Parenting the traumatized child: Attending to the needs of nonoffending caregivers of traumatized children.

While there is a growing literature on the impact of trauma on children, there has been relatively little attention to the needs of their caregivers, who are themselves at risk for elevated levels of stress. The current article draws from the broader literature on parenting under stress and the literature on interventions with parents of sexually abused children to outline the need for interventions for caregivers of multiply traumatized children. It reviews components of an intervention model derived from the literature on general parenting interventions as well as the growing literature on trauma treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Never talk to your client about architecture

This paper examines nineteenth century technology related to settler housing in New Zealand, and asks in particular what use British settlers had for cast iron prefabrication. Early accounts in diaries and letters focus upon the necessary adaptability of both settlers and their accommodation when different cultures met, and on the influence of fashions in materials and construction methods on form. Through various combinations - European and Maori construction, local materials, familiar form and ingenious additions - a New Zealand domestic vernacular began.     

Preschool children's social status and maternal instructions to assist group entry.

Mothers' preparatory instructions (comments, helpful advice, and suggestions) intended to assist their child in subsequently joining the play of an unknown pair of children were studied. What mothers said to their child while they actually joined in (contemporaneous instructions) was investigated, as well as their claims about the kind of feedback they would give the child after the play. Mothers of popular, rejected, and neglected children were compared. It was hypothesized that the instructions mothers gave would parallel the known group-entry behavior of these groups of children. Hypotheses were substantially supported for mothers of popular children, moderately supported for mothers of neglected children, and less supported for mothers of rejected children. The most consistent finding was that mothers of popular children were more likely to suggest a group-oriented entry strategy to their child. These results tend to support previous studies suggesting that there are links between the social behavior of parents and their children and that family experiences may be involved in the acquisition of peer relationship skills. The mechanisms by which such family influence might operate are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

When doing better means feeling worse: The effects of categorical cutoff points on counterfactual thinking and satisfaction.

Counterfactual thoughts of "what might have been" have been shown to influence emotional responses to outcomes. The present investigation extends this research by proposing a model of how categorical cutoff points, or arbitrary values that impose qualitative boundaries on quantitative outcomes, induce counterfactual thoughts and influence individuals' satisfaction. In particular, just making a cutoff for a category is hypothesized to elicit downward counterfactual comparisons, boosting satisfaction, whereas just missing a cutoff prompts upward counterfactual thoughts, decreasing satisfaction. In some circumstances, this asymmetry can reverse the usual relationship between objective outcome and satisfaction, causing people who do objectively better to feel worse than those they outperform. This hypothesis is supported by the results of 1 naturalistic study and 2 scenario experiments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

MMPI-2 profiles of adult women with child sexual abuse histories: Cluster-analytic findings.

This study used a cluster analysis to examine the clinical profiles of female survivors of child sexual abuse. Eighty-five participants who presented for group therapy to deal specifically with issues related to sexual abuse completed the revised version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2; J. N. Butcher, W. G. Dahlstrom, J. R. Graham, A. Tellegen, & B. Kaemmer, 1989) as part of an extensive assessment procedure. The cluster-analytic procedure used in this study allowed 5 subgroups within the population to emerge, supporting the idea that women who report having been sexually abused as children are not a homogeneous group. Additional analyses indicated differences on the basis of cluster membership on the MMPI-2 content scales, as well as other measures of psychological distress. The treatment implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inside Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers: Extracting the Refractive Index From Spatial-Spectral Mode Images

We present a method to extract the internal effective refractive index of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) from its transverse mode images. High spatial and spectral resolution mode images of an oxide-guided VCSEL were obtained using an etalon filter and an imaging spectrometer. The refractive index and the oxide radius were extracted from the field intensity distribution and the spectral wavelength of the laser modes. The procedure was repeated at two different currents and both gave a refractive index step of 0.046 plusmn 0.006 with a 14.1-mum oxide diameter. With several degrees of freedom for error available in the refractive index extraction, this method may be extended to ion-implanted, photonic crystal, and noncircular devices     

Searching beneath the shelf in macaque monkeys: Evidence for a gravity bias or a foraging bias?

The reasons underpinning search biases in 2 species of macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatta and Macaca arctoides) were explored over the course of 3 experiments requiring monkeys to search for a hidden food reward. The results reveal that monkeys are adept at exploiting perceptual cues to locate a food reward but are unable to use physical constraints such as solidity as cues to the reward's location. Monkeys prefer to search for a food reward beneath a solid shelf, not because they have an expectation that the reward should be there, but rather because, in the absence of usable cues, this bias emerges as a default search option. It is hypothesized that this bias may have its roots in a history of competition for food resources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social evaluation and the empathy–altruism hypothesis.

Tested the claim of R. L. Archer et al (see record 1982-05783-001) that empathy leads to increased helping only under socially evaluative circumstances. In Exp I, 22 female undergraduates were led to believe that no one (including the person in need) would ever know if they declined to help. In this situation, which was designed to be devoid of the potential for negative social evaluation for not helping, there was still a positive relationship between self-reported empathic emotion and offering help. In Exp II, empathy (low vs high) and social evaluation (low vs high) were manipulated with 32 Ss. Once again there was a positive relationship between empathy and offering help when the potential for social evaluation was low as well as high. Results of both studies suggest that the motivation to help evoked by empathy is not egoistic motivation to avoid negative social evaluation. Instead, the observed pattern was what would be expected if empathy evokes altruistic motivation to reduce the victim's need. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determination of trimethylamine in milk using an MS based electronic Nose

A simple, rapid, reliable and highly automated analytical method has been developed to determine trimethylamine (TMA) in milk using an MS based electronic nose (SMart Nose). A set of Swedish milk samples with and without naturally occurring TMA was used to compare this new method with sensory analysis and dynamic headspace (DHS) gas chromatography with flame ionisation detection (GC-FID). The results show good agreement between these three analytical methods. A lower detection limit (0.5 mg kg^-1) and better repeatability were achieved with this new method compared to both sensory and DHS GC-FID analyses (1-2 mg kg^-1). The user-friendly multivariate analysis software provided with the SMart Nose system was used for TMA determination via a numerical PCA. Using Excel, peak intensity, correlated with TMA concentration via a second order equation, gave similar results. Thus, this is an up to date method of choice for the quantitative determination of TMA in milk. It is also able to give further qualitative information on the milk analysed using the PCA analysis supplied with this equipment.