Lead author on the new study, Kouros and her co-author, relationship psychologist Lauren M. Papp at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found that couples do poorly when it comes to knowing their partner is sad, lonely or feeling down.
Spouses are the primary source of social support to one another, so it’s important to their relationship they stay attuned to each other’s emotions.
How well do couples pick up on one another’s feelings? Pretty well, when the emotion is happiness, says a psychologist at Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
But a new study finds that couples do poorly when it comes to knowing their partner is sad, lonely or feeling down.
“We found that when it comes to the normal ebb and flow of daily emotions, couples aren’t picking up on those occasional changes in ‘soft negative’ emotions like sadness or feeling down,” said family psychologist Chrystyna D. Kouros, lead author on the study. “They might be missing important emotional clues.”
Even when a negative mood isn’t related to the relationship, it ultimately can be harmful to a couple, said Kouros, an associate professor in the SMU Department of Psychology. A spouse is usually the primary social supporter for a person.
“Failing to pick up on negative feelings one or two days is not a big deal,” she said. “But if this accumulates, then down the road it could become a problem for the relationship. It’s these missed opportunities to be offering support or talking it out that can compound over time to negatively affect a relationship.”
The finding is consistent with other research that has shown that couples tend to assume their partner feels the same way they are feeling, or thinks the same way they do, Kouros said.
But when it comes to sadness and loneliness, couples need to be on the look-out for tell-tale signs. Some people are better at this process of “empathic accuracy” — picking up on a partner’s emotions — than others.
“With empathic accuracy you’re relying on clues from your partner to figure out their mood,” Kouros said. “Assumed similarity, on the other hand, is when you just assume your partner feels the same way you do. Sometimes you might be right, because the two of you actually do feel the same, but not because you were really in tune with your partner.”
Co-author on the study is relationship psychologist Lauren M. Papp at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Couples should assume less about one another, observe more
The problem isn’t one for which couples need to seek therapy, Kouros said. Instead, she advises couples to stop assuming they know what their partner is feeling. Also, pay more attention to your partner, and communicate more.
“I suggest couples put a little more effort into paying attention to their partner — be more mindful and in the moment when you are with your partner,” she said.
She cautions, however, against becoming annoying by constantly asking how the other is feeling, or if something is wrong.
“Obviously you could take it too far,” Kouros said. “If you sense that your partner’s mood is a little different than usual, you can just simply ask how their day was, or maybe you don’t even bring it up, you just say instead ‘Let me pick up dinner tonight’ or ‘I’ll put the kids to bed tonight.’”
Even so, partners shouldn’t assume their spouse is a mind-reader, expecting them to pick up on their emotions. “If there’s something you want to talk about, then communicate that. It’s a two-way street,” she said. “It’s not just your partner’s responsibility.”
Participants were 51 couples who completed daily diaries about their mood and the mood of their partner for seven consecutive nights. The study veers from conventional approaches to the topic, which have relied on interviewing couples in a lab setting about feelings related to conflicts in their relationship.
Kouros and Papp will also present the research findings March 23 at the 2018 biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Human Development. — Margaret Allen, SMU
Meuret is director of the Anxiety and Depression Research Center at SMU, with expertise in discussing the differences between fear and anxiety and when each is helpful and adaptive and when they are harmful and interfere with our lives.
An associate professor in the Clinical Psychology Division of the SMU Department of Psychology, Meuret received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Hamburg based on her doctoral work conducted at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University and the Affective Neuroscience Laboratory in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.
Her research program focuses on novel treatment approaches for anxiety and mood disorders, biomarkers in anxiety disorders and chronic disease, fear extinction mechanisms of exposure therapy, and mediators and moderators in individuals with affective dysregulations, including non-suicidal self-injury.
The article “A Tiny Spot In Mouse Brains May Explain How Breathing Calms The Mind,” cites new findings from Meuret’s research, which found patients undergoing exposure therapy for anxiety fared better when sessions were held in the morning when levels of the helpful natural hormone cortisone are higher in the brain.
By Jessica Boddy
NPR
Take a deep breath in through your nose, and slowly let it out through your mouth. Do you feel calmer?
Controlled breathing like this can combat anxiety, panic attacks and depression. It’s one reason so many people experience tranquility after meditation or a pranayama yoga class. How exactly the brain associates slow breathing with calmness and quick breathing with nervousness, though, has been a mystery. Now, researchers say they’ve found the link, at least in mice.
The key is a smattering of about 175 neurons in a part of the brain the researchers call the breathing pacemaker, which is a cluster of nearly 3,000 neurons that sit in the brainstem and control autonomic breathing. Through their research is in mice, the researchers found that those 175 neurons are the communication highway between the breathing pacemaker and the part of the brain responsible for attention, arousal and panic. So breathing rate could directly affect feeling calm or anxious, and vice versa.
If that mouse pathway works the same way in humans, it would explain why we get so chilled out after slowing down our breathing. […]
[…] Alicia Meuret, an associate professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University who also wasn’t involved in the study, wasn’t sure if what the authors described as calm mouse behavior could be described as such. “It’s hard to determine what calm behavior is [in mice],” Meuret says. “We can see their behavior, but we don’t know what effect the loss of neurons has on their emotions.”
Banzett echoed that concern, noting the authors inferred emotion because “they equate the increase in grooming behavior with the emotional state of calmness.”
In the first study of its kind, self-persuasion software on an iPad motivated low-income parents to want to protect their teens against the cancer-causing Human Papillomavirus.
Journalist Justin Martin with KERA public radio news covered the research of SMU psychology professor Austin S. Baldwin, a principal investigator on the research.
The SMU study found that low-income parents will decide to have their teens vaccinated against the sexually transmitted cancer-causing virus if the parents persuade themselves of the protective benefits.
The study’s subjects — almost all moms — were taking their teens and pre-teens to a safety-net pediatric clinic for medical care. It’s the first to look at changing parents’ behavior through self-persuasion using English- and Spanish-language materials.
A very common virus, HPV infects nearly one in four people in the United States, including teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control. HPV infection can cause cervical, vaginal and vulvar cancers in females; penile cancer in males; and anal cancer, back of the throat cancer and genital warts in both genders, the CDC says.
The CDC recommends a series of two shots of the vaccine for 11- to 14-year-olds to build effectiveness in advance of sexual activity. For 15- to 26-year-olds, they are advised to get three doses over the course of eight months, says the CDC.
Currently, about 60% of adolescent girls and 40% of adolescent boys get the first dose of the HPV vaccine. After that, about 20% of each group fail to follow through with the second dose, Baldwin said.
Guilt, social pressure and even a doctor’s recommendation aren’t enough to motivate low-income families to vaccinate their teenagers for Human Papillomavirus (HPV), according to research from Southern Methodist University.
But a follow-up study from SMU finds that if parents persuade themselves of the benefits of the vaccinations, more teenagers in low-income families receive protection from the sexually transmitted, cancer-causing virus.
