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Ambiguous Situations (ambiguous + situation)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Psychology	50%

Selected Abstracts

Inconclusive Cystic Fibrosis neonatal screening results: long-term psychosocial effects on parents

ACTA PAEDIATRICA, Issue 12 2009
Sandra Perobelli
Abstract Aim:, Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Newborn Screening occasionally identifies neonates where a CF diagnosis can neither be confirmed nor excluded. To assess how parents of these infants cope with this ambiguous situation. Methods:, Parents of 11 children with Ambiguous Diagnosis (group AD) were compared with parents of 11 children diagnosed with CF through neonatal screening [group Cystic Fibrosis Diagnosis (CFD)] and with parents of 11 Healthy Control children (group HC) matched for gender and age. Results:, The emotional reaction to the inconclusive result was less pronounced in AD than in CFD (p = 0.003), and AD parents considered their infants as healthy as controls. Parents' anxiety about their child's health is stronger in CFD than in AD (p < 0.05) and HC (p < 0.001). Long-term emotional distress was rated similarly in AD and CFD, and greater than in HC (p = 0.0003). The parent/child relationship was less influenced in AD than in the CF group (p = 0.03). Seven AD and CFD parents changed their family planning projects. Conclusion:, Inconclusive neonatal screening results appear to be understood and associated with lower anxiety levels than CF diagnosis. Concern about the child's health is similar to healthy controls and lower than in parents of CF children. [source]

The relation of personality types to physiological, behavioural, and cognitive processes

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 5 2005
Daniel Hart
Three personality types, labeled resilient, over-controlled, and under-controlled, were identified through cluster analysis of classroom observations of 63 children, and used to understand biological, cognitive, and behavioural processes that influence academic achievement and aggression. Resilient children were found to be high in trait cortisol and high in academic achievement. Under-controlled and over-controlled children showed the greatest change in cortisol levels under stress, low levels of academic achievement, and attributed hostility to others in ambiguous situations. Under-controlled children also exhibited high levels of externalizing behaviour in the classroom. The findings suggest that the single processes or traits assessed in this study do not mediate the associations of personality types to academic achievement and behaviour. The implications of the findings for the personality type construct and for personality processes are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Blushing after a moral transgression in a prisoner's dilemma game: appeasing or revealing?

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 5 2002
Peter J. de Jong
This study investigated the alleged remedial effects of blushing in the context of real-time interactions. Therefore, 30 pairs of prosocial individuals participated in a prisoner's dilemma ,game'. The experiment was framed as an objective test of moral behaviour. To elicit a shameful moral transgression, one individual of each pair was instructed to select the non-habitual cheat-option on a pre-defined target trial. Supporting the idea that violation of shared rules elicits blushing, the defectors displayed a blush on the target trial. Yet, unexpectedly, there was a negative relationship between the observed blush intensity and the trustworthiness attributed to the defectors. One explanation might be that the ,victims' used the blush response to deduce and interpret the defector's motive. As the antecedent behaviour involved in the present context was not completely unambiguous with respect to the perpetrators' motive (e.g. innocent playing around vs. maximizing outcomes) the observers might have interpreted blushing as signaling that the situation should be interpreted as an intentional violation of a social standard. Together the available evidence suggests that only in the context of unambiguous antecedent behaviours blushing has remedial effects, whereas in ambiguous situations blushing has undesirable revealing effects. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

A Heterotopian Analysis of Maritime Refugee Incidents

INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2009
Michele Budz
Given the persistent significance of states in the determination of legal identities of people on the move, a consideration of the construction of people as legal (or illegal) migrants, refugees, or asylum-seekers must also recognize that these determinations take place in conjunction with the simultaneous processes through which spaces such as sovereign states or ships carrying asylum-seekers are constructed. A heterotopian analysis of the Tampa and the SIEVX of 2001 allows for a consideration of the ways in which notions of sovereignty, territory and governmentality work to stabilize ambiguous situations produced by the conflictual discourses of human rights and state power. [source]