The Role of Differentiation of Self in Predicting Rumination and Emotion Regulation Difficulties

Contemporary Family Therapy - The present study examined the predictive power of differentiation of self on rumination and emotion regulation difficulties. The participants (n?=?300),...     

Sex differences in perceived importance of hamstring stretching among high school athletes

Adolescent athletes completed a hamstring stretching technique and opinion survey and were measured for hamstring extensibility during preparticipation examination. Hamstring muscle group stretching practices, extensibility, and perception of importance to injury prevention, athletic performance, warming-up, cooling down, and coaches were contrasted by sex. As expected, girls displayed greater hamstring muscle group flexibility than boys. Boys and girls reported similar hamstring stretch repetitions and stretch duration. Boys scored hamstring stretching as being more important to improved athletic performance and to their coaches than did girls. Differences were not evident between groups for prevention of injury, warm-up, or cool-down. The lower perception of hamstring stretching importance for improving athletic performance and a lesser perception of hamstring stretching importance to their coaches suggests that adolescent female athletes and their coaches may not fully understand the value of static hamstring stretching. Modified hamstring stretching technique may selectively increase hamstring extensibility among girls without contributing to increasing capsuloligamentous knee joint laxity.     

Should I invite them? Bystanders' inclusivity judgements towards outgroup victims and ingroup bullies in intergroup bullying

This study examined bystanders' judgements of bullying and their inclusivity towards refugee victims and ingroup bully peers. Participants included 587 Turkish adolescents (M_age = 13.14, SD = 1.60) who were presented with two stories: intergroup (Syrian refugee victim) and intragroup (Turkish victim) bullying. They indicated acceptability of bullying, retaliation, and how likely they would be to include victims and bullies in different social contexts. Empathy, prejudice, desired social distance, and peer norms towards Syrian refugees were examined as predictors. Adolescents in schools with a higher number of Syrian peers were more likely to expect they would include the Syrian victim than adolescents in schools with a lower number of Syrian peers. Further, adolescents with higher empathy were more likely to include the Syrian victim while adolescents with higher prejudice and desired social distance were less likely to include the Syrian victim. The results highlight the importance of attending to bystanders' future interactions with victims and bullies, as bystanders have the opportunity to challenge injustice by promoting inclusive school climates in diverse societies. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement .     

In search of a measure to investigate mental performance among children: Development of the mental speed test

Processing speed is a component of general intelligence and an indicator of learning potential. There is a need for robust measures of mental speed based on contemporary theoretical developments. The current study addressed this need by proposing a mental speed test for children aged 60 to 96 months (5 to 8 years) and examining its psychometric properties. The test included indicators of perceptual speed, memory speed, reasoning speed, and fluency-flexibility speed presented through nonverbal items administered individually using touchscreen tablets. After establishing gender non-bias and concurrent validity with a contemporary intelligence test (i.e., ASIS, r = .59) with 107 children, the next administration included 373 children. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with subtest scores revealed a single-factor structure accounting for 45% of the total variance. Additional data from 212 children were used to assess structural validity and gender bias, which showed acceptable goodness of fit, providing evidence of the validity and reliability of the new measure for further use.     

The mediating role of self-efficacy between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction of primary school teachers

IntroductionIn this study, it was analyzed whether self-efficacy has a mediating role between the emotional intelligence and job satisfaction of primary school teachers.ObjectiveIt is to test the relationships between primary school teachers job satisfaction, self-efficacy and emotional intelligence levels.MethodA path analysis was performed on a sample of 252 primary school teachers.ResultsIt was found that self-efficacy mediated the relationship between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction.ConclusionBased on the findings of the study, the relationships between emotional intelligence, job satisfaction and self-efficacy were discussed in the literature and various suggestions were made to concerned future researchers and practitioners.     

Relationships between Turkish Eighth-Grade Students’ Oral Reading Efficacy,Reading Comprehension and Achievement Scores on a High-Stakes Achievement Test

The present study aimed to explore the relation between students’ oral reading efficacy, reading comprehension, and academic performance on a nationwide high school placement exam (TEOG). The students were selected from a public middle school. The students’ oral reading efficacy, comprehension, and TEOG achievement scores were obtained to figure out the relations between them. The students’ TEOG results were obtained from the school administration. The findings revealed that there were statistically significant relations between oral reading efficacy, reading comprehension and TEOG achievements. Particularly, students’ reading comprehension and accuracy skills together explained 57% of variance in overall TEOG achievements.     

Apolitical Interpretation of Islam: Said Nursi's Faith-Based Activism in Comparison with Political Islamism and Sufism

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Islam has generally been represented in the media as a political ideology and some academics have over-emphasized this political image of Islam. These are not baseless speculations; there are several political Islamic groups worldwide. However, there are also many apolitical Islamic groups. This article analyzes one of the most influential apolitical Islamic movements in the world, the Nurcus, and its founder, Bediüzzaman Said Nursi. Nursi, the author of the Risale-i Nur collection, emphasized the ascetic aspect of Islam: ‘Ninety-nine percent of Islam is about ethics, worship, the hereafter, and virtue. Only one percent is about politics; leave that to the rulers.’ He also added, ‘I seek refuge in God from Satan and [party] politics.’ Through the analysis of Nursi's thought and activism, the article will try to answer the following questions: Was Nursi a Sufi? What are the theological and structural bases of Nursi's apolitical interpretation of Islam? What is the impact of the secular state in Turkey on the development of Nursi's apolitical outlook and activism? What does his apolitical understanding of Islam say to non-Turkish Muslims who do not live in a secular state?     

Relationship maintenance across platonic and non-platonic cross-sex friendships in emerging adults

Prior research examining maintenance in cross-sex friendships focuses heavily on platonic (i.e., nonsexually active) friendships with limited research examining sexually involved cross-sex friendships (i.e., “friends with benefits relationships”). In this study, we investigated differences in relational maintenance behaviors between sexually and nonsexually active cross-sex friendships types. In an online survey, 531 emerging adult participants from large southwestern and southeastern universities identified either a friends with benefits or platonic opposite sex friendship and then completed items asking them to report the frequency with which they enacted each of 36 relationship maintenance behaviors. Overall, participants involved in casual sex friendships engaged in the least, and those who transitioned from a friends-with-benefits relationship to a romantic relationship engaged in the most frequent relationship maintenance. Platonic friendships employed more frequent maintenance than casual-sex friendships but less than either true friends with benefits or participants who transitioned to a romantic relationship.     

Turkish Mothers’ Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions: A Brief Report

This study is one of the first to examine emotion socialization behaviors of Turkish mothers; it also provides information on psychometric properties of the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES; Fabes et al. 1990) in a sample of Turkish mothers of preschoolers. Participants were mothers (M _age = 35.07, SD = 4.14) of 141 children attending daycare centers in middle and upper-middle class suburbs of Istanbul. The patterns of inter-correlations between emotion socialization reactions and general child-rearing behaviors showed that they reflect related but different aspects of broader parenting styles. Both aspects of parenting displayed associations with child emotional reactivity in the expected direction, further confirming patterns previously revealed for emotion socialization in Western samples. The results also confirmed the six emotion socialization behaviors assessed by the CCNES and all dimensions had good internal consistencies. The pattern of inter-correlations among maternal emotion socialization behaviors, general child-rearing behaviors, and child negative emotionality confirmed construct validity of the instrument for Turkish mothers.