Austin Baldwin, a professor of psychology at SMU, led the research.
What the study tells us about poverty: HPV is a sexually transmitted virus that is the primary cause of a variety of cancers. There’s been a vaccine developed in the last 10 years, 12 years that’s now approved. At times, those who are underinsured or uninsured don’t have this same level of access to it. Both here locally as well as nationally [among] folks who are poor, who are uninsured, we see clear disparities across a variety of health outcomes including cancer, including cervical cancer. The HPV vaccine is potentially a very effective means to address some of those health disparities.
How the study was conducted: We recruited parents of adolescents who get their pediatric care at Parkland clinic, and they participated in an iPad app that we developed. It provides them with some basic information about HPV and about the vaccine. It then prompts them with a number of questions to think about why getting the vaccine may be important, and then it prompts them to generate their own reasons for why they would get the vaccine. Most of the parents who had not previously given thought to or were undecided about the vaccine reported that they had decided to get their adolescent vaccinated.
Helicopter parenting reduces the well-being of young women, while the failure to foster independence harms the well-being of young men but not young women.
Male and female college students react differently to misguided parenting, according to a new study that looked at the impact of helicopter parenting and fostering independence.
Measuring both helicopter parenting as well as autonomy support — fostering independence — was important for the researchers to study, said family dynamics expert Chrystyna Kouros, an assistant professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, and an author on the study.
“Just because mom and dad aren’t helicopter parents, doesn’t necessarily mean they are supporting their young adult in making his or her own choices,” Kouros said. “The parent may be uninvolved, so we also wanted to know if parents are actually encouraging their student to be independent and make their own choices.”
The researchers found that young women are negatively affected by helicopter parenting, while young men suffer when parents don’t encourage independence.
“The sex difference was surprising,” said Kouros, an expert in adolescent depression. “In Western culture in particular, boys are socialized more to be independent, assertive and take charge, while girls are more socialized toward relationships, caring for others, and being expressive and compliant. Our findings showed that a lack of autonomy support — failure to encourage independence — was more problematic for males, but didn’t affect the well-being of females. Conversely, helicopter parenting — parents who are overinvolved — proved problematic for girls, but not boys.”
The study is unique in measuring the well-being of college students, said Kouros, director of the Family Health and Development Lab at SMU. The tendency in research on parenting has been to focus on the mental health of younger children.
“When researchers do focus on college students they tend to ask about academic performance, and whether students are engaged in school. But there haven’t been as many studies that look at mental health or well-being in relation to helicopter parenting,” she said.
Unlike children subjected to psychological control, in which parents try to instill guilt in their child, children of helicopter parents report a very close bond with their parents. Helicopter parents “hover” out of concern for their child, not from malicious intent, she said.
What helicopter parents don’t realize is that despite their good intentions to help their child, it actually does harm, said Naomi Ekas, a co-author on the study and assistant professor of psychology at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth.
“They’re not allowing their child to become independent or learn problem-solving on their own, nor to test out and develop effective coping strategies,” Ekas said.
Young men that reported more autonomy support, measured stronger well-being in the form of less social anxiety and fewer depressive symptoms.
For young women, helicopter parenting predicted lower psychological well-being. They were less optimistic, felt less satisfaction with accomplishments, and were not looking forward to things with enjoyment, nor feeling hopeful. In contrast, lacking autonomy support wasn’t related to negative outcomes in females.
“The take-away is we have to adjust our parenting as our kids get older,” said Kouros. “Being involved with our child is really important. But we have to adapt how we are involved as they are growing up, particularly going off to college.”
Other co-authors were: Romilyn Kiriaki and Megan Sunderland, SMU Department of Psychology, and Megan M. Pruitt, Texas Christian University. The study was funded by the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at the University of Texas at Austin.
Parental involvement can go too far
Research on child development has consistently found that children are more successful when they have parental involvement and support.
Now, however, research is finding that parental involvement can go too far. Call it over-parenting, over-controlling parenting or helicopter parenting, but the characteristics are the same: parents offer their child a lot of warmth and support, but in combination with high levels of control and low levels of autonomy and independence.
For example a parent may dispute their college student’s low grade with a professor or negotiate their young adult’s job offer and salary.
Previous research in the field has linked helicopter parenting to a student’s poor academic achievement, lower self-esteem and life satisfaction, poor peer relationships, and greater interpersonal dependency.
“With helicopter parenting you’re impeding children from meeting the developmental goals of being independent and autonomous,” Kouros said. “That lowers their confidence in being able to solve problems on their own. They lose the opportunity to learn how to deal with stressors. Someone who’s used to figuring out daily hassles, however, learns strategies, gets practice and knows problems aren’t the end of the world.”
In contrast, research in the field links positive outcomes when parents support autonomy and independence by encouraging their young adults to make decisions and solve problems. Autonomy support is related to higher self-esteem and less depression.
Minimal research into sex differences of young adults
For the current study, the researchers wanted to see if helicopter parenting and low autonomy support equally affected male and female students.
Researching potential differences was especially important, the researchers concluded, since studies have found that females are twice as prone as males to develop depression and anxiety.
Very little research of sex differences has been conducted in emerging adulthood in relation to parenting. What limited research there is suggests that over-controlling or lax parenting increases the risk for maladjustment, particularly for young women.
The researchers surveyed 118 undergraduate students recruited from two mid-sized private universities in the southwest United States. The majority of students were female, between 18 and 25 years old, primarily white and Hispanic and living on campus.
Students completed widely accepted measures of helicopter parenting and autonomy support. The questionnaires asked students to rank their agreements or disagreement on a scale for items such as “If I were to receive a low grade that I felt was unfair, my parents would call the professor,” or “My parents encourage me to make my own decisions and take responsibility for the choices I make.”
To assess mental health and well-being, the students completed an accepted inventory for depression and anxiety symptoms that asked questions about their feelings the past two weeks. Examples include, “I felt depressed,” “I felt self-conscious knowing that others were watching me,” and “I felt hopeful about the future.”
The study complements a growing body of research about the harmful effects of helicopter parenting for adult children. It also adds to research indicating females are more vulnerable to the negative effects than males.
“You should love and care for your child, but the way you show it and manifest it has to be developmentally appropriate. Your parenting has to follow where your child is developmentally,” Kouros said. “Being over-involved while your child is in college, that may not be appropriate anymore. That doesn’t mean you disengage. So if a college student wants to call their parent and talk through an issue and problem solve, I think that’s appropriate. But it’s their problem and they should be able to confidently handle it on their own.” — Margaret Allen
In the first study of its kind, self-persuasion software on an iPad motivated low-income parents to want to protect their teens against the cancer-causing human papillomavirus
As health officials struggle to boost the number of teens vaccinated against the deadly human papillomavirus, a new study from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, found that self-persuasion works to bring parents on board.
