Definition of Financial Abuse: A Culture-Centered Construct among Korean Elders

One of the critical issues in addressing financial abuse in Korea is the absence of an appropriate definition voiced by the elderly. This study is designed to explore how Korean elders define financial abuse in given social and cultural contexts. Face-to-face, in-depth interviews were conducted with 124 elders, aged 60 to 79, residing in Korea. The results of qualitative data analysis using grounded theory revealed that a vast majorty of Korean elderly respondents defined financial abuse as lack of provision of financial support to elder parents, and a small portion of respondents defined it as financial exploitation by adult children. The definition of financial abuse reflects cultural beliefs based on filial piety about financial expectations within the parent–child relationship. Education on financial abuse for both elders and their adult children and establishment of income support programs are urgently needed efforts to increase the financial well-being of elderly Koreans.     

Basketball training increases striatum volume

The striatum is associated with the learning and retention of motor skills. Several studies have shown that motor learning induces neuronal changes in the striatum. We investigated whether macroscopic change in striatum volume occurs in a segment of the human population who learned basketball-related motor skills and practiced them throughout their entire athletic life. Three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging volumetry was performed in basketball players and healthy controls, and striatum volumes were compared based on basketball proficiency, region and side. We identified morphological enlargement in the striatum of basketball players in comparison with controls. Our results suggest that continued practice and repetitive performance of basketball-related motor skills may induce plastic structural changes in the human striatum.     

Muslim youth and consumerism: a study of Islamic street wear

Drawing on a framework that goes beyond the usual securitization lens and that includes other neglected sociological dynamics, namely consumerism and individualization, this article explores an overlooked form of dress in the research on Islamic dress in the West which is Islamic street wear. This analysis interrogates what Islamic street wear reveals, in terms of identity, about the experience of young Muslims living as a minority in secular spaces. Various messages collected from message T-shirts are deconstructed to precisely highlight the effect of these different dynamics on the articulation of identities by young Muslims. A theoretical framework grounded in the notion of hybridity guides a systematic content analysis of the messages. The analysis of these messages reveals the strong individualization of faith deriving from consumerist patterns, the rather limited expression of the controversial “ummatic” loyalty to Muslims worldwide and the assertion of pride in Muslim identity.     

Horse-parts,White-parts,and Naming: Semantics,Ontology, and Compound Terms in the White Horse Dialogue

In this article I argue against Chad Hansen’s version of the “White Horse Dialogue” (Baimalun) of Gongsun Longzi as intelligible through writings of the later Moists. Hansen regards the Baimalun as an attempt to demonstrate how the compound baima, “white horse,” is correctly analyzed in one of the Moist ways of analyzing compound term semantics but not the other. I present an alternative reading in which the Baimalun arguments point out, via reductio, the failure of either Moist analysis; in particular they point out how neither analysis accounts for ordinary, acceptable inferences like “There is a white horse; therefore there is a horse.” At issue for Gongsun Longzi is a fundamental problem with atomic terms: none of them seems capable of referring to a particular, “stand-alone” individual.     

ROLE OF FIRST‐YEAR MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT AND PATERNAL INVOLVEMENT IN BEHAVIORAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG CHILDREN

Drawing on economic models of child development and attachment relationship perspectives, this study examined the effect of maternal employment in the first year after childbirth on subsequent behavioral and cognitive development in low‐income children. Analyses of data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (N = 411) revealed that despite the accompanying family income gains, maternal employment in the first year after childbirth adversely affected caregiver‐reported internalizing and externalizing behavior problems of Hispanic, Black, and White children at ages 3 and 5 years. This study also examined how paternal participation in childcare might affect children's outcomes. Results indicate that greater paternal participation eased the adverse impacts of maternal employment on internalizing behavior problems. There was no evidence that maternal employment was associated with children's memory cognitive functioning or that paternal involvement moderated children's cognitive development. These findings suggest that when early intervention programs are designed to assist low‐income families, enhancing supports (e.g., paternal involvement or parental leave) for working mothers during their child's first year may be valuable for young children's healthy development.     

Distorted Time Perception during Flow as Revealed by an Attention-Demanding Cognitive Task

Flow is the state of full attention to the task at hand. It is typically studied in daily life, as people engage deeply in activities such as art, sports, and leisure, and typically its affective characteristics are emphasized. This research investigates flow in the laboratory, focusing on its cognitive characteristics. Participants completed different versions of the Trail Making test, a measure of executive function, that made parametrically increasing demands on attention. As predicted, more participants were in the flow state when attentional demands were moderate than when they were low or high. This was revealed by conventional survey measures indicating a balance between the perceived challenge of the task and the perceived skill of participants. Critically, this was also evidenced by a new operational measure of time distortion, defined as the difference between people’s subjective estimates of their task completion times and the objective, experimenter-recorded times. Participants experienced downward time distortion—the feeling of time flying—when attentional demands were moderate. These findings demonstrate for the first time the causal role of attentional demands in inducing the flow state. They set the stage for future studies of flow and time distortion using attention-demanding cognitive tasks, and of the association between time perception and creative thinking.     

In defense of strategic therapy

The practice of strategic therapy has raised a number of critical issues and has stimulated criticism of various sorts. Among the criticisms leveled at strategic therapy are that it involves the taking of too many risks, that it is deceptive, that it is controlling and manipulative, that it is disrespectful, and that it is superficial and narrow. Each of these five major areas of concern is discussed and addressed with case examples to illustrate a rationale and justification for the use of these less conventional methods.     

From Victim to Perpetrator of Trauma: Lived Experiences of Gang-Involved Urban Refugee Youth in Kenya

Somali children and youth in displacement are exposed to prolonged trauma and chronic violence. In spite of a striking link among trauma, gang activities, victimization, and perpetration of violence, however, few studies have been conducted with Somali refugee youth in low-resource urban settings. This qualitative study demonstrates how prolonged trauma shapes ecological conditions of refugee life that induce vulnerable youth to forge support systems through gang membership and violence. The accession of the challenges, from loss of family, to discrimination and police brutality, and to chronic impoverishment, forces the high-risk refugee youth to replicate the various forms of violence to which they have been exposed to survive. Undergoing such chronic and cumulated trauma, these youth continue to normalize and become further desensitized to violence. The systems perspective of this study expands understanding of the intersection of trauma and gang membership and implies the need for an expanded approach to trauma and understanding of the complexities of gang involvement, beyond posttraumatic stress disorder treatment and clinical intervention.     

Computation of mean size is based on perceived size

The present study investigated whether computation of mean object size was based on perceived or physical size. The Ebbinghaus illusion was used to make the perceived size of a circle different from its physical size. Four Ebbinghaus configurations were presented either simultaneously (Experiment 1) or sequentially (Experiment 2) to each visual field, and participants were instructed to attend only to the central circles of each configuration. Participants’ judgments of mean central circle size were influenced by the Ebbinghaus illusion. In addition, the Ebbinghaus illusion influenced the coding of individual size rather than the averaging. These results suggest that perceived rather than physical size was used in computing the mean size.