Evaluating interventions with victims of intimate partner violence: a community psychology approach

Purpose. Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is one of the most common forms of domestic violence, with profound implication for women's physical and psychological health. In this text we adopted the Empowerment Process Model (EPM) by Cattaneo and Goodman (2015) to analyse interventions provided to victims of IPV by a Support Centre for Women (SCW) in Italy, and understand its contribution to women’s empowerment. Method. We conducted semi-structured interviews with ten women who had been enrolled in a program for IPV survivors at a SCW in the past three years. The interviews focused on the programs’ aims, actions undertaken to reach them, and the impact on the women’s lives, and were analysed using an interpretative phenomenological approach. Results. Results showed that the interventions provided by the SWC were adapted according to women's needs. In the early phases, women’s primary aim was ending violence, and the intervention by the SCW was deemed as helpful to the extent it provided psychological support, protection and safe housing. Women’s aims subsequently moved to self-actualisation and economic and personal independence which required professional training, internships, and social support. Although satisfying the majority of the women’s expectations, other important needs (e.g., economic support or legal services) were poorly addressed, and cooperation with other services (e.g., police or social services) was sometimes deemed as critical. Conclusions. By evaluating a program offered by a SCW to IPV survivors through the lens of the EPM model, we found that women deemed the program as effective when both individual resources and empowerment processes were promoted. Strengths, limitations and implications are discussed

The Weight of Weight Stigma. Negative Stereotypes and Cognitive Performance in Children and Adults with Obesity

Obesity is a highly stigmatizing condition, and lack of intelligence is a stereotypical trait often ascribed to individuals with excess weight. Even though research suggests that obesity reduces cognitive proficiency throughout the life span, in the present work we tested the hypothesis that negative stereotypes about cognitive ability may contribute to disrupt cognitive functioning in children (Study 1) and adults (Study 2) with obesity (vs. average weight). Stereotype salience was manipulated by alternatively labelling a cognitive task as a sensitive intelligence test (stereotype activation) or as a non-evaluative computer game (stereotype deactivation; Study 1 and Study 2). In Study 2, a neutral control condition was also added, in which the task was presented as a memory test, and no bogus information was provided. Furthermore, we hypothesized that anxiety mediates the relation between children’s body weight and working memory under stereotype activation, and that children and adults’ experiences of weight-based discrimination, negative weight-related attitudes, and body dissatisfaction may further moderate the explored relation. Results confirmed the predicted weight status X stereotype salience interaction in Study 1 and Study 2. In both studies, the average-weight participants outperformed those with obesity in working memory tasks only when the tasks were labelled as diagnostic of cognitive proficiency, but not in the deactivation condition. In Study 2 the negative relation between body weight and working memory proficiency also emerged in the neutral condition. Neither moderated mediation or moderated moderation models were supported. These findings provide evidence that stereotype threat contributes to explain working memory deficits associated with obesity, by depleting executive resources in ostensibly evaluative contexts. Interventions aimed at contrasting weight stigma and negative weight-related stereotypes may not only enhance the emotional and social well-being of individuals with excess weight, but also preserve their cognitive efficiency

Weight-based teasing, body dissatisfaction, and eating restraint: Multilevel investigation among primary schoolchildren

Objective: Weight-based teasing is a form of weight-based stigmatization that is especially prevalent in middle childhood, and is associated with undesired health outcomes, including body dissatisfaction and eating restraint. To date, this relation has been mainly investigated at individual level only. This study aimed to examine whether body dissatisfaction and eating restraint among primary schoolchildren relate not only to personal experiences of weight-based teasing, but also to the prevalence of weight-based teasing episodes in the classroom. Method: A sample of 744 primary schoolchildren (52.04% girls; M-age = 9.82 +/- .95) from 84 classes completed a survey regarding weight-based teasing, body dissatisfaction and eating restraint. Parent-reported anthropometric data were used to compute standardized Body Mass Index (zBMI). Results: Multilevel structural equation models highlighted that, at the individual level, weight-based teasing is indirectly associated with body dissatisfaction and eating restraint through weight-based teasing. A contextual effect of weight-based teasing at the classroom level also emerged in relation to eating restraint, but not to body dissatisfaction. Specifically, the prevalence of weight-based teasing in the classroom is associated with children's eating restraint-above and beyond personally experienced teasing episodes. Conclusions: Findings showed that weight-based teasing may be negatively associated with health and psychological wellbeing not only among children who experience weight-based teasing episodes, but also among other members of a class in which weight-based teasing is more prevalent. Programs to reduce weight-based stigma in middle childhood should consider the classroom as a primary target of intervention

L'autore e l'autrice di episodi di cyberbullismo: il punto di vista in adolescenza

