Emotion altering effects of research participation

Previous studies have suggested that participating in psychological research may temporarily amplify participants’ experience of positive or negative emotions (Daugherty & Lawrence. 1996). In the present research, 114 male and female university students completed either self-focused or non-self-focused questionnaires to investigate characteristics that may predispose some participants to positive or negative reactions following participation in research. Four hypotheses were examined: (a) A self-focused task compared to a non-self-focused task would significantly increase average levels of emotional arousal; (b) the amplification of emotional reactions would be greater in females than males (c) participants experiencing negative life events and who are less well adjusted would experience a negative emotional reaction to participation; and (d) participants experiencing positive life events and who are well adjusted would experience a positive emotional reaction to participation. Results suggest no difference between self-focused and non-self-focused tasks in their ability to effect emotions during research participation. Findings also indicate that males\u27 emotional reaction was significantly more elevated than females after participation. Personality traits rather than life experiences were also identified as better predictors of emotional reactions to participation. These results bring into question conclusions drawn by previous research about sex-differences and self-focused attention and suggest that completion of self-report questionnaires have few aversive affects

Keeping Children with a Disability Safely in their Families

With the trend towards keeping children with a disability in their families, intervention practices are seeking to ensure child safety. A research project in New South Wales, Australia, aimed to discover whether particular support programme(s) for children with a disability and their families significantly and positively influenced outcomes for the child and family, and if significant positive change did occur, which programme elements, strategies and/or techniques significantly contributed to positive client outcomes. Families in crisis and their support workers participated in the research and were followed and interviewed using quantitative and qualitative methods, at instigation of intervention, immediately post-intervention, at six and at twelve months post-intervention. Measurements of empowerment, emotional support, parent-child involvement, abuse potential, family functioning, symptom reduction, hope, happiness and worker-client alliance were used to gather data, as were qualitative interviews. Analyses indicated that the interventions improved families' levels of well-being and functioning and were significantly successful in reducing child abuse potential. Specific worker strategies and programme elements were found to be associated with these improvements and are discussed in detail. Safety of children with disabilities can be improved significantly using the family-centred interventions that were a distinctive feature of the programmes studied