Teen Dating Abuse: A Paradigm for Mental Health Counselors

Teen dating abuse (TDA) is a serious public health problem affecting almost half of all adolescents in the United States. Because of the developmental characteristics of adolescence such as identity confusion and rejection of adult authority figures, counseling adolescents who are experiencing TDA can be particularly challenging. This article describes the types of abuse, the early warning signs of abuse, and effective strategies that mental health counselors can use to counsel and educate teen victims of TDA and others.     

Threats to communion and agency mediate associations between stressor type and daily coping

Background and Objectives: Basic human values have been categorized into two dimensions: those that are self or agentically focused, and those that are other or communally focused. We apply this model to cognitive appraisals of stress and argue that threat appraisals also fall into these two dimensions. The mediating roles of communal and agentic threats in linking stressors with coping responses were examined. Design: A daily process methodology was used. Methods: Three-hundred and fifty undergraduate students were followed midday and evening over one week, completing structured electronic diaries regarding their experiences of the past half-day. Participants described stressors in open-ended format, which were then coded into social stress, achievement stress, and other stress categories. They also completed scales measuring stress appraisals and coping. Results: Communal threat mediated links between social stressors and empathic responding, support seeking, and confrontation. Agentic threat mediated links between achievement stressors and empathic responding, support seeking, confrontation, and problem solving. Conclusions: Individuals tend to cope in ways that maintain communion when they perceive communion to be threatened; they tend to cope in ways that maintain agency when they perceive agency to be threatened.     

亲社会行为倾向的年龄差异:共情关怀和人际信任的链式中介效应

全球老龄化浪潮正在来临,亲社会行为倾向的年龄差异受到广泛关注。基于第六次世界价值观调查数据集,运用39887个全球成年样本对全球人口亲社会行为倾向的年龄差异进行检验,并探究年龄通过共情关怀和人际信任影响亲社会行为的中介机制。结果表明:全球范围内,年龄显著正向影响亲社会行为倾向,共情关怀不存在显著的年龄差异,人际信任在年龄和亲社会行为倾向之间起显著的中介效应。研究结果对考察亲社会行为倾向的年龄差异及其作用机制具有重要理论价值和实践意义。     

Personal,Interpersonal, and Situational Influences on Behavioral Self-Handicapping

ABSTRACT

This study explored the combined effects of personal factors (participant sex), interpersonal factors (experimenter sex), and situational factors (performance feedback) on two forms of behavioral self-handicapping. Participants received non-contingent success or failure feedback concerning their performance on a novel ability and were given the opportunity to self-handicap before performing again. Behavioral self-handicapping took the form of (a) exerting less practice effort (practice) or (b) choosing a performance-debilitating tape (choice). Men practiced least after failure feedback and chose a debilitating tape if they were interacting with a female experimenter. Generally, across all participants in both choice and practice conditions, high performance concern and the presence of a male experimenter led to the most self-handicapping. Results are interpreted in terms of self-presentational concerns that emphasize a desire to impress or an awareness of the female or male experimenter's acceptance of self-handicappers.     

Will it be me? Identity,concern and perspective

Self-reflexive or egocentric concern has been taken to present a serious problem for reductionist and eliminativist metaphysical accounts of personal identity. Philosophers have tended to respond in one of three ways: by continuing the search for a metaphysical account of identity that (prudentially if not morally) justifies egocentric concern; by accepting that egocentric concern can hold between persons who are not numerically identical; or by advocating the abandonment of egocentric concern altogether. All these approaches, however, distinguish between metaphysical ‘facts’ and affective responses to them. Exploring a well-known example from Bernard Williams, I argue that egocentric concern presents itself as irreducibly first-personal and as making its own set of numerical personal identity claims on the phenomenal level. Williams' example also points to the need to complicate the first/third person schema by factoring in a further distinction between present-tense and implicitly atemporal perspectives on the self. Once this move is made, we can see that the identity claims figured in first-person present-tense experience and those arrived at through metaphysical deliberation need to be distinguished. We should resist the temptation to privilege one perspective over the other in all instances, or to collapse them into a unitary account of selfhood.     

Life Events and Prosocial Behaviors Among Young Adults: Considering the Roles of Perspective Taking and Empathic Concern

The authors examined the altruism born of suffering model in a culturally diverse sample of young adults. They hypothesized that major life events would interact with perspective taking to predict empathic concern, which would predict multiple types of prosocial behaviors among young adults. The sample included 202 young adults (M age = 20.94?years; 76.5% girls; 36.5% White, 50.5% Latino) who reported on their exposure to major life events, perspective taking and empathic responding, and tendency to engage in six forms of prosocial behaviors. Life events indirectly, positively predicted prosocial behaviors via empathic concern. Empathic concern and perspective taking also interacted to predict empathic responding. The results demonstrated links that support the altruism born of suffering model, suggesting that life stressors might not always be negative and might promote resilience and social connection among young adults under specific conditions.     

Introducing educators to a psychodynamically informed teaching practice

Abstract

Prompted by the observation that many recently trained teachers find themselves unprepared to cope with many aspects of classroom life despite considerable subject matter competence and technical proficiency, this paper proposes and describes a brief instructional programme designed to enhance teachers' understanding of classroom interactions from a psychodynamic perspective. Published autobiographical accounts of gifted teachers serve as texts for reading and discussion. These personal narratives are conceptualized within psychodynamic frameworks illuminating in meaningful fashion mundane as well dramatic moments in classroom interaction. The course is intended to enhance teacher competence and morale, to stimulate further reflection and to facilitate professional discourse about children and teaching.     

The relationship between premature birth and caregiver first concern in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder: A brief report

The current study examines the relationship between premature birth and the age at which caregivers first become concerned with their child’s development in a sample of 84 toddlers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The participants were split into two groups: those born prematurely and those born full term. The results indicate that the age of caregiver first concern is significantly younger for those born prematurely than those born full term. The average age caregivers reported first becoming concerned about their child’s development was around 7 months for participants born prematurely and around 13 months for participants born full term. Possible explanations for the results and their implications are discussed.     

不对称情绪分享过程中情绪反应自我指向增强效应的初探

主客体之间产生不一致的情绪反应称之为不对称共情(Counterempathy)。在Decety提出的情绪分享过程两阶段及Goubert提出的“指向自己”和“指向他人”两种情绪反应指向的研究基础上, 构建不对称情绪分享过程的两阶段模型, 通过创建竞争环境, 检验在不对称情绪分享过程中是否存在情绪反应自我指向增强效应的这一假设。被试根据竞争对手的情绪表情(皱眉和笑脸)来完成情绪反应自我指向(判断被试者自己的输赢)和情绪反应他人指向(判断竞争对手的输赢)的实验任务。结果表明: 在不对称情绪分享过程中, 存在情绪反应自我指向的增强效应。被试不仅在自我指向任务中产生了不对称共情, 而且在他人指向任务中也产生了不对称共情, 这说明在有意识的不对称情绪分享过程中, 个体会分化出比他人指向更强烈的自我指向的情绪反应。并且, 相较他人指向任务, 个体在自我指向任务中产生了更强烈的不对称共情。尤其当竞争对手获利时, 个体会产生更强烈的指向自我的负性情绪。