Mediation in a sibling context: the relations of older siblings' mediating behaviour and younger siblings' task performance

We investigated the sibling relationship as a context for cognitive development. Forty preschoolers (ages 5–6) and their younger siblings (ages 2–3) were visited at home. Four games were presented to the older siblings and they were asked (a) to estimate how well their younger sibling will perform on each game and (b) to teach the younger sibling how to use the games. The older siblings' mediating behaviours during the teaching session and the younger siblings' performance on the four tasks were coded. The frequency of mediating behaviours—including attention focusing, amplifying affect and providing meaning, fostering a sense of competence, regulating of the learning process, de‐contextualization, and negative feedback in the form of mocking and laughing at errors, predicted the younger siblings' task performance. The older sibling's accurate perception of the younger child's competence was uniquely predictive of task performance. The highest amount of mediation was observed in older‐brother–younger‐brother pairs, in particular the behaviours of negative feedback and amplifying affect. Results contribute to the discussion on the role of siblings as moderators of cognitive development and are discussed in terms of Vygotsky's cultural–historical perspective on apprenticeship. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Narratives of Israeli Women in Retirement: Rewriting the Gender Contract

Sex Roles - In the present study, we analyze how older Israeli women narrate, make sense of, and negotiate their lives after retirement. By center-staging women in their life periods of after-care...     

Shlomit Levy: a Pioneer in the Structural Theory of Well-Being

Applied Research in Quality of Life -     

‘How Can I Feel for Others When I Myself Am Beaten?’ The Impact of the Armed Conflict on Women in Israel

This research presents an initial documentation of Israeli women’s sense of insecurity during the Second Intifada (2001–2005). Drawing on feminist security theory and the intersectional approach to gender, we hypothesized that women’s familiar tendency to develop high levels of stress following political violence would be related to previous sexual and domestic victimization, to economic distress and ethnic discrimination among minority women, and to the cultural role of care workers among women of all socio-economic backgrounds. A sample of 552 women self-completed a cluster of questionnaires addressing a broad array of topics, and results confirmed most of the research hypotheses. The discussion highlights the multiple articulations of gender, militarism, and security and their possible implications for policies of conflict resolution.     

THE JEWISH LEGIONS IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR AS A LOCUS OF IDENTITY FORMATION

Based on life‐writing material, this article sheds light on the process by which the Jewish Legions in the British Army in the First World War, composed in large part of Jewish volunteers from Canada and the United States, contributed to the development among its legionnaires of a sense of belonging to their respective North American countries. The notion that formerly displaced immigrants were fighting for the Promised Land, and the consistency of this notion with the overall aims of the allies in the First World War, promoted the development of a unique identity as Jewish “citizen‐soldiers”.     

Transdiagnostic group CBT for anxiety disorders: the unified protocol in mental health services

Comorbidity among the anxiety disorders is common and may negatively impact treatment outcome. Potentially, transdiagnostic cognitive-behavioral treatments (CBT) deal more effectively with comorbidity than standard CBT. The present study tested the effectiveness of The Unified Protocol (UP) applied to Mental Health Services. Pre-post-treatment effects were examined for psychiatric outpatients with anxiety disorders receiving UP treatment in groups. Forty-seven patients (mean-age = 34.1 (SD = 9.92), 77% females) with a principal diagnosis of anxiety were included. We found significant and clinically meaningful changes in the primary outcomes Clinical Global Impression Severity Scale (CGI-S; d = 1.36), Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HARS; d = .71), and WHO-5 Well-being Index (WHO-5; d = .54). Also, comorbid depressive symptoms and levels of positive and negative affect changed significantly after treatment. Patients with high levels of comorbidity profited as much as patients with less comorbidity; however, these patients had higher scores after treatment due to higher symptom burden at onset. Patients with comorbid depression profited more from treatment than patients without comorbid depression. The treatment effects found in the present study correspond to treatment effects of other TCBT studies, other UP group studies, and effectiveness studies on standard CBT for outpatients. The results indicate that the UP can be successfully applied to a MHS group setting, demonstrating positive effects on anxiety and depressive symptoms for even highly comorbid cases.     

Justice at any cost? The impact of cost–benefit salience on criminal punishment judgments

This study investigated the effect of cost–benefit salience on simulated criminal punishment judgments. In two vignette‐based survey experiments, we sought to identify how the salience of decision costs influences laypeople's punishment judgments. In both experiments (N₁ = 109; N₂ = 398), undergraduate participants made sentencing judgments with and without explicit information about the direct, material costs of incarceration. Using a within‐subjects design, Experiment 1 revealed that increasing the salience of incarceration costs mitigated punishments. However, when costs were not made salient, punishments were no lower than those made when the costs were externalized (i.e., paid by a third party). Experiment 2 showed the same pattern using a between‐subjects design. We conclude that, when laypeople formulate sentencing attitudes without exposure to the costs of the punishment, they are prone to discount those costs, behaving as if punishment is societally cost‐free. However, when cost information is salient, they utilize it, suggesting the operation of a genuine, albeit labile, punishment preference. We discuss the implications of these findings for psychological theories of decision making and for sentencing policy, including the degree of transparency about the relevant costs of incarceration during the decision process.     

Can psychopathic offenders discern moral wrongs? A new look at the moral/conventional distinction

A prominent view of psychopathic moral reasoning suggests that psychopathic individuals cannot properly distinguish between moral wrongs and other types of wrongs. The present study evaluated this view by examining the extent to which 109 incarcerated offenders with varying degrees of psychopathy could distinguish between moral and conventional transgressions relative to each other and to nonincarcerated healthy controls. Using a modified version of the classic Moral/Conventional Transgressions task that uses a forced-choice format to minimize strategic responding, the present study found that total psychopathy score did not predict performance on the task. Task performance was explained by some individual subfacets of psychopathy and by other variables unrelated to psychopathy, such as IQ. The authors conclude that, contrary to earlier claims, insufficient data exist to infer that psychopathic individuals cannot know what is morally wrong.     

Short- and long-term effects of juvenile stressor exposure on the expression of GABAA receptor subunits in rats

During the juvenile period rodents are particularly sensitive to stressors. Aversive events encountered during this period may have enduring effects that are not evident among animals initially stressed as adults. Interestingly, experiencing stressor during juvenile period was found to elicit a biphasic behavioral pattern over the course of development. During the juvenile period, the expression of several GABAA receptor subunits is subject to elevated plasticity, rendering the GABAergic system sensitive to stressors. In the present investigation, animals were exposed to a juvenile variable stressor regimen (JUV-S) at 27-29 postnatal days (PND): 27 PND-acute swim stress (10 min), 28 PND-elevated platform stress (3 sessions×30 min each), and 29 PND-restraint (2 h). One hour following the last exposure to stressor or in adulthood (60 PND), anxiety-related behaviors were assessed in a 5-min elevated plus maze test. The western blotting technique was used to evaluate whether the juvenile stress induced behavioral pattern will be accompanied by respective changes in GABAA α1, α2, and α3 protein expression in male rats. Our findings further established that juvenile stressor elicits hyper-reactivity when rats were tested as juveniles, whereas rats exhibited reduced activity and increased anxiety when tested as adults. Additionally, the effects of juvenile stressor on α1, α2, and α3 were more pronounced among juvenile stressed rats that were challenged as adults compared with rats that were only challenged as juveniles. Interestingly, the stress-induced modulation of the subunits was particularly evident in the amygdala, a brain region closely associated with anxiety. Thus, age- and region-specific alterations of the α subunits may contribute to the age-specific behavioral alterations observed following juvenile stress exposure.