Replies to Kane,McCormick, and Vargas

This is a reply to discussions by Robert Kane, Kelly McCormick, and Manuel Vargas of Shaun Nichols, Bound: Essays on Free Will and Responsibility.     

Language Difficulty at School Entry and the Trajectories of Hyperactivity-Inattention Problems from Ages 4 to 11: Evidence from a Population-Representative Cohort Study

Latent growth curve modelling was used to contrast the developmental trajectories of hyperactivity-inattention (H-I) problems across childhood for children with a language difficulty at the start of school and those with typical language and to examine if the presence of a language difficulty moderates the associations of child, parent and peer predictors with these trajectories. Unconditional and language-status conditional latent growth curves of H-I problems were estimated for a large nationally representative cohort of children, comprising 1627 boys (280 - language difficulty) and 1609 girls (159 - language difficulty) measured at age 4 to 5, 6 to 7, 8 to 9 and 10 to 11. Multiple regression tested interaction between language status and predictors of the level and slope of the trajectory of H-I problems. On average, boy’s H-I behaviours showed temporal stability while for girls H-I decreased over time with a slower rate of decrease with age. For both boys and girls, the levels of H-I problems were persistently elevated for those with a language difficulty compared to their peers. Neither the shape nor rate of change of H-I problems were associated with language status. Child sociability predicted the rate of growth in H-I for boys with a language difficulty but not for other boys. Child prosocial behaviours and parental psychological distress predicted the rate of growth in H-I for girls with a language difficulty but not for other girls. Parental hostility was associated with the rate of growth only for boys with typical language. The findings indicate that having a language difficulty at school entry is associated with persistently higher levels of H-I problems across childhood and moderates the rate of their growth in some circumstances.     

Dispositional Resiliency and Adjustment in Protestant Pastors: A Pilot Study

Several studies of pastoral adjustment have examined sources of stress and support. This pilot study, drawing upon a positive psychological perspective of resilience, examined the role of dispositional hope and gratitude in coping with the demands of ministry. A non-random sample of 24 pastors completed online surveys containing measures of congregational demand and support, hope and gratitude, and pastoral well-being and adjustment. As expected, demand was negatively associated with adjustment, while gratitude was positively associated. Regression analyses suggested that gratitude is the more salient variable.     

Teaching mindfulness to psychotherapists in clinical practice: The Mindful Therapy Programme

Introduction: Initially proposed as a treatment modality for psychological disorders, mindfulness is now being promoted as a means of enhancing both therapist self care and therapeutic efficacy. The degree to which mindfulness can be learned by therapists to manage their own and clients' processes in therapy is as yet unknown. This study examines training outcomes of a standardised introductory mindfulness programme for mental health professionals. Methods: Forty-seven mental health professionals completed an eight-week mindful therapy (MT) training programme and associated measures. Results: Compared with baseline scores, participants demonstrated knowledge acquisition on all measures, including increased mindfulness in clinical work, increased capacity to intentionally invoke mindful states of consciousness, and higher participant ratings of well-being over the course of training sessions. Discussion: This research provides preliminary evidence that a brief, standardised mindfulness training programme can achieve acceptable knowledge and skills outcomes for therapists that can aid their therapeutic practice. Of note, increased ‘therapeutic mindfulness’ in this study resulted from changed mindfulness ‘attitudes’ (i.e. a more accepting and equanimous orientation within therapeutic work) as opposed to a clear demonstration of increased attention-regulation skills. The implications of these and other results for programme development and wider research are discussed.     

Interracial contact and racial constancy: A multi-site study of racial intergroup bias in 3–5 year old Anglo-British children

This paper examined the influence of interracial contact and racial constancy on the racial intergroup bias of young Anglo-British children. This multi-site study was conducted in areas of Great Britain that varied in terms of racial diversity. The study also investigated whether preschool children express bias on positive, but not negative, valence attributions. Anglo-British children (N = 136) between 3 and 5 years of age with different levels of interracial contact undertook a racial stereotype attribution measure and three tasks to assess racial constancy. Significantly more racial bias was shown towards the African Caribbean-British compared to the Asian-British or Oriental-British racial out-groups. As predicted, only children in racially mixed areas failed to show discrimination in favor of the white in-group on both the positive and negative trait attributions. In addition, higher racial constancy was related significantly to greater racial intergroup bias. These findings suggest that racial intergroup bias amongst 3–5 year old children may be reduced through the promotion of interracial contact, because at this age children are already beginning to develop racial constancy.     

Attentional spreading in object-based attention

The authors investigated 2 effects of object-based attention: the spread of attention within an attended object and the prioritization of search across possible target locations within an attended object. Participants performed a flanker task in which the location of the task-relevant target was fixed and known to participants. A spreading attention account predicts that object-based attention will arise from the spread of attention through an attended object. A prioritization account predicts that there will be a small, if any, object-based effect because the location of the target is known in advance and objects are not required to prioritize the deployment of attentional search. The results suggested that object-based attention operates via the spread of attention within an object.     

Family,friend, and neighbour child care providers and maternal well‐being in low‐income systems: An ecological social perspective

Integrating theory from the family ecological systems and social support literatures with findings from child care research, in this study we develop and test a model relating family, friend, and neighbour (FFN) child care provider characteristics to perceived child care quality (provider reports of caregiving behaviours, mother‐provider caregiving relationship) and maternal well‐being (work‐family conflict, depressive symptoms). Results from phone interviews with 187 FFN providers receiving public subsidies indicated that even after controlling for familial status or household income, caregiver perceptions of higher quality care were associated with higher education levels, greater attachment to child care as a job; and lower provider depressive symptoms. After controlling for familial status, data analysed from a subset of 51 mother‐provider pairs, indicated that mothers using care from providers who reported higher quality parent‐caregiver social relationships reported lower work‐family conflict and depressive symptoms. This study suggests mothers who have providers with whom they have good caregiving interactions may experience positive social support and psychological crossover dynamics associated with mother well‐being.     

Toward a reliable and valid measure of institutional mission and values perception: the DePaul values inventory

Across three studies, the development of a reliable and valid measure of perceptions by students of an urban, private, faith‐based teaching university's mission and values was assessed. Study 1 presented scale construction and reliability of the DePaul Values Inventory (DeVI) with undergraduates (n = 111), yielding a final 22‐item rating scale with four subscales. Study 2 supported the psychometric structure of the DeVI through a confirmatory factor analysis (n = 292). Study 3 assessed the DeVI's discriminant validity by correlating scores with social desirability and personal values surveys (n = 106). Overall, the DeVI was determined to be a reliable and valid measure of students' perceptions of an institution's mission and values, regardless of student gender, and independent of one's personal values even controlling for social approval tendencies. Future studies should examine the DeVI and its applicability for other similar institutions of higher learning.