Public Stranger Violence-What Makes You Vulnerable?A Comparison of Perspectives From Young Adults and Industry Experts.

The purpose of this study was to determine the situational and individual factors that influence vulnerability to public stranger violence (PSV) from the perspective of young adults and industry professionals. In total, 25 young adults aged between 18 and 29 years formed one sample and participated in one of four focus groups. The second sample consisted of 10 industry professionals with backgrounds in policing, corrections, and forensic psychology. Each professional participated in an individual semistructured interview. Both samples were asked questions regarding vulnerability and safety in public, where responses were analyzed using a thematic analysis. Multiple themes were identified and categorized into situational and individual factors associated with victimization. Situational factors referred to aspects of the environment that may influence vulnerability to PSV and included visibility, location, and level of support for potential victims. Individual factors referred to aspects about the person that may influence vulnerability to PSV and included unpredictability, ease of target, stereotypes, in-groups versus out-groups, distractions, and personality traits. Although both samples identified similar situational factors, young adults were found to be either unaware of individual factors identified by industry professionals as influencing vulnerability or at least misunderstood some of these factors. This is problematic as young adults may be basing their public behaviors on misinformation that may in fact increase, rather than decrease, vulnerability to PSV. The findings from this study have implications for the design of personal safety programs as well as community-based interventions to reduce vulnerability, the prevalence of PSV, and the negative outcomes associated with PSV, including anxiety and fear of crime.

Understanding How Virtual Reality Can Support Mindfulness Practice: Mixed Methods Study.

BACKGROUND: Regular mindfulness practice has been demonstrated to be beneficial for mental health, but mindfulness can be challenging to adopt, with environmental and personal distractors often cited as challenges. Virtual reality (VR) may address these challenges by providing an immersive environment for practicing mindfulness and by supporting the user to orient attention to the present moment within a tailored virtual setting. However, there is currently a limited understanding of the ways in which VR can support or hinder mindfulness practice. Such an understanding is required to design effective VR apps while ensuring that VR-supported mindfulness is acceptable to end users. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore how VR can support mindfulness practice and to understand user experience issues that may affect the acceptability and efficacy of VR mindfulness for users in the general population. METHODS: A sample of 37 participants from the general population trialed a VR mindfulness app in a controlled laboratory setting. The VR app presented users with an omnidirectional video of a peaceful forest environment with a guided mindfulness voiceover that was delivered by a male narrator. Scores on the State Mindfulness Scale, Simulator Sickness Questionnaire, and single-item measures of positive and negative emotion and arousal were measured pre- and post-VR for all participants. Qualitative feedback was collected through interviews with a subset of 19 participants. The interviews sought to understand the user experience of mindfulness practice in VR. RESULTS: State mindfulness (P<.001; Cohen d=1.80) and positive affect (P=.006; r=.45) significantly increased after using the VR mindfulness app. No notable changes in negative emotion, subjective arousal, or symptoms of simulator sickness were observed across the sample. Participants described the user experience as relaxing, calming, and peaceful. Participants suggested that the use of VR helped them to focus on the present moment by using visual and auditory elements of VR as attentional anchors. The sense of presence in the virtual environment (VE) was identified by participants as being helpful to practicing mindfulness. Interruptions to presence acted as distractors. Some uncomfortable experiences were discussed, primarily in relation to video fidelity and the weight of the VR headset, although these were infrequent and minor. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that an appropriately designed VR app can support mindfulness practice by enhancing state mindfulness and inducing positive affect. VR may help address the challenges of practicing mindfulness by creating a sense of presence in a tailored VE; by allowing users to attend to visual and auditory anchors of their choice; and by reducing the scope of the content in users' mind-wandering. VR has the unique capability to combine guided mindfulness practice with tailored VEs that lend themselves to support individuals to focus attention on the present moment.

Development and validation of the Gestalt Therapy Fidelity Scale.

Objective: Three studies were conducted to develop and validate the Gestalt Therapy Fidelity Scale (GTFS), a 21-item measure of treatment adherence for Gestalt Therapy (GT).Method: Thirty five items for possible inclusion in the GTFS were generated on the basis of a literature review. In Study 1, a Delphi methodology consulting 63 international GT experts was used to select items for the GTFS. In Study 2, six experts used the scale to rate video-based sessions of GT, and provided feedback on the usability of the scale. In Study 3, 176 participants from 18 countries used the GTFS to rate GT and not-GT video recorded sessions.Results: The Delphi study consensus method resulted in 25 items for consideration in the GTFS. The scoring system and items were subsequently revised following further feedback from experts (Study 2). The GTFS was found to significantly discriminate between GT and not-GT based sessions (Study 3): raters scored GT sessions significantly higher than not-GT sessions. High levels of internal and inter-rater reliability were found.Conclusion: The GTFS is supported as a psychometrically sound measure of treatment adherence for GT, and hence can be used to assess the degree to which therapists are administering GT.

