Parentification,Stress, and Problem Behavior of Adolescents who have a Parent with Mental Health Problems

When adolescents live with a parent with mental illness, they often partly take over the parental role. Little is known about the consequences of this so‐called parentification on the adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems. This survey study examined this effect cross‐sectionally and longitudinally in a sample of 118 adolescents living with a parent suffering from mental health problems. In addition, the study examined a possible indirect effect via perceived stress. Path analyses were used to examine the direct associations between parentification and problem behavior as well as the indirect relations via perceived stress. The results showed that parentification was associated with both internalizing and externalizing problems cross‐sectionally, but it predicted only internalizing problems 1 year later. An indirect effect of parentification on adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems via perceived stress was found, albeit only cross‐sectionally. These findings imply that parentification can be stressful for adolescents who live with a parent with mental health problems, and that a greater awareness of parentification is needed to prevent adolescents from developing internalizing problems.     

A proposed universal model of problem solving for design,science and cognate fields

A modestly generic, innovative, problem solving process with roots in the study of design and scientific research problem solving is presented and motivated. It is argued to be the shared core process of all problem solving. At its heart is a recognition of five foci or nodes of change vital to the process (changes in problem and solution formulation, method, constraints, and partial solution proposals) together with a bootstrap marked by the formation of higher order knowledge about problem solving in the domain in tandem with the solving of specific problems, the essential feature of all learned improvement. None of these elements is entirely original, but the way they are made explicit and developed (rather than folded into fewer, more abstract, boxes) is argued to provide fresh understanding of the organisation and power of the process to deal with complex practical problems.     

动机对高一学生创造性的科学问题提出能力的影响

选取了360名高一学生,采用直接和间接激发内外动机的方式,通过两个研究考察了内外动机和不同水平的外部动机对中学生创造性的科学问题提出能力的影响,结果发现:(1)直接激发条件下,内部动机能够促进创造性的科学问题提出能力,尤其表现在流畅性以及独创性维度上;(2)直接激发条件下,外部动机能够抑制创造性的科学问题提出能力,尤其表现在独创性维度上;(3)评价情境不同引起的不同的动机水平对于创造性的科学问题提出能力的影响是不同的,期待正性评价不影响创造性的科学问题提出能力,但避免负性评价对创造性的科学问题提出能力有着显著的抑制作用.     

Eye movements reveal solution knowledge prior to insight

In two experiments, participants solved anagram problems while their eye movements were monitored. Each problem consisted of a circular array of five letters: a scrambled four-letter solution word containing three consonants and one vowel, and an additional randomly-placed distractor consonant. Viewing times on the distractor consonant compared to the solution consonants provided an online measure of knowledge of the solution. Viewing times on the distractor consonant and the solution consonants were indistinguishable early in the trial. In contrast, several seconds prior to the response, viewing times on the distractor consonant decreased in a gradual manner compared to viewing times on the solution consonants. Importantly, this pattern was obtained across both trials in which participants reported the subjective experience of insight and trials in which they did not. These findings are consistent with the availability of partial knowledge of the solution prior to such information being accessible to subjective phenomenal awareness.     

Determining who to question, what to ask, and how much information to ask for: the development of inquiry in young children

To obtain reliable information, it is important to identify and effectively question knowledgeable informants. Two experiments examined how age and the ease of distinguishing between reliable and unreliable sources influence children’s ability to effectively question those sources to solve problems. A sample of 3- to 5-year-olds was introduced to a knowledgeable informant contrasted with an informant who always gave inaccurate answers or one who always indicated ignorance. Children were generally better at determining which informant to question when a knowledgeable informant was contrasted with an ignorant informant than when a knowledgeable informant was contrasted with an inaccurate informant. In some cases, age also influenced the ability to determine who to question and what to ask. Importantly, in both experiments, the strongest predictor of accuracy was whether children had acquired sufficient information; successful problem solving required integrating knowledge of who to question, what to ask, and how much information to ask for.     

Why do children lack the flexibility to innovate tools?

