Reciprocal Relations Between Traumatic Stress and Physical Aggression During Middle School

There is convincing evidence that demonstrates traumatic stress and aggressive behavior are highly related among adolescents. The evidence is less clear regarding the direction of this relation. The purpose of this study was to examine the reciprocal longitudinal relations between physical aggression and traumatic stress among a predominantly African American sample of middle school students. Support was found for traumatic stress predicting increased levels of physical aggression across the winter to the spring of the sixth grade for boys and across all waves from the fall of the seventh grade to the fall of the eighth grade for both boys and girls. Conversely, physical aggression during the winter of the sixth grade predicted a decrease in traumatic stress in the spring of the sixth grade for both boys and girls. These findings suggest that interventions may need to incorporate skills that are aligned with trauma-informed care practices in order to reduce traumatic stress and physical aggression among adolescents

Arts and Cultural Engagement, Reportedly Antisocial or Criminalized Behaviors, and Potential Mediators in Two Longitudinal Cohorts of Adolescents

Arts and cultural engagement is a potential strategy for reducing or preventing reportedly antisocial or criminalized behaviors (those previously and problematically termed as "delinquent") in adolescence. However, most research to date has focused on arts-based interventions and has not tested arts and cultural engagement in large population-based longitudinal studies. This study investigated whether arts and cultural engagement reduced reportedly antisocial or criminalized behaviors in two large nationally representative cohorts, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (n = 10,610; 50% female, 72% White, age range = 11-21 mean = 15.07) and the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (n = 15,214; 50% female, 73% White, age range = 13-16 mean = 14.38). Structural equation modelling also allowed exploration of two potential mechanisms that might link arts and cultural engagement to reportedly antisocial or criminalized behaviors (self-control and attitudes towards these behaviors). More arts and cultural engagement was associated with fewer reportedly antisocial or criminalized behaviors, better self-control scores, and fewer positive perceptions of reportedly antisocial or criminalized behaviors concurrently and one to two years later. Arts and cultural engagement may provide opportunities for adolescents to realize positive developmental outcomes, reducing their risk of reportedly antisocial or criminalized behaviors

Signs of Atonement: Eucharist and Mimetism in the Brazilian Church

The Evangelical Church in Brazil has grown in power in the last two decades. This new situation has revealed a church that seeks to change culture through power, resulting in violence and a dispute for cultural hegemony. This dissertation asserts that a contemplative practice of the Eucharist can produce renewed understandings of the atonement and can reorient the church toward a culture of reconciliation. Following the theoretical framework of René Girard, this thesis claims that we are the ones who need violence and sacrifice, not God. If we are not satisfied with the Eucharist, we will search for false atonements and scapegoating. The first chapter presents a brief overview of how Protestantism in Brazil is revealing a theology of dominion. The following chapter casts the biblical foundations for a covenantal view of the doctrine of atonement and the progressive shift from Abel’s sacrifice to Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice. In the third chapter, I attempt to offer an overview of the main theories of atonement throughout church history and their semiotic relationship to their cultural context. Followin this chapter, I present the mimetic theory of René Girard and his view of sacrifice as the origin of culture. The fifth chapter presents scapegoating rituals as forms of a false atonement and demonstrates how the Eucharist can transform a crowd into an atoned community. The final chapter demonstrates how a food pattern shapes a community, the therapeutical potential of the Eucharist, and the contemplative example of the monastic community of Taizé. The way a church approaches the table shapes the way that church will relate to culture. If a church is not atoned in the Eucharist, that church will seek out false atonements. The Brazilian Evangelical Church has a great opportunity to learn the authority of suffering compassion with Jesus at his table

Investigating the modulation of cognition and event-related potentials relating to visual attention, working memory, and executive control in habitual videogame players

The overall objective of this thesis was to produce a document that investigated whether habitual videogame playing modulated cognitive processes related to visual processing and where in the processing stream these modulations occur. In this thesis, the term ‘cognitive modulation’ refers to any neurological differences (as identified through ERP) between videogame players and non-videogame players that theoretically may have been a result of videogame playing. Using this method, I am able to ascertain whether differences between the two groups are observed in early sensory ERPs, in which case VGPs might possess an advantage in bottom-up visual processing, later selective attention which might indicate alterations in top-down attentional processing, motor-response waveforms that may indicate difference in stimulus response mappings, and finally any differences in working memory capacity that might be the underlying cause of supposed attentional differences. An example of cognitive modulation was observed by Wu et al., (2012) and discussed in more detail in the introduction of this thesis. Indeed these modulations should also be accompanied by a behavioural difference between the two groups. As ERP was the primary source of neurophysiological recordings in this thesis, modulations could occur in the amplitude, mean activity, or peak latency of ERP waveforms.The paradigms employed in this thesis were chosen and designed so that in combination they provide a measure of potential cognitive modulation across the entire processing stream. That is, from early sensory ERPs, through selective attentional ERPs, including executive control ERPs and concluding at ERPs related to motor response priming. As these studies primarily focused on attentional processes, an ERP chapter towards the end of this thesis was included to identify whether any modulations in attentional ERPs were an indirect result of modulated working memory.Chapters 2 and 3 in this thesis focus on attentional control, resources, and the inhibitory processes of attention. Specifically, these chapters related to the attentional control each group employed when being presented with distracting items. Indeed, I observed modulated cognitive processes in chapter 3 related inhibitory processing in both attention and executive control related processes. In addition to this, the flanker task in Chapter 3 also allowed me to measure and modulation in motor priming between videogame players and non-videogame players.Chapters 4 and 5 looked more closely at ERPs related to selective attention such as the N2pc and P3, alongside early sensory ERPs (N1, P1, etc.). In response to observing differences in how each group processed distractors (related to the N2pc in Chapter 4), Chapter 5 employed a very specific test in order to split the N2pc into its component parts to further investigate whether any cognitive modulation between groups was a result of altered priority on processing targets or inhibiting distractors.Chapter 6 in this thesis sought to identify whether any differences observed in the attentional processing stream was actually the result of modulations in working memory, a cognitive process theoretically closely related to selective attention. Chapter 6 measured the contralateral delay activity, a neurological waveform that correlates with items held in visual working memory.Chapter 7 provided further exploratory psychophysical testing to identify whether any potential behavioural between-group differences extend beyond the usual visual field our groups would play videogames in. This involved testing the crowding phenomenon whereby participants are unable to identify a stimulus when closely flanked by distractors.This these concludes with Chapter 8, an overall discussion of each chapters results and how these theoretically synthesise with one another in relation to the two objectives of this thesis; does videogame playing modulate cognitive, and where in the attentional processing stream does this occur