Currently public health efforts rely on educational messages and doctor recommendations to persuade parents to vaccinate their adolescents. Self-persuasion as a tool for HPV vaccinations has never been researched until now.
The SMU study found that low-income parents will decide to have their teens vaccinated against the sexually transmitted cancer-causing virus if the parents persuade themselves of the protective benefits.
The study’s subjects — almost all moms — were taking their teens and pre-teens to a safety-net pediatric clinic for medical care. It’s the first to look at changing parents’ behavior through self-persuasion using English- and Spanish-language materials.
“This approach is based on the premise that completing the vaccination series is less likely unless parents internalize the beliefs for themselves, as in ‘I see the value, I see the importance, and because I want to help my child,’” said psychology professor Austin S. Baldwin, a principal investigator on the research.
Depending on age, the HPV vaccine requires a series of two or three shots over eight months. External pressure might initially spark parents to action. But vaccinations decline sharply after the first dose.
The new study follows an earlier SMU study that found guilt, social pressure or acting solely upon a doctor’s recommendation was not related to parents’ motivation to vaccinate their kids.
Both studies are part of a five-year, $2.5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute. Baldwin, associate professor in the SMU Department of Psychology, is co-principal investigator with Jasmin A. Tiro, associate professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas.
Addressing the HPV problem
A very common virus, HPV infects nearly one in four people in the United States, including teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control. HPV infection can cause cervical, vaginal and vulvar cancers in females; penile cancer in males; and anal cancer, back of the throat cancer and genital warts in both genders, the CDC says.
The CDC recommends a series of two shots of the vaccine for 11- to 14-year-olds to build effectiveness in advance of sexual activity. For 15- to 26-year-olds, they are advised to get three doses over the course of eight months, says the CDC.
Currently, about 60% of adolescent girls and 40% of adolescent boys get the first dose of the HPV vaccine. After that, about 20% of each group fail to follow through with the second dose, Baldwin said.
The goal set by health authorities is to vaccinate 80% of adolescents to achieve the herd immunity effect of indirect protection when a large portion of the population is protected.
NCI grant aimed at developing a software app
The purpose of the National Cancer Institute grant is to develop patient education software for the HPV vaccine that is easily used by low-income parents who may struggle to read and write, and speak only Spanish.
A body of research in the psychology field has shown that the technique of self-persuasion among well-educated people is successful using written English-language materials. Self-persuasion hasn’t previously been tested among underserved populations in safety-net clinics.
The premise is that individuals will be more likely to take action because the choice they are making is important to them and they value it.
In contrast, where motivation is extrinsic, an individual acts out of a sense of others’ expectations or outside pressure.
Research has found that people are much more likely to maintain a behavior over time — such as quitting smoking, exercising or losing weight — when it’s autonomously motivated. Under those circumstances, they value the choice and consider it important.
“A provider making a clear recommendation is clearly important,’” said Deanna C. Denman, a co-author on the study and a graduate researcher in SMU’s Psychology Department. “Autonomy over the decision can be facilitated by the doctor, who can confirm to parents that “The decision is yours, and here are the reasons I recommend it.’”
Doctor’s recommendation matters, but may not be sufficient
For the SMU study, the researchers educated parents in a waiting room by providing a custom-designed software application running on an iPad tablet.
The program guided the parents in English or Spanish to scroll through audio prompts that help them think through why HPV vaccination is important. The parents verbalized in their own words why it would be important to them to get their child vaccinated. Inability to read or write wasn’t a barrier.
Parents in the SMU study were recruited through the Parkland Memorial Hospital’s out-patient pediatric clinics throughout Dallas County. Most of the parents were Hispanic and had a high school education or less. Among 33 parents with unvaccinated adolescents, 27 — 81% — decided they would vaccinate their child after completing the self-persuasion tasks.
New study builds on prior study results
In the earlier SMU study, researchers surveyed 223 parents from the safety-net clinics. They completed questionnaires relevant to motivation, intentions and barriers to vaccination.
The researchers found that autonomous motivation was strongly correlated with intentions, Denman said. As autonomous motivation increased, the greater parents’ intentions to vaccinate. The lower the autonomous motivation, the lower the parents’ intentions to vaccinate, she explained.
“So they may get the first dose because the doctor says it’s important,” Baldwin said. “But the second and third doses require they come back in a couple months and again in six months. It requires the parent to feel it’s important to their child, and that’s perhaps what’s going to push or motivate them to complete the series. So that’s where, downstream, there’s an important implication.”
Other co-authors on the study are Margarita Sala, graduate student in the SMU Psychology Department; Emily G. Marks, Simon C. Lee and Celette Skinner, who along with Tiro are at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center in Dallas; L. Aubree Shay, U.T. School of Public Health, San Antonio; Donna Persaud and Sobha Fuller, Parkland Health & Hospital System, Dallas; and Deborah J. Wiebe, University of California-Merced, Merced, Calif.
CBS News covered the research of SMU Psychology Professor George W. Holden, an expert in spanking and its adverse impact on child development. Holden is co-author on a new study that found corporal punishment is viewed as more acceptable and effective when it’s referred to as spanking.
The new study found that parents and nonparents alike feel better about corporal punishment when it’s called spanking rather than hitting or beating.
Study participants judged identical acts of a child’s misbehavior and the corporal punishment that followed it, but rated the discipline as better or worse simply depending on the verb used to describe it.
SMU psychologist Alan S. Brown was lead author on the study.
Holden is a noted expert on parenting, discipline and family violence and a professor in the SMU Department of Psychology.
He strongly advocates against corporal punishment and cites overwhelming research, including his own, that has demonstrated that spanking is not only ineffective, but also harmful to children, and many times leads to child abuse.
Holden is a founding member of the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, endhittingusa.org.
Brown is an expert in how people store and retrieve information about the real world, and the manner in which those processes fail us, such as tip of the tongue experience, where one is momentarily stymied in accessing well-stored knowledge.
He also explores the prevalence of other varieties of spontaneous familiarity, related to déjà vu, and whether there are changes across the age span and how people incorporate other’s life experiences into their own autobiography.
By Mary Brophy Marcus
CBS News
Words matter when it comes to how people perceive parents’ actions when they discipline their kids, a new study shows.
When researchers at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, asked adults – 481 parents and 191 without kids – to judge a child’s misbehavior and the punishment that followed, the study participants were more accepting of the same violent punishment when it was called a “spank” versus terms like “slap,” “hit” or “beat.”
In other words, the same form of discipline was considered better or worse depending on the verb used to describe it, study author Dr. George Holden, professor and chair of the department of psychology at SMU, told CBS News.
“Other people have talked about this issue, so it’s not a novel idea, but no one to date has done an empirical study to show simply by changing the particular verb used to describe a parental act that it does indeed change peoples’ perceptions,” he said.
