A Population-Based Study of Children’s Well-Being and Health: The Relative Importance of Social Relationships,Health-Related Activities,and Income

This study investigated how various risk and protective factors interface with child health and well-being at the population level. Specifically, we examined the association of income, social-contextual variables, and indicators of health-related habits and activities to children’s life satisfaction and perceived overall health. Child data were collected via a self-report survey, the Middle Years Development Instrument, which was administered in three demographically diverse Canadian school districts to 5026 grade 4 students (83 % of the students had complete data and were included in the analyses). Multiple regression and mediation analyses were conducted to examine the joint associations of social relationships with adults and peers, nutrition and sleep habits, and after school sports activities with children’s satisfaction with life and perceived health. Results indicate that peer belonging and relationships with adults at home and school were the strongest predictors of life satisfaction. Furthermore, the (small) association between income and life satisfaction was mediated by social relationship variables. Child reports of perceived health were predicted by peer belonging, adult relationships (home, school, neighborhood), after-school team sports, and nutrition habits. The (small) association between income and health was mediated by social relationships and team sports participation. Findings are discussed in light of previous research on social determinants and socio-economic gradients of children’s health and life satisfaction.     

Work-to-Life Spillover Effect of Leader–Member Exchange in Groups: The Moderating Role of Group Power Distance and Employee Political Skill

While prior studies have focused on the effect of leader–member exchange (LMX), representing a dyadic differentiated exchange relationship between a leader and followers, on employees’ job-related outcomes, how LMX at the group level influences one’s life domain has been ignored. The present study shifted attention to the relationship between LMX mean and employee life satisfaction as well as the boundary conditions. Using a sample of 471 employees from 53 groups and hierarchical linear modeling, we examined the cross-level main effect of LMX mean on life satisfaction and the moderation of group power distance and individual political skill. The results revealed that LMX mean had a work-to-life spillover effect on employee life satisfaction. Employee political skill positively moderated the relationship between LMX mean and life satisfaction, whereas group power distance negatively moderated the relation. Theoretical and practical implications were further discussed.     

Failure-Related Action Orientation and Life Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Forgivingness

This study examined the association between failure-related action orientation and life satisfaction, with a primary focus on confirmation of the mediating role of forgivingness in Chinese college students. 277 participants (165 males and 112 females) from Mainland China completed a subscale of the Action Control Scale (ACS-90) called the Failure-related Action Orientation Scale (AOF), the Tendency to Forgive Scale (Brown in Personal Soc Psychol Bull 29(6):759–771, 2003) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et al. in J Personal Assess 49(1):71–75, 1985). Results from structural equation modeling showed that forgivingness partially mediated the relationship between failure-related action orientation and life satisfaction. Moreover, AOF, forgivingness and life satisfaction did not differ across gender or age groups. Implications for the model of failure-related action orientation, forgivingness and life satisfaction in college students are discussed.     

Inter-State Internal Migration: State-level Wellbeing as a Cause

The relationship between subjective wellbeing and in-migration is explored in this paper. The wellbeing of a state is considered an incentive for in-migration to that state as the wellbeing in that state increases. A cross-sectional, multiple regression on the contiguous states in the United States was used to determine if there is any relationship. A significant and positive relationship was found between state-level subjective wellbeing and net in-migration when controlling for economic and non-economic variables typically associated with in-migration. The positive relationship indicates that as a state’s wellbeing increases its appeal as a destination for internal migrants increases as well. It is recommended for policymakers to focus on improving the subjective wellbeing of their state’s residents not only to retain and attract new residents, but as a general measure of successful administration. Future studies are needed to verify the link between a state’s wellbeing and in-migration to that state. This study serves as a first step in this literature.     

‘There’s the record,closed and final’: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Rough for Theatre II</Emphasis> as Psychiatric Encounter

A co-authored collaboration between a theatre practitioner and a clinical psychiatrist, this paper will examine Rough for Theatre II (RFTII) and Beckett’s demonstration of the way records are used to understand the human subject. Using Beckett’s play to explore interdisciplinary issues of embodiment and diagnosis, the authors will present a dialogue that makes use of the ‘best sources’ in precisely the same manner as the play’s protagonists. One of those sources will be Beckett himself, as Heron will locate the play in its theatrical context through reflections upon his own practice (with Fail Better Productions, UK) as well as recent studies such as Beckett, Technology and the Body (Maude 2009) and Performing Embodiment in Samuel Beckett’s Drama (McMullan 2010); another source will be the philosopher Wilhelm Windleband, whose 1901 History of Philosophy was read and noted upon by Beckett in the 1930s, as Broome will introduce a philosophical and psychiatric context to the exchange. Windelband is now a neglected figure in philosophy; but as one of the key figures of Neo-Kantianism in the late 19^th century, his work was an important impetus to that of Rickert, Weber and Heidegger. Specifically, Windelband gives us the distinction between idiographic and nomothetic understanding of individuals, an approach that is of relevance to the psychiatric encounter. This academic dialogue will consider tensions between subjectivity and objectivity in clinical and performance practice, while examining Beckett’s analysis of the use of case notes and relating them back to Windelband’s ideas on the understanding of others. The dialogue took place in 2011 at the University of Warwick, and has since been edited by the authors.     

All in My Head: Beckett,Schizophrenia and the Self

This article will explore the representation of certain mental and somatic phenomena in Beckett’s trilogy of novels Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable, exploring how his understanding of schizophrenia and psychosis informs his representation of the relationship between mind and body. It will also examine recent phenomenological and philosophical accounts of schizophrenia (Louis Sass, Josef Parnas, Shaun Gallagher) that see the condition as a disorder of selfhood and concentrate in it on the disruption to ipseity, a fundamental and pre-reflective awareness of self that leads to a loss of ‘grip’ (in the term of Merleau-Ponty) on concepts and percepts. Beckett’s writing might, it is argued, make such disruptions more tangible and intelligible. The article will also consider John Campbell’s argument that immunity of the first person to error—Sydney Shoemaker’s foundational philosophical idea that we cannot misspeak the first person pronoun—is revoked in states of psychosis, and relate such states to the moments in Beckett’s writing where this immunity is challenged, and quasi-psychotic experiences represented.     

Evidence-Based Medicine: A Genealogy of the Dominant Science of Medical Education

Debates about how knowledge is made and valued in evidence-based medicine (EBM) have yet to understand what discursive, social, and historical conditions allowed the EBM approach to stabilize and proliferate across western medical education. This paper uses a genealogical approach to examine the epistemological tensions that emerged as a result of various problematizations of uncertainty in medical practice. I explain how the problematization of uncertainty in the literature and the contingency of specific social, political, economic, and historical relations allowed the EBM approach to become a programmatic and pedagogical focus of the Faculty of Medicine at McMaster University and beyond.     

Narrative self-constitution and vulnerability to co-authoring

All people are vulnerable to having their self-concepts shaped by others. This article investigates that vulnerability using a theory of narrative self-constitution. According to narrative self-constitution, people depend on others to develop and maintain skills of self-narration and they are vulnerable to having the content of their self-narratives co-authored by others. This theoretical framework highlights how vulnerability to co-authoring is essential to developing a self-narrative and, thus, the possibility of autonomy. However, this vulnerability equally entails that co-authors can undermine autonomy by contributing disvalued content to the agent’s self-narrative and undermining her authorial skills. I illustrate these processes with the first-hand reports of several women who survived sexual abuse as children. Their narratives of survival and healing reveal the challenges involved in (re)developing the skills required to manage vulnerability to co-authoring and how others can help in this process. Finally, I discuss some of the implications of co-authoring for the healthcare professional and the therapeutic relationship.