Physical Abuse of Children by Stepfathers in Colombia.

Evolutionary psychologists claim that stepparents perpetrate substantially more child physical abuse than genetic parents, and that they do so because they are less invested in genetically unrelated children. The objective of this study was to examine these claims by investigating whether, and why, fathers in a Colombian sample physically abused their stepchildren more than their genetic children. Fathers (N = 86) and their partners living in Bogotá were interviewed by Klevens et al. Half of the fathers had been reported to authorities for child physical abuse, the other half were matched controls. Secondary analysis was conducted of Klevens et al.'s data. Hypotheses from the evolutionary and ecological accounts of child maltreatment were tested using logistic and ordinal regression. Both the prevalence and the frequency of physical abuse by stepfathers were considerably greater than those of genetic fathers. Several indicators of adversity-including parental youth and experience of abuse, fathers' chronic stress, and mothers' poor communication with the child-were associated with both abuse and stepparenthood. Models including these variables indicated that they accounted for much of the stepfathers' higher rates of abuse. Consistent with the ecological account, much of the stepfathers' greater prevalence and frequency of abuse in this sample is likely to have resulted from confounding variables, rather than from the step relationship per se.

Effectiveness of psychological interventions for smoking cessation in adults with mental health problems: A systematic review.

PURPOSE: People with long-term mental health problems are heavier smokers than the general population, and suffer greater smoking-related morbidity and mortality. Little is known about the effectiveness of psychological smoking cessation interventions for this group. This review evaluates evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the effectiveness of psychological interventions, used alone or with pharmacotherapy, in reducing smoking in adults with mental health problems. METHODS: We searched relevant articles between January 1999 and March 2019 and identified 6,200 papers. Two reviewers screened 81 full-text articles. Outcome measures included number of cigarettes smoked per day, 7-day point prevalence abstinence, and continuous abstinence from smoking. RESULTS: Thirteen RCTs, involving 1,497 participants, met the inclusion criteria. Psychological interventions included cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), motivational interviewing (MI), counselling, and telephone smoking cessation support. Three trials resulted in significant reductions in smoking for patients receiving psychological interventions compared with controls. Two trials showed higher 7-day point prevalence in intervention plus nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) versus standard care groups. Four trials showed that participants who combined pharmacotherapy (bupropion or varenicline) with CBT were more likely to reduce their smoking by 50% than those receiving CBT only. Four out of five trials that compared different psychological interventions (with or without NRT) had positive outcomes regardless of intervention type. CONCLUSIONS: This study contributes to our understanding in a number of ways: The available evidence is consistent with a range of psychological interventions being independently effective in reducing smoking by people with mental health problems; however, too few well-designed studies have been conducted for us to be confident about, for example, which interventions work best for whom, and how they should be implemented. Evidence is clearer for a range of psychological interventions - including CBT, MI, and behavioural or supportive counselling - being effective when used with NRT or pharmacotherapy. Telephone-based and relatively brief interventions appear to be as effective as more intense and longer-term ones. There is also good evidence for a strong dose-response relationship - increased attendance predicts improved outcomes - and for interventions having more positive than negative effects on psychiatric symptoms.

"That is an Awful Lot of Fruit and Veg to Be Eating". Focus Group Study on Motivations for the Consumption of 5 a Day in British Young Men.

Young men do not consume enough fruit and vegetables, increasing their risk for future ill health. To understand what motivates their food choice, a novel conceptual framework that included key concepts from the theory of planned behavior and risk theory was developed. Thirty-four British men (18-24 years) took part in focus groups, where innovative visual qualitative methods provided insight into participants' motivations for fruit and vegetable consumption. Based on information from food diaries, participants were described as high (4+ portions) or low (up to 3 portions) consumers. Interviews were coded thematically into concepts and characteristics of the conceptual framework. Young men were generally unaware of the UK government's recommendation to consume 5 portions of fruit and vegetable a day and chronic health risks associated with low consumption. High consumers were motivated by perceived risk, perceived behavioral control, and health-conscious self-identity. They held internalized, holistic beliefs about diet and health, whereas low consumers' beliefs were externalized, based on physical appearances. Low consumers were driven by social influences to consume cheap, easily available convenience foods. The conceptual framework differentiated levels of fruit and vegetable consumption between the two groups and provided new information about young men's motivations for fruit and vegetable consumption.

Child homicides by stepfathers: A replication and reassessment of the British evidence.