Television station CW33 quoted SMU Psychology Professor Alan S. Brown for his latest research that found corporal punishment is viewed as more acceptable and effective when it’s referred to as spanking.
Brown’s new study found that parents and nonparents alike feel better about corporal punishment when it’s called spanking rather than hitting or beating.
Study participants judged identical acts of a child’s misbehavior and the corporal punishment that followed it, but rated the discipline as better or worse simply depending on the verb used to describe it.
Brown was lead author on the research, conducted with SMU psychologist George W. Holden, a noted expert on parenting, discipline and family violence and a professor in the SMU Department of Psychology.
Brown’s research primarily involves how people store and retrieve information about the real world, and the manner in which those processes fail us, such as tip of the tongue experience, where one is momentarily stymied in accessing well-stored knowledge.
He also explores the prevalence of other varieties of spontaneous familiarity, related to déjà vu, and whether there are changes across the age span. Finally, there are several research projects on how people incorporate other’s life experiences into their own autobiography.
Holden is noted for his expertise on spanking. He strongly advocates against corporal punishment and cites overwhelming research, including his own, that has demonstrated that spanking is not only ineffective, but also harmful to children, and many times leads to child abuse.
Holden is a founding member of the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, endhittingusa.org.
By Eric Gonzales
The CW33
So how does the word spanking hit you?
A new study by Southern Methodist University bets there are no hard feelings when it comes to getting spanked.
Psychology Professor Alan Brown says the word spank sounds more acceptable to people than saying a kid is getting a slap, a hit or a beating as punishment.
Even though hitting or slapping as punishment may be the same as a spanking, the professor says spanking sounds less harsh.
But parents say it may depend on where you’re spanked. “We got our butts spanked, our butts, not out backs, not our legs,” said Renee Hudspeth. “Even if we did get hit on the arm or the leg, it`s because we were trying to run from our parents.”
The professor says even swatting a kid sounds better than other words for corporal punishment, like beating.
Of course, some people say it’s never okay to hit a child. But a lot of parents believe spanking isn`t behind them.
Parents and nonparents alike buffer their views of physical discipline and rate it more common, acceptable and effective when it’s labeled with a more neutral, less violent word
Parents and nonparents alike feel better about corporal punishment when it’s called ‘spanking’ rather than ‘hitting’ or ‘beating,’ according to a new study by researchers at Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
Study participants judged identical acts of a child’s misbehavior and the corporal punishment that followed it, but rated the discipline as better or worse simply depending on the verb used to describe it.
Discipline acts referred to as spank and swat were ranked as more effective and acceptable than those referred to as slap, hit or beat.
The findings of the study indicate that people buffer negative views of corporal punishment by calling it by a more culturally acceptable label, said psychologist Alan Brown, psychology professor at SMU and lead author on the research.
“Our findings suggest that the way child-discipline is described may alter the action’s implied intensity or physical harm, and its consequences such as emotional upset,” Brown said. “Calling a response to misbehavior a ‘swat’ may imply higher prevalence of that response as well as make it seem more justifiable and valid — even if the actual punishment is the same as an act described more harshly.”
Participants in the study rated the acts after reading and responding to hypothetical scenarios in which a mom disciplined her misbehaving son. Spank rated highest for commonness, acceptability and effectiveness, while beat ranked the worst, he said.
“The labels that we give to our experiences can have a moderate to profound influence on how we interpret and remember these events,” Brown said. “We found that altering the verb used to describe an act of corporal punishment can change perception of its effectiveness and acceptance of it.”
One implication of the study is that public health interventions to eliminate corporal punishment should focus on changing the semantics of discipline to reduce or prevent violence, say the authors. They cite UNICEF’s 2014 recommendation that “There is a need to eliminate words which maintain ‘social norms that hide violence in plain sight.’”
The psychologists endorse replacing the verb spank with the verb assault, as suggested by other researchers in the field, which they say could change the perception of spanking and reduce its use.
Labels can buffer how actions are perceived
Research consistently has found that corporal punishment does emotional and developmental harm to children and fails to improve a child’s behavior over the long run.
“Our belief is that it is never OK to discipline a child by striking them, and that various terms commonly used to describe such actions can buffer how these actions are perceived,” Brown said. “Our research demonstrated that ratings of how common, acceptable and effective an act of corporal punishment appears to be is significantly influenced by the word used to describe it.”
Co-author on the study was psychologist George Holden, a noted expert on parenting, discipline and family violence and co-author on the research and a professor in the SMU Department of Psychology.
The other co-author on the research was Rose Ashraf, a graduate student in SMU’s Department of Psychology.
Holden is a founding steering committee member and current president of the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children.
Study examined how different terms influence perceptions and actions
Participants were 191 nonparents and 481 parents.
The discipline scenarios were between a mom and her 5-year-old son. The mom and son varied with each scenario, which described a boy in eight acts of misbehavior: aggression, stealing, ignoring requests, deception, teasing, property destruction, animal cruelty and lying.
Study participants read each vignette of misbehavior, and the subsequent description of the mom’s response using a term commonly reflecting corporal punishment: spank, slap, swat, hit and beat.
The authors selected the labels from the most commonly used terms in the research literature for corporal punishment in American culture.
The hypothetical scenarios were brief and left context and details such as the seriousness of the transgression or the intentions of the misbehaving child to the respondents’ imaginations.
For example: “John continues to hit his sibling after his mother has asked him to stop. John’s mother ______ him.” The participants then rated the mother’s response on how common it was, how acceptable it was and how effective it was.
The purpose was to examine how differences in the terms influence perceptions of parental discipline, the authors said.
“Our study highlights the role of language in legitimizing violent parental behavior,” according to the authors in their article. “Altering the verb used to describe the same act of corporal punishment can have a substantial impact on how that parental response is evaluated, with some terms having a relative tempering effect (spank, swat) compared with others (hit, slap, beat).”
Meuret is director of the Anxiety and Depression Research Center at SMU, with expertise in discussing the differences between fear and anxiety and when each is helpful and adaptive and when they are harmful and interfere with our lives.
An associate professor in the Clinical Psychology Division at the SMU Department of Psychology, Meuret received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Hamburg based on her doctoral work conducted at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University and the Affective Neuroscience Laboratory in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.
Her research program focuses on novel treatment approaches for anxiety and mood disorders, biomarkers in anxiety disorders and chronic disease, fear extinction mechanisms of exposure therapy, and mediators and moderators in individuals with affective dysregulations, including non-suicidal self-injury.
The article “For better talk therapy, try taking a nap,” cites new findings from Meuret’s research, which found patients undergoing exposure therapy for anxiety fared better when sessions were held in the morning when levels of the helpful natural hormone cortisone are higher in the brain.
By Andrea Petersen
Wall Street Journal
New tweaks are improving the age-old practice of talk therapy.
Doing therapy in the morning, taking a nap afterward or adding a medication that enhances learning are just a few of the methods scientists are discovering that can make cognitive behavioral therapy work better.
