Linking Adult Attachment Styles to Relationship Satisfaction in Hong Kong and the United States: The Mediating Role of Personal and Structural Commitment

Maintaining a satisfying heterosexual relationship is important to many individuals?? happiness and physical health. Evolutionary theories on the formation of relationships suggest that adult attachment and relationship commitment are universal mechanisms for securing and maintaining such mating relationships. This study sought to understand how these two mechanisms may link to each other and how they in turn contribute to relationship satisfaction with one??s current partner in Hong Kong Chinese and American cultures. Similarities in the model for relationship satisfaction were found among young dating couples in the United States and Hong Kong. Specifically, attachment anxiety was positively linked to structural commitment, whereas attachment avoidance was negatively related to personal commitment. Both dimensions of attachment (anxiety and avoidance) and both components of commitment (personal and structural) were found to predict current relationship satisfaction significantly and equivalently across cultures, with the pathway from attachment avoidance to current relationship satisfaction similarly mediated by personal commitment in both cultural groups. These results were interpreted in terms of a probable universal logic informing the interpersonal dynamics involving attachment and relationship commitment.     

The relationship between religion and cardiovascular outcomes and all-cause mortality in the women's health initiative observational study

Some studies suggest that religiosity may be related to health outcomes. The current investigation, involving 92,395 Women's Health Initiative Observational Study participants, examined the prospective association of religious affiliation, religious service attendance, and strength and comfort from religion with subsequent cardiovascular outcomes and death. Baseline characteristics and responses to religiosity questions were collected at enrollment. Women were followed for an average of 7.7 years and outcomes were judged by physician adjudicators. Cox proportional regression models were run to obtain hazard ratios (HR) of religiosity variables and coronary heart disease (CHD) and death. After controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, and prior health variables, self-report of religious affiliation, frequent religious service attendance, and religious strength and comfort were associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality [HR for religious affiliation = 0.84; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.75–0.93] [HR for service attendance = 0.80; CI: 0.73–0.87] [HR for strength and comfort = 0.89; CI: 0.82–0.98]. However, these religion-related variables were not associated with reduced risk of CHD morbidity and mortality. In fact, self-report of religiosity was associated with increased risk of this outcome in some models. In conclusion, although self-report measures of religiosity were not associated with reduced risk of CHD morbidity and mortality, these measures were associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality.     

Cognitive development in absence epilepsy during long-term follow-up

Absence epilepsy (AE) has been associated with lower than average cognitive functioning, which are clinically relevant in some and may predispose to problems later in life. This study aimed to assess cognitive development during long-term follow-up in children with AE. Thirty-one children with AE, who had undergone two neuropsychological assessments between 2010 and 2017 were analyzed retrospectively. Cognitive measurements were 1.7 ± 0.95 years apart. The difference in neurocognitive test scores was assessed on a group level and on an individual level using reliable change methodology. Results show that sustained attention was lower at the first measurement compared to the normative mean. Sustained attention improved during follow-up and 7 out of 14 children showed improvement after correction for practice effects. Receptive vocabulary showed a decline over time, but did not differ from the normative mean. Significant lower mean group scores were present for performance IQ, perceptual organization, processing speed, simple reaction times, and visual motor integration, while being stable over time in the majority of children. Cognitive development was not associated with seizure freedom. Mild-to-severe academic underachievement was present in 65% and comorbidities that might affect learning in 38%. This study in children with AE showed improvement in sustained attention during long-term follow-up while other cognitive weaknesses persisted over time, regardless of seizure freedom.     

What are we doing to the earth's climate and what are we going to do about it?

Climatic considerations are critical if our planet is to survive. The environment, and in particular the atmosphere, is particularly sensitive to man. The time has come to act in favor of that which gives us life. This is why, in a field which knows no boundaries, only an international strategy can be effective.     

Fathering Self-Efficacy, Marital Satisfaction and Father Involvement in Hong Kong

We examined the predictability of fathering self-efficacy and marital satisfaction on father involvement. The moderating effect of marital satisfaction on the relationship between father efficacy and father involvement was also explored. A cross-sectional survey was conducted using the convenience sampling method. A total of 2,029 valid questionnaires were collected from fathers with children aged 2–6 from 48 nurseries in Hong Kong. The fathers’ mean age is 39.1. 72.9 % of the fathers graduated from secondary school and 86 % had full-time jobs. Measures including self-efficacy subscale in the Parenting Sense of Competency Scale, the Index of Marital Satisfaction, the Inventory of Father Involvement were adopted in the present study. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that fathering self-efficacy and marital satisfaction were significant positive predictors of father involvement, whereas marital satisfaction moderated the effect of fathering self-efficacy on father involvement. It is thus important to improve martial satisfaction and enhance fathering self-efficacy for promoting father involvement. To gain a more comprehensive picture, future studies of father involvement may benefit by adopting a longitudinal research design, including the mothers and children as informants, and addressing other parenting correlates such as parenting stress and spousal support.     

