Mental health among Asian and African migrant working mothers: new vulnerabilities,old religious coping resources

A qualitative research is presented to explore sources of psychosocial distress, expressive idioms, coping strategies, resilience resources, and experiences of mental-health services in Filipino, Sao Tomean and Indo-Mozambican migrant working mothers settled in Portugal. Findings suggest that shared gender roles and working conditions do not lead to similar modes of expressing mental distress. Particular manifestations take on cultural meanings in relation to specific vulnerabilities and stressors. Despite their higher level of psychosocial distress, these migrant mothers make little use of mental-health services. Comparative analysis has brought to light how religious participation provides them with a variety of expressive and coping resources that support and guarantee the fulfilment of their gender and mothering responsibilities, thus triggering desired changes that affect the lives of their children and families in both the short and long term.     

Hope and the Academic Trajectory of College Students

Previous longitudinal studies of student hope have established a connection between how people think about the future and their college achievement. This study examined the role of hope in predicting the achievement and retention of college students while controlling for educational history and two other psychological constructs, academic self-efficacy and engagement. Hope, self-efficacy, engagement were all correlated with both the number of semesters enrolled and cumulative grade point averages (GPAs) for the first 4 years of college. Hope was the only factor that had unique effects when examining predictors simultaneously and controlling for academic history. Hope uniquely predicted the number of enrolled semesters, whether students returned for the 2nd semester of college, whether students graduated in 4 years, and students’ GPAs across 4 years of college. Results therefore indicate that hope was the most robust predictor of academic achievement in college after controlling for educational history. These findings point to a need to help students develop the capacity to initiate and sustain movement toward goals in the pursuit of higher academic achievement.     

Influences on Vietnamese Men: Examining Traditional Gender Roles,the Refugee Experience,Acculturation, and Racism in the United States

The authors have attempted to increase counselors' understanding of Vietnamese men in the U.S. by discussing masculine gender role socialization influences from Vietnamese culture, including the ritual of nhâu (a ritual of male bonding through binge drinking). The authors also provided a gendered context to the refugee experience, acculturation issues, and experiences of racism in the U.S. Los autores tratan de aumentar el entendimiento de consejeros de los hombres vietnamitas en Estados Unidos. Hacen esto por medio de una discusión de las influencias de la cultura vietnamita sobre la socialización de los roles de genero masculino, incluyendo el ritual de nhâu (un ritual de crear vinculos entre hombres por medio de emborrachamiento). Los autores también proveen un ámbito del genero para la experiencia de los refugiados, la cuestión de la aculturación, y las experiencias de racismo en Estados Unidos.     

Prevalence of Personality Disorders at Midlife in a Community Sample: Disorders and Symptoms Reflected in Interview,Self, and Informant Reports

This report is concerned with the prevalence of symptoms of specific personality disorders in a representative community sample and draws attention to the importance of different sources of diagnostic information. We recruited a sample of 1,630 people between the ages of 55 and 64 to participate in a study regarding personality and health. Using careful recruitment methods, our participation rate was 43 %. Participants completed the SIDP-IV interview as well as a questionnaire (self-report MAPP). Informants completed the same questionnaire (informant MAPP), describing the participant’s maladaptive personality characteristics. According to the diagnostic interview, 7 % of participants met criteria for exactly one PD, 1 % met criteria for 2 or 3 PDs, and 2 % met criteria for PD NOS (defined as 10 or more miscellaneous criteria). Avoidant and obsessive compulsive PDs were the most common types. Correlations between the three sources of information indicated significant agreement among these measurement methods, but they are not redundant. In comparison to interview and self-report data, informants reported more symptoms of personality pathology (except for avoidant PD). Symptoms of personality pathology are continuously distributed, and subthreshold features may have an important impact on health and social adjustment. In this community sample, rates of co-morbidity among PDs and the proportion of PDNOS diagnoses are substantially lower than reported from clinical samples. Future research must evaluate the validity of diagnostic thresholds and competing sources of diagnostic information in relation to important life outcomes.     

IFPS - Is There a Difference?

This paper tries to answer a question about the difference between IFPS and other psychoanalytical institutions. The author states that there is a linkage between the ethics of psychoanalysis and the ethics of the institution. The ethics can not be represented by rules or standards of prerequisites, but by creating a space where the unconscious as desire, singularity and difference takes place. The bureaucratic organization and the hierarchy in the categories of members of IPA institutions goes straight against the transgressor experience of the unconscious. The training analysis under such conditions leads to an identification process with the training analyst, giving as final result standardized, homogeneous, obedient analysts. The author describes a new experience in the training of analysts in his institution without any kind of interference from IFPS. Finally, he concludes that differences exists between the two institutions and that they are mainly due to the identification process typical for IPA and the process of ''choice'' in IFPS.     