La diffusione del cyberbullismo e l’importanza di coinvolgere studenti e studentesse nella risoluzione del problema, hanno portato all’implementazione di una ricerca-azione volta a conoscere il punto di vista degli/delle adolescenti circa l’identità dell’autore e dell’autrice di episodi di cyberbullismo. A tale scopo, 601 ragazzi/e di scuola secondaria hanno risposto alle domande di un questionario volto a individuare interessi, amicizie, modi di agire e di parlare, paure e divertimenti del ragazzo e della ragazza cyberbullo/a. I dati raccolti hanno permesso di individuarne una rappresentazione condivisa e di riflettere sulle loro differenze. Implicazioni teoriche e applicazioni progettuali sono discusse

Math Anxiety Interferes With Learning Novel Mathematics Contents in Early Elementary School

Whereas some evidence exists that math anxiety may interfere with math performance from the very beginning of primary school, no study to date has attempted to investigate whether math anxiety may also interfere with early math learning (i.e., the encoding of new math knowledge) and not only with recalling already mastered contents in test situations. Across 2 experiments carried out in 2 different countries (Study 1: N 115, conducted in Italy; Study 2: N 120, conducted in the United Kingdom), we addressed this question by presenting 6-year-old children with 2 math contents that had not been covered by their school curriculum before the study. Children were tested immediately before and immediately after the learning phase, and after a 1-week delay. Longitudinal models revealed that math anxiety was negatively related to initial level of knowledge in the case of 3 out of 4 math contents. More importantly, math anxiety was also negatively related to rate of learning in 2 out of 4 tasks (1 task in Study 1 and 1 in Study 2). These studies provide the first evidence that math anxiety may reduce the encoding of novel math contents in memory in very young children, potentially leading to cumulative gaps in math proficiency for children with math anxiety from the very beginning of their formal education

Children's sense of reality: The development of orbitofrontal reality filtering

Orbitofrontal reality filtering denotes a memory control mechanism necessary to keep thought and behavior in phase with reality. In adults, it is mediated by the orbitofrontal cortex and subcortical connections and its failure induces reality confusion, confabulations, and disorientation. Here we investigated for the first time the development of this mechanism in 83 children from ages 7 to 11 years and 20 adults. We used an adapted version of a continuous recognition task composed of two runs with the same picture set but arranged in different order. The first run measures storage and recognition capacity (item memory), the second run measures reality filtering. We found that accuracy and reaction times in response to all stimulus types of the task improved in parallel across ages. Importantly, at no age was there a notable performance drop in the second run. This means that reality filtering was already efficacious at age 7 and then steadily improved as item memory became stronger. At the age of 11 years, reality filtering dissociated from item memory, similar to the pattern observed in adults. However, performance in 11-year-olds was still inferior as compared to adults. The study shows that reality filtering develops early in childhood and becomes more efficacious as memory capacity increases. For the time being, it remains unresolved, however, whether this function already depends on the orbitofrontal cortex, as it does in adults, or on different brain structures in the developing brains of children

Math anxiety interferes with learning novel mathematics contents in early elementary school

Whereas some evidence exists that math anxiety may interfere with math performance from the very beginning of primary school, no study to date has attempted to investigate whether math anxiety may also interfere with early math learning (i.e., the encoding of new math knowledge) and not only with recalling already mastered contents in test situations. Across 2 experiments carried out in 2 different countries (Study 1: N = 115, conducted in Italy; Study 2: N = 120, conducted in the United Kingdom), we addressed this question by presenting 6-year-old children with 2 math contents that had not been covered by their school curriculum before the study. Children were tested immediately before and immediately after the learning phase, and after a 1-week delay. Longitudinal models revealed that math anxiety was negatively related to initial level of knowledge in the case of 3 out of 4 math contents. More importantly, math anxiety was also negatively related to rate of learning in 2 out of 4 tasks (1 task in Study 1 and 1 in Study 2). These studies provide the first evidence that math anxiety may reduce the encoding of novel math contents in memory in very young children, potentially leading to cumulative gaps in math proficiency for children with math anxiety from the very beginning of their formal education

Children\u2019s sense of reality: The development of orbitofrontal reality filtering

Orbitofrontal reality filtering denotes a memory control mechanism necessary to keep thought and behavior in phase with reality. In adults, it is mediated by the orbitofrontal cortex and subcortical connections and its failure induces reality confusion, confabulations, and disorientation. Here we investigated for the first time the development of this mechanism in 83 children from ages 7 to 11 years and 20 adults. We used an adapted version of a continuous recognition task composed of two runs with the same picture set but arranged in different order. The first run measures storage and recognition capacity (item memory), the second run measures reality filtering. We found that accuracy and reaction times in response to all stimulus types of the task improved in parallel across ages. Importantly, at no age was there a notable performance drop in the second run. This means that reality filtering was already efficacious at age 7 and then steadily improved as item memory became stronger. At the age of 11 years, reality filtering dissociated from item memory, similar to the pattern observed in adults. However, performance in 11- year-olds was still inferior as compared to adults. The study shows that reality filtering develops early in childhood and becomes more efficacious as memory capacity increases. For the time being, it remains unresolved, however, whether this function already depends on the orbitofrontal cortex, as it does in adults, or on different brain structures in the developing brains of children