Dyadic Anxiety in Youth Sport: The Relationship of Achievement Goals With Anxiety in Young Athletes and Their Parents

The role of achievement motivation on precompetitive anxiety was examined in 73 dyads comprising youth athletes and a parent of each athlete. Participants completed questionnaires assessing achievement goals and anxiety. Actor–partner interdependence models were estimated using Mplus 7.11. Parents’ adoption of performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals predicted athletes’ worry (β_{performance-approach} =.30, p <.01; β_{performance-avoidance} =.25, p <.05). Athletes’ adoption of any goal predicted parents’ concentration disruption (β_{mastery-approach} =.41; β_{mastery-avoidance} =.30, p <.01; β_{performance-approach} =.27; β_{performance-avoidance} =.22, p <.05). Thus, parental definitions of competence held for the child was related to their young athlete's emotional state and vice versa.     

Effects of a CARO on Stimulus Equivalence Formation: A Systematic Replication

The Psychological Record - In two experiments, we examined the disruptive effects of a “can’t answer” response option (CARO) on equivalence formation. The first experiment was a...     

Ultralarge lotteries: Analyzing the Lottery Paradox using non-standard analysis

A popular way to relate probabilistic information to binary rational beliefs is the Lockean Thesis, which is usually formalized in terms of thresholds. This approach seems far from satisfactory: the value of the thresholds is not well-specified and the Lottery Paradox shows that the model violates the Conjunction Principle. We argue that the Lottery Paradox is a symptom of a more fundamental and general problem, shared by all threshold-models that attempt to put an exact border on something that is intrinsically vague. We propose application of the language of relative analysis—a type of non-standard analysis—to formulate a new model for rational belief, called Stratified Belief. This contextualist model seems well-suited to deal with a concept of beliefs based on probabilities ‘sufficiently close to unity’ and satisfies a moderately weakened form of the Conjunction Principle. We also propose an adaptation of the model that is able to deal with beliefs that are less firm than ‘almost certainty’. The adapted version is also of interest for the epistemicist account of vagueness.     

An Integrated Resilience and Ecological Model of Child Abuse (REC-Model)

Much of the theories of child abuse are developed and referenced from the West, while their applications to Chinese society are unclear. It is necessary to examine the cases in Hong Kong to acknowledge the uniqueness in perception and conceptualization of child abuse and the impact of resilience, across different cultural settings. The current study aims to advance an ecological model of child abuse for Hong Kong families by integrating resilience perspective with the ecological systems, namely An Integrated Resilience and Ecological Model of Child Abuse (REC-Model), and to examine the interactions between resilience and risk factors among chronosystemic, microsystemic, marcosystemic, and ontogenic systems on child abuse. Using a cross sectional survey research method and path analysis, 565 families with children studying at ages between 9 and 13 participated and returned self-administered questionnaires in the study. The results showed that Chinese cultural parenting values moderated the influences of risk factors on child abuse, while forgiveness buffered the negative impact of microsystemic factors on child abuse. To prevent child abuse, it is important to decrease the detrimental effects of childhood abuse experiences, reduce marital conflicts, and avoid developing insecure parent-child attachment. Promoting forgiveness, while reducing parents’ rigidity of certain Chinese cultural parenting values, may also help decrease child abuse.     

Cardiovascular reactions to psychological stress and abuse history: the role of occurrence,frequency, and type of abuse

Background and objectives: Extreme cardiovascular reactions to psychological stress have been associated with traumatic life experiences. Previous studies have focused on the occurrence or frequency of abuse rather than type of abuse. We examined how occurrence, frequency, and the type of abuse history are related to cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to acute psychological stress. Design: The study consisted of between group and continuous analyses to examine the association between occurrence, type, and frequency of abuse with cardiovascular reactions to acute psychological stress. Methods: Data from 64 participants were collected. Heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure were measured at baseline and during a standard mental arithmetic stress task. Results: Individuals who experienced abuse showed diminished CVR to acute psychological stress; this was driven specifically by the history of sexual abuse. Frequency of abuse did not relate to stress reactions. Conclusions: These findings accord with previous work suggesting a relationship between traumatic life experience and hypoarousal in physiological reactivity and extend previous findings by suggesting the relationship may be driven by sexual abuse.