The mental health of children of migrant workers in Beijing: The protective role of public school attendance

The present study aims to understand the mental health status of an understudied group of migrant children – children of migrant workers in China. A total of 1,466 children from Beijing participated in the study that compared migrant children (n = 1,019) to their local peers (n = 447) in public and private school settings. Results showed that overall, migrant children reported more internalizing and externalizing mental health problems and lower life satisfaction than local peers. However, public school attendance served as a protective factor for migrant children's mental health. The mental health status of migrant children attending public schools, including externalizing problems as well as friend and school satisfaction, was not different from local children. In addition, our data indicates that the protective effect of public school attendance for migrant children may be even more salient among girls than boys, and for younger children than older children.     

The utility of written numerals for preschool children when solving additive problems / La utilidad de los numerales escritos en la resolución de problemas aditivos en niños preescolares

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact the presence conventional written numerals has on solving additives problems. We asked 45 children (aged four and five) to solve ten different 5 + 3 type problems by adding tokens that were placed into an opaque box in view of the children. The participants’ performance in counting, recognizing written numerals and solving a number conservation task were assessed. The results suggest that the presence of written numerals facilitated children’s ability to perform additive operations: they were able to use these numerals as a reference to calculate the amount of tokens added, even those who had not shown good quantitative judgement in the number conservation task. Identifying preschoolers’ possible reliance on written numerals could eventually influence formal teaching conditions.     

CONFUCIAN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS,CLIMATE ENGINEERING,AND THE “PLAYING GOD” ARGUMENT

The burgeoning literature on the ethical issues raised by climate engineering has explored various normative questions associated with the research and deployment of climate engineering, and has examined a number of responses to them. While researchers have noted the ethical issues from climate engineering are global in nature, much of the discussion proceeds predominately with ethical framework in the Anglo‐American and European traditions, which presume particular normative standpoints and understandings of human–nature relationship. The current discussion on the ethical issues, therefore, is far from being a genuine global dialogue. The aim of this article is to address the lack of intercultural exchange by exploring the ethics of climate engineering from a perspective of Confucian environmental ethics. Drawing from the existing discussion on Confucian environmental ethics and Confucian ethics of technology, I discuss what Confucian ethics can contribute to the ethical debate on climate engineering.     

Validation of the Brief Shame and Guilt Questionnaire for Children

While both shame and guilt are described as self-conscious emotions, they differ in many ways, including their contextual antecedents and their associations with mental health. A measure that distinguishes proneness to experience shame and guilt is crucial.In the present study we present a brief questionnaire to measure shame- and guilt-proneness in children using short concrete items. Specifically, we presented our 12-item Brief Shame and Guilt Questionnaire to Dutch (n = 219) 9–14 year-olds along with measures of internalizing problems (social anxiety, worry) and externalizing problems (aggression and conduct behavior). In addition to self-reports, teacher-reports on the externalizing problems were also collected. Results confirmed the two-factor structure, showed good psychometric properties of the two scales and a good concurrent validity. Specifically, shame-proneness contributed to the prediction of more internalizing problems and guilt-proneness contributed to the prediction of fewer externalizing problems. As such, the Brief Shame and Guilt Questionnaire for Children is a reliable and accessible instrument to administer in children.     

Predicting Treatment Success in Child and Parent Therapy Among Families in Poverty

Behavior problems are prevalent in young children and those living in poverty are at increased risk for stable, high-intensity behavioral problems. Research has demonstrated that participation in child and parent therapy (CPT) programs significantly reduces problematic child behaviors while increasing positive behaviors. However, CPT programs, particularly those implemented with low-income populations, frequently report high rates of attrition (over 50%). Parental attributional style has shown some promise as a contributing factor to treatment attendance and termination in previous research. The authors examined if parental attributional style could predict treatment success in a CPT program, specifically targeting low-income urban children with behavior problems. A hierarchical logistic regression was used with a sample of 425 families to assess if parent- and child-referent attributions variables predicted treatment success over and above demographic variables and symptom severity. Parent-referent attributions, child-referent attributions, and child symptom severity were found to be significant predictors of treatment success. Results indicated that caregivers who viewed themselves as a contributing factor for their child's behavior problems were significantly more likely to demonstrate treatment success. Alternatively, caregivers who viewed their child as more responsible for their own behavior problems were less likely to demonstrate treatment success. Additionally, more severe behavior problems were also predictive of treatment success. Clinical and research implications of these results are discussed.     

Wild Things: Stories,Transition, and the Sacred in Ecological Social Movements

This article examines the role of stories in ecological activism. It first situates stories inside object ecologies, encompassing relationships of reliance, care, and maintenance of things. It suggests that ecologies of this sort work as an extended mind where our cognition takes place and meaning is apprehended, so that what we can think of is always a function of what we have “at hand.” The article then considers how these ecologies are impacted by discourses on climate change and peak oil, which stress the impossibility to keep ordering our lives through the same entanglements that have supported them so far. A dissonance arises between the sort of demands and dependencies we are still subject to on a daily basis and the anticipation that those demands and dependencies shall not be able to endure. Stories of transition, which tread a middle ground between denial and collapse hysteria, dissipate this tension. In so doing, they contribute to the growing of alternative sacred forms, working as attractors that constitute groups as moral collectives. These forms are woven through alternative entanglements of objects, bodies, and other stories, providing determinate implication for action, from the indeterminacy of the unknowns of climate change and peak oil.     

Sustainable Environmental Development: The Moderating Role of Environmental Identity

This study develops and tests a model of Chinese residents' evaluation of government developmental activities based on identity theory and social exchange theory. The study proposes hypotheses regarding the influences of perceived benefits and environmental identity on residents' satisfaction with the government, the moderating role of environmental identity in the relationship between perceived benefits and satisfaction, and the effect of satisfaction on residents' support intentions. The model is tested with data collected from 474 residents of four cities in China. Results show environmental identity, along with perceived economic and environmental benefits, plays a very important role in residents' satisfaction with the government. The significant moderating role of environmental identity suggests differential effects of perceived benefits on satisfaction are observed based on the level of environmental identity. Satisfaction is found to be important for obtaining residents' support for the government and future environmental development. Implications of the study are discussed.     

A longitudinal study of the effects of coping motives,negative affect and drinking level on drinking problems among college students

We examined among college students the interactive effects of drinking to cope (DTC) motivation, anxiety and depression symptoms, and drinking level in predicting drinking-related problems (DRPs). Using an Internet-based survey, participants (N = 844, 53% women) first reported on their drinking motives and monthly for up to three months, they reported on their drinking level, anxiety, depression, and DRPs. We found a three-way interaction between DTC motivation and average levels of drinking and anxiety (but not depression) in predicting DRPs. Specifically, among individuals with stronger DTC motives, higher mean levels of anxiety were associated with a stronger positive association between mean drinking levels and DRPs. We did not find three-way interactions in the models examining monthly changes in anxiety, depression, and drinking in predicting monthly DRPs. However, individuals high in DTC motivation showed a stronger positive association between changes in drinking level and DRPs. The results are discussed in terms of mechanisms related to attention-allocation and self-control resource depletion.