Despite being proficient tool users, young children have surprising difficulty in innovating tools (making novel tools to solve problems). Two experiments found that 4- to 7-year-olds had difficulty on two tool innovation problems and explored reasons for this inflexibility. Experiment 1 (N = 51) showed that children’s performance was unaffected by the need to switch away from previously correct strategies. Experiment 2 (N = 92) suggested that children’s difficulty could not easily be explained by task pragmatics or permission issues. Both experiments found evidence that some children perseverated on a single incorrect strategy, but such perseveration was insufficient to explain children’s tendency not to innovate tools. We suggest that children’s difficulty lies not with switching, task pragmatics, or behavioral perseveration but rather with solving the fundamentally “ill-structured” nature of tool innovation problems.     

Mindset changes lead to drastic impairments in rule finding

Rule finding is an important aspect of human reasoning and flexibility. Previous studies associated rule finding failure with past experience with the test stimuli and stable personality traits. We additionally show that rule finding performance is severely impaired by a mindset associated with applying an instructed rule. The mindset was established in Phase 1 (manipulation) of the experiment, before rule finding ability was assessed in Phase 2 (testing). The impairment in rule finding was observed even when Phase 1 involved executing a single trial (Experiment 2), and when entirely different stimuli and rules were used in the two phases of the experiment (Experiments 3–6). Experiments 4–6 show that applying an instructed rule in Phase 1 impaired subsequent (Phase 2) feedback evaluation, rule generation, and attention switching between rules, which are the three component processes involved in rule finding according to COVIS (Ashby, Alfonso-Reese, Turken, & Waldron, 1998).     

Integrative problem-centered metaframeworks therapy II: planning, conversing, and reading feedback

This is the second of 2 articles presenting Integrative Problem Centered Metaframeworks (IPCM) Therapy, a multisystemic, integrative, empirically informed, and common factor perspective for family, couple, and individual psychotherapy. The first article presented IPCM's foundation concepts and Blueprint for therapy, focusing on the first Blueprint component—Hypothesizing or assessment. This article, focusing on intervention, presents the other 3 Blueprint components—Planning, Conversing, and Feedback. Articulated through the Blueprint, intervention is a clinical experimental process in which therapists formulate hypotheses about the set of constraints (the Web) within a client system that prevents problem resolution, develop a therapeutic Plan based on those hypotheses, implement the Plan through a coconstructed dialogue with the clients, and then evaluate the results. If the intervention is not successful, the results become feedback to modify the Web, revise the Plan, and intervene again. Guided by the therapeutic alliance, this process repeats until the presenting problems resolve. IPCM Planning sequentially integrates the major empirically and yet‐to‐be empirically validated therapies and organizes their key strategies and techniques as common factors. Conversing and Feedback employ empirical STIC^® (Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change) data collaboratively with clients to formulate hypotheses and evaluate interventions. This article emphasizes the art and science of IPCM practice.     

Reconceptualizing difficult groups and difficult members

Group leaders can expect to encounter group and member behaviors and attitudes that are usually termed as difficult. This article presents a different perspective that focuses on how the group leader can better understand and make visible what the troubling behavior is communicating about unspoken or unconscious needs, fantasies and desires. Suggestions for more effective interventions are proposed.     

Hume on the Problem of Other Minds

Hume is not often cited as a philosopher who posited a solution to the Problem of Other Minds. He instead seems to assume the belief in other minds in his moral philosophy without justification. However, Hume needs to explain how we experience and respond to others’ affections, and hence generate moral sentiments, given how central the latter are to his moral theory. Two recent interpretations of Hume’s solution to the Problem are the Wittgensteinian Interpretation, and the Simulation Theory Interpretation. Both focus on the concept of sympathy as a solution to the Problem, claiming that, for Hume, sympathy produces the belief in other minds. This paper critically examines these two interpretations and offers an alternative called ‘the Analogical Argument Interpretation’, which reconstructs Hume’s version of an analogical argument carried out not by our rational faculty of mind but by custom and imagination. On this interpretation, Hume does not think that sympathy generates the belief in other minds, but rather, sympathy presupposes that belief.