Adrenocortical attunement, reactivity, and potential genetic correlates among parent–daughter dyads from low-income families

Examining the multitude of influences on the development of adolescent stress responses, especially among low-income families, is a critical and understudied topic in the field. The current study examined cortisol attunement between adolescent girls and parents (mostly mothers) from predominantly low-income, single parent, ethnic minority families before and after an in-laboratory disagreement discussion task. The sample consisted of 118 adolescents (Mage = 13.79 years, 76.3% ethnic minorities, 23.7% European Americans) and primary caregivers (Mage = 40.62 years; Mdn yearly income = $24,000; 43.2% single parents; 50% living below poverty line). We investigated oxytocin receptor (OXTR rs53576) gene variations as a potential contributor to attunement within the dyad. Results showed that parents and adolescents showed stress system attunement across the disagreement task, but that parent and adolescent oxytocin receptor genotype did not impact attunement. Future studies should detail biological factors that contribute to the calibration of stress response systems of adolescents across a variety of samples, particularly those experiencing a combination of stressors

TROUBLESHOOTING BASEL II: THE ISSUE OF PROCYCLICALITY

A widespread concern about Basel II capital requirements is that it might amplify business cycle fluctuations, forcing banks to restrict their lending when the economy goes into recession. Under the IRB approach of Basel II, capital requirements are increasing functions of the probability of default (PD), loss given default (LGD) and exposure at default (EAD) parameters estimated for each borrower, and these inputs are likely to rise in economic downturns. In this paper, we compare two alternative procedures that are designed to somehow moderate the procyclical effects induced by Basel II - type capital regulation. The starting points of our analysis consist Jokivuolla, Kiema and Vesala (2009) and Repullo and Suarez (2009), who both examined the impact of regulatory capital's procyclical effects. It's vital to note remarks of Caprio (2009), that is, making regulatory capital levels countercyclical could worsen the state of an economy during a recession. As we do not have access to the Romanian Central Credit Register database, we compute a model-economy that stands as a proxy for the Romanian firms' sector. Our simulated Romanian economy can be characterised by all Romania-specific macroeconomic controls. Then we estimate a model of PDs during the period 2000 - 2010, and based on the estimated probabilities of default we compute the corresponding series of Basel II capital requirements. After the diagnosis of procyclicality, we analyze two procedures that try to mitigate the cyclical effects of capital regulation: smoothing the output of the Basel II formula, and smoothing the input, by construction of through-the-cycle (TTC) PDs. The comparison of the different procedures is based on the criterion of minimizing the root mean square deviations of each adjusted series. Our results show that the best ways to moderate procyclicality are either to smooth the input of the Basel II formula by using through-the-cycle PDs, or to smooth the output with a multiplier based on GDP growth. We conclude that the GDP-based smoothing may be more efficient than the use of TTC PDs in terms of simplicity and transparency. In terms of the GDP adjustment, regulatory capital levels should increase with approx. 1,31% during an economic growth period and decrease with 4,03% during a recession, in order to mitigate the cyclical effects induced by Basel II - type capital regulation.Basel II, procyclicality, regulatory capital, probability of default, credit-crunch

Developing Therapeutic Interventions in EP Practice: Reflections on Unconscious Processes and Promoting the Child’s Voice

This paper draws on the personal experiences of developing and carrying out an individual and group therapeutic intervention. It will reflect on the factors that impacted psychological formulation throughout the intervention process. The paper will draw on how psychological theories such as Bion’s (1961) theory of group processes and systemic thinking, can be used to understand unconscious processes in groups and the complexity of formulation. The aim is to provide insight into unconscious processes within groups and reflect on how the voice of the child can be promoted through therapeutic interventions. As the paper reflects on personal experience, it will conclude with some implications for educational psychology practice

Theory to Practice: Performance Preparation Models in Contemporary High-Level Sport Guided by an Ecological Dynamics Framework

Abstract: A fundamental challenge for practitioners in high-level sporting environments concerns how to support athletes in adapting behaviours to solve emergent problems during competitive performance. Guided by an ecological dynamics framework, the design and integration of competitive performance preparation models that place athlete-environment interactions at the heart of the learning process may address this challenge. This ecological conceptualisation of performance preparation signifies a shift in a coach’s role; evolving from a consistent solution provider to a learning environment designer who fosters local athlete-environment interactions. However, despite the past decades of research within the ecological dynamics framework developing an evidence-based, theoretical conceptualisation of skill acquisition, expertise and talent development, an ongoing challenge resides within its practical integration into sporting environments. This article provides two case examples in which high-level sports organisations have utilised an ecological dynamics framework for performance preparation in Australian football and Association Football. A unique perspective is offered on experiences of professional sport organisations attempting to challenge traditional ideologies for athlete performance preparation by progressing the theoretical application of ecological dynamics. These case examples intend to promote the sharing of methodological ideas to improve athlete development, affording opportunities for practitioners and applied scientists to accept, reject or adapt the approaches presented here to suit their specific ecosystems

