Michael Fingerle

Predicting aggressive behavior in children with the help of measures of implicit and explicit aggression

Aggressive behavior between children in schools is a topic that receives much interest as violence and aggressive behavior cause many maladaptive social outcomes in the school setting. In the current study the Implicit Association Test (IAT) was adapted as a measure of children’s implicit aggression, by assessing the association of the self category (vs. other) with the attribute concept of aggressive (vs. peaceful). In addition to the IAT, a questionnaire measure to assess explicit aggression was utilized. The main goal of the present contribution was to examine the predictive validity of measures of implicit as well as explicit aggression in predicting the scores in a competitive computer game as an indicator of children’s aggressive behavior. Taken together, the results indicated that measures of implicit and explicit aggression could serve as reliable predictors of children’s aggressive behavior and that the IAT possesses incremental validity in addition to the self-report measure.

Is Contact with People with Disabilities a Guarantee for Positive Implicit and Explicit Attitudes

In the past 50 years research on attitudes toward people with disabilities has repeatedly revealed negative attitudes by predominantly using self-report measures. The main aim of the present contribution was to develop an Implicit Association Test (IAT) to assess implicit attitudes toward people with disabilities. For this purpose 47 university students majoring in special education (11 male, 36 female) were asked to complete the IAT in addition to self-reported explicit attitudes (affective, cognitive, and behavioural component). Moreover, the students were asked about the amount and perceived quality of their contact experience with people with disabilities. Results showed that participants reported on average most negative explicit attitudes in the affective, followed by the cognitive and the behavioural component. On average, students were more likely to associate the category ‘disabled’ with the attribute ‘unpleasant’ on the IAT. Overall, explicit and implicit attitudes were only weakly correlated. The amount of contact significantly predicted the three components of explicit attitudes, but not implicit attitudes. The results and limitations of this study will be discussed with respect to their implications for the educational context.

Child sexual abuse prevention goes online: Introducing “Cool and Safe” and its effects

Abstract Due to the high prevalence and serious consequences of child sexual abuse, various preventive efforts were developed in the last years. The present contribution introduces a newly developed web-based training aiming at the prevention of child sexual abuse and describes the results of the first evaluation of “Cool and Safe”. In the study children were asked about their knowledge, behavioral intentions, emotional awareness, and anxiety before and after participating in “Cool and Safe”. Results showed that the training improves knowledge and trains secure behavioral strategies. Moreover, a decrease in the hiding of emotions for children who participated in the training in comparison to a control group was found. No increase in anxiety could be detected. With respect to the acceptance of the prevention program positive results were obtained. The benefits of web-based prevention and especially the advantages of “Cool and Safe” will be discussed.

The role of emotion regulation in situational empathy-related responding and prosocial behaviour in the presence of negative affect

Empathy and prosocial behaviour are crucial factors for childrens positive social adjustment. Contemporary models of empathy highlight the capacity to regulate vicariously experienced emotions as a precursor to empathy-related responses (e.g., prosocial behaviour). The goal of this study was to examine the role of emotion regulation (ER) in situational empathy-related responding and prosocial behaviour. A sample of 157 children (76 boys and 81 girls; Mage = 9.94 years) participated in a two-tiered interview procedure that utilised vignettes to assess empathy and prosocial behaviour. Between both phases of the interview, a negative affect was induced to investigate the influence of ER on the change between the two phases. Results from a latent change model showed that ER strategies positively predicted change scores, that is, children with higher abilities to regulate emotions showed a higher increase in empathy and prosocial behaviour. Implications for the promotion of social-emotional learning in school are discussed.

Measuring acceptance of prevention programmes in children

The present paper describes the development of a scale to measure social validity in elementary-school children. A standardized assessment of childrens opinions about prevention programmes can be helpful in ensuring successful implementation and effectiveness. The results show that the scale consists of three factors: importance of goals, importance of effects and appropriateness of methods. Correlations with parental reports as well as gender differences were analysed. It can be concluded that measuring social validity with the newly developed scale can help researchers in the field of developmental psychology to tailor prevention programmes to the target group.

Emotionsregulation im Grundschulalter

In der Entwicklung der Emotionsregulation stellt das Grundschulalter eine Phase dar, in der bereits zuvor erlernte Fahigkeiten ausdifferenziert und verfeinert werden. Zugleich verlagert sich dabei die in der fruhen Kindheit noch stark auf die Unterstutzung durch Eltern und andere Bezugspersonen angewiesene Emotionsregulation mehr und mehr in den Bereich der autonomen Selbstregulation. Dieser grundsatzlich bei allen Kindern zu beobachtende Prozess kann im Einzelfall allerdings sehr unterschiedlich verlaufen und bei Kindern, die nicht uber die notigen personalen und sozialen Ressourcen verfugen, zu Formen der Emotionsregulation fuhren, die nicht den sozialen Erwartungen entsprechen. Zur fruhzeitigen Erkennung stehen diagnostische Verfahren zur Verfugung und es existiert ein breit gefachertes Angebot an padagogisch-psychologischen Forderansatzen, die an Schulen durchgefuhrt werden konnen, um Emotionsregulationsfahigkeiten zu verbessern.

Der Krankheitsverlauf bei einer Brustkrebspatientin aus der Perspektive der Resilienzforschung

Resilienz lasst sich als eine spezifische Personeneigenschaft auffassen, aber auch als Prozess der erfolgreichen Bearbeitung auserordentlicher Herausforderungen. Im letzteren Fall interessiert weniger die Frage, ob ein Mensch eine spezielle »resiliente« Fahigkeit besitzt, als vielmehr das »Wie« der individuellen Risikobewaltigung, das als ein Ergebnis der individuellen Konstellation von Ressourcen und Risiken, aber auch der vorausgehenden und sich in der Risikobearbeitung entwickelnden Lernbiographie betrachtet wird.