Acquired physical disability: Personal meanings in a rural South African setting

This study explored personal meanings attached to acquired physical disabilities in a rural South African community. Informants were seven adults with disability (females?=?4; age range?=?18 to 55 years). They responded to semi-structured face-to-face interviews on the meanings they attached to their physical disabilities acquired during adulthood. Four themes emerged from the thematic analysis: new life style, activity limitations, participation restrictions, and cultural marginalisation. The meanings and accompanying lifestyle changes have implications for personal functioning and social well-being.     

Teacher-instigated in-school interpersonal violence: Types and prevalence in South African public schools

The study examined types and prevalence of interpersonal violence in South African schools. Data on in-school interpersonal violence by the South African Council of Teachers (SACE) were analysed. The sample consisted of 1 184 teachers (rural = 32.6%, urban = 59.8%, peri-urban = 7.6%). Following logistic regression analyses, results indicated male teachers were the majority offenders. Furthermore, results showed that female teachers and learners were over nine times more likely to be victims of all types of violence, as compared to males. Findings support a social role theory perspective of gendered aggression in which males are likely to resort to physical violence, while females may engage in verbal violence.     

Step into liquid: Rites,transcendence and transgression in the modern construction of the social sacred

This essay looks at the construction and transformation of the notion of sacred space in the twentieth century. The notions of transgression and lived moments (or everyday rites), as put forth by numerous writers and architects, are examined as an alternative vision of the sacred and spatial ontology that relies upon material conditions and relations as its source. In particular, it focuses on the emergence of this social spatial category through the work of the Collège de Sociologie a group of ethnologists, philosophers, writers and artists (Georges Bataille was a founder) who convened bi-weekly at a Paris café between 1937 and 1939 in the hope of constructing a sacred sociology. This group's activity provides the groundwork for understanding how the social sacred emerges as a category of spatial practice in the late twentieth century, and how the categories of events and rites are explored by the youthful avant-garde in architecture that emerge from the 1960s. In particular, the architect Bernard Tschumi's writings on transgression and event provide a direct link to the sacred sociology of the Collège as he is a close reader of Bataille's, and the work of the European radical avant-garde in architecture from the late 1960s and early 1970s helps to elucidate how the Collegians call for a sacred sociology is manifest in what I call the sacred social. I proposes this new category of the ‘social sacred’ to explain a spatial category which emerges in the twentieth century, and which we can use to understand how space, architecture, and urbanism help to define and engender this new sacred category.     

Chapter 8: “Always Green and Full of Sap”: Facilitating Wholeness in Aging

SUMMARY

Wholeness in aging is difficult to define, especially in the face of physical disability or catastrophic illness. How one meets the challenges of aging depends upon numerous physical, emotional, and spiritual factors. Rehabilitation may play an important role in restoring wholeness to those with physical disabilities. Likewise, a physical fitness program may lessen some of the effects of aging, helping the older person maintain a higher quality of life. The lived theologies of the older patients and their caregivers also interact, providing an important ground of connection in rediscovery of wholeness as well. Ultimately, our most important role as healthcare providers is to help our older patients regain and maintain this multidimensional wholeness even in times of physical challenge.     

Physical,Psychological and Social Adaptation of African American Nuns to Their Religious Communities as They Age: Implications for Aging in Place

ABSTRACT

This study examined the association between health status, stress, depression, satisfaction with the relationship with the religious community, alienation from significant persons, racial/cultural identity and “aging in place,” as measured by length of time in the same religious community, for a purposive sample of 72 African American nuns. Aging in place was significantly associated with perceptions of better health status, less stress and depression and greater satisfaction with relationships with the religious community. However, the study also found that the longer the nuns lived in their respective communities, the less racially/culturally identified they became. These findings underscore the need for finding ways to keep nuns in their religious communities as they age and to provide avenues of racial/cultural expression for African American nuns.     

