Depth of emotional experiencing and outcome in therapy with young people.

OBJECTIVES: To analyse the relationship between depth of emotional experiencing and outcomes in young people. We also wanted to understand whether 'early' or 'working' depth of emotional experiencing was most predictive of outcomes, and how these compared against alliance effects. DESIGN: Hierarchical linear regression analysis of data from a study of school-based humanistic counselling (SBHC). METHODS: Data from 60 young people were used for the study across 15 schools: mean age 13.7 years old (range: 13-16); 67% female; 52% from Black, mixed or non-white ethnicities. Depth of emotional experiencing was rated using the Client Experiencing Scale at session 1 (early EXP) and session 6 (working EXP). The dependent variable was changes in psychological distress from baseline to 12-week follow-up, as assessed by the Young Person's CORE. RESULTS: In our final model, working EXP accounted for 11.6% of the variance in YP-CORE change scores after baseline YP-CORE scores were taken into account. Early EXP and working alliance were not predictive of benefit. Sensitivity analyses indicated that working EXP was associated with benefits across a range of indicators. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show, for the first time, that depth of emotional experiencing has a significant and sizeable association with outcomes in therapy for young people. This is consistent with emerging evidence from the adult field. It suggests that practitioners working with young people should monitor the depth of emotional experiencing and foster methods for supporting its development.

On return to school: disorder symptoms, stress at home and evaluations of school COVID-19 measures.

Background: Social restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on the mental health of children. Yet, analyses on the mental health of younger children in the later course of the pandemic are scarce. The present study assessed 8- to 11-year-olds' internalising disorder symptoms during the last three weeks, from the third week of February through to the first week of March, of the 2021 national lockdown.Method: One hundred and forty-five pupils, including a subset of keyworkers' children who had face-toface schooling, completed the validated Revised Child Anxiety and Depression scales, items on COVID-related stress at home, and evaluations of home-learning and school's measures for reopening.Results: Symptoms increased with age in months and/or number of siblings. Girls reported more symptoms and home stress than boys did. Pupils who had face-to-face schooling were more satisfied with school measures and less satisfied with home learning compared with those who only had home learning. Hierarchical regression analyses corroborated the contributions of sociodemographic characteristics and found that home stress and school measures evaluations were associated most with major depression, generalised anxiety, and social phobia.Conclusion: Findings can contribute to mental health practice by promoting school communications and family and educator awareness of stressors, vulnerabilities and symptoms to boost pupils' readiness for school returns.

National and ethnic identification, intergroup attitudes, and sport participation in the context of the London Olympics.

In the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics, the sense of national identity was salient. We tested children (N = 401) aged 5-15 years living near the Olympic site on national (British) and ethnic identification, national ingroup and outgroup attitudes, and sport participation. It was found that the strength of British identification peaked at age 9 years, but the strength of ethnic identification remained stable with age. Both liking for, and stereotyping of, different national groups diverged from age 9 years, but whilst stereotyping remained diverged liking converged by 15 years. The in group was one of the most liked, but one of the least positively stereotyped groups. Sport participation declined with age and was higher among boys, whilst the lowest socio-economic group showed the greatest discrepancy between normal and recent reported participation. The strength of British identification was associated with liking for, and stereotyping of, the British as well as sport participation, but the degree of associations varied between different groups of children.

Conciencia racial, afecto y habilidades de clasificación. Un estudio con niños de Educación Infantil / Racial awareness, affect and sorting abilities: A study with preschool children

En este trabajo se evaluó la conciencia racial y las actitudes tempranas en 50 niños españoles del grupo mayoritario (blancos), divididos en dos grupos de edad (36-48 meses y 60-71 meses). Se desarrollaron un conjunto de tareas que, mediante una entrevista semiestructurada, permitieron obtener una medida del desarrollo cognitivo (tarea de clasificación), medidas socio-cognitivas (tareas de descripción personas, clasificación y la autoidentificación) y medidas afectivas (preferencias y rechazos). Además, se pidió a los niños que hicieran atribuciones sobre la preferencia o rechazo racial de sus madres. En general, las respuestas de los niños en la descripción y clasificación de personas mostraron que el género y el color de la ropa tenían más relevancia que los atributos raciales. En las tareas afectivas, se encontró un sistemático sesgo endogrupal (blanco) y un leve rechazo hacia el exogrupo (negro). La medida de desarrollo cognitivo se relacionaba con la conciencia y actitudes raciales en mayor medida que la edad. Los resultados se comparan con trabajos en los que se ha empleado el mismo procedimiento, pero en un contexto multirracial, y se discuten a partir de los distintos enfoques teóricos y de los continuos cambios sociodemográficos en España (AU)

