A Defense of Motivational Externalism

Philosophical Studies -     

Changes in Children's Pretend Play Over Two Decades

There is growing recognition that children have less time to engage in play, and, concurrently, recent evidence suggests a decrease in divergent thinking ability in young children. This study investigated changes in pretend play ability during a 23-year period. The same standardized measure of pretend play, the Affect in Play Scale (APS; Russ, 1993 Russ , S. W. ( 1993 ). Affect in creativity: The role of affect and play in the creative process . Hillsdale , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates . [Google Scholar]; 2004 Russ , S. W. ( 2004 ). Play in child development and psychotherapy: Toward empirically supported practice . Mahwah , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers . [Google Scholar]), was the measure of pretend play in all studies. This puppet play task is videotaped and scored from the tapes. Fourteen studies of children from 6 to 10 years of age in school-based samples from 1985–2008 were included in the analyses. A cross-temporal meta-analysis examined correlations between weighted mean scores and year of data collection. Main findings were that imagination in play and comfort with play significantly increased over time. There was no evidence of change in organization of the story or in overall expression of affect in play. When one outlier was removed, there was a significant decrease in negative affect expression in play. Even though children have less time to play, cognitive processes that occur in play are continuing to develop. Whether these pretend abilities are being transferred to creative production is a key question for future investigation.     

Generativity,Transdisciplinarity, and Integral Leadership

Generativity involves supporting the thriving of present and future generations. The use of integral maps and transdisciplinary methods increases the potential for effectiveness in our projects and strategies. Using distinctions to conceptualize what is required for the leadership of these generative and transdisciplinary efforts is proposed as a precursor to defining leadership within contexts.     

More Inaccurate But Not More Biased: Anxiety During Encoding Impairs Face Recognition Accuracy But Does Not Moderate the Own‐Ethnicity Bias

Heightened state anxiety can have a deleterious impact on memory for faces. In this paper we investigated whether anxiety: (i) moderates the own‐ethnicity bias (OEB) and (ii) impairs face recognition accuracy at the encoding or retrieval phase of an OEB face‐recognition task. Using a typical OEB task, anxiety was induced during encoding and retrieval in Experiment 1, but only during retrieval in Experiment 2. An OEB was found in both experiments, but anxiety did not moderate the OEB in either experiment. In Experiment 1, anxious participants were poorer at face recognition for both own‐ and other‐ethnicity faces. In Experiment 2 anxiety did not impair face recognition. Together, these studies suggest that anxiety impaired participants' encoding, but not retrieval, of faces. The implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Chronicity and severity of maternal postpartum depression and infant sleep disorders: a population-based cohort study in southern Brazil

A cohort study was conducted with 397 women randomly selected from the Brazilian National System of Public Health, to describe the prevalence rates of infant sleep problems at 12-month of life, and its association with chronicity and severity of maternal depressive symptoms. Mothers were assessed, first, from the 9th to the 12th week postpartum and then at 12 months after delivery, with EPDS and a self-rating questionnaire regarding babies’ sleep behavior. After controlling for possible confounders, babies whose mothers had severe chronic depressive symptoms were at higher risk for sleep disorder at 12 months of birth.     

Children's fantasy play and emotional understanding.

Examined the relation between affective and cognitive processes in fantasy play and emotional understanding. Sixty-six children in the 1st and 2nd grades played with puppets (Affect in Play Scale; Russ, 1993), answered questions about their understanding of emotions (Kusche Affective Interview-Revised; Kusche, Greenberg, & Beilke, 1988), and completed a measure of verbal intelligence (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-III; Wechsler, 1991). The major finding of this study was that consistent, yet modest, relations were found between dimensions of fantasy play and emotional understanding. Cognitive dimensions of fantasy play, but not affect expression, were related to facets of emotional understanding. These relations were independent of verbal ability. A composite fantasy play score accounted for a significant amount of variance in a composite emotional understanding score when verbal ability was accounted for. Variations in the pattern of correlations for girls and boys suggest sex differences in the relation between fantasy play and emotional understanding. Implications for clinical research and interventions are discussed.     

NATURALISTIC OBSERVATIONS OF BEER DRINKING AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS

We observed the beer drinking behavior of 308 university students in several bar and party settings. The following relationships were found: (a) males drinking beer in bars consumed 0.92 oz per min; (b) females drank less beer than males, and stayed in a bar for a longer time period; (c) patrons drank significantly more beer when drinking in groups and when purchasing beer in pitchers versus cups or bottles; and (d) intervals between party arrival and first drink and between party departure and last drink varied inversely with blood alcohol concentration. We discuss these findings with regard to developing interventions to prevent alcohol-impaired driving.     

Complementary and Symmetrical Interaction in the Present Day Mental Health Institute

Expanding an idea begun by Rosenhan (1973), ratings of communication from psychiatric aides to patients at a psychiatric hospital were obtained using Leather's Feedback Rating Instrument. As compared to a comparison group composed of aide to aide interactions, aide to patient interactions were characterised as more inflexible, withdrawn, concise, personal, irrelevant, and automatic. Implications were offered concerning the training of mental health workers.     

Case vignette: the vicissitudes of managed care

Lee Wilson, age 26, was referred to Dr. Jackson for psychotherapy 5 weeks ago by a friend. Lee has been feeling increasingly depressed about longstanding family issues and the recent breakup of a 2-year relationship with a live-in companion. Over the course of the once-per-week sessions, Dr. Jackson notes persistent suicidal ideation, with vague plans to act if, as Lee puts it, "things get any worse." Just before the sixth session, Dr. Jackson is contacted by a reviewer for the managed care health insurance program covering Lee's therapy. The reviewer informs Dr. Jackson that the company will not authorize payment for further psychotherapeutic care. Dr. Jackson knows that Lee is in need of continued treatment and fears that terminating therapy at this time could result in increased suicide risk. Lee's income could cover only a small portion of Dr. Jackson's usual fee. Dr. Jackson does not wish to abandon Lee, but he already provides a significant amount of reduced-fee service to other clients. Is the health insurance carrier's stance ethical? Should Dr. Jackson be expected to treat Lee for the foreseeable future at a greatly reduced fee? How should Dr. Jackson handle this situation?     

Opportunity for thought as a mediator of attraction to a dissimilar stranger: A further test of an information seeking interpretation

It has previously been shown that confusion, produced by an ambiguous film, leads to increased attraction to attitudinally dissimilar others. It was posited that confusion leads to a search for information that will help to structure the confusing situation, and that dissimilar others have perspectives that are of value in this regard. In the present study, subjects were exposed to either a confusing film, a nonconfusing film preceded by an explanation designed to produce confusion, or the nonconfusing film with no preceding explanation. They then were either given an opportunity to think about the film's meaning or were deprived of this opportunity through a filler task. It was argued that the opportunity to think about the film would allow subjects to gain structure, and that this would reduce their confusion, decrease their need for more information, and thereby decrease their attraction to a dissimilar other. The results supported this contention. That is, subjects exposed to either the confusing film or the nonconfusing film with an explanation and then given an opportunity for thought showed significantly less attraction to a dissimilar stranger than their counterparts who were deprived of this opportunity.