Parental Influences on Elite Aesthetic Athletes’ Body Image Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating

Although different forms of parental influences on adolescents’ body image and eating disturbances have been studied, this relationship is nearly uninvestigated within the population of aesthetic athletes, a risk group for the development of eating disorders. The present study examined the role of specific family variables on the body image dissatisfaction (BID) and disordered eating (DE) of elite aesthetic athletes (n = 85) and controls (n = 142). Adolescents (M = 14.87 years, SD = 2.22) completed measures of direct influences (concern with thinness and weight teasing by parents), perceived quality of relationship with each parent and the overall family environment, BID and DE. Participants’ parents (223 mothers and 198 fathers) also completed measures of BID and DE. In general, parents of athletes do not present higher levels of BID or DE than do controls’ parents. Interesting differences were found between athletes’ and controls’ BID and DE predictors. Among athletes, direct parental influences are the only significant predictive family variable, which can reinforce the pressure to be thin found within elite-aesthetic contexts. The study’s findings highlight not only the importance of critical parental comments in athletes’ expression of BID and DE, but also of maternal modeling among adolescents in the general population. Such parental behavior may be an appropriate target in different prevention efforts.     

Optimism and Subjective Well-Being: Affectivity Plays a Secondary Role in the Relationship Between Optimism and Global Life Satisfaction in the Middle-Aged Women. Longitudinal and Cross-Cultural Findings

The focus of the present study lies on optimism and its relationships to the components of subjective well-being, i.e. global life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect. We investigated the direct and indirect (via affectivity) effects of optimism on global life satisfaction in the Swedish middleaged women at two time points (age 43 and 49), and in the Lithuanian middle-aged women. For this purpose, structural equation modelling was used and the fit indices were compared between two cognitive-affective models. The best fitting model suggests that the direct effect of optimism on global life satisfaction is stronger than that via affectivity. The result was found both in the Swedish sample at two time points and in the Lithuanian sample where the indirect effect was very low and insignificant. The indirect effect via negative affectivity was significant in the Swedish samples at both time points while the indirect effect via positive affectivity was low but significant only in the Swedish sample at age 43. In further analyses we studied the stability of optimism and the components of general SWB in the Swedish sample over a six-year period and a mean difference in optimism in two samples of women, Swedish and Lithuanian. Data analyses showed varying stability of the studied concepts with the highest stability coefficient being for negative affect and the lowest being for global life satisfaction. Cross-cultural analysis of mean difference in optimism showed that the Swedish women at age 43 reported significantly higher optimism as compared to their Lithuanian counterparts.     

Mindfulness training effects for parents and educators of children with special needs

Parents and teachers of children with special needs face unique social-emotional challenges in carrying out their caregiving roles. Stress associated with these roles impacts parents' and special educators' health and well-being, as well as the quality of their parenting and teaching. No rigorous studies have assessed whether mindfulness training (MT) might be an effective strategy to reduce stress and cultivate well-being and positive caregiving in these adults. This randomized controlled study assessed the efficacy of a 5-week MT program for parents and educators of children with special needs. Participants receiving MT showed significant reductions in stress and anxiety and increased mindfulness, self-compassion, and personal growth at program completion and at 2 months follow-up in contrast to waiting-list controls. Relational competence also showed significant positive changes, with medium-to-large effect sizes noted on measures of empathic concern and forgiveness. MT significantly influenced caregiving competence specific to teaching. Mindfulness changes at program completion mediated outcomes at follow-up, suggesting its importance in maintaining emotional balance and facilitating well-being in parents and teachers of children with developmental challenges. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Anxiety and Adjustment Levels Among the Visually and Hearing Impaired and Their Relationship to Locus of Control,Cognitive, Social,and Biographical Variables

Forty-five hearing-impaired and 40 visually impaired male residential school children aged 6 to 16 years were administered measures of adjustment, anxiety, and locus of control (LOC). Scores related to intelligence and academic level, teacher and peer acceptance, and biographical variables were also obtained. The findings show that the correlates of anxiety and adjustment differed qualitatively as well as quantitatively between the groups.     

Does Occupational Stereotyping Still Exist?