Racial awareness and early attitudes was assessed in 50 majority-group Spanish children in two age groups (36-48 months and 60-71 months). A series of tasks in a semi-structured interview was administered to test the children’s: Cognitive performance (classification task), socio-cognitive measures (racial awareness by person description, social categorization, and self-identification) and affective measures (preferences and rejections). Children were further asked to make attributions about their mothers’ racial preference and rejection. Overall, children’s responses in person description and social categorization revealed that gender and colour of clothes had more salience in their perception than racial cues. In social affect tasks, children displayed a consistent in-group (White) bias, and a slight but noticeable out-group (Black) rejection. It was found that the cognitive performance measure predicted children’s racial awareness and attitudes better than age did. The findings are compared to our further research, using the same procedure but in a multiracial context, and discussed in the light of theoretical approaches and the continuing sociodemographic transformations in Spain (AU)

Las actitudes de los niños de minorías hacia los miembros de un equipo competitivo: el paradigma de grupo mínimo con niños británicos bengalíes / Ethnic Minority Children's Attitudes Towards Competitive Team Members: A Minimal Group Study with British Bengali Children

Desde su formulación a finales de los años 90, la teoría evolutiva de la identidad social (SIDT; Nesdale, 1999) ha sido apoyada por numerosos estudios sobre el paradigma de grupo mínimo, aunque estos se han realizado principalmente con niños del grupo mayoritario. Este trabajo adapta el paradigma experimental de grupo mínimo de Nesdale et al. (2003) para evaluar las predicciones de la SIDT en una muestra de niños de una minoría étnica. Se asignó a 148 niños británicos- bengalíes de 5-6, 7-8 y 9-10 años a un “equipo de dibujo‟ que poseía habilidades superiores a las de un equipo rival. Los miembros del equipo podían ser del mismo grupo étnico (británicos-bengalíes) o diferente (británicos-blancos). Se pidió a los niños que puntuaran su preferencia por el propio equipo y el rival, el grado en que se sentían semejantes a uno y otro, y si deseaban cambiar de equipo. Se encontró que los niños preferían su equipo en mayor medida que al equipo rival, independientemente de la etnia de sus miembros. Sin embargo, los niños se sentían más iguales a su propio equipo cuando estaba formado por miembros de su grupo étnico que por miembros de distinto grupo étnico. Los resultados se comparan con los obtenidos en estudios previos con niños del grupo mayoritario, y se discuten en relación con la SIDT (AU)

Since its inception in the late 1990s, the social identity development theory (SIDT; Nesdale, 1999) has been supported by various minimal group studies, although such work has invariably been done with ethnic majority group children. The present study adapted Nesdale et al.’s (2003) minimal group experiment to test the predictions from SIDT with a sample of ethnic minority children. One hundred and forty-eight British Bengali children aged 5-6, 7-8 and 9-10 years were allocated to a “drawing team‟ that had superior skills than a rival team. The team members were shown to be of the same (Bengali) or a different (white English) ethnicity. Children rated their liking for, and similarity to, their own team and the rival team, and the extent to which they wanted to change teams. It was found that the children preferred their own team members more than the rival team members, irrespective of the ethnic makeup of the teams. However, the children felt more similar to their own team when it was made up of same-ethnic members compared to when it was made up of different-ethnic members. The findings are discussed in relation to those in previous studies with ethnic majority children and support for SIDT (AU)

Young children's racial awareness and affect and their perceptions about mothers' racial affect in a multiracial context.

There is a substantial literature documenting pre-schoolers' racial awareness and affect from multiracial societies in North America and a fast-growing body of work from societies that are or were once more racially homogeneous. However, studies in Britain, a racially diverse society, on this developmental period have been curiously rare. This study examined racial awareness and affect of 125 White, Black, and Asian 3--to 5-year-olds in London. Children were tested on cognitive level, person description and classification, race labelling and matching, self-categorization and asked about their racial preference and rejection and inferences about their mothers' preference and rejection. Children were least likely to use race versus other categorical cues to spontaneously describe or classify others, even though the majority correctly sorted others by race labels, matched them to drawings, and categorized themselves by race. With age and increasing cognitive level, children described and categorized others by race more and improved in race matching. White children from age 4 preferred White peers and inferred that their mothers would prefer White children at age 5. Children's own preference and inference about mothers are related. Children did not show race-based rejection, but boys inferred that their mothers would prefer White children and reject Black children. The findings are discussed in relation to racial salience between contexts, previous research, and theories.

The influence of race and gender on children's conversations and playmate choices.

The present study examined the influence of race and gender on children's conversations and friendship choices. Four hundred and twenty-eight children (M age = 7.5 years, SD = 0.34) from 2 racial minority groups (i.e., African Caribbean and South Asian) and the racial majority group (i.e., European) chose a picture of a playmate together with a peer. Race influenced the levels of assertion and affiliation in children's conversations. The effects of race on conversation also varied according to the gender of the children involved in interaction. Same-race pairs tended to choose in-group playmates, but same-race minority pairs showed less marked in-group preference. Cross-race pairs selected a majority-group child as a playmate most often.