Cross-Cultural Patterns in Dynamic Ratings of Positive and Negative Natural Emotional Behaviour

Background: Studies of cross-cultural variations in the perception of emotion have typically compared rates of recognition of static posed stimulus photographs. That research has provided evidence for universality in the recognition of a range of emotions but also for some systematic cross-cultural variation in the interpretation of emotional expression. However, questions remain about how widely such findings can be generalised to real life emotional situations. The present study provides the first evidence that the previously reported interplay between universal and cultural influences extends to ratings of natural, dynamic emotional stimuli.

Methodology/Principal Findings: Participants from Northern Ireland, Serbia, Guatemala and Peru used a computer based tool to continuously rate the strength of positive and negative emotion being displayed in twelve short video sequences by people from the United Kingdom engaged in emotional conversations. Generalized additive mixed models were developed to assess the differences in perception of emotion between countries and sexes. Our results indicate that the temporal pattern of ratings is similar across cultures for a range of emotions and social contexts. However, there are systematic differences in intensity ratings between the countries, with participants from Northern Ireland making the most extreme ratings in the majority of the clips.

Conclusions/Significance: The results indicate that there is strong agreement across cultures in the valence and patterns of ratings of natural emotional situations but that participants from different cultures show systematic variation in the intensity with which they rate emotion. Results are discussed in terms of both ‘in-group advantage’ and ‘display rules’ approaches. This study indicates that examples of natural spontaneous emotional behaviour can be used to study cross-cultural variations in the perception of emotion.

The quality of parenting of individuals who had failed to thrive as children

Parenting behaviour is determined by a range of factors including personality, psychopathology, values, social support, child characteristics and socio-cultural influences. It has also been suggested that an individual's style of child-rearing is influenced by the style of parenting that they experienced as children. The relationships between children who fail-to-thrive and their parents are often characterized by interactional difficulties. Previous research using retrospective accounts suggested that mothers of children who fail-to-thrive for non-organic reasons themselves showed high levels of abuse, neglect, and deprivation during their childhoods. However, to date no one has investigated prospectively what kinds of parents failure-to-thrive individuals become. This paper examines the parenting experiences of individuals who had received psychosocial intervention for their non-organic failure-to-thrive as children over 20 years ago. Results suggest that where initial intervention failed to bring about long-term changes in family interactional patterns, there was a greater incidence of failure-to-thrive in the next generation. These families were characterized by dissatisfaction with the child, high levels of stress associated with the parenting role, and low levels of social support. However, where the family environment in the original study had changed substantially, the former clients' outcomes were more positive with their own children. These parents tended to find interaction with their children more rewarding, had good support networks and low levels of stress. The characteristics of particular cases are discussed in detail to illustrate differences between these two groups of individuals.

Skin-to-Skin contact

Skin to skin contact facilitates the initiation of breast feeding, neonatal thermoregulation and the promotion of maternal-infant attachment. However, there are cultural influences in society and in the labour ward that may make implemention of skin to skin contact difficult.

Economic aspects of pharmacotherapy for chronic constipation

Constipation is one of the most common digestive complaints. It is a symptom, not a disease. The subjectivity that this involves means that assessments of clinical epidemiology, socioeconomic costs and pharmacotherapy are difficult, since there is no definition of 'normal' bowel habit. Although constipation can affect all ages, the problem increases with age, and is of particular concern for those who are frail and in long term care. Cultural influences may affect the prevalence in older people. Drug therapy of constipation cannot be considered in isolation, since there are issues in the prevention of constipation and the principles of good management that also apply. Furthermore, some consideration of the pathophysiology and diagnosis is important. This is because a number of remediable causes can be identified, and the diagnostic process involves patient education, which in turn may be effective in reducing costs. It is the complaint of constipation which leads either to self-medication or to consultation with the medical profession. Both of these courses of action have a significant influence on utilisation of laxatives (cathartics), obtained both over-the-counter and by prescription. Although there are a large number of laxative preparations available, therapy has changed little in half a century. Costs may vary considerably, and with such a significant problem there is a need for comparative studies. However, study methodologies are difficult, and a significant placebo response may be found. Education and preventive measures have been shown to reduce laxative use and costs in institutions. Unfortunately, there are few comparative studies of individual laxatives and even fewer cost-effectiveness studies. Those that there are have been based in institutions, and so extrapolation to other situations may be difficult. In general, little attention is given to constipation. It is, however, an area with significant resource implications in which education and preventive measures have been shown to be beneficial. Even so, there is still a need for good comparative studies, particularly where cost effectiveness is concerned.