We surveyed 113 college students regarding their views of certain occupational stereotypes. Our results indicated that in this population gender was related to the subjects' views of occupations as either male, female, or neutral, and that the father's primary occupation significantly affected the subjects' views of only one occupation—clinical sociologist. The mother's occupation seemed to have no effect.     

The Relationship between Trauma and Financial and Physical Well-Being Among Cambodians in the United States

This study focused on the relationship between trauma and financial and physical well-being of Cambodian refugees in the United Sates. Trauma was defined by three variables: whether or not trauma had been experienced in Cambodia, the number of traumas experienced, and the number of years spent in refugee camps. It was hypothesized that these trauma variables would predict financial and physical health among Cambodians in the United States. A discriminant analysis showed significant relationships between the trauma variables and current employment status, and multiple regression analyses showed that trauma predicted income and physical health.     

The Strategy and Attribution Questionnaire: Psychometric properties of a Lithuanian translation in an adolescent sample

The present study provides a preliminary validation of the Lithuanian version of the Strategy and Attribution Questionnaire (SAQ, Nurmi, et al., 1995), a self-reported measure of social and cognitive behavioral strategies. An attempt to validate SAQ subscales was made by correlating them with the Youth Self-Report (Achenbach, 1991) and school grades. This was done with a sample of 14- to 17-year-old adolescents (N= 734). The results showed that although internal consistency reliabilities were good, they were lower when compared with the original version of SAQ. The SAQ subscales were moderately associated with various validity criteria, such as anxiety/depression, withdrawal, social problems and somatic complaints and school grades. Results also showed moderate correlations between similar strategic components across achievement and affiliative situations. The results provide preliminary evidence for concurrent validity of the Lithuanian version of SAQ.     

Interpreting children's reports of concern about parental drinking: Indicators of risk status?

Examined several self-report items traditionally used to identify children of alcoholics for their utility in identifying mental health risk status. The meaning of children's responses to these items was also examined. Collectively, these items reflected children's concern about their parents' drinking. Across multiple studies, children who reported concern about parental drinking reported higher levels of psychological and behavioral problems. This pattern existed whether or not children had a problem-drinking parent. Discriminant analyses with data from child and mother reports showed that children who reported concern were from homes with greater stress, lower income, and less supportive mother-child relationships.     

The educational theorists, the teachers, and their history of education

The following contribution expands the current discussion on the status and function of the history of education at the methodological, or epistemological, level by introducing the perspective of a history of educational knowledge. This opens up a theoretical option for educational historiography that avoids the identification of history of education with history of a discipline, or the institutionalized knowledge of education and teaching. As a consequence, some history of education topoi – as the history of a discipline – can be called into question and practiced historically rather than educationally or morally.     

Visual attention in adolescents: Facilitating effects of sport expertise and acute physical exercise

ObjectivesThis study investigated visual attention of adolescent orienteers and physically active adolescents non-practising orienteering both at rest and under acute sub-maximal exercise. It was verified whether the practice of orienteering facilitates the development of visual attentional abilities and whether orienteers, who are used to simultaneously handle physiological and cognitive-attentional loads, may better profit than non-orienteers from the beneficial effects of sub-maximal physical load on processing speed.MethodsBoth the focusing of attention at foveal and parafoveal locations and the orienting of attention at peripheral locations were investigated. In two discriminative reaction time (RT) experiments, a cue of varying size was presented centrally or peripherally and followed by a compound stimulus with local and global target features. The stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) varied between a short and a long interval.ResultsIn both experiments, adolescent orienteers and non-practisers showed different patterns of attentional effects. Adolescent orienteers were more similar to young adults in the attentional performance, being better able than non-practisers to perform complex attentional operations involving the intentional zooming of attention in the central visual field and the orienting of the attentional focus in the peripheral visual field. Also, both orienteers and non-orienteers speeded up their performance during exercise, but this facilitation effect was more pronounced for orienteers, who are probably skilled in directing the available resources to task demands.ConclusionsOur results suggest that cognitive expertise represents a key factor in sports that accelerates the development of visual attention and enhances the facilitating effects of physical exercise on attentional performance.