The Ecology of Teachers’ Experiences with Violence and Lack of Administrative Support

Teacher‐directed violence is a common, yet understudied, phenomenon. Perpetrators of violence against teachers include not just students, but also administrators, parents, and colleagues. Administrators are key stakeholders when it comes to shaping school climate and safety that can reduce or increase the negative impact of violence against teachers. In this study, 237 teachers’ qualitative responses from a larger sample of 2,431 anonymous, online survey responses were examined to better understand their experiences with incidents of violence and how administrators played a role in these experiences. Results reveal that lack of administrator support negatively impacts teachers at multiple levels, including teachers’ feelings (individual); challenges associated with addressing issues related to students, parents, and other perpetrators (interpersonal); and school systems and policies (organizational). This study highlights the importance of administrative support and illustrates how administrators’ actions and inactions can have ripple effects at each level of the school microcosm. Implications for research, practice, and policy are discussed.     

“It wasn’t your fault,but …...”: Schadenfreude about an undeserved misfortune

Although it is well-established that an objectively deserved misfortune promotes schadenfreude about the misfortune, there is a small body of research suggesting that an undeserved misfortune can also enhance schadenfreude. The aim of the present study was to investigate the processes that underlie schadenfreude about an undeserved misfortune. Participants (N?=?61) were asked to respond to a scenario in which a person was responsible or not responsible for a negative action. In the responsible condition, two independent routes to schadenfreude were observed: deservingness of the misfortune (traditional route) and resentment towards the target. More importantly, results showed that when the target of the misfortune was not responsible for the negative action, the relationship between schadenfreude and resentment towards the target was mediated by the re-construal of an objectively undeserved misfortune as a ‘deserved’ misfortune. The study further found that expressing schadenfreude about another’s misfortune makes one feel better about oneself without affecting moral emotions. The findings expand our understanding of schadenfreude about undeserved negative outcomes.     

Body dissatisfaction, maternal appraisal, and depressive symptoms in Hong Kong adolescents

Body dissatisfaction, its risk factors and association with depressed mood have been well investigated in the West. However, more studies are needed to examine further the relation between body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms and the factors influencing body dissatisfaction in non-Western cultures. The present study examined in a sample of Hong Kong Chinese adolescents the relation between body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms, and the relation of maternal appraisal of their adolescent's figure to the adolescent's body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms. We obtained information from 379 boys and 254 girls about their body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms. Their mothers provided information about their appraisal of their adolescent's body shape and size compared to ideal. Body dissatisfaction was related to depressive symptoms in girls (B = 2.58, p <.01), but not in boys (B = -0.08, p >.10). Negative maternal appraisal did not have direct effects on adolescents' depressive symptoms (B = 0.14, p =.75), but the association between negative maternal appraisal and body dissatisfaction was significantly stronger in adolescents whose ideal was smaller than they perceived themselves to be (B = 0.32, p <.01) than those whose ideal was larger than their own perception (B = 0.14, p < .01). Our findings suggest that maternal appraisal had indirect effects on mood, acting through adolescents' body dissatisfaction, and that body dissatisfaction may be a sex-specific risk factor for depression. This study points to the need for testing and adapting programs to reduce body dissatisfaction particularly in girls at risk for depression, and to raise mothers' awareness of the link between their negative appraisals and their adolescents' body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms.     

Do Verbal Interactions with Infants During Electronic Media Exposure Mitigate Adverse Impacts on their Language Development as Toddlers?

The goal of this study was to determine whether verbal interactions between mothers and their 6-month-old infants during media exposure ('media verbal interactions') might have direct positive impacts, or mitigate any potential adverse impacts of media exposure, on language development at 14 months. For 253 low-income mother-infant dyads participating in a longitudinal study, media exposure and media verbal interactions were assessed using 24-hour recall diaries. Additionally, general level of cognitive stimulation in the home [StimQ] was assessed at 6 months and language development [Preschool Language Scale-4] was assessed at 14 months. Results suggest that media verbal interactions play a role in the language development of infants from low-income, immigrant families. Evidence showed that media verbal interactions moderated adverse impacts of media exposure found on 14-month language development, with adverse associations found only in the absence the these interactions. Findings also suggest that media verbal interactions may have some direct positive impacts on language development, in that media verbal interactions during the co-viewing of media with educational content (but not other content) were predictive of 14-month language independently of overall level of cognitive stimulation in the home.     