Do Nonagenarians siblings provide mutual support? Insights from the EU GeHA project

Introduction.– Sibling relationships have been described as intimate,
congenial, loyal, apathetic or hostile but little is known about
sibling relationships in very old age.Weasked nonagenarian brothers
and sisters from the EU-funded Genetics of Healthy Ageing
(GeHA) project whether they had felt supported by having a living
sibling to have better coping abilities.
Methods and results.– Nonagenarian siblings were a convenience
sample from four countries from the GeHA study–Italy, Poland,
N Ireland, Finland. All were consented willing participants. Most
male/female dyads demonstrated healthy respect for each other’s
opinion and their sibling relationship fits the “loyal” type, though
with a clear sense of independence.Noneof the eight female/female
nor the one male/male dyad seemed to fit the “intimate” description;
two might be described as “apathetic”, while the other two
seemed to show aspects of family “loyalty”, alongside other traits
perhaps best described as “congenial”. There were apparent different
cultural influences across Europe with siblings in Italy and
Poland more likely to report supportive siblinghood, compared to
sibling pairs/trios in Finland or N Ireland where self-resilience and
independence seemed more common. Polish and Italian nonagenarians
often felt supported by their religious faith and church.
Conclusions.– In general, nonagenarian siblings most often demonstrated
loyal family relationships, which may have helped each
other’s coping and survival mechanisms. However, there was
widespread evidence of tolerance for individual decision-making.
Perhaps rather, these 90-year-olds survive because they are
resilient and independent and don’t need to depend on each other!

Father Identity, Involvement and Work–Family Balance: An In-depth Interview Study

Work and family roles have changed considerably in the past number of decades. Fathers are now expected to fulfil the role of 'new father' that involves actively caring and sharing in child rearing and, at the same time, maintain commitment to their occupational role. As a consequence, men are subject to the same pressure that women were when they initially entered the workplace decades ago and indeed still are today. This study aims to explore the meanings fathers attach to their life roles, how these meanings influence behaviour within these roles and how they negotiate the demands of these roles. In-depth interviews were carried out with 15 fathers, and the results were analysed adhering to the principles of grounded theory. The findings show the variability among fathers in both their commitment to fathering and the meanings they attach to that role. A significant tension between new fatherhood ideals and actual fathering practices is also apparent. These findings are discussed drawing upon traditional definitions of masculinity and wider occupational and cultural influences.

Making British Indian Fictions, 1772-1823

This book examines fictional representations of India in novels, plays and poetry produced between the years 1772 to 1823 as historical source material. It uses literary texts as case studies to investigate how Britons residing both in the metropole and in India justified, confronted and imagined the colonial encounter during this period. The study will situate the texts in relation to the shifting colonial context and to the changing attitudes towards India within Britain in general and on the part of Britons who had experience of living in India, such as East India Company men or their wives and daughters, in particular. Moreover, it will analyse how this literature responded to the increasing influence of the subcontinent on metropolitan culture. This book, then, approaches fictional texts as case studies that illuminate trends taking place within Britain such as the growing consumption of Indian-style imported goods and the commoditisation of an Indian aesthetic within British visual culture. Whilst the book will utilise fictional portrayals to comment upon shifts in the relationship between coloniser and colonised and to discuss the cross-cultural influences between the metropole and the colonial periphery, it also outlines how literary production and print capitalism played a part in shaping depictions of the subcontinent and stereotypes of the colonial 'other'. The study will also examine how representations of the subcontinent in British art and scholarship were influenced by metropolitan literary and popular culture. At the same time it will look at how representations by metropolitan authors influenced early-nineteenth century depictions by British authors who resided in India.

Cultural and Genetic Influences on the “Biological Standard of Living”

This study suggests an improvement of a popular measure of living standards, namely the biological standard of living. One influence on it is a population's consumption pattern. Since there are different dietary patterns all over the world, researchers estimate the influences of national diets on final average male height. These habits are predominantly related to income, but also to genetics, cultural history, and decisions regarding whether to trade or consume high-quality foodstuffs. Systematic differences are found when analyzing protein-consumption habits among 51 countries between the 1960s and the 1980s. The author calculates metric correction values which can facilitate international comparisons of male average height. While the proposed correction values make a little difference on average, they can be valuable in a comparison of countries with markedly different dietary patterns.