心理负荷的评估:基于神经人因学的视角

心理负荷的评估正经历着从传统工效学向神经人因学的变革.EEG、ERPs、fMRI、fNIRS和TCD等神经科学研究技术为这场变革提供了有力的工具.研究发现:在单任务情境下,随着操作者心理负荷的增加,脑电α波活动减弱,θ波活动增强,并且前额皮层血流、左侧额下回血液氧合血红蛋白浓度变化均增加,大脑动脉血流速度也增快;在双任务情境下,随着操作者主任务心理负荷的增加,次任务的N1、新异P3和P3b等ERPs成分波幅降低.依据这些研究成果,学者们利用人工神经网络、支持向量机等模式分类算法实现了对心理负荷的实时在线评估.但是,各种研究技术在敏感性、诊断力、主任务干扰、实施需求、可接受性和信度等方面各有优势与不足.在未来研究中,要注意促进相关技术的融合、提高其可接受性,并充分利用模式识别算法提高其诊断力和敏感性.     

Perceived stress and everyday memory complaints among older adult women

Abstract

Memory complaints among older adults are often influenced by depression and anxiety, but the association of stress to memory complaints has received little attention. We examined the associations of perceived stress, life events, and activity level to everyday memory complaints among healthy older women, while controlling for the influence of depression and anxiety. Participants (N=54) completed self-report questionnaires on memory complaints, perceived stress, recent life events, activity level, depression, and anxiety. Partial correlation analyses indicated that higher levels of perceived stress were associated with higher levels of memory complaints when controlling for the influence of depression and anxiety, but that life events and activity level were not related to memory complaints. This study highlights that perceived stress, like depression and anxiety, is a psychological factor that influences the appraisal of cognitive ability; however, larger and more heterogeneous samples will be needed to better understand the multifactorial nature of memory complaints in older adulthood.     

Ethnic Differences in Parents' Attitudes toward Girls' Use of Aggression

Few studies have attempted to explain ethnic differences in female aggression. The degree to which ethnic differences exist in the influence of parents' approval of aggression on their preadolescent daughters' use of physical, verbal, and relational aggression was explored in a sample of 97 parent-child dyads. Results indicate that European American parents were more disapproving of their daughters' aggressive behavior than were African American parents. Parents' attitude toward aggression was predictive of European American girls' use of physical and verbal aggression and African American girls' use of relational aggression. Implications for aggression prevention and intervention for girls are discussed.     

Dating Violence Perpetration: The Predictive Roles of Maternally versus Paternally Perpetrated Childhood Abuse and Subsequent Dating Violence Attitudes and Behaviors

This study investigated both young men's and young women's perpetration of physical, sexual, and psychological forms of dating violence, examining predictors of violence including maternally or paternally perpetrated forms of various types of child maltreatment, as well as attitudes toward dating violence and dating violence victimization. Results of hierarchical linear regressions found that childhood experiences of maternal neglect predicted men's physical perpetration, and childhood sexual abuse predicted women's sexual perpetration and men's psychological perpetration. Further, positive attitudes toward dating violence predicted women's physical, psychological, and sexual perpetration, as well as men's sexual perpetration, and experiences of dating violence victimization were the strongest predictors of most forms of dating violence perpetration, particularly among women. Implications for future research and prevention initiatives are discussed.     

Measuring Abuse Sequelae: Validating and Extending the Trauma Symptom Checklist–40

This study used the Trauma Symptom Checklist–40 (TSC–40) to index both childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and childhood physical abuse (CPA) in a college student sample of both men and women (N = 441). Although the TSC–40 was designed as a measure of CSA trauma, this study concludes the measure is appropriately reliable for indexing the traumatic sequelae of CPA as well as CSA in nonclinical samples. This study also explored the effects of gender and abuse severity on resulting symptomatology, finding that women and severely abused individuals report the most negative sequelae. Both CSA and CPA emerged as significant explanatory variables in TSC–40 scale scores beyond gender, supporting its validity for indexing traumatic sequelae in nonclinical samples.