Gender and motivation

The role of gender in shaping achievement motivation has a long history in psychological and educational research. In this review, gender differences in motivation are examined using four contemporary theories of achievement motivation, including attribution, expectancy-value, self-efficacy, and achievement goal perspectives. Across all theories, findings indicate girls' and boys' motivation-related beliefs and behaviors continue to follow gender role stereotypes. Boys report stronger ability and interest beliefs in mathematics and science, whereas girls have more confidence and interest in language arts and writing. Gender effects are moderated by ability, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and classroom context. Additionally, developmental research indicates that gender differences in motivation are evident early in school, and increase for reading and language arts over the course of school. The role of the home and school environment in the development of these gender patterns is examined. Important implications for school professionals are highlighted.     

The effects of aging on remembering intentions: performance on a simulated shopping task

Three studies are described in which age differences on a task measuring memory for delayed intentions using naturalistic stimuli were examined. A simulated street scene was constructed from a network of photographs and sounds that participants could move through using a touch screen while completing a series of event‐based shopping errand instructions. The objective of the research was to identify the cognitive processes involved in the task that were vulnerable to the effects of ageing. Memory search but not cue detection was specifically affected in older persons when participants were given fewer trials to learn the instructions. There was no age specific effect on cue detection or memory search in either an unfamiliar street or one with increased levels of irrelevant visual and auditory noise. Cue detection but not memory search was disproportionately affected in older persons after filled interruptions, suggesting that the capacity for self‐initiated reinstatement of working memory is reduced in old age. In general, using a computer‐based simulation of a real‐life task was found to be a practical means of examining the effects on behaviour and cognition of task parameters that are significant in assessing everyday memory abilities. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gender Attitudes Mediate Gender Differences in Attitudes Toward Adoption in Guatemala

Gender differences in gender role attitudes, including machismo, and attitudes toward adoption were studied in Guatemala, a country that provides a large number of children for international adoption. Guatemalan university students (N = 152) completed the machismo subscale of the Multiphasic Assessment of Cultural Constructs–short form (Cuéllar, Arnold, & González, 1995), the attitudes toward women scale for adolescents (Galambos, Peterson, Richards, & Gitelson, 1985), and an adoption beliefs scale developed for the present study. Men endorsed more machismo, more traditional gender role attitudes, and held less favorable attitudes toward adoption than women did. Gender differences in adoption attitudes were mediated by machismo and gender role attitudes. These results suggest that machismo and traditional gender role attitudes may serve as barriers in the promotion of intra-country adoption.     

Expressions of emotional distress in active duty military personnel with mild traumatic brain injury: A qualitative content analysis

Service members (SMs) who sustain traumatic brain injury (TBI) during deployment have increased risk for mental health issues. Mental health treatment can be challenging in military settings where treatment seeking is often stigmatized. Adequate care relies on accurate interpretations of SMs’ verbal accounts of distress, but little is known about how SMs, embedded in a culture that values resilience and self-reliance, relay emotional distress. We performed qualitative analyses of recordings from a telephone-based intervention with 25 SMs who sustained deployment-related mild TBI (mTBI) to elucidate thematic and dialectal patterns. Consistent with our expectations, SMs rarely used explicit depressive terms while discussing their emotional distress. More prevalent was language suggestive of an overarching theme of loss of control, whereby SMs’ stress, anxiety, and anger were often attributable to SMs’ perceptions that they had incomplete jurisdiction over their own lives. This study may help mental health providers improve engagements with SMs and Veterans, preventing misunderstandings and even improper diagnoses or referrals that could result from a strict reliance on the more customary expressions of distress.