Challenging ‘the they’: an Heideggerian reflection on the impact of power figures in children’s spiritual lives

Through the lens of Heideggerian’s Being and Time, this paper examines the world of ‘the they’ for twenty-first century children, highlighting perceived power figures in their lives. Exploring philosophically how the falling of a child’s Dasein from its primordial state into ‘the they’ culminates in an inauthentic presentation of self, it will then describe how spiritual educators might encourage a turning of the tide, allowing children to be critically aware of contingent influencers and to act upon them from a position of authenticity.     

Segregation or Integration? Immigrant Self-Employment in Switzerland

This article investigates whether immigrant self-employment is related more to segregation in the labour market than work as an employee (making it justifiable to speak of ethnic business) or whether, on the contrary, it reflects equality with the self-employment by the Swiss. The distinctive features of this research design are the comparison of ethnic segregation in the labour market with gender-specific segregation and the fact that, apart from migrants of the first generation, members of the second generation are also taken into consideration. The analyses show, firstly, that large differences exist between the various groups of migrants and that three patterns in immigrant self-employment become apparent. While for one person self-employment brings greater adjustment to the Swiss in comparison with working as an employee, for another it is associated with greater segregation. The third pattern reveals that self-employment can be an expression of “superstratification” (Überschichtung). Secondly, the analyses indicate that, for the self-employed, gender-specific horizontal and vertical segregation tends to be smaller than for employees. However, in the upper positions of the social space, greater gender-specific inequalities can be observed than in the lower positions, thus making “class” and “gender” intersect as structural categories of social inequality.     

Reward prospect rapidly speeds up response inhibition via reactive control

Response inhibition is an important cognitive-control function that allows for already-initiated or habitual behavioral responses to be promptly withheld when needed. A typical paradigm to study this function is the stop-signal task. From this task, the stop-signal response time (SSRT) can be derived, which indexes how rapidly an already-initiated response can be canceled. Typically, SSRTs range around 200 ms, identifying response inhibition as a particularly rapid cognitive-control process. Even so, it has recently been shown that SSRTs can be further accelerated if successful response inhibition is rewarded. Since this earlier study effectively ruled out differential preparatory (proactive) control adjustments, the reward benefits likely relied on boosted reactive control. Yet, given how rapidly such control processes would need to be enhanced, alternative explanations circumventing reactive control are important to consider. We addressed this question with an fMRI study by gauging the overlap of the brain networks associated with reward-related and response-inhibition-related processes in a reward-modulated stop-signal task. In line with the view that reactive control can indeed be boosted swiftly by reward availability, we found that the activity in key brain areas related to response inhibition was enhanced for reward-related stop trials. Furthermore, we observed that this beneficial reward effect was triggered by enhanced connectivity between task-unspecific (reward-related) and task-specific (inhibition-related) areas in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). The present data hence suggest that reward information can be translated very rapidly into behavioral benefits (here, within ~200 ms) through enhanced reactive control, underscoring the immediate responsiveness of such control processes to reward availability in general.     

Utilization of reward-prospect enhances preparatory attention and reduces stimulus conflict

The prospect of gaining money is an incentive widely at play in the real world. Such monetary motivation might have particularly strong influence when the cognitive system is challenged, such as when needing to process conflicting stimulus inputs. Here, we employed manipulations of reward-prospect and attentional-preparation levels in a cued-Stroop stimulus conflict task, along with the high temporal resolution of electrical brain recordings, to provide insight into the mechanisms by which reward-prospect and attention interact and modulate cognitive task performance. In this task, the cue indicated whether or not the participant needed to prepare for an upcoming Stroop stimulus and, if so, whether there was the potential for monetary reward (dependent on performance on that trial). Both cued attention and cued reward-prospect enhanced preparatory neural activity, as reflected by increases in the hallmark attention-related negative-polarity ERP slow wave (contingent negative variation [CNV]) and reductions in oscillatory Alpha activity, which was followed by enhanced processing of the subsequent Stroop stimulus. In addition, similar modulations of preparatory neural activity (larger CNVs and reduced Alpha) predicted shorter versus longer response times (RTs) to the subsequent target stimulus, consistent with such modulations reflecting trial-to-trial variations in attention. Particularly striking were the individual differences in the utilization of reward-prospect information. In particular, the size of the reward effects on the preparatory neural activity correlated across participants with the degree to which reward-prospect both facilitated overall task performance (shorter RTs) and reduced conflict-related behavioral interference. Thus, the prospect of reward appears to recruit attentional preparation circuits to enhance processing of task-relevant target information.     

