Preschoolers' aggression and parent-child conflict: a multiinformant and multimethod study

This multiinformant and multimethod study (N=47) investigated the link between the parent-child relationship system and the display of physical and relational aggression with peers at school during early childhood. Children (mean age=43.54 months, SD=8.02) were observed (80min/child) during free play, and parents and teachers were asked to complete several standard measures. Intercorrelations between aggression subtypes revealed moderate to high levels of correlation for parents and teachers and no significant association for observations of physical and relational aggression. Interinformant agreement was examined, and teachers and parents were found to significantly agree for both physical and relational aggression, and teachers and observers also significantly agreed for both subtypes of aggression. Results of regression analyses suggest that parent-child conflict was uniquely associated with relational aggression among peers when controlling for physical aggression and gender. Ways in which these findings build on the extant literature are discussed.     

Genetics Education for Health Professionals: Strategies and Outcomes from a National Initiative in the United Kingdom

The National Health Service (NHS) National Genetics Education and Development Centre was established by the Department of Health in 2004 to help drive and co-ordinate genetics education for health professionals working outside specialist genetic services. This paper reviews the experiences and lessons learned to date. At the outset, it was clear that understanding the learning ethos, preferred delivery methods and attitudes towards genetics of different NHS healthcare groups was vital. We collected evidence by undertaking needs assessments with educators, practitioners and patients. We have determined the genetics knowledge, skills and attitudes which they said were needed and translated these into learning outcomes and workforce competences in a continuum of education. Beginning with core concepts introduced (and examined) pre-registration, the continuum continues with development of concepts post-registration as appropriate for role, leading to practical application and assessment of competences in the workplace. These are supported by a portfolio of resources which draw heavily on patient based scenarios to demonstrate to staff that genetics is relevant to their work, and to convince educators and policy makers that genetic education is likely to result in real clinical benefit. A long term educational policy, inclusive of learners, educationalists and their institutions must be evidence based, flexible and responsive to changes in workforce structure, provision of clinical services and conceptual and financial commitments to education. The engagement of national policy, regulatory and professional bodies is vital ().     

Redemptive Experience in Relational Family Therapy: A Christian Perspective

We all long for relationships with others, because only in connecting with others can we develop our intrapsychic structure and become functional adults. We are psychologically predisposed to have a constant connection with others and are driven toward relationships with others. Our deepest yearnings are therefore devoted to building solid dialogue as the means of becoming fully human. We, therefore, consciously or unconsciously, long for a relationship where we can experience happiness, satisfaction and, above all, redemption or salvation from our dreads, miseries and unhappiness. In this article we presuppose that a therapeutic relationship, demonstrated in a psychoanalytic setting, namely in relational family therapy, can contain redemptive dimensions in which the inextinguishable longing for salvation is always present.

Mereological nihilism: quantum atomism and the impossibility of material constitution

Mereological nihilism is the philosophical position that there are no items that have parts. If there are no items with parts then the only items that exist are partless fundamental particles, such as the true atoms (also called philosophical atoms) theorized to exist by some ancient philosophers, some contemporary physicists, and some contemporary philosophers. With several novel arguments I show that mereological nihilism is the correct theory of reality. I will also discuss strong similarities that mereological nihilism has with empirical results in quantum physics. And I will discuss how mereological nihilism vindicates a few other theories, such as a very specific theory of philosophical atomism, which I will call quantum abstract atomism. I will show that mereological nihilism also is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that avoids the problems of other interpretations, such as the widely known, metaphysically generated, quantum paradoxes of quantum physics, which ironically are typically accepted as facts about reality. I will also show why it is very surprising that mereological nihilism is not a widely held theory, and not the premier theory in philosophy.     

Antecedents of mentoring support: a meta-analysis of individual,relational, and structural or organizational factors

The value of mentoring is growing substantially as organizations take a renewed interest in employee development to better survive in the dynamic and competitive market today. In the wake of this renewed interest, this meta-analysis was conducted to quantitatively review the multi-level antecedents (e.g., individual, relational, and structural/organizational) of different kinds of mentoring support (e.g., career, psychosocial, role modeling) in organizational settings and to revisit the theoretical underpinnings of each antecedent. Results indicated some key antecedents of mentoring support at individual (e.g., protégé's proactivity, protégé's learning goal orientation, mentor's transformational leadership), relational (e.g., affect based trust, perceived similarity), and structural/organizational levels (e.g., organizational support for mentoring, supervisory mentoring). Recommendations for future research and organizational practice of mentoring are presented.     

Beyond common features: the role of roles in determining similarity

Historically, accounts of object representation and perceived similarity have focused on intrinsic features. Although more recent accounts have explored how objects, scenes, and situations containing common relational structures come to be perceived as similar, less is known about how the perceived similarity of parts or objects embedded within these relational systems is affected. The current studies test the hypothesis that objects situated in common relational systems come to be perceived as more similar. Similarity increases most for objects playing the same role within a relation (e.g., predator), but also increases for objects playing different roles within the same relation (e.g., the predator or prey role in the hunts relation) regardless of whether the objects participate in the same instance of the relation. This pattern of results can be captured by extending existing models that extract meaning from text corpora so that they are sensitive to the verb-specific thematic roles that objects fill. Alternative explanations based on analogical and inferential processes are also considered, as well as the implications of the current findings to research in language processing, decision making, and category learning.     

A confusion of tongues between psychoanalysis and philosophy: Is the controversy over drive versus relational theory a philosophical one?

In recent years the controversy over Drive versus Relational models of the psyche has become entangled in a philosophical controversy over epistemology. Some have argued that the Drive model was a relic of an age of positivistic science, while Relational models are a product of a postmodern condition. This paper argues that the controversy need not be a philosophical one, and that Relational views are not, in fact, a product of postmodernism, nor are they necessarily dependent on a postmodern epistemology. Separating the epistemological from the psychological more carefully may help return the debate to its proper, psychoanalytic domain, and perhaps contribute to a more fruitful dialogue across what, at times, seems like an abyss between Relational views and Drive theory.     

Network Analysis in Community Psychology: Looking Back,Looking Forward

Network analysis holds promise for community psychology given the field's aim to understand the interplay between individuals and their social contexts. Indeed, because network analysis focuses explicitly on patterns of relationships between actors, its theories and methods are inherently extra‐individual in nature and particularly well suited to characterizing social contexts. But, to what extent has community psychology taken advantage of this network analysis as a tool for capturing context? To answer these questions, this study provides a review of the use network analysis in articles published in American Journal of Community Psychology . Looking back, we describe and summarize the ways that network analysis has been employed in community psychology research to understand the range of ways community psychologists have found the technique helpful. Looking forward and paying particular attention to analytic issues identified in past applications, we provide some recommendations drawn from the network analysis literature to facilitate future applications of network analysis in community psychology.     

The Relational aggression scale (RAS): Psychometric properties of a newly developed measure of relational aggression

Introduction

Relational aggression (RA) is a growing and worrisome problem, particularly among adolescents, that can result in negative psychological consequences for those involved. Therefore, it is important to develop instruments to detect these incidents and understand the problem so as to design effective intervention strategies.