Daly and Wilson (1994, 2008) reported that rates of fatal assaults of young children by stepfathers are over 100 times those by genetic fathers, and they explain the difference in evolutionary terms. Their study was replicated by comparing updated homicide data and population data from 3 surveys. This indicated that the risk to young stepchildren was approximately 16 times that to genetic children, and stepfathers were twice as likely to kill by beating. However, when we controlled for father's age, the risk from cohabiting stepfathers was approximately 6 times greater. Above the age of 4 years, stepchildren were at no greater risk than genetic children. Children are at risk from fathers primarily when both are young and they do not live together; stepfathers' apparent overrepresentation results largely from their relative youth and from many nonresidential perpetrators being labeled stepfathers. Other factors are also influential, but if these include stepparenthood, its impact is considerably less than previous researchers have claimed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Children's and adults' understanding of death: Cognitive, parental, and experiential influences.

This study explored the development of understanding of death in a sample of 4- to 11-year-old British children and adults (N=136). It also investigated four sets of possible influences on this development: parents' religion and spiritual beliefs, cognitive ability, socioeconomic status, and experience of illness and death. Participants were interviewed using the "death concept" interview that explores understanding of the subcomponents of inevitability, universality, irreversibility, cessation, and causality of death. Children understood key aspects of death from as early as 4 or 5years, and with age their explanations of inevitability, universality, and causality became increasingly biological. Understanding of irreversibility and the cessation of mental and physical processes also emerged during early childhood, but by 10years many children's explanations reflected not an improved biological understanding but rather the coexistence of apparently contradictory biological and supernatural ideas-religious, spiritual, or metaphysical. Evidence for these coexistent beliefs was more prevalent in older children than in younger children and was associated with their parents' religious and spiritual beliefs. Socioeconomic status was partly related to children's biological ideas, whereas cognitive ability and experience of illness and death played less important roles. There was no evidence for coexistent thinking among adults, only a clear distinction between biological explanations about death and supernatural explanations about the afterlife.

The development of intention-based morality: The influence of intention salience and recency, negligence, and outcome on children's and adults' judgments.

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the influences on 4-8 year-olds' and adults' moral judgments. In both, participants were told stories from previous studies that had indicated that children's judgments are largely outcome-based. Building on recent research in which one change to these studies' methods resulted in substantially more intention-based judgment, in Experiment 1 (N = 75) the salience and recency of intention information were increased, and in Experiment 2 (N = 99) carefulness information (i.e., the absence of negligence) was also added. In both experiments even the youngest children's judgments were primarily intention-based, and in Experiment 2 punishment judgments were similar to adults' from 5-6 years. Comparisons of data across studies and experiments indicated that both changes increased the proportion of intention-based punishment judgments-but not acceptability judgments-across age-groups. These findings challenge and help to explain those of much previous research, according to which children's judgments are primarily outcome-based. However, younger participants continued to judge according to outcome more than older participants. This might indicate that young children are more influenced by outcomes than are adults, but other possible explanations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

The influence of intention, outcome and question-wording on children's and adults' moral judgments.

The influence of intention and outcome information on moral judgments was investigated by telling children aged 4-8yearsandadults (N=169) stories involving accidental harms (positive intention, negative outcome) or attempted harms (negative intention, positive outcome) from two studies (Helwig, Zelazo, & Wilson, 2001; Zelazo, Helwig, & Lau, 1996). When the original acceptability (wrongness) question was asked, the original findings were closely replicated: children's and adults' acceptability judgments were based almost exclusively on outcome, and children's punishment judgments were also primarily outcome-based. However, when this question was rephrased, 4-5-year-olds' judgments were approximately equally influenced by intention and outcome, and from 5-6years they were based considerably more on intention than outcome. These findings indicate that, for methodological reasons, children's (and adults') ability to make intention-based judgment has often been substantially underestimated.

British and Pakistani children's understanding of death: cultural and developmental influences.

This study explored British and Pakistani 4- to 7-year-olds' (N = 188) understanding of death. The aim was to examine possible influences on the acquisition of the subcomponents of the death concept by investigating how they are understood by children of different ages and cultural and religious backgrounds. Three groups of children were compared: White British and British Muslim living in London, and Pakistani Muslim living in rural Pakistan. In line with previous research (Slaughter, 2005, Aust. Psychol., 40(3), 179), irreversibility of death was one of the first subcomponents to be acquired, while causality was the last. The two groups of British children shared many similarities in their understanding of inevitability, applicability, irreversibility, and cessation. Pakistani Muslim children understood irreversibility earlier than did children in both British groups. In all three cultural groups, children's responses demonstrated very limited understanding of causality. Our findings support the view that aspects of a mature understanding of death develop between the ages of 4 and 7 years and that the process of understanding death as a biological event is, to a great extent, universal. They also suggest that aspects of children's reasoning are influenced by culturally specific experiences, particularly those arising from living in rural versus urban settings.

Cultural influences on children's understanding of the human body and the concept of life.