A qualitative analysis of emotion and emotion regulation in hoarding disorder.

OBJECTIVE: The role of emotion regulation (ER) has been receiving increased attention in relation to various forms of psychopathology including hoarding disorder (HD). However, questionnaire designs are limited to finding associations of ER with symptoms or symptom groups, without finding out how such constructs might be involved in the disorder. METHODS: This study was a qualitative investigation of ER in a clinical HD sample (N = 11). RESULTS: Prominent themes provided support for ER difficulties in hoarding. In particular, difficulties with identifying and describing feelings, unhelpful attitudes toward the emotional experience, the use of avoidance-based strategies, and a perceived lack of effective ER strategies were prominent themes. Furthermore, emotional factors were identified as being associated with the onset and/or exacerbation of hoarding behavior, and possessions and acquiring behavior appeared to serve an ER function. CONCLUSION: The current paper provides a nuanced account of the role of ER in hoarding difficulties.

Defining Cyberbullying: A Multiple Perspectives Approach.

To date, there has been a lack of consensus among researchers, practitioners, and laypersons about the definition of cyberbullying. Researchers have typically applied the key characteristics of intent to harm, power imbalance, and repetition from the definition of traditional bullying to cyberbullying, but how these characteristics transfer from the real world to a technology-mediated environment remains ambiguous. Moreover, very few studies have specifically investigated how cyberbullying is defined from the perspective of bullies, victims and bystanders. To this end, this article will propose a three-part definition of cyberbullying, which incorporates the perspective of bullies, victims and bystanders.

Chasing The 'Like': Adolescent Use Of Social Networking Sites In Australia.

The current study investigated how adolescents behave on Social Networking Sites (SNSs) and how they interpret the feedback they receive online from others. Thirty-four Australian adolescents (26 girls, 8 boys) aged 13 to 17 years participated in the study. Five semi-structured focus groups (3 mixed groups, 2 all-girl groups) were conducted to explore how adolescents perceive their own and others' SNS behaviours, the motivation underlying these behaviours, and the expected outcomes related to particular behaviours. Teenagers reported that they spend a good deal of time planning their SNS posts, felt that the information they posted was a true reflection of them as a person, and thus interpreted feedback ("likes") as measuring their self-worth. In contrast, some teenagers were perceived as "chasing the like" for status and popularity while not caring about how accurately their posts represented them as a person. A potential gender bias in these findings is discussed.

A Pilot Study Using Mindfulness-Guided-Relaxation & Biofeedback To Alleviate Stress In A Group.

The following study investigated the efficacy of a mindfulness intervention to reduce staff stress at a university in Melbourne that was undergoing a restructure and relocation. Using mindfulness guided-relaxation that incorporated positive emotions, controlled breathing and biofeedback monitors, 13 university staff recorded their sympathetic and parasympathetic activity over a four week period. They also supplied qualitative reflections of their experience. After one session of guided-relaxation and biofeedback there were significant increases in parasympathetic activity. For those people that continued practicing guided-relaxation by listening to a digital recording of the session, these gains continued to increase.

Identifying learning disabilities through a cognitive deficit framework: can verbal memory deficits explain similarities between learning disabled and low achieving students?

Traditionally, students with learning disabilities (LD) have been identified using an aptitude-achievement discrepancy or response to intervention approach. As profiles of the cognitive deficits of discrepancy-defined students with LD have already been developed using these approaches, these deficits can in turn be used to identify LD using the discrepancy approach as a benchmark for convergent validity. Australian Grade 3 (N = 172) students were administered cognitive processing tests to ascertain whether scores in these tests could accurately allocate students into discrepancy-defined groups using discriminant function analysis. Results showed that 77% to 82% of students could be correctly allocated into LD, low achievement, and regular achievement groups using only measures of phonological processing, rapid naming, and verbal memory. Furthermore, verbal memory deficits were found, along with phonological processing and rapid naming deficits, in students that would be designated as low achieving by the discrepancy method. Because a significant discrepancy or lack of response to intervention is a result of cognitive deficits rather than the other way around, it is argued that LD should be identified via cognitive deficits.