The effects of a short-term mindfulness meditation intervention on coping flexibility

Background and objectives: Mindfulness meditation (MM) training promotes health and well-being. One potential mechanistic link between MM and health may be coping flexibility, (e.g., the ability to monitor and modify coping strategies based on situational needs and strategy effectiveness). We hypothesized that MM training would increase coping flexibility and also explored whether gains in coping flexibility continued to increase after training, or whether they were maintained or lost with time.

Methods and design: One hundred thirteen students (71 female, M_age?=?18.97) were randomly assigned to a waitlist control or MM condition. Participants in the MM condition were trained by a certified MM instructor and given guided recordings for one-week of at-home practice. Participants provided reports of coping flexibility over a three-week span.

Results: Results from multilevel modeling indicated that MM increased coping flexibility among those in the MM condition and among those who spent relatively more time meditating. Results further suggested that the gains in coping flexibility that were evident at post-test were not only maintained but increased in the two weeks after the intervention.

Conclusions: This study provides preliminary support for the assertion that MM increases the ability to monitor and modify coping strategies during times of stress.     

Rigidity and flexibility of gender stereotypes in childhood: developmental or differential?

Previous research has shown that the early learning of male–female categories is characterized by rigid beliefs about stereotypic differences, but that once gender knowledge is well established, the beliefs become more flexible. Because most studies are cross‐sectional, it is not known if the early rigidity represents a normative transitional developmental stage that passes, or if early individual differences in rigidity continue into later childhood. To answer that question, analyses were performed on longitudinal data of 64 children who had been questioned about their gender concepts yearly from ages 5 to 10 years. Supporting a cognitive‐developmental approach, the findings showed that the period of rigidity was short‐lived whether rigidity began early or late or whether the level of peak rigidity was high or low. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Agentic extraversion moderates the effect of physical exercise on executive shifting performance

The present study investigated the impact of physical exercise on the executive shifting function in 24 participants low and 24 participants high in agentic extraversion and tested whether agentic extraversion moderated the exercise effect. Participants accomplished a shifting task and a control task that employed the same materials and response procedure as the shifting task but required less central-executive processing. Physical exercise was varied within subjects. The order of conditions was counterbalanced. After resting, the high agentic extraversion group showed higher cognitive flexibility than the low agentic extraversion group, whereas only the low agentic extraversion group improved after exercise. The results showed that agentic extraversion moderated the exercise effect on shifting performance. Implications concerning the hypothetical dopaminergic mediation were discussed.     

Construct validity of global life-satisfaction judgments: A look into the black box of self–informant agreement

Life-satisfaction judgments are ubiquitously used as indicators of wellbeing. The construct validity of these judgments relies heavily on self–informant agreement. However, agreement is necessary, but not sufficient to claim that life-satisfaction judgments are valid. In addition, self–informant agreement should be based on the use of valid information about satisfaction with important life domains. An alternative possibility is that agreement is based on impressions about personality traits. We tested these two hypotheses in a model that predicted self-ratings and informant ratings of life satisfaction from shared perceptions of personality and satisfaction with life domains. In a round-robin study of families, we found that life-domains were the key predictor of self–informant agreement. However, the Depressiveness facet of Neuroticism had a small direct effect. In addition, it was indirectly related to self–informant agreement because it predicts lower satisfaction in important life-domains that were used to form life-satisfaction judgments.     

The family and the bonds of recognition

I draw upon the resources of the philosophy of recognition, as well as recent research associated with existentialist, psychoanalytic and family-therapy forms of psychotherapy, to develop an account of the family as a distinctive and relatively autonomous system of affective recognition. Those forms of recognition that are most essential in the broader social and political spheres—for instance, those found in law and in contractual relations—generally concern our recognition of each other as discrete, self-conscious, individual agents who are at bottom independent of each other. In contrast, it is argued that familial recognition is founded upon a rather different conception of selfhood, one that emphasizes our inherent porosity with respect to other selves, and so on our incapacity to set ourselves apart from others. Moreover, familial recognition is enacted primarily at the affective, preconscious level, such that members find themselves implicated in each other's self-identities prior to their being in a position to fully appreciate, in a more self-conscious and independent manner, the nature and extent of their involvement. I follow Hegel in arguing that, for these reasons, familial recognition is not only autonomous with respect to certain of the forms of recognition governing the wider social world, but that it is in certain respects at odds with them.     