CBT, which involves changing dysfunctional patterns of thoughts and behaviors, is one of the most well-researched and effective treatments for a range of mental health issues, including anxiety disorders, depression and eating disorders.
But about a quarter to half of people with depression and anxiety don’t get significant relief after a course of CBT, which usually consists of about 12 to 15 weekly sessions. Some patients find the treatment time-consuming and difficult. Anywhere from 15% to 30% of people who begin it don’t finish, says David H. Barlow, founder of the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University. “There’s still plenty of room for improvement,” he says.
A study published in September in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology that involved 24 patients with anxiety disorders found that therapy appointments earlier in the day were more effective than those later in the day.
In the study, subjects—who all had panic disorder with agoraphobia (fear of situations where escape may be difficult)—were treated with exposure therapy, a common component of CBT: They repeatedly confronted situations they feared, such as being in elevators or crowds. Subjects with sessions early in the day reported less severe anxiety symptoms at their next session than those who had sessions later in the day.
The researchers found that higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol that naturally occur in the morning were responsible for at least part of the benefit of the earlier sessions. “Acute boosts of cortisol can actually facilitate learning,” says Alicia E. Meuret, associate professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University and lead author of the study.
Meuret is director of the Anxiety and Depression Research Center at SMU, with expertise in discussing the differences between fear and anxiety and when each is helpful and adaptive and when they are harmful and interfere with our lives.
An associate professor in the Clinical Psychology Division at the SMU Department of Psychology, Meuret received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Hamburg based on her doctoral work conducted at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University and the Affective Neuroscience Laboratory in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.
Her research program focuses on novel treatment approaches for anxiety and mood disorders, biomarkers in anxiety disorders and chronic disease, fear extinction mechanisms of exposure therapy, and mediators and moderators in individuals with affective dysregulations, including non-suicidal self-injury.
The article “The Science-Backed Reason To See Your Therapist In The Morning,” cites new findings from Meuret’s research, which found patients undergoing exposure therapy for anxiety fared better when sessions were held in the morning when levels of the helpful natural hormone cortisone are higher in the brain.
By Sarah DiGiulio
Huffington Post
Not a morning person? There still might be a good reason to get up and at it when it comes to booking time with your therapist.
A new study found that patients actually made more progress in overcoming anxiety, fears and phobias when they went to psychotherapy in the morning versus the afternoon. In fact, a test of panic symptoms revealed that patients had nearly 30 percent more improvement after an a.m. appointment than an afternoon session.
It’s not about whether or not you’re a morning person or a night owl, study author Alicia E. Meuret, a clinical psychologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, told The Huffington Post. The new data suggests morning therapy sessions are aided by higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone that our bodies naturally release throughout the day.
The regular release of cortisol plays a role in ramping up metabolism and your immune system to get your body ready to go for the day, she explained. But more cortisol is released in the morning.
“There is already good evidence that learning is facilitated in the morning. There is also good evidence that cortisol facilitates learning,” she said. But this study is the first to suggest that your morning cortisol boost may also help you better face ― and deal with ― your fears and anxieties.
If you’re struggling to overcome anxiety or a phobia, you’ll want to schedule a session at this time.
Real Simple health writer Amanda MacMillan covered the research of SMU clinical psychologist Alicia Meuret in the latest issue of the magazine and web site.
Meuret is director of the Anxiety and Depression Research Center at SMU, with expertise in discussing the differences between fear and anxiety and when each is helpful and adaptive and when they are harmful and interfere with our lives.
An associate professor in the Clinical Psychology Division at the SMU Department of Psychology, Meuret received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Hamburg based on her doctoral work conducted at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University and the Affective Neuroscience Laboratory in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.
Her research program focuses on novel treatment approaches for anxiety and mood disorders, biomarkers in anxiety disorders and chronic disease, fear extinction mechanisms of exposure therapy, and mediators and moderators in individuals with affective dysregulations, including non-suicidal self-injury.
The article “This Is the Best Time of Day to See Your Therapist,” cites new findings from Meuret’s research, which found patients undergoing exposure therapy for anxiety fared better when sessions were held in the morning when levels of the helpful natural hormone cortisone are higher in the brain.
By Amanda MacMillan
Real Simple
If you see a therapist for anxiety or a phobia, you might make more progress in sessions scheduled for the morning hours. Cortisol, a hormone that regulates stress and fear, is highest at this time of day—and a new study suggests this could make a real difference in overcoming emotional difficulties.
The new research, conducted by researchers at Southern Methodist University and the University of Michigan, focused specifically on a treatment known as exposure therapy. During exposure therapy, patients work with mental-health professionals to put themselves in situations that would normally cause panic or fear. The goal, with repeated exposures, is to diminish those stress responses over time.
“For example, a patient may think that standing in an elevator could cause him or her to lose control or faint, suffocate, or may create physical symptoms that would be intolerable,” explained Alicia E. Meuret, PhD, director of the SMU Anxiety and Depression Research Center, in a press release. “By having them stand in an elevator for a prolonged time, the patient learns that their feared outcome does not occur, despite high levels of anxiety. We call this corrective learning.”
New study found patients with anxiety, phobias and fears showed greater improvement from therapy that was scheduled in the morning, when levels of cortisol — a naturally occurring hormone — test higher.
Patients make more progress toward overcoming anxiety, fears and phobias when their therapy sessions are scheduled in the morning, new research suggests.
The study found that morning sessions helped psychotherapy patients overcome their panic and anxiety and phobic avoidance better, in part, because levels of cortisol — a naturally occurring hormone — are at their highest then, said clinical psychologist Alicia E. Meuret, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
“The hormone cortisol is thought to facilitate fear extinction in certain therapeutic situations,” said Meuret, lead author on the research. “Drugs to enhance fear extinction are being investigated, but they can be difficult to administer and have yielded mixed results. The findings of our study promote taking advantage of two simple and naturally occurring agents – our own cortisol and time of day.”
The study taps into research that anxiety and phobias are best treated by learning corrective information. Patients with anxiety and phobic disorders will overestimate the threat that a sensation or situation can cause. But by direct exposure, a patient learns that the likelihood of an expected catastrophe is very low.
“For example, a patient may think that standing in an elevator could cause him or her to lose control or faint, suffocate, or may create physical symptoms that would be intolerable,” Meuret said. “By having them stand in an elevator for a prolonged time, the patient learns that their feared outcome does not occur, despite high levels of anxiety. We call this corrective learning.”
However, since not all patients benefit equally from exposure therapy, researchers seek to identify ways to enhance corrective learning. To date, no simple way to augment fear extinction has been established.
The hormone cortisol is thought to help the extinction of fear. It appears to suppress the fear memory established by earlier distressing encounters while at the same time helping a patient better absorb and remember the new corrective information.
