Mental Health Aspects of Arab-Israeli Adolescents From Polygamous Versus Monogamous Families

Abstract

The authors considered the mental health consequences of polygamy in a sample of 101 Arab Muslim adolescents (19 from polygamous and 82 from monogamous families) at Juarish (Ramla), Israel. The respondents completed the Self-Esteem Scale (SE; M. Rosenberg, 1979), the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI; L. Derogatis & N. Melsavados, 1983; L. Derogatis & P. Spencer, 1982), and the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD; N. B. Epstein, M. N. Baldwin, & D. S. Bishop, 1983). The respondents from polygamous families had lower SE scores, statistically significant higher scores in 2 BSI dimensions, higher scores in all other BSI dimensions, and higher levels of self-reported family dysfunction. The respondents from polygamous families reported lower levels of socioeconomic status, academic achievement, and parental academic attainment. Those variables may have had a more direct impact on mental health than did parental marital status. The data also indicated that perceived family functioning was the best predictor of mental health.     

Multilevel Measurement of Dimensions of Collaborative Functioning in a Network of Collaboratives that Promote Child and Family Well-Being

Evaluating collaboration between community partners presents a series of methodological challenges (Roussos and Fawcett in Annu Rev Public Health 21:369-402, 2000; Yin and Kaftarian 1997), one of which is selection of the appropriate level of analysis. When data are collected from multiple members of multiple settings, multilevel analysis techniques should be used. Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) is an analytic approach that incorporates the advantages of latent variable measurement modeling and multilevel modeling for nested data. This study utilizes MCFA on data obtained from an evaluation survey of collaborative functioning provided to members of 157 community collaboratives in Georgia. This study presents a well-fitting measurement model that includes five dimensions of collaborative functioning, and a structural component with individual- and collaborative-level covariates. Findings suggest that members' role and meeting attendance significantly predicted their assessment of collaboration at the individual level, and that tenure of collaborative leaders predicted the overall functioning of the collaborative at the collaborative level. Dimensionality of collaborative functioning and implications of potentially substantial measurement biases associated with selection of respondents are addressed.     

Positive affect moderates inhibitory control and positive affect following a single bout of self-select aerobic exercise

PurposeResearch suggests that individual differences in baseline cognitive performance moderates subsequent cognitive benefits following a single bout of exercise. The present study seeks to evaluate additional moderating mental states – specifically positive affect – on inhibitory control and affect following exercise.MethodsUsing a within- and between-participants pre-post cross-over design, eighty university students (54 females; 21.7 ± 2.7 years old) completed a flanker task and affect measures before and after a single bout of aerobic exercise at a self-selected intensity or studying for class (15-min) on separate days. Groups of high-positive affect (HPA; n = 41) and low-positive affect (LPA; n = 39) were determined based on a median split of positive affect measures prior to the exercise bout.ResultsThe HPA group revealed shorter reaction time (RT) from before to after exercise and rest with no difference observed between exercise and rest. The LPA group revealed shorter RT after exercise compared to before exercise and after rest. For accuracy, the LPA group improved performance during the exercise session compared to the rest session to a level comparable to the HPA group. Lastly, positive affect decreased in the LPA and HPA groups from before to after rest; however, only the LPA group’s positive affect increased from before to after exercise.ConclusionIndividuals with low positive affect experience greater cognitive and positive affect improvements following acute aerobic exercise at a self-select intensity, further supporting intraindividual differences in mental states as a mechanism for subsequent cognitive and affective benefits encompassing healthy behaviors of exercise.     

Happiness,excellence, and optimal human functioning revisited: Examining the peer-reviewed literature linked to positive psychology

Since the original call by Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) for a new science of happiness, excellence, and optimal human functioning, there has been an explosion of activity in, acclaim for, and criticism of positive psychology. The purpose of this study was to identify and examine the peer-reviewed literature linked to the positive psychology movement. An extensive systematic review identified 1336 articles published between 1999 and 2013. More than 750 of these articles included empirical tests of positive psychology theories, principles, and interventions. The results show a fairly consistent increase in the rate of publication, and that the number of empirical studies has grown steadily over the time period. The findings demonstrate that positive psychology is a growing and vibrant sub-area within the broader discipline of psychology, committed to using the same rigorous scientific methods as other sub-areas, in pursuit of understanding well-being, excellence, and optimal human functioning.     

