Parenting Surviving Children After the Death of a Child from Cancer: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The death of a child is a tragic, devastating event with enormous emotional and relational impact on the family unit. Parental changes are significant,...     

Interdependence in Ethnic Identity and Self: Implications for Theory and Practice

This article broadens the conceptual framework of ethnic identity theory by integrating an interdependent perspective of self into counseling theory and practice. An extensive review of ethnic identity theory is presented with a focus on the literature emphasizing the relational and cultural context in the development of self. A dynamic, situationally based theory of ethnic identity is presented, and implications for counseling from an interdependent perspective are discussed.     

AIDS, FRAIDS, and Quarantine: Student Responses to Pro-Quarantine Initiatives in California

In the literature on AIDS, only a few empirical social reactivist studies of heterosexuals have been done, probably due to the preoccupation with explaining the incidence of AIDS among high-risk groups. The following study of 563 students enrolled in a large Southern California university adds to the heterosexual student literature by operationalizing an important research variable, FRAIDS, and by embarking on explanatory analysis of attitude and self-reported behavior. FRAIDS, which we will define as the fear of getting AIDS from casual contact sources, may be helpful in explaining both high-risk sexual behavior among heterosexuals and pro-quarantine sentiment. However, only the subsets of the FRAIDS variable (FRAIDS-dry and FRAIDS-wet) proved explanatory. FRAIDS-dry (fear of HIV infection from dry sources) proved significant in explaining sexual activity, while FRAIDS-wet (fear of HIV infection from wet casual contact sources) was found significant in explaining pro-quarantine sentiment. The converse was not true. Using homophobia as a control variable, homophobia was found to overshadow FRAIDS-wet for males but FRAIDS-wet rivaled homophobia in predicting pro-quarantine sentiment for females. Growing quarantine sentiment was noted among the students, as the survey took place during two different time periods (Fall of 1986 ( N = 375) and Spring of 1988 ( N = 188)), essentially before and after the actual vote in November 1986 on a pro-quarantine initiative (Proposition 64) that appeared on the California ballot. This apparent increase in pro-quarantine sentiment among students (and voters) highlights the need for attention to homophobia as well as detailed discussion of the fear of wet casual contact in AIDS education.     

Factor analysis of responses to the WISC-R for gifted children

Several researchers have focused on the question of whether the traditional two-factor interpretation of WISC--R scores proposed by Wechsler (1974) is appropriate in selecting students to be admitted to gifted programs. Some researchers have suggested that the two-factor solution (Verbal and Performance) of Karnes and K. E. Brown provides the appropriate model, while others have proposed an alternative model based on exploratory research with gifted and average students. The current study expands exploratory findings of S. W. Brown with Rood in 1982 and Yakimowski in 1987, using confirmatory factor analytical procedures. The confirmatory factor analyses for selected groups of gifted (n = 158) and average (n = 195) students (M = 9.6 yr.) indicate that the alternative three-factor solution model may be a better system for interpreting the pattern of WISC--R subtest scores of gifted students than the conventional Verbal and Performance solution.     

Two-Way Regularized Fuzzy Clustering of Multiple Correspondence Analysis

Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) is a useful tool for investigating the interrelationships among dummy-coded categorical variables. MCA has been combined with clustering methods to examine whether there exist heterogeneous subclusters of a population, which exhibit cluster-level heterogeneity. These combined approaches aim to classify either observations only (one-way clustering of MCA) or both observations and variable categories (two-way clustering of MCA). The latter approach is favored because its solutions are easier to interpret by providing explicitly which subgroup of observations is associated with which subset of variable categories. Nonetheless, the two-way approach has been built on hard classification that assumes observations and/or variable categories to belong to only one cluster. To relax this assumption, we propose two-way fuzzy clustering of MCA. Specifically, we combine MCA with fuzzy k-means simultaneously to classify a subgroup of observations and a subset of variable categories into a common cluster, while allowing both observations and variable categories to belong partially to multiple clusters. Importantly, we adopt regularized fuzzy k-means, thereby enabling us to decide the degree of fuzziness in cluster memberships automatically. We evaluate the performance of the proposed approach through the analysis of simulated and real data, in comparison with existing two-way clustering approaches.     

Intellectual intuition and Kant's epistemology

In order to construct culture‐inclusive theories of psychology to establish an autonomous academic tradition of Confucian humanism, this article provides a commentary on Zongshan Mou's philosophy of intellectual intuition (智的直覺) as well as his systematic bias in translating Kant's epistemology of transcendental idealism (先驗理念論) into Chinese as ‘transcendent idealism’ (超越觀念論). I will demonstrate that his systematic bias in translating Kant's epistemology into Chinese may hinder his followers in developing a comprehensive understanding of the dialectical relationships among various paradigms of the Western philosophy of science, while his philosophy of intellectual intuition not only deviates from the original philosophical stance of pre‐Qin Confucians towards Heaven (天) and Dao (道), but also leads to his misunderstanding of Zhu Xi's philosophy and exploration of human nature (性), which may help us to understand the necessity of a psychodynamic model of cultural psychology with its emphasis on collective unconsciousness instead of the metaphor of Height Psychology.     

Adult Attachment Styles and Life Satisfaction in Individuals with Physical Disabilities

Examined the impact of adult attachment style on overall psychosocial adjustment among people with physical disabilities. 100 individuals with chronic, non-progressive physical disabilities living in the community. Adult attachment style, self-esteem, social integration and life satisfaction. Participants with physical disabilities did not differ from the general population in terms of secure versus insecure attachment styles represented. Secure attachment style predicted higher selfesteem. Both attachment security and physical independence were independently related to life satisfaction. This study highlights the importance of examining interpersonal relationships in life satisfaction in people with physical disabilities     

The directionality and functional organization of frontoparietal connectivity during consciousness and anesthesia in humans

Frontoparietal connectivity has been suggested to be important in conscious processing and its interruption is thought to be one mechanism of general anesthesia. Data in animals demonstrate that feedforward processing of information may persist during the anesthetized state, while feedback processing is inhibited. We investigated the directionality and functional organization of frontoparietal connectivity in 10 human subjects anesthetized with propofol on two separate occasions. Multichannel electroencephalography and a computational method of assessing directed functional connectivity were employed. We demonstrate that directed feedback connectivity is diminished with loss of consciousness and returns with responsiveness to verbal command. We also applied the Dendrogram classification method to assess the global organization of directed functional connectivity during consciousness and anesthesia. We demonstrate a state-specific hierarchy and subject-specific subhierarchy in functional organization. These data support the hypothesis that specific states of human consciousness are defined by specific states of frontoparietal connectivity.