This study aimed to identify the age by which children begin to demonstrate a biological understanding of the human body and the idea that the purpose of body functioning is to maintain life. The study also explored the influence of education, culturally specific experiences and religion on knowledge acquisition in this domain. Children aged between 4 and 7 years from three different cultural backgrounds (White British, British Muslim, and Pakistani Muslim) were interviewed about the human body and its functioning. At least half of the 4- to 5-year-olds in each cultural group, and almost all 6- to 7-year-olds, referred to the maintenance of life when explaining organs' functions and so were classified as 'life theorizers'. Pakistani Muslim children gave fewer biological responses to questions about organs' functions and the purpose of eating and breathing, but referred to life more than their British counterparts. Irrespective of cultural group, older children understood organ location and function better than younger children. These findings support Jaakkola and Slaughter's (2002, Br. J. Dev. Psychol., 20, 325) view that children's understanding of the body as a 'life machine' emerges around the ages of 4-5 years. They also suggest that, despite many similarities in children's ideas cross-culturally, different educational input and culturally specific experiences influence aspects of their biological understanding.

The influence of negligence, intention, and outcome on children's moral judgments.

Piaget (1932) and subsequent researchers have reported that young children's moral judgments are based more on the outcomes of actions than on the agents' intentions. The current study investigated whether negligence might also influence these judgments and explain children's apparent focus on outcome. Children (3-8 years of age) and adults (N=139) rated accidental actions in which the valences of intention, negligence, and outcome were varied systematically. Participants of all ages were influenced primarily by intention, and well-intentioned actions were also evaluated according to negligence and outcome. Only two young children based their judgments solely on outcome. It is suggested that previous studies have underestimated children's use of intention because outcome and negligence have been confounded. Negative consequences are considered to be important because children assume that they are caused by negligence. The findings indicate that young children can show sophisticated understanding of the roles of intention and negligence in moral judgments.

Mental models and other misconceptions in children's understanding of the earth.

This study investigated the claim (e.g., Vosniadou & Brewer's, 1992) that children have naive "mental models" of the earth and believe, for example, that the earth is flat or hollow. It tested the proposal that children appear to have these misconceptions because they find the researchers' tasks and questions to be confusing and ambiguous. Participants were 6- and 7-year-olds (N=127) who were given either the mental model theorists' original drawing task or a new version in which the same instructions and questions were rephrased to minimize ambiguity and, thus, possible misinterpretation. In response to the new version, children gave substantially more indication of having scientific understanding and less of having naive mental models, suggesting that the misconceptions reported by the mental model theorists are largely methodological artifacts. There were also differences between the responses to the original version and those reported by Vosniadou and Brewer, indicating that other factors, such as cohort and cultural effects, are also likely to help explain the discrepant findings of previous research.

Mental models or methodological artefacts? Adults' 'naïve' responses to a test of children's conceptions of the earth.

Vosniadou and Brewer (1992) claim that children's drawings and answers to questions show that they have naive, theory-like 'mental models' of the earth; for example, they believe it to be flat, or hollow with people inside. However, recent studies that have used different methods have found little or no evidence of these misconceptions. The contrasting accounts, and possible reasons for the inconsistent findings, were tested by giving adults (N = 484) either the original task (designed for 5-year olds) or a new version in which the same drawing instructions and questions were rephrased and clarified. Many adults' responses to the original version were identical to children's 'naïve' drawings and answers. The new version elicited substantially fewer non-scientific responses. These findings indicate that even adults find the original instructions and questions ambiguous and confusing, and that this is the principal reason for their non-scientific drawings and answers. Since children must find the task even more confusing than adults, this explanation very probably applies to many of their non-scientific responses, too, and therefore accounts for the discrepant findings of previous research. 'Naïve' responses result largely from misinterpretation of Vosniadou and Brewer's apparently simple task, rather than from mental models of the earth.

Adults' representations of the Earth: implications for children's acquisition of scientific concepts.

When children are asked to draw the Earth they often produce intriguing pictures in which, for example, people seem to be standing on a flat disc or inside a hollow sphere. These drawings, and children's answers to questions, have been interpreted as indicating that children construct naïve, theory-like mental models of the Earth (e.g. Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992). However, recent studies using different methods have found little or no evidence of these mental models, and report that many young children have some scientific knowledge of the Earth. To examine the reasons for these contrasting findings, adults (N=350) were given the drawing task previously given to 5-year-old children. Fewer than half of the adults' pictures were scientific, and 15% were identical to children's 'naïve' drawings. Up to half of the answers to questions (e.g. 'Where do people live?') were non-scientific. Open-ended questions and follow-up interviews revealed that non-scientific responses were given because adults found the apparently simple task confusing and challenging. Since children very probably find it even more difficult, these findings indicate that children's non-scientific responses, like adults', often result from methodological problems with the task. These results therefore explain the discrepant findings of previous research, and support the studies which indicate that children do not have naïve mental models of the Earth.