Variables morfológicas en el procesamiento del lenguaje

Resumen

En este artículo se revisan los principales estudios acerca del papel que pueden desempeñar las variables de tipo morfológico en la organización del léxico interno y en el acceso a la información contenida en el mismo. Más en concreto, se trata de ver hasta qué punto las relaciones derivativas entre palabras contribuyen a una simplificación del inventario mental de entradas léxicas. Para ello, se examinan las dos hipótesis alternativas fundamentales que han sido propuestas a este respecto: la hipótesis de independencia, según la cual a cada palabra le correspondería una entrada léxica distinta y la hipótesis derivacional, según la cual habría una misma entrada léxica para cada familia de palabras relacionadas morfológicamente. Los datos procedentes de las distintas áreas de la investigación psicolinguistica (comprensión, producción, adquisición y trastornos del lenguaje) parecen apoyar esta segunda hipótesis, aunque se hace notar la falta de resultados cruciales que permitan descartar la hipótesis de independencia o alguna versión modificada de la misma. Sin embargo, aun en el caso de qùe hubiera entradas léxicas distintas, sería preciso postular algún mecanismo adicional que diera cuenta de la información morfológica que utiliza el sujeto en el procesamiento de palabras.     

A qualitative analysis of emotional effector patterns and their feedback

This paper is devoted to the study of the relationship between the subjective component (feelings) and the behavioral aspect of emotions. The following emotions were studied: fear-anxiety, anger-aggression, joy-laughter, love-eroticism, love-tenderness, and sadness-tears. The observations were performed with three different groups of people: patients with anxiety neurosis, students under hypnosis, and drama students. Each emotion was characterized by a specific set of reactions in the respiratory pattern, heart activity, muscular activity, and facial expression. The feelings were correlated with the behavioral patterns and each time the behavioral patterns were interfered with a concomitant modification of the subjectivity component was observed. The direct performance of the behavioral emotional patterns in the absence of the emotogenic stimulus produced the feeling corresponding to the mimicked emotion. If the subjects were stimulated with an emotogenic stimulus during the direct performance of the behavioral patterns of another emotion, they confessed to have the feeling corresponding to the mimicked emotion, and not to the emotion belonging to the emotogenic stimulus. The role played by the feedback from the effector organs in the determination of the subjective emotional states is discussed.     

Attribution and Social Influence1

This article utilizes an attributional approach to explore genotypic similarities among Raven's (1965) 6 bases of power. Two scenarios describing a successful influence attempt leading to a good or a bad outcome were created. Following a randomized blocks design, 60 subjects in each condition read 6 explanations given by the target of influence that reflected the bases of power of Raven's taxonomy (reward, coercion, legitimate, referent, expert, and informational). Rating scales following each power basis explanation assessed the perceived causal dimensions of locus and controllability attributed to the target of influence's behavior and how much the behavior led, in the good and bad outcome conditions, respectively, to pride (guilt), self-esteem enhancement (decrement), responsibility (as perceived by self and by others), and gratitude (anger). The results revealed that reward, referent, and informational influence are genotypically similar and perceived as more internal and more controllable than expert, legitimate, and coercive influence. These perceptions, in turn, led to higher degrees of affective reactions, confirming the predictions of Weiner's theory (1986). The results are related to Milgram's (1963) obedience studies and Kelman and Hamilton's (1989) crimes of obedience. Comments on why reward and coercive influence were found to be genotypically distinct in this study are also presented. Implications of the actor/observer bias in studies of this nature are indicated.     

Self-regulated profiles and academic achievement

To date, research on the relation between learning self-regulation and academic achievement has generally show disparate results. This work intends to look into this relation from a new perspective, which consists in classifying the students as more or less self-regulated depending on diverse indicators and using cluster analysis. The aim of this work was to identify the possible self-regulated learning profiles in a sample of university students. By means of stepwise linear regression analysis, we determined which of the selected variables better predicted metacognitive self-regulation. Then, three significantly different self-regulated learning profiles were obtained by two-step cluster analysis with those variables. Lastly, ANOVA was used to analyse the relation between the self-regulated learning profiles and academic achievement. The implications of these data for the educational practice at university are discussed.