Perceived Collective Efficacy and Parenting Competence: The Roles of Quality of Life and Hope

Parents' perceptions of their parenting competence predict successful implementation of parenting tasks and contribute to their interest and involvement in parenting and to their children's development. Thus, identifying factors that contribute to parents' perceptions of parenting competence can help inform efforts to promote children's safety and well-being. The present study employs social disorganization theory to examine the relationship between collective efficacy and parents' sense of competence, measured along two dimensions: parental efficacy and parental satisfaction. It examines the direct association between the two constructs and whether the association is mediated by parent perceptions of their quality of life (QOL) and sense of hope. Data were collected from 198 parents residing in a neighborhood in southern Tel Aviv, Israel. The analyses indicated that high collective efficacy was directly associated with high parental efficacy, but not with high parental satisfaction. Using structural equation modeling, a mediation model was found whereby higher collective efficacy was associated with (a) higher QOL, which in turn was related to a greater sense of hope, which was linked with higher parental efficacy; and (b) higher QOL, which was directly associated with higher parental satisfaction. The findings provide further support to the idea that neighborhood characteristics play an important role in parents' ability to care for their children.     

Inference and exact numerical representation in early language development

How do children as young as 2 years of age know that numerals, like one, have exact interpretations, while quantifiers and words like a do not? Previous studies have argued that only numerals have exact lexical meanings. Children could not use scalar implicature to strengthen numeral meanings, it is argued, since they fail to do so for quantifiers [Papafragou, A., & Musolino, J. (2003). Scalar implicatures: Experiments at the semantics–pragmatics interface. Cognition, 86, 253–282]. Against this view, we present evidence that children’s early interpretation of numerals does rely on scalar implicature, and argue that differences between numerals and quantifiers are due to differences in the availability of the respective scales of which they are members. Evidence from previous studies establishes that (1) children can make scalar inferences when interpreting numerals, (2) children initially assign weak, non-exact interpretations to numerals when first acquiring their meanings, and (3) children can strengthen quantifier interpretations when scalar alternatives are made explicitly available.     

The Place of Mysticism in Personal Commemorative Films of Bereaved Parents

This article sheds light on the central place of mysticism in the world of Israeli parents who have lost a child in battle or in a terror attack, and demonstrates how bereaved parents, by including mystical events in their narratives, try to find order, rationale, and purpose that will enable them to move on with their lives. The data are based on a thorough qualitative analysis of 20 personal commemorative films created or commissioned by bereaved parents.     

A reappraisal of medieval mysticism & hysteria

This paper examines the historical association between medieval mysticism and asceticism and the psychopathological condition of hysteria. We first review the particular forms of medieval mysticism and asceticism that seem to have inspired modern psychiatrists and reductive historians to dismiss these phenomena as indubitably neurotic behaviours. Then we review the concept of hysteria as it evolved during the last two centuries for points of convergence with mysticism. Finally, we question the validity of value-laden diagnostic formulations in the domain of personality assessment. A few highly dramatic but culturally endorsed religious behaviours occuring in an otherwise well functioning individual does not constitute a basis for any psychiatric diagnosis, let alone a condemnatory characterological one such as hysteria. We propose a perspective for looking at medieval mystical states of mind and behaviours in context that moves beyond ahistoric assumptions that employ modern Western standards as the yardstick for medieval health and illness.     

Conflicts with Friends: A Multiplex View of Friendship and Conflict and Its Association with Performance in Teams

Drawing on conservation of resources theory, multiplex social networks research, and the emerging conflict involvement perspective, the purpose of this study is to develop and test a multiplex view of conflict that explicitly accounts for the nature of the social relationships between those involved in intrateam conflict and how these multiplex relationships differentially impact team performance. Data were collected from 120 teams engaged in a 4-month business simulation. Relationship conflicts occurring among team members who are friends have a negative impact on team performance, whereas those occurring between non-friends have a positive impact on team performance. Although we also find non-friend task conflicts to be beneficial for team performance, friend task conflicts have no impact on team performance. This study highlights the dark side of workplace friendships and admonishes managers to pay close attention not only to conflicts among employees, but also to the relational closeness of those involved in conflict. The current study provides empirical support for the emerging conflict involvement perspective by explicitly assessing the number of individuals involved in conflict as well as the type of relationships between them. We also extend research on multiplex relationships from the individual to the team level of analysis. Finally, we respond to calls for studies of multiplexity that include both positive and negative relationships.     

On the efficacy of psychoanalysis.

In this study we critically review the formal research literature pertinent to the outcomes of psychoanalysis and the factors influencing these outcomes. Our inquiry was conducted from a psychoanalytic perspective. We found the research yield consistent with the accumulated body of clinically derived psychoanalytic knowledge, e.g., patients suitable for psychoanalysis derive substantial therapeutic benefit; analyzability and therapeutic benefit are relatively separate dimensions and their extent is relatively unpredictable from the perspective of initial evaluation among seemingly suitable cases. The studies all contain clinical and methodological limitations which are no more substantial than in other forms of psychotherapy research, but they have not substantially advanced psychoanalytic knowledge. This raises challenges for the further development of formal research strategies native to psychoanalysis.