“In a prior study, we have shown that higher levels of cortisol during and in anticipation of exposure facilitate corrective learning,” said Meuret, an associate professor in the SMU Psychology Department and director of the SMU Anxiety and Depression Research Center in the Clinical Psychology Division of the department. “We also know that cortisol is higher early in the day. But we did not know whether cortisol would act as a mediator between time of day and therapeutic gains. This is what our study investigated.”
Exposure therapy in general resulted in significant improvements
Participants in the study were 24 people diagnosed with panic disorder and agoraphobia, which is a fear of public places where a person feels panicked, trapped or helpless.
For the study, participants underwent a standard psychotherapeutic treatment of “exposure therapy,” in which patients are exposed to situations that can typically induce their panic or fear with the goal that repeated exposure can help diminish a disabling fear response over time.
Patients received weekly sessions over three weeks, each lasting, on average, 40 minutes. Exposure situations included tall buildings, highways and overpasses, enclosed places such as elevators, supermarkets, movie theaters, and public transportation such as subways and intercity trains and boats. In addition, levels of cortisol were measured at various times during each exposure session by swabbing inside the mouth for saliva.
In the session following exposure, the researchers measured patients’ appraisals of the threats, their avoidance behavior, how much control they perceived themselves as having, and the severity of their panic symptoms.
Assessing the results from those measurements, the researchers found the exposure therapy in general resulted in significant improvements in all measures over all time periods.
Biggest gains after sessions that started earlier in the day
However, patients made the biggest gains in overcoming their fears after the sessions that started earlier in the day. At the next session, patients reported less severe symptoms for threat misappraisal, avoidance behaviors and panic symptom severity. They also perceived greater control over their panic symptoms.
“Notably, higher cortisol was related to greater reductions in threat appraisal, perceived control and panic symptom severity at the next session,” Meuret said, “and that was the case over-and-above the effects of time-of-day, with large effect sizes.”
That finding suggests that cortisol accounts for some of the therapeutic effects associated with time-of-day, she said.
Because cortisol levels are generally higher in the morning, the authors speculate that higher cortisol levels may aid extinction learning, and contribute to enhanced early-day benefits of exposure sessions through such a mechanism.
However, Meuret cautioned that the precise mechanism by which cortisol enhances the effectiveness of morning exposure sessions remains unclear and can’t be directly addressed from the data in this study. The sample size of the study was small and findings need to be confirmed independently in larger studies, she said.
Meuret and her team suspect additional mechanisms are at play to explain the time-of-day effect. Other factors could include memory and learning and the body’s natural circadian rhythm, quantity and quality of sleep, attention control, and interactions between those factors and others. — Margaret Allen, SMU
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information, www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
The New York Daily News quoted SMU Psychology Professor George W. Holden for his expertise on spanking in an article about a Georgia principal paddling a 5-year-old boy as punishment. The paddling was caught on video and went viral on the Internet by viewers who were horrified and shocked.
Holden is a leading expert on parenting, discipline and family violence. He strongly advocates against corporal punishment and cites overwhelming research, including his own, that has demonstrated that spanking is not only ineffective, but also harmful to children, and many times leads to child abuse.
Holden, an expert in families and child development, is a founding member of the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, endhittingusa.org.
Holden’s earlier research, “Corporal punishment: Mother’s self-recorded audio,” provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
His work into the determinants of parental behavior, parental social cognition, and the causes and consequences of family violence has been supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, The Timberlawn Research Foundation, and, most recently, the U.S. State Department.
By Laura Bult
New York Daily News
Horrified viewers watched video of a Georgia principal paddling a 5-year-old boy as punishment — a legal but controversial action that has sparked a conversation about the effects of corporal punishment on children.
It is still legal to strike kids as a form of punishment in public schools in 19 states, primarily in the south and the west, despite research and experts’ views that it amounts to child abuse.
“I suspect this thing happens a lot. A lot of paddling goes on in small towns in Texas, and particularly in southern states,” George Holden, the chair of the psychology department at Southern Methodist University and the president of the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, told the Daily News.
The practice persists primarily in the south because of the heavy influence of religion, Holden added.
Students in states where it is legal received swats, spanks and slaps 166,807 times in the 2011-2012 school year, according to the most recent federal data.
Corporal punishment is protected by a 1977 Supreme Court decision, which ruled that physical discipline in schools didn’t violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Shana Marie Perez’s viral video showing her son getting punished by Jasper County Primary School principal Pam Edge as the assistant principal held him down was lawful, but disturbed many opponents of the archaic practice.
“Corporal punishment is potentially damaging to children, it’s not the best way to deal with them and it’s also a violation of their right not to be hit,” Holden fumed, saying that giving children painful punishments teaches them to be violent and often results in depression and anxiety.
“If the adult is hitting a child, they learn to hit other children if they’re upset or angry,” he said.
Perez claimed the school threatened her son with suspension if she didn’t agree to the punishment and that she could get sent to jail for truancy for having already withheld him from school for 18 days that school year.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
SMU scientists and their research have a global reach that is frequently noted, beyond peer publications and media mentions.
By Margaret Allen
SMU News & Communications
It was a good year for SMU faculty and student research efforts. Here is a small sampling of public and published acknowledgements during 2015:
Hot topic merits open access
Taylor & Francis, publisher of the online journal Environmental Education Research, lifted its subscription-only requirement to meet demand for an article on how climate change is taught to middle-schoolers in California.
Co-author of the research was Diego Román, assistant professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development.
Román’s research revealed that California textbooks are teaching sixth graders that climate change is a controversial debate stemming from differing opinions, rather than a scientific conclusion based on rigorous scientific evidence.
Research makes the cover of Biochemistry
Drugs important in the battle against cancer were tested in a virtual lab by SMU biology professors to see how they would behave in the human cell.
A computer-generated composite image of the simulation made the Dec. 15 cover of the journal Biochemistry.
Scientific articles about discoveries from the simulation were also published in the peer review journals Biochemistry and in Pharmacology Research & Perspectives.
The researchers tested the drugs by simulating their interaction in a computer-generated model of one of the cell’s key molecular pumps — the protein P-glycoprotein, or P-gp. Outcomes of interest were then tested in the Wise-Vogel wet lab.
The ongoing research is the work of biochemists John Wise, associate professor, and Pia Vogel, professor and director of the SMU Center for Drug Discovery, Design and Delivery in Dedman College. Assisting them were a team of SMU graduate and undergraduate students.
The researchers developed the model to overcome the problem of relying on traditional static images for the structure of P-gp. The simulation makes it possible for researchers to dock nearly any drug in the protein and see how it behaves, then test those of interest in an actual lab.
To date, the researchers have run millions of compounds through the pump and have discovered some that are promising for development into pharmaceutical drugs to battle cancer.
Strong interest in research on sexual victimization
Teen girls were less likely to report being sexually victimized after learning to assertively resist unwanted sexual overtures and after practicing resistance in a realistic virtual environment, according to three professors from the SMU Department of Psychology.