BRIEF REPORT Gratitude and prosocial behaviour: An experimental test of gratitude

McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons, and Larson (2001) posited that gratitude prompts individuals to behave prosocially. However, research supporting the prosocial effect of gratitude has relied on scenario and self-report methodology. To address limitations of previous research, this experiment utilised a laboratory induction of gratitude, a method that is potentially more covert than scenarios and that elicits actual grateful emotion. Prosocial responses to gratitude—operationalised as the distribution of resources to another—were paired with a self-report measure of gratitude to test the prosocial effect of gratitude. To investigate positive mood as an alternative explanation, this experiment compared responses of individuals receiving a favour to responses of individuals receiving a positive outcome by chance. A total of 40 participants were randomly assigned to either a Favour or Chance condition. Participants receiving a favour helped more and reported more gratitude compared to participants in the Chance condition.     

Deliberate real-time mood regulation in adulthood: The importance of age,fixation and attentional functioning

While previous research has linked executive attention to emotion regulation, the current study investigated the role of attentional alerting (i.e., efficient use of external warning cues) on younger (N=39) and older (N=44) adults’ use of gaze to regulate their mood in real time. Participants viewed highly arousing unpleasant images while reporting their mood and were instructed to deliberately manage how they felt and to minimise the effect of those stimuli on their mood. Fixations toward the most negative areas of the images were recorded with eye tracking. We examined whether looking less at the most negative regions, compared to each individual's own tendency, was a beneficial mood regulatory strategy and how it interacted with age and alerting ability. High alerting older adults, who rely more on external cues to guide their attention, experienced a smaller decline in mood over time by activating a less-negative-looking approach (compared to their own average tendency), effectively looking away from the most negative areas of the images. More negative gaze patterns predicted better mood for younger adults, though this effect decreased over time. Alerting did not moderate gaze–mood links in younger adults. Successful mood regulation may thus depend on particular combinations of age, fixation, and attention.     

The Successful Treatment of Diurnal and Nocturnal Enuresis and Encopresis

Two children, a boy aged six and a girl aged five-and-one half, were treated for diurnal enuresis. The boy was also treated for bedwetting and the girl for encopresis. The treatment program was conducted by the children's parents and featured daily, weekly, and monthly rewards, a feedback "star chart" and nonexclusionary timeout for accidents. The girl's daytime wetting and soiling were treated simultaneously with soiling being eliminated first. After the boy's daytime wetting had been eliminated, he was given dry-bed training (Azrin, Sneed, & Foxx, 1974) with equal success. Long term follow-ups revealed that all forms of toileting accidents had been eliminated.     

The detection and influence of problematic item content in ability tests: An examination of sensitivity review practices for personnel selection test development

In organizational and educational practices, sensitivity reviews are commonly advocated techniques for reducing test bias and enhancing fairness. In the present paper, results from two studies are reported which investigate how effective individuals are at detecting problematic test content and the influence such content has on important testing outcomes. In Study 1, signal detection analyses are used to examine the role of individual differences in the identification of insensitive test items, while Study 2 investigates the extent to which insensitivity differentially influences item performance and reactions. Results revealed small but significant differences in the overall accuracy and response tendencies of student test reviewers on the basis of demographics and key individual differences variables. Contrary to predictions however, problematic items did not exhibit differential item functioning across sex nor did their presence engender negative test taker reactions. Implications and suggestions for future research and sensitivity review practices are discussed.     

Depression and pain in night time and daytime functioning of individuals with lupus

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of pain and depression in night time and daytime functioning of individuals with lupus. A cross-sectional research design was used. Participants were recruited via a mail-out to members of the Lupus Australia Foundation and the Lupus Association of New South Wales. One hundred and fifty-four participants completed a questionnaire package consisting of a Lupus Medical and Symptoms Questionnaire designed by the researchers, the Cardiac Depression Scale and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that pain principally predicted levels of sleep disturbance, whilst depression and pain (to a lesser extent) together predicted daytime dysfunction. The present results suggested the need for more adequate pain management, particularly at night and psychological interventions to decrease levels of depression that interfere with daily functioning in individuals with lupus.