Training in psychotherapy: A call for embodied and psychophysiological approaches

Psychotherapy research studies are increasingly focused on the clinical process, which has allowed for the definition of general models about clinical functioning and the role of the therapist. Embodiment-based research has shown that interpersonal processes, such as synchrony and attunement, are critical for the development of crucial therapist skills and that these mechanisms are mediated by physiological processes. Although the connection between these embodied processes and clinical practice is currently a topic of investigation in psychotherapy research, its implications for clinical training are potentially broad, but they remain unexplored. The present contribution proposes the idea of embodied trainings for psychotherapy trainees, which could support their acquisition of clinical skills through implicit, embodied, and affective learning. We present detailed potential mechanisms, study designs, and psychological variables that could be used to develop such an in vivo training and suggest some possible applications, ranging from biofeedback sessions to experimental settings and roleplaying. Additional research in this field can help bridge the gap between psychotherapy research and psychotherapy training, by overcoming some of the limitations of post-session and external evaluations, by enriching psychotherapy training programs, and by facilitating the implicit and automatic attunement of the attitudes of the students who will become tomorrow's therapists

Specialist Coaching Integrated into a Department of Methodology in Team Sports Organisations

Abstract: With increasing resources in sports organisations being allocated to the development and preparation of individual athletes and sub-groups with specialist performance roles, the work of coaches, specialist (role) coaches and support staff needs to be functionally and coherently integrated. This integration of sport science support and coaching can be administered by staff in a Department of Methodology (DoM). Particularly, in this paper, we propose how specialist coaching can be situated in a DoM, presenting a model advocating effective functioning in high-performance team sports organisations. Using principles of ecological dynamics, we provide a rationale for a functional methodology for the design of practice tasks in a DoM that views learners as wayfinders, self-regulating their way through competitive performance environments. This rationale for athlete self-regulation in practice could improve athlete performance by enhancing problem solving, engagement with constraints of learning designs and supporting better attunement to contextual information abundant in a competitive environment. Finally, by introducing this unified and multidisciplinary DoM, specialist coaches, team coaches and sport science support staff, within the organisational structure, can collaboratively debate and co-design individualised athlete training programmes to enrich skill adaptability and performance functionality. To underline these contentions, three high-performance sport case studies from Australian Football: goalkeeping in Association Football and Rugby League are presented

An Active-Inference Approach to Second-Person Neuroscience

Social neuroscience has often been criticized for approaching the investigation of the neural processes that enable social interaction and cognition from a passive, detached, third-person perspective, without involving any real-time social interaction. With the emergence of second-person neuroscience, investigators have uncovered the unique complexity of neural-activation patterns in actual, real-time interaction. Social cognition that occurs during social interaction is fundamentally different from that unfolding during social observation. However, it remains unclear how the neural correlates of social interaction are to be interpreted. Here, we leverage the active-inference framework to shed light on the mechanisms at play during social interaction in second-person neuroscience studies. Specifically, we show how counterfactually rich mutual predictions, real-time bodily adaptation, and policy selection explain activation in components of the default mode, salience, and frontoparietal networks of the brain, as well as in the basal ganglia. We further argue that these processes constitute the crucial neural processes that underwrite bona fide social interaction. By placing the experimental approach of second-person neuroscience on the theoretical foundation of the active-inference framework, we inform the field of social neuroscience about the mechanisms of real-life interactions. We thereby contribute to the theoretical foundations of empirical second-person neuroscience

Towards hybrid primary intersubjectivity: a neural robotics library for human science

Human-robot interaction is becoming an interesting area of research in cognitive science, notably, for the study of social cognition. Interaction theorists consider primary intersubjectivity a non-mentalist, pre-theoretical, non-conceptual sort of processes that ground a certain level of communication and understanding, and provide support to higher-level cognitive skills. We argue this sort of low level cognitive interaction, where control is shared in dyadic encounters, is susceptible of study with neural robots. Hence, in this work we pursue three main objectives. Firstly, from the concept of active inference we study primary intersubjectivity as a second person perspective experience characterized by predictive engagement, where perception, cognition, and action are accounted for an hermeneutic circle in dyadic interaction. Secondly, we propose an open-source methodology named \textit{neural robotics library} (NRL) for experimental human-robot interaction, and a demonstration program for interacting in real-time with a virtual Cartesian robot (VCBot). Lastly, through a study case, we discuss some ways human-robot (hybrid) intersubjectivity can contribute to human science research, such as to the fields of developmental psychology, educational technology, and cognitive rehabilitation