Social Media as a Tool for Data Collection: Examining Equivalence of Socially Value-Laden Constructs

Given the changing online environment (from anonymity to social connection) and the importance of establishing equivalence in psychological measures used in online environments, the aim of this research was to examine the equivalence of socially value-laden measures with data sourced from web-based social media and traditional pen-and-paper methods. Data on a suite of socially value-laden measures comparing the equivalence of scores obtained via social media (Facebook) versus offline environments were considered. Participants (N?=?193) completed measures of primary and secondary psychopathy, emotional manipulation, emotional intelligence, interpersonal cognition, social desirability, and ethical position either online or using pen-and-paper in a between groups design. Results suggested that both social media and offline data were equivalent in terms of internal reliability and patterns of relationships among constructs. However, participants were more likely to report higher levels of ethical relativism when completing the measure via social media. These findings highlight the importance of establishing equivalence for specific measures when engaging in online data collection, as well as providing insight into the nature of self-disclosure in the social media environment. Future research should assess the equivalence of other socially value-laden measures in online and pen-and-paper environments.     

A Psychological Typology of Newly Unemployed People for Profiling and Counselling

Profiling of the unemployed in order to predict and prevent long-term unemployment has hitherto been based on socio-professional data; however, there is evidence that psychological dimensions also predict job search strategies and unemployment duration. In order to provide psychological profiling, a typological method could be more parsimonious than trait/dimension approaches. Typologies created to date have not addressed the issue of predicting employment status. A sample of 384 newly unemployed people was assessed using psychometric scales which have been shown in past research to be linked to job finding. Through cluster analysis, five groups of unemployed people were differentiated: the “integrated”, “willing”, “outsider”, “anxious”, and “dispossessed”. The typology showed predictive validity for employment status after 12 months. People who were “anxious” or “dispossessed” were more often unemployed than those who were “integrated”, “willing”, or “outsider”. It provided an alternative way of classifying unemployed people that could be used in profiling and especially in advisory support and counselling.     

Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Child Externalizing Problems: Moderating Effects of Emotionally Maltreating Parenting Behaviors

While prior research has examined the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms and child externalizing behaviors, little research has focused specifically on the moderating effects of observed parenting behaviors on this relationship. This study was conducted to investigate the role of emotionally maltreating parenting behaviors, which were hypothesized to exacerbate the strength of the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms and child behavior problems. Maternal depressive symptoms, child externalizing problems, and emotionally maltreating parenting behaviors were assessed in a community sample of 62 mother–child dyads (with children age 8–11 years). Results indicated the overall model was significant, after controlling for maternal race, as was the interaction between maternal depressive symptoms and emotionally maltreating parenting behaviors. Based on these findings, future research is needed to identify potential protective factors that may prevent depressive symptoms from negatively affecting parenting behaviors, with the attendant goal of decreasing risk for emotional maltreatment.     

Maternal Expressed Emotion in Relation to Child Behavior Problems: Differential and Mediating Effects

Maternal expressed emotion (EE), including maternal criticism and emotional over-involvement, is considered an index of family emotional climate that is critical for children’s psychological well-being. Limited research investigates how each element of EE differentially contributes to child behavior problems, or explores the mechanisms, such as child emotion dysregulation, through which parental EE influences child psychosocial outcomes. This study examined maternal EE, child emotion dysregulation, and child behavior problems among 60 mother–child dyads from a community sample, utilizing multi-method and multi-reporter assessment. Findings indicated that maternal expressed criticism toward the child was positively associated with child externalizing symptoms through its relation to increased child emotion dysregulation, whereas maternal emotional over-involvement was negatively associated with child externalizing symptoms through its negative relation to child emotion dysregulation. These results provided increased support for a model in which maternal criticism remains negatively associated with child psychosocial outcomes, but the construct of emotional over-involvement is not necessarily associated with youth psychosocial problems. This study also illustrated one pathway through which maternal EE influence child psychosocial functioning, thus placing EE research in the broader context of research on family emotion socialization.     

Positive psychotherapy for smoking cessation: Treatment development,feasibility, and preliminary results

Low positive and high negative affect (NA) predict low rates of smoking abstinence among smokers making a quit attempt. Positive psychotherapy can both increase positive affect (PA) and decrease NA and, therefore, may be a useful adjunct to behavioral smoking counseling. The purpose of the present study was to assess the feasibility and acceptability of a positive psychotherapy for smoking cessation (PPT-S) intervention that integrates standard smoking cessation counseling with nicotine patch and a package of positive psychology interventions. We delivered PPT-S to 19 smokers who were low in PA at baseline. Rates of session attendance and satisfaction with treatment were high, and most participants reported using and benefiting from the positive psychology interventions. Almost one-third of the participants (31.6%) sustained smoking abstinence for six months after their quit date. Future studies to assess the relative efficacy of PPT-S compared to standard smoking cessation treatment are warranted.