The finding was reported in Behavior Therapy. The article was one of the psychology journal’s most heavily shared and mentioned articles across social media, blogs and news outlets during 2015, the publisher announced.
The study was the work of Dedman College faculty Lorelei Simpson Rowe, associate professor and Psychology Department graduate program co-director; Ernest Jouriles, professor; and Renee McDonald, SMU associate dean for research and academic affairs.
Consumers assume bigger price equals better quality
Even when competing firms can credibly disclose the positive attributes of their products to buyers, they may not do so.
Instead, they find it more lucrative to “signal” quality through the prices they charge, typically working on the assumption that shoppers think a high price indicates high quality. The resulting high prices hurt buyers, and may create a case for mandatory disclosure of quality through public policy.
That was a finding of the research of Dedman College’s Santanu Roy, professor, Department of Economics. Roy’s article about the research was published in February in one of the blue-ribbon journals, and the oldest, in the field, The Economic Journal.
Published by the U.K.’s Royal Economic Society, The Economic Journal is one of the founding journals of modern economics. The journal issued a media briefing about the paper, “Competition, Disclosure and Signaling,” typically reserved for academic papers of broad public interest.
Chemistry research group edits special issue
Chemistry professors Dieter Cremer and Elfi Kraka, who lead SMU’s Computational and Theoretical Chemistry Group, were guest editors of a special issue of the prestigious Journal of Physical Chemistry. The issue published in March.
The Computational and Theoretical research group, called CATCO for short, is a union of computational and theoretical chemistry scientists at SMU. Their focus is research in computational chemistry, educating and training graduate and undergraduate students, disseminating and explaining results of their research to the broader public, and programming computers for the calculation of molecules and molecular aggregates.
The special issue of Physical Chemistry included 40 contributions from participants of a four-day conference in Dallas in March 2014 that was hosted by CATCO. The 25th Austin Symposium drew 108 participants from 22 different countries who, combined, presented eight plenary talks, 60 lectures and about 40 posters.
CATCO presented its research with contributions from Cremer and Kraka, as well as Marek Freindorf, research assistant professor; Wenli Zou, visiting professor; Robert Kalescky, post-doctoral fellow; and graduate students Alan Humason, Thomas Sexton, Dani Setlawan and Vytor Oliveira.
There have been more than 75 graduate students and research associates working in the CATCO group, which originally was formed at the University of Cologne, Germany, before moving to SMU in 2009.
Vertebrate paleontology recognized with proclamation
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings proclaimed Oct. 11-17, 2015 Vertebrate Paleontology week in Dallas on behalf of the Dallas City Council.
The proclamation honored the 75th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, which was jointly hosted by SMU’s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences in Dedman College and the Perot Museum of Science and Nature. The conference drew to Dallas some 1,200 scientists from around the world.
Making research presentations or presenting research posters were: faculty members Bonnie Jacobs, Louis Jacobs, Michael Polcyn, Neil Tabor and Dale Winkler; adjunct research assistant professor Alisa Winkler; research staff member Kurt Ferguson; post-doctoral researchers T. Scott Myers and Lauren Michael; and graduate students Matthew Clemens, John Graf, Gary Johnson and Kate Andrzejewski.
The host committee co-chairs were Anthony Fiorillo, adjunct research professor; and Louis Jacobs, professor. Committee members included Polcyn; Christopher Strganac, graduate student; Diana Vineyard, research associate; and research professor Dale Winkler.
KERA radio reporter Kat Chow filed a report from the conference, explaining to listeners the science of vertebrate paleontology, which exposes the past, present and future of life on earth by studying fossils of animals that had backbones.
SMU earthquake scientists rock scientific journal
Modelled pressure changes caused by injection and production. (Nature Communications/SMU)
Findings by the SMU earthquake team reverberated across the nation with publication of their scientific article in the prestigious British interdisciplinary journal Nature, ranked as one of the world’s most cited scientific journals.
The article reported that the SMU-led seismology team found that high volumes of wastewater injection combined with saltwater extraction from natural gas wells is the most likely cause of unusually frequent earthquakes occurring in the Dallas-Fort Worth area near the small community of Azle.
The research was the work of Dedman College faculty Matthew Hornbach, associate professor of geophysics; Heather DeShon, associate professor of geophysics; Brian Stump, SMU Albritton Chair in Earth Sciences; Chris Hayward, research staff and director geophysics research program; and Beatrice Magnani, associate professor of geophysics.
The article, “Causal factors for seismicity near Azle, Texas,” published online in late April. Already the article has been downloaded nearly 6,000 times, and heavily shared on both social and conventional media. The article has achieved a ranking of 270, which puts it in the 99th percentile of 144,972 tracked articles of a similar age in all journals, and 98th percentile of 626 tracked articles of a similar age in Nature.
“It has a very high impact factor for an article of its age,” said Robert Gregory, professor and chair, SMU Earth Sciences Department.
The scientific article also was entered into the record for public hearings both at the Texas Railroad Commission and the Texas House Subcommittee on Seismic Activity.
Researchers settle long-debated heritage question of “The Ancient One”
The skull of Kennewick Man and a sculpted bust by StudioEIS based on forensic facial reconstruction by sculptor Amanda Danning. (Credit: Brittany Tatchell)
The research of Dedman College anthropologist and Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory David Meltzer played a role in settling the long-debated and highly controversial heritage of “Kennewick Man.”
Also known as “The Ancient One,” the 8,400-year-old male skeleton discovered in Washington state has been the subject of debate for nearly two decades. Argument over his ancestry has gained him notoriety in high-profile newspaper and magazine articles, as well as making him the subject of intense scholarly study.
Officially the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kennewick Man was discovered in 1996 and radiocarbon dated to 8500 years ago.
Because of his cranial shape and size he was declared not Native American but instead ‘Caucasoid,’ implying a very different population had once been in the Americas, one that was unrelated to contemporary Native Americans.
But Native Americans long have claimed Kennewick Man as theirs and had asked for repatriation of his remains for burial according to their customs.
Meltzer, collaborating with his geneticist colleague Eske Willerslev and his team at the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen, in June reported the results of their analysis of the DNA of Kennewick in the prestigious British journal Nature in the scientific paper “The ancestry and affiliations of Kennewick Man.”
The results were announced at a news conference, settling the question based on first-ever DNA evidence: Kennewick Man is Native American.
The announcement garnered national and international media attention, and propelled a new push to return the skeleton to a coalition of Columbia Basin tribes. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced the Bring the Ancient One Home Act of 2015 and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has offered state assistance for returning the remains to Native Tribes.
Science named the Kennewick work one of its nine runners-up in the highly esteemed magazine’s annual “Breakthrough of the Year” competition.
The research article has been viewed more than 60,000 times. It has achieved a ranking of 665, which puts it in the 99th percentile of 169,466 tracked articles of a similar age in all journals, and in the 94th percentile of 958 tracked articles of a similar age in Nature.
