Adapting the Unique Minds Program: Exploring the Feasibility of a Multiple Family Intervention for Children with Learning Disabilities in the Context of Spain

The Unique Minds Program (Stern, Unique Minds Program, 1999) addresses the socio‐emotional needs of children with learning disabilities (LD) and their families. Children and their parents work together in a multiple family group to learn more about LD and themselves as people with the capacity to solve problems in a collaborative way, including problems in family school relationships. This article reports the cultural adaptation of the program for use in Spain and findings from a feasibility study involving three multiple family groups and a total of 15 children and 15 mothers, using a pre‐post design. This Spanish adaptation of the program is called “Mentes Únicas”. Standardized outcome measures indicated an overall statistically significant decrease in children's self‐rated maladjustment and relationship difficulties by the end of the program. Improvements were endorsed by most mothers, although they were not always recognized by the children's teachers. The program had a high level of acceptability: Mothers and children felt safe, understood, and helped throughout the sessions. The efficacy of the adapted intervention for the context of Spain remains to be tested in a more rigorous study.     

Are Multicultural Courses Addressing Disparities? Exploring Multicultural and Affirmative Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual Competencies of Counseling and Psychology Students

Clinical training and counselor competency are essential for ethical practice when working with multiethnic, lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB), and transgender clients. In this study, the author examined how multicultural courses related to students' (N = 286) LGB and multicultural competencies. Self‐reported multicultural and LGB competencies varied significantly depending on the number and types of diversity education reported. Multicultural courses significantly predicted students' multicultural, but not LGB counselor competency. Political conservatism was the strongest predictor for both multicultural and sexual orientation competencies. La formación y competencias multiculturales afirmativas hacia individuos gays, lesbianas y bisexuales (LGB, por sus siglas en inglés) de consejeros son esenciales para una práctica clínica ética. En este estudio, el autor examinó cómo los cursos multiculturales se relacionaron con las competencias multiculturales de un grupo de estudiantes (N = 286). Las competencias multiculturales y sobre LGB autorreportadas variaron significativamente dependiendo del número y tipos de educación sobre diversidad reportados. Los cursos multiculturales predijeron de forma significativa la competencia multicultural de los estudiantes, pero no la competencia sobre LGB en consejería. La ideología política conservadora fue el predictor más fuerte de las competencias multiculturales y sobre orientación sexual.     

Antonio Caparrós: In memoriam

Resumen

Este trabajo pretende proponer algunas de las condiciones formales básicas para una psicología del arte y la experiencia estética. La primera condición formal, de inspiración funcionalista, es que toda explicación psicológica debe ser necesariamente genética, es decir, ontogenética, filogenética, historiogenética y microgenética, al mismo tiempo. La segunda condición formal es que el verdadero interés de los fenómenos estéticos (y tal vez de los fenómenos humanos, en general) es su concreción, su determinación temporo-espacial, y no su nivel de ajuste a (de deductibilidad a partir de) enunciados generales de carácter legaliforme. La tercera, y última, condición formal es que la determinación, la concreción, de un fenómeno estético, contemplado o producido, está guiada no sólo por sus condiciones genéticas, sino también por su sentido, por su capacidad de orientar o transformar nuestras vidas.     

Estrategias de aprendizaje en estudiantes de 10 a 14 años y su relación con los procesos de atribución causal,el autoconcepto y las metas de estudio

Resumen

En el presente trabajo de investigación nos interesamos por dar a conocer las características psicométricas y estructurales de una nueva escala de evaluación de estrategias de aprendizaje escolar, así como también por el tipo de relación que mantiene este constructo con otras variables o correlatos importantes en el funcionamiento cognitivo como son los procesos de atribución, el autoconcepto y la motivación académica La muestra de sujetos, en base a la cual se realiza el estudio, está compuesta por 371 alumnos/as de 5°, 6°, 7° y 8° de E.G.B., pertenecientes a colegios públicos de la zona central del Principado de Asturias, de los cuales 192 son chicos y 179 son chicas. Su nivel socioeconómico es medio y pertenecen a una zona industrial. Los resultados obtenidos indican que (a) la escala LASSI es moderadamente fiable y con una estructura factorial que pudiera variar con la edad de los sujetos, (b) que existen diferencias entre niños y niñas en algunas de las dimensiones estratégicas así como también respecto a la edad de los mismos y (c) las estrategias de aprendizaje se encuentran notablemente relacionadas con los procesos atribucionales, el autoconcepto, las metas de estudio y el rendimiento de los alumnos. En el último punto del trabajo, en primer lugar, advertimos de la naturaleza exploratoria y provisionalidad de los datos obtenidos así como de la neceidad de la realización de otras investigaciones con el fin de disipar ciertas discrepancias y, en segundo lugar, interpretamos los resultados de nuestro trabajo contextualiz ándolos dentro de las actuales teorías metacognitiv as de la instrucción.     

Engaño,intenciones y creencias en el desarrollo y evolución de una psicología natural

Resumen

Los comportamientos de engaño suelen relacionarse con la intencionalidad y la conciencia, aunque desde una perspectiva evolutiva amplia puede apreciarse que el engaño es una estrategia evolutiva bastante antigua. En este artículo se discutirá en qué medida los engaños que producen los seres humanos y algunos otros primates pueden entenderse como el producto de una competencia básica para atribuir mente a los demás y no a uno mismo. El criterio más aceptado para determinar si un organismo posee tal capacidad mentalista es que demuestre la comprensión de las creencias falsas. Las situaciones de engaño en las que se crean deliberadamente creencias falsas en otros para conseguir beneficios cumplen teóricamente bien los criterios de mentalismo que los humanos alcanzan hacia la edad de cuatro años y medio. En otros primates no se ha demostrado experimentalmente con claridad la comprensión de las creencias falsas. Sin embargo, si atendemos a los datos de observación naturalista vemos numerosos comportamientos de engaño tanto en algunos primates no humanos como en niños menores de cuatro años. ¿Son estos engaños el producto de una teoría de la mente? ¿De una capacidad mentalista previa? ¿Quéotros estados mentale estarían implicados? Tras una revisión crítica de los trabajos que nos proporcionan estos datos, se discutirá el papel de la manipulaión y detección de intenciones como un proceso anterior a la manipulación de creencias falsas y las implicaciones que esta postura tiene para la consideración evolutiva de la capacidad mental.     

