Training Parents in Forgiving and Reconciling

Teaching parents how to forgive transgressions of parenting partners may reduce negative emotions, increase positive emotions, and, thus, decrease parenting stress. We implemented a waiting-list design to investigate the efficacy of a 9-hour psychoeducational group intervention, Forgiveness and Reconciliation through Experiencing Empathy (FREE), presented to 27 parents and caregivers of children 0–9 years old. Participants receiving FREE exhibited increased forgiveness of a target offense by the parenting partner and increased forgiveness of all parenting offenses. This study offers initial evidence that an intervention to promote forgiveness and reconciliation in parents could be beneficial and might improve parenting relations.     

Más allá de «los métodos cualitativos versus los cuantitativos»

RESUMEN

El objetivo del presente artículo es sugerir que, en parte, el debate actual sobre métodos cualitativos y cuantitativos no se centra en cuestiones fructíferas y, por tanto, no se discute tan lógicamente como se debería. Con este artículo no se intenta sugerir que sea posible una resolución completa de esta disputa metodológica. El debate, tal como está siendo planteado, esta oscureciendo las cuestiones y creando cismas entre los dos métodos, cuando deberían construirse puentes que permitan clarificar los desacuerdos originarios. La solución planteada estaría en darse cuenta que el debate está incorrectamente planteado. No es necesario elegir entre los dos métodos o entre los dos paradigmas. En este trabajo se plantean algunas de las razones que llevan a pensar que lo lógico sería ultilizarlos conjuntamente para satisfacer las exigencias que se presenten en la investigación evaluativa.     

Emotional information processing in repressors: The vigilance–avoidance theory

A vigilance–avoidance theory of the repressive coping style (low trait anxiety and high defensiveness) is presented. The new theory attempts to account for several key findings, including the discrepancy between low self-reported anxiety and high behavioural and physiological indicators of anxiety shown by individuals with a repressive coping style. According to the theory, repressors have an initial rapid vigilant response triggering behavioural and physiological responses and involving attentional and interpretive biases to self-relevant threat stimuli. These biases may be based on negative self-relevant schematic information. This initial vigilant stage is followed by an avoidance stage involving avoidant cognitive biases (attentional, interpretive, and memory) that inhibit the conscious experience of anxiety. Future research should examine systematically the time course of repressors’ reactions to threatening and non-threatening stimuli.     

Asymmetrical hemisphere activation enhances global–local processing

Decades of research focusing on the neurophysiological underpinnings related to global–local processing of hierarchical stimuli have associated global processing with the right hemisphere and local processing with the left hemisphere. The current experiment sought to expand this research by testing the causal contributions of hemisphere activation to global–local processing. To manipulate hemisphere activation, participants engaged in contralateral hand contractions. Then, EEG activity and attentional scope were measured. Right-hand contractions caused greater relative left-cortical activity than left-hand contractions. Participants were more narrowly focused after left-hemisphere activation than after right-hemisphere activation. Moreover, N1 amplitudes to local targets in the left hemisphere were larger after left-hemisphere activation than after right-hemisphere activation. Consistent with past research investigating hemispheric asymmetry and attentional scope, the current results suggest that manipulating left (right) hemisphere activity enhanced local (global) attentional processing.     

Justice for the Professional Guinea Pig

Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) remains a controversial technique, one that has elicited a variety of regulatory responses throughout the world. On March 29, 2005, Canada's Assisted Human Reproduction Act came into force. This law prohibits a number of research activities, including SCNT. Given the pluralistic nature of Canadian society, the creation of this law stands as an interesting case study of the policy-making process and how and why a liberal democracy ends up making the relatively rare decision to use a statutory prohibition, backed by severe penalties, to stop a particular scientific activity. In this article, we provide a comprehensive and systematic legal analysis of the legislative process and parliamentary debates associated with the passage of this law.     

Reflections and Confessions of a Pedagogue

In light of increasing levels of polarization between liberals and conservatives both in the classroom and in the wider culture, this article uses an introductory seminary course as a springboard for reflection upon pedagogical practices and assumptions to help address this divide. Special attention is given to the work of moral psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, as presented in his book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012). Haidt’s work seeks to enhance mutual understanding between persons on both sides of political and religious debates by showing that there are multiple legitimate foundations for making moral judgments. Although he does not frame his argument explicitly in terms of the mind-body problem, he consistently challenges the way western philosophy and psychology have privileged individual reason over the passions, social intuition, and other automatic processes associated with the body. He further challenges this age-old dualism by drawing upon body-related metaphors to make his case against moral monism and a narrow understanding of cognition restricted to conscious reasoning, exclusive of intuition and emotion as additional forms of information processing. Thus, the research of Haidt and other psychologists can contribute some “new directions” to the way we conceive of and teach in relationship to the “old connections” of body/mind and self/other (the theme of the 2012 Conference of the Group for New Directions in Pastoral Theology).     

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Nightmares and Sleep Disturbance in Iraq War Veterans: A Feasible and Promising Treatment Combination

A substantial proportion of returnees from the Iraq war have significant psychological symptoms related to war zone exposure, including high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), nightmares, and sleep disturbances. This pilot investigation examined the feasibility and efficacy of a promising cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) for nightmares, Imagery Rehearsal, combined with CBT for insomnia. Seven veterans completed treatment and showed promising pre-post effects regarding nightmare frequency, sleep quality, and PTSD. This report further examined the content of participants' nightmares, changes made during treatment, and potentially important modifying variables of treatment outcome. Those with redeployment fears, guilt due to perpetration issues, or traumatic brain injuries may receive some but not full benefits of the treatment.     

Academic Integrity in a Mandatory Physics Lab: The Influence of Post-Graduate Aspirations and Grade Point Averages

Research on academic cheating by high school students and undergraduates suggests that many students will do whatever it takes, including violating ethical classroom standards, to not be left behind or to race to the top. This behavior may be exacerbated among pre-med and pre-health professional school students enrolled in laboratory classes because of the typical disconnect between these students, their instructors and the perceived legitimacy of the laboratory work. There is little research, however, that has investigated the relationship between high aspirations and academic conduct. This study fills this research gap by investigating the beliefs, perceptions and self-reported academic conduct of highly aspirational students and their peers in mandatory physics labs. The findings suggest that physics laboratory classes may face particular challenges with highly aspirational students and cheating, but the paper offers practical solutions for addressing them.     

Hermeneutic analysis of virtuous exemplar narratives of Cambodian-American Buddhists and Christians

Virtuous exemplars embody the virtues of a cultural community, a dynamic, contextual understanding that is best explored by critical hermeneutic analysis. In order to describe their lives and refine the mental-health treatment of Cambodian immigrants, 12 virtuous exemplars from a Cambodian-American Buddhist and 12 from a Cambodian-American Christian population were interviewed. Grounded theory and a mixed-methods analysis were used. Rigor-enhancing strategies include triangulation, collaboration, member checking, and researcher reflexivity, as well as interviewing a comparison group of 12 Euro-American Christians. Cambodian-American Buddhists and Christians take their religion seriously, and it influences their daily lives. These Buddhists focus on perseverence in the present life and gaining merit for the next. The Christians focus on serving God and nurturing relationships in this life. They report that they are more different from the Cambodian-American Buddhists than Latent Semantic Analysis indicates, providing evidence of both religious and cultural distinctives among the subgroups.