“Leaving it to God” Religion and Spirituality among Filipina Immigrant Breast Cancer Survivors

Many Filipinos have a powerful adherence to Catholicism. However, little is known about spirituality and religious involvement of Filipina Americans who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. Ten (n = 10) in-depth qualitative interviews with Filipina immigrant breast cancer survivors identified prayer to be the most common religious practice, followed by prayers by others and spiritual support from the Catholic Church. These findings can help clinicians and researchers understand the role of spirituality and religion in providing comfort and support for Filipina immigrant breast cancer patient as they face the stress of diagnosis and treatment.     

“A Community with Diversity of Culture,Wealth, Resources,and Living Experiences”: Defining Neighborhood in an Unincorporated Community

To obtain a better understanding of how people living in an unincorporated region define their neighborhood, a long-term photovoice project was conducted. Thirty-one photovoice sessions and eight structured interviews were coded and analyzed to assess participants’ neighborhood definitions. Participant’s difficulties in identifying the geographic, physical and demographic characteristics of their neighborhood led them to use social interactions, place-mediated values, and civic engagement to define neighborhood.     

Self-Regulation and Other Executive Functions Relationship to Pediatric OCD Severity and Treatment Outcome

The intersection of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and executive functioning (EF) in children and adolescents is an emerging topic in the current literature. Spurred by the consistent association between increased EF deficits and higher adult obsessive-compulsive severity, a few initial studies have replicated this relationship in pediatric OCD samples and also have found preliminary evidence that EF deficits are associated with worse response to first-line psychotherapeutic or psychopharmacological treatments for pediatric OCD. This study aimed to extend the literature by providing the first comprehensive investigation of how multiple EF domains, measured repeatedly over the course of treatment, impact pediatric obsessive-compulsive severity and response to multimodal treatment. Multi-level modeling results found that deficits in shifting, inhibition, emotional control, planning/organizing, monitoring and initiating all predicted higher average obsessive compulsive severity across treatment. Interestingly, out of the eight domains of EF investigated, only emotional control moderated treatment outcome such that those with worse emotional control experienced less of a reduction in obsessive-compulsive severity during treatment. The findings generally align with previous theories for the link between EF and OCD and indicate that emotional control has important implications in the treatment of pediatric OCD. In fact, emotional control may provide one explanation for why factors such as disgust sensitivity, oppositional behavior, and third-wave behavioral treatment techniques have all been linked to pediatric OCD treatment outcome. Future research should investigate augmentation strategies that target emotional control in children and adolescents.     

The Writing Process: Three First Grade Teachers and Their Students Reflect on What was Learned

The purpose of this study was to describe what three first grade teachers and their students in a Midwestern school learned when engaged in the writing process. The teachers and their students were observed for one year while engaged in the writing process via a workshop environment. Different data sources were collected over time, i.e., individual interviews (teacher and student), student writing samples and anecdotal observational notes. From an analysis of the data, three categories emerged that described what the teachers and students learned: (a) First grade children can and do want to write; (b) Learning is a messy process that takes time; and (c) Empowerment is important for all. This study supported what is known about the importance of professional development that allows for individual learning over time. The teachers had time to reflect on their learning in a collaborative teaching environment. Their successes greatly affected the students' interest and engagement in their writing programs.     

What Triggers Abnormal Eating in Bulimic and Nonbulimic Women?

Dissociative experiences and abnormal eating were examined in 92 non-eating-disordered women and 61 age-matched bulimic women. In the non-clinical sample of women, dissociative experiences were associated with abnormal eating attitudes and behavior, even after controlling for other forms of psychopathology; furthermore, dissociation mediated the relationships between abnormal eating and sexual abuse, abnormal eating and emotional distress, and abnormal eating and impulsivity. Analyses using both bulimic women and occasional binge eaters among the controls showed that a combination of reported negative affect and dissociative experiences preceding a binge was associated with the highest levels of abnormal eating. Finally, in both bulimic women and occasional binge eaters, feelings of panic appeared to decrease as a binge episode progressed, whereas, in bulimic women only, dissociative experiences appeared to increase during binge eating. The implications for the role of dissociation in combination with emotional distress in triggering and reinforcing abnormal eating in women are discussed.     

Office Housework,Burnout, and Promotion: Does Gender Matter?

In The New York Times, Grant and Sandberg (2015) made the case that women perform more office housework and experience more burnout, yet receive fewer career benefits, from performing office housework than do men. However, this claim has not been formally tested. Based on gender role theory, conservation of resources theory, and shifting standards, we test the relationships between gender, office housework, burnout, and promotion. Results revealed that women performed more office housework overall than did men. More specifically, women engaged in more social maintenance OHW, while men engaged in more object maintenance OHW. Contrary to the popular press claim, results showed no significant relationship between office housework and burnout. Moreover, office housework did not mediate the relationship between gender and burnout. In addition, gender moderated the relationship between office housework and promotion such that the relationship was statistically significant for men, but not statistically significant for women. This study contributes to the literature by introducing office housework as a specific form of organizational citizenship behavior and empirically investigating the popular press claim related to office housework.