MATERNAL SELF‐REPORTED DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS AND MATERNAL CORTISOL LEVELS INTERACT TO PREDICT INFANT CORTISOL LEVELS

Three basic findings have emerged from research on maternal depressive symptoms and offspring hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal functioning: (a) Mothers’ depressive symptoms are positively associated with their offsprings’ cortisol stress response, (b) numerous individual and interpersonal maternal characteristics moderate this association, and (c) maternal and infant cortisol levels are highly correlated. In combination, these findings have suggested that maternal cortisol levels may moderate the relation between maternal depressive symptoms and infant cortisol responsivity; the current study assessed this hypothesis. Participants were 297 mother–infant dyads who were recruited from the community. Maternal depressive symptoms were assessed via self‐report. Dyads participated in two differentially stressful infant challenges when infants were 16 and 17 months old. Mother and infant salivary cortisol was collected before and after challenges. Results indicate that maternal cortisol levels moderated associations between maternal depressive symptoms and infant cortisol levels across both challenges. Infants showed higher cortisol levels if their mothers had both higher depressive symptoms and higher cortisol levels, as compared to infants of mothers with higher depressive symptoms and lower cortisol, and to infants of mothers with lower depressive symptoms and either higher or lower cortisol levels. We discuss findings in relation to environmental and biological factors that may contribute to the intergenerational transmission of depressive symptoms.     

Paternal Caregivers’ Parenting Practices and Psychological Functioning among African American Youth Living in Urban Public Housing

Structural factors associated with public housing contribute to living environments that expose families to adverse life events that may in turn directly impact parenting and youth outcomes. However, despite the growth in research on fathers, research on families in public housing has practically excluded fathers and the role fathers play in the well‐being of their adolescents. Using a sample of 660 African American adolescents recruited from public housing, we examined the relationship between paternal caregivers’ (i.e., fathers’ and father figures’) parenting practices and adolescents’ depressive symptoms, attitudes toward deviance, and self‐efficacy. Using a latent profile analysis (LPA), we confirmed a four‐class model of paternal parenting practices ranging from high to low levels of monitoring and encouragement. Results from a one‐way ANOVA indicated that paternal caregivers with high (compared to moderate) levels of encouragement and monitoring were associated with youth who reported less depressive symptoms, higher levels of self‐efficacy, and less favorable attitudes toward deviance. Discriminant analysis results indicated that approximately half of the sample were correctly classified into two paternal caregiver classes. The findings provide evidence that some of these caregivers engage in parenting practices that support youths’ psychological functioning. More research is needed to determine what accounts for the variability in levels of paternal encouragement and supervision, including environmental influences, particularly for paternal caregivers exhibiting moderate‐to‐low levels of paternal encouragement and monitoring.     

Stepfamilies Doing Family: A Meta‐Ethnography

The present review examines how stepfamily members without a shared history co‐construct a shared family identity and what family processes are relevant in this stepfamily formation. Three databases (Web of Science, PsycInfo, and ProQuest) were systematically searched, resulting in 20 included qualitative studies. The meta‐ethnography approach of Noblit and Hare allowed synthesizing these qualitative studies and constructing a comprehensive framework of stepfamilies doing family. Three interdependent family tasks were identified: (a) honoring the past, (b) marking the present, and (c) investing in the future. Stepfamily members’ experiences of these family tasks are strongly affected by the dominant societal perspectives and characterized by an underlying dialectical tension between wanting to be like a first‐time family and feeling the differences in their family structure at the same time. These findings clearly demonstrate the family work that all stepfamily members undertake and provide a broader context for interpreting stepfamilies’ co‐construction of a new family identity.     

Reducing reactive aggression in schoolchildren through child,parent, and conjoint parent‐child group interventions: An efficacy study of longitudinal outcomes

This study was the first to evaluate the effectiveness of three different group interventions to reduce children's reactive aggression based on the social information processing (SIP) model. In the first stage of screening, 3,734 children of Grades 4–6 completed the Reactive–Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ) to assess their reactive and proactive aggression. Respondents with a total score of z ≥ 1 on the RPQ were shortlisted for the second stage of screening by qualitative interview. Interviews with 475 children were conducted to select those who showed reactive aggression featuring a hostile attributional bias. Finally, 126 children (97 males and 29 females) aged 8 to 14 (M = 9.71, SD = 1.23) were selected and randomly assigned to one of the three groups: a child group, a parent group, and a parent–child group. A significant Time × Intervention effect was found for general and reactive aggression. The parent–child group and child group showed a significant drop in general aggression and reactive aggression from posttest to 6‐month follow‐up, after controlling for baseline scores, sex, and age. However, the parent group showed no treatment effect: reactive aggression scores were significantly higher than those in the child group at 6‐month follow‐up. This study has provided strong evidence that children with reactive aggression need direct and specific treatment to reconstruct the steps of the SIP involving the selection and interpretation of cues. The intervention could help to prevent severe violent crimes at the later stage of a reactive aggressor.