behaviour in students

Handwashing is widely considered the most effective method of preventing the spread of infectious illness. Exploring the determinants of handwashing is vital to the development of interventions to increase this behaviour. A survey based on Social Norms Theory assessed handwashing frequency and perceptions of peer handwashing in 255 university students. Participants reported their own handwashing frequency, and how often they thought their peers washed their hands in particular circumstances, to determine whether misperceptions around handwashing exist, and whether these influence the behaviour of individuals. Gender was found to be a significant determinant of handwashing frequency as females reported washing their hands significantly more often than males. Participants also believed they washed their hands significantly more frequently than their peers. Perceived peer handwashing frequency was significantly correlated with participants’ own behaviour. This effect was seen in overall handwashing and in food, waste and illness-related hand washing. These results suggest perceived social norms around hand washing have a clear association with individual behaviour. Future research might test the effectiveness of a social norms intervention in other settings which carry an increased risk of infection spread.     

Changing minds: Children's inferences about third party belief revision

By the age of 5, children explicitly represent that agents can have both true and false beliefs based on epistemic access to information (e.g., Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). Children also begin to understand that agents can view identical evidence and draw different inferences from it (e.g., Carpendale & Chandler, 1996). However, much less is known about when, and under what conditions, children expect other agents to change their minds. Here, inspired by formal ideal observer models of learning, we investigate children's expectations of the dynamics that underlie third parties’ belief revision. We introduce an agent who has prior beliefs about the location of a population of toys and then observes evidence that, from an ideal observer perspective, either does, or does not justify revising those beliefs. We show that children's inferences on behalf of third parties are consistent with the ideal observer perspective, but not with a number of alternative possibilities, including that children expect other agents to be influenced only by their prior beliefs, only by the sampling process, or only by the observed data. Rather, children integrate all three factors in determining how and when agents will update their beliefs from evidence.     

Chimpanzees demonstrate individual differences in social information use

Studies of transmission biases in social learning have greatly informed our understanding of how behaviour patterns may diffuse through animal populations, yet within-species inter-individual variation in social information use has received little attention and remains poorly understood. We have addressed this question by examining individual performances across multiple experiments with the same population of primates. We compiled a dataset spanning 16 social learning studies (26 experimental conditions) carried out at the same study site over a 12-year period, incorporating a total of 167 chimpanzees. We applied a binary scoring system to code each participant’s performance in each study according to whether they demonstrated evidence of using social information from conspecifics to solve the experimental task or not (Social Information Score—‘SIS’). Bayesian binomial mixed effects models were then used to estimate the extent to which individual differences influenced SIS, together with any effects of sex, rearing history, age, prior involvement in research and task type on SIS. An estimate of repeatability found that approximately half of the variance in SIS was accounted for by individual identity, indicating that individual differences play a critical role in the social learning behaviour of chimpanzees. According to the model that best fit the data, females were, depending on their rearing history, 15–24% more likely to use social information to solve experimental tasks than males. However, there was no strong evidence of an effect of age or research experience, and pedigree records indicated that SIS was not a strongly heritable trait. Our study offers a novel, transferable method for the study of individual differences in social learning.