Executive functions in early childhood: The role of maternal and paternal parenting practices

We investigated the association between mothers' and fathers' harsh parenting and sensitive parenting practices and child's executive functions (EF) in early childhood in 607 families. We focused on three broad dimensions of child EF: Emergent metacognition, inhibitory self‐control, and flexibility measured with the parent‐reported Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function‐Preschool Version. Less sensitive parenting of the mother and harsher parenting of the father were related to lower scores of emergent metacognition and inhibitory self‐control. Parenting was not associated with child flexibility. This study extends previous research on the association between parenting and EF by the focus on the role of the father and demonstrates independent effects of mother and father on child EF.     

‘An elephant cannot fail to carry its own ivory’: Transgenerational ambivalence,infrastructure and sibling support practices in urban Uganda

This article examines how urban Ugandans navigate family support systems through a focus on the under-researched area of sibling care practices. We conceptualise such systems as transgenerational infrastructure to capture the complex flows, negotiations and dilemmas of both inter- and intra-generational relationships, orderings and power, situating family support practices within their spatial, structural and social contexts. Drawing on grounded narratives of lived experience collected in Jinja, Uganda, the article offers an alternative interpretation to what is commonly portrayed as a weakening of family support systems in sub-Saharan Africa. We develop a transgenerational ambivalence perspective which allows for a deeper understanding of the heterogeneity and fluidity of family support as an ethical practice replete with complex emotions and dilemmas shaped in the junctures between social norms, agency, resources and material conditions. Through focusing on working-age Ugandans, we demonstrate the potential for a transgenerational ambivalence approach to make visible contradictions at structural and subjective levels and focus greater attention on the importance of sibling relationships and birth order than is evident in the existing intergenerational literature. This can help researchers in the task of linking family dynamics to the growing precarity and uncertainties of life in the marginal socio-economic contexts of urban sub-Saharan Africa.     

Understanding Intimate Partner Sexual Assaults: Findings from Sexual Assault Kits

ABSTRACT

In 2013, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, began DNA testing and investigating nearly 5000 previously unsubmitted sexual assault kits (SAKs) from 1993 through 2009. We examined case files from a sample of SAKs that were tested but not previously adjudicated (n = 429). More than 10% (n = 45) involved victims who reported to police that a former or current intimate partner sexually assaulted them. This article integrates the available data on the offenders, the victims, the initial investigation, and the specifics of the assaults to provide a more complete understanding of intimate partner sexual assault (IPSA). More than one-third of the IPSA offenders were serial sex offenders; that is, the offenders sexually assaulted an intimate partner and another person(s). Comparing IPSAs to all other sexual assaults, IPSAs more frequently involved bodily force, less frequently involved a weapon, and IPSA investigations were more frequently closed because (1) the victims stated they lied or the police doubted the victims and (2) the victims declined to prosecute. The most common sequencing of events was a demand for sex by the offender followed by a verbal refusal by the victim and the use of bodily force in the sexual assault. The findings, however, indicate a great deal of variation in the sequencing of events surrounding the sexual assault, with over 25% involving no physical confrontation before or after the sexual assault and no demands for sex. Unsubmitted SAK data provide a unique window into understanding the understudied and underreported issue of IPSA.     

Quality of the home,daycare and neighborhood environment and the cognitive development of economically disadvantaged children in early childhood: A mediation analysis

The objective of this study was to investigate how socioeconomic factors and the quality of ecological environments affect motor and cognitive development of economically disadvantaged children. This is a cross-sectional, predictive and correlational study using structural equation modeling to analyze data on 147 economic disadvantage children of 24–36 months attending public daycare. The Bayley-III Scales, the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment Inventory, the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale-Revised Edition, a socioeconomic index and a specifically designed questionnaire on neighborhood quality were applied. The ecological environments did not affect motor development, but 25 % of variations in cognitive development were explained by socioeconomic differences and differences in the quality of the neighborhood, home and daycare. However, only the quality of the home and daycare had a direct impact, with the other factors affecting the outcome indirectly and to a lesser extent. In conclusion, this study investigated the association between the ecological contexts of economically disadvantaged children and their cognitive and motor development. The findings showed that the environmental context had effect on cognitive development. The home was the environment that exerted the most significant direct effect, followed by daycare and, indirectly and to a lesser extent, the neighborhood. Therefore, the coordination of public policies between health, education and social assistance sectors, aiming at the three ecological environments is important in order to promote the cognitive development of economically disadvantaged children.