The Role of Affective Instability in Loss of Control Eating in Youth with Overweight/Obesity Across Development: Findings from Two EMA Studies

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Affective instability is common during adolescence, but at high levels it is associated with a variety of internalizing and externalizing...     

Work,Leisure, and Life Satisfaction for Employees with Physical Disabilities in South Korea

Applied Research in Quality of Life - Empirical studies on work-life balance (WLB) among employees without disabilities are abundant; in contrast, insufficient research exists on WLB and quality of...     

Profession Differences in Family Focused Practice in the Adult Mental Health System

There is a large gulf between what psychiatric services should (or could) provide and what they do in practice. This article sought to determine practice differences between the differing professions working in adult mental health services in terms of their family focused work. Three hundred and seven adult mental health professionals completed a cross‐sectional survey of family focused practices in adult mental health services. Findings highlight that social workers engaged in more family focused practice compared to psychiatric nurses, who performed consistently the lowest on direct family care, compared to both social workers and psychologists. Clear skill, knowledge, and confidence differences are indicated between the professions. The article concludes by offering direction for future profession education and training in family focused practices.     

Is the hijab protective? An investigation of body image and related constructs among British Muslim women

Previous studies have reported equivocal findings concerning the impact of wearing a hijab, or Islamic head‐ and body‐cover, on Muslim women's body image. Here, we sought to examine that impact using a larger sample of Muslim women than has been relied upon and a wider range of body image measures. A total of 587 British Muslim women completed a battery of scales assessing their frequency and conservativeness of hijab use, body image variables, attitudes towards the media and beauty ideals, importance of appearance, and religiosity. Preliminary results indicated that 218 women never used the hijab and 369 women used some form of the hijab at least rarely. Controlling for religiosity, women who wore the hijab had more positive body image, lower internalization of media messages about beauty standards, and placed less importance on appearance than women who did not wear the hijab. Among women who wore the hijab, hijab use significantly predicted weight discrepancy and body appreciation over and above religiosity. These results are discussed in terms of the possible protective impact among British Muslim women of wearing the hijab.     

Altered attention for stimuli on the hands

Attention operates in the space near the hands with unique, action-related priorities. Here, we examined how attention treats objects on the hands themselves. We tested two hypotheses. First, attention may treat stimuli on the hands like stimuli near the hands, as though the surface of the hands were the proximal case of near-hand space. Alternatively, we proposed that the surface of the hands may be attentionally distinct from the surrounding space. Specifically, we predicted that attention should be slow to orient toward the hands in order to remain entrained to near-hand space, where the targets of actions are usually located. In four experiments, we observed delayed orienting of attention on the hands compared to orienting attention near or far from the hands. Similar delayed orienting was also found for tools connected to the body compared to tools disconnected from the body. These results support our second hypothesis: attention operates differently on the functional surfaces of the hand. We suggest this effect serves a functional role in the execution of manual actions.     

Patterns of Religious Education Policy in Switzerland: The Long Arm of Distanced Christians?

In spite of its different cantonal jurisdictions and traditions, the development of religious education in Switzerland over the past decade has taken a common direction: the state has assumed a more active role in the field of religious education in public (state‐run) schools. In this article, we ask the question: How do key social actors interpret these reforms and how do these interpretations relate to the social structure of religion in Switzerland, in particular with respect to the majority category of the so‐called distanced Christians? Drawing on qualitative interviews with members of the schools’ teaching staff, school administrators, and church representatives, the article highlights a dominant interpretative pattern that frames the socially accepted representation of religion in public schools. Thus, rather than addressing the pedagogical dimension of religious education, we discuss the significance of this pattern for the debate on the public presence of religion in Switzerland and Europe.     

Living the high life: social status influences real estate decision making

Social status is associated with the vertical spatial dimension, with people conceptualizing higher social status with higher vertical positions. Two experiments tested whether this association influences relatively real‐world decisions about others by asking participants to act as real estate agents, aiding in the relocation of clients who explicitly or implicitly varied in social status. Across experiments, higher status clients were placed into higher elevation housing options. This influence of social status persisted when strategy‐aware participants were removed from analysis, and was not influenced by individual differences in social dominance or locus of control. Abstract concepts of social status are understood through associations with vertical space, and these mapping of abstract concepts to concrete percepts prove influential in guiding daily decisions.     

Or cues knowledge of alternatives: Evidence from priming

Recent research has determined that word meanings can instantly influence the meaning and distribution of other words in the sentence. Here, we manipulated basic carrier sentences with the disjunction or linking two nouns that were either filling the same thematic role or not, and were either semantically related or not. Though previous research has shown that one word can prime a semantically related word even in a sentential context, we predicted that if or cues knowledge about contextually‐relevant alternatives, priming for semantic relatives will only obtain when those words also fill the same thematic role. These predictions were confirmed, as self‐paced reading times of the second alternative in the sentence were faster only when the two alternatives shared the same thematic role and semantic category, suggesting that disjunction words like or function similarly to verbs, which cue knowledge about expected argument structure and sense depending on sentential context. The relevance of these findings for basic reasoning phenomena (i.e., the subadditivity effect) is also discussed.     

What Causes Internalising Traits and Autistic Traits to Co-occur in Adolescence? A Community-Based Twin Study

Autism shows a high degree of comorbidity with anxiety disorders. Adolescence is a time of increased stress and vulnerability to internalising problems. This study addresses for the first time the degree of genetic and environmental overlap between autistic traits (total measure and subscales) and internalising traits in a community-based adolescent twin sample. Parents of 12-14-year-old twins (N?=?3,232 pairs; 3,460 males, 3,004 females) reported on the twins’ internalising and autistic traits. Autistic trait subscales were created using principal component analysis. Bivariate twin model-fitting was conducted. Autistic and internalising traits correlated moderately (r?=?0.30). Genetic influences on individual traits were substantial but genetic overlap between traits was moderate (genetic correlation: males?=?0.30, females?=?0.12). Shared environmental influences were low for internalising traits and moderate for autistic traits, and showed considerable overlap (shared environmental correlation: males?=?0.53, females?=?1). Nonshared environmental influences were moderate for internalising traits and low for autistic traits and showed low overlap. A multiple component solution was found for autistic traits and of the derived subscales, autistic-like ‘Social Unease’ showed the most phenotypic and genetic overlap with internalising traits.