In “Kennewick Man: coming to closure,” an article in the December issue of Antiquity, a journal of Cambridge University Press, Meltzer noted that the DNA merely confirmed what the tribes had known all along: “We are him, he is us,” said one tribal spokesman. Meltzer concludes: “We presented the DNA evidence. The tribal members gave it meaning.”
Prehistoric vacuum cleaner captures singular award
Paleontologists Louis L. Jacobs, SMU, and Anthony Fiorillo, Perot Museum, have identified a new species of marine mammal from bones recovered from Unalaska, an Aleutian island in the North Pacific. (Hillsman Jackson, SMU)
Science writer Laura Geggel with Live Science named a new species of extinct marine mammal identified by two SMU paleontologists among “The 10 Strangest Animal Discoveries of 2015.”
The new species, dubbed a prehistoric hoover by London’s Daily Mail online news site, was identified by SMU paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs, a professor in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, and paleontologist and SMU adjunct research professor Anthony Fiorillo, vice president of research and collections and chief curator at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science.
Jacobs and Fiorillo co-authored a study about the identification of new fossils from the oddball creature Desmostylia, discovered in the same waters where the popular “Deadliest Catch” TV show is filmed. The hippo-like creature ate like a vacuum cleaner and is a new genus and species of the only order of marine mammals ever to go extinct — surviving a mere 23 million years.
Desmostylians, every single species combined, lived in an interval between 33 million and 10 million years ago. Their strange columnar teeth and odd style of eating don’t occur in any other animal, Jacobs said.
As noted by the CERN Courier — the news magazine of the CERN Laboratory in Geneva, which hosts the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest science experiment — more than 250 scientists from 30 countries presented more than 200 talks on a multitude of subjects relevant to experimental and theoretical research. SMU physicists presented at the conference.
The SMU organizing committee was led by Fred Olness, professor and chair of the SMU Department of Physics in Dedman College, who also gave opening and closing remarks at the conference. The committee consisted of other SMU faculty, including Jodi Cooley, associate professor; Simon Dalley, senior lecturer; Robert Kehoe, professor; Pavel Nadolsky, associate professor, who also presented progress on experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider; Randy Scalise, senior lecturer; and Stephen Sekula, associate professor.
Sekula also organized a series of short talks for the public about physics and the big questions that face us as we try to understand our universe.
Two SMU psychology professors working with University of Maryland engineers have been awarded a National Institutes of Health grant in October that will bring nearly $2 million to their joint project to create a wearable device for pediatric asthma patients that helps them avoid asthma triggers.
The asthma device will monitor air quality (including pollen levels and temperature), carbon dioxide levels in the blood, physical activity, breathing, emotional states and other stimuli to identify each patient’s individual asthma triggers and alert them when conditions are ripe for an attack. The concept is similar to the glucose monitor that alerts diabetes patients when their blood sugar is low, but it also includes much more complex monitoring of the patients’ environment.
The device’s current iteration is a portable unit, but the Maryland team is miniaturizing it so that it can be worn as a vest.
SMU psychology professors Alicia E. Meuret and Thomas Ritz, have teamed up with University of Maryland Center for Advanced Sensor Technology professors Yordan Kostov, Xudong Ge and Govind Rao, which provides a natural extension of each team’s research.
“Most of my early research has been developing a treatment that addresses hyperventilation using portable CO2 measurement devices, and teaching patients who suffer from panic disorders to normalize their CO2 levels and stop hyperventilating,” said Meuret, an associate professor in SMU’s Department of Psychology. “The colleagues at University of Maryland contacted me because they wanted to use one of the refined devices as a therapeutic measure, and the partnership grew from there.”
One eventual goal for the academic partnership is for the device to provide Meuret’s treatment instructions to patients during an attack so they can more quickly recover.
How patients perceive asthma triggers and how they can better manage them has been Ritz’ major research interest. He says 25 percent to 30 percent of patients have asthma symptoms triggered by emotional stimuli, which can be demonstrated by experiments with mood induction.
“That percentage is clinically significant,” Ritz says. “It’s a large endeavor with researchers from across the United States working on it and exchanging experience to develop their projects further.”
While the Maryland team works on the hardware for the project — and other research teams across the country work on the software — SMU’s Ritz and Meuret are working on the psychology and the clinical testing of the device with patients. Starting in January, the pair will conduct tests where students wearing the sensors change their breathing systematically or watch mood-inducing stimuli, such as sad, frightening or joyful movie clips.
Other tests of the environmental sensors will be done with adolescent asthma patients’ daily life. This will generate the data that will make the device’s components eventually run smoothly.
The SMU allotment of the NIH grant’s funds is $540,737. The University of Maryland team also includes environmental engineering researchers Chris Hennigan and electrical engineering researchers Ryan Robucci and Nilanjan Banerjee. — Kenny Ryan
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Women worry most when their chances of conception are highest; fears about appearing attractive at ovulation ‘drive women to eat less
London’s Daily Mail newspaper reported on the research of SMU social psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who was lead author on three independent studies that found biology isn’t the only reason women eat less as they near ovulation, a time when they are at their peak fertility.
The studies found that another part of the equation is a woman’s desire to maintain her body’s attractiveness, says Meltzer.
Women nearing ovulation who also reported an increase in their motivation to manage their body attractiveness reported eating fewer calories out of a desire to lose weight, said Meltzer, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology.
Book a live interview
To book an interview with Andrea Meltzer call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.
By Sophie Freeman
London Daily Mail
A woman being off her food could be a sign she is hungry for motherhood instead.
A study has found that women worry most about their weight when their chances of conception are highest.
Fears about appearing attractive at ovulation – as opposed to at other times in the month – drive them to eat less, according to the researchers.
The US study ties in with previous research that has found numerous subtle changes in female behaviour when fertility is high.
At this point in the month, a woman is more likely to dress fashionably, wear revealing clothing and have a roving eye.
Even something about the way a woman walks changes, with men finding her gait more
appealing when her odds of pregnancy are good.
These changes were thought to be driven by biology but the latest study suggests that some women are consciously making an effort to appear more attractive at certain times of the month.
In the first of three experiments, 22 young women were asked when their fertility was high, and again when it was low, how much weight they would like to lose.
The figure was bigger when they were fertile, the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin reports. A second study looked at a larger number of women, including some who were on the Pill.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Three independent studies find women near peak fertility who desire to maintain body attractiveness are motivated to eat less — unlike women who are not near ovulation, using hormonal birth control, or not motivated to maintain body attractiveness
Biology isn’t the only reason women eat less as they near ovulation, a time when they are at their peak fertility.
Three new independent studies found that another part of the equation is a woman’s desire to maintain her body’s attractiveness, says social psychologist and assistant professor Andrea L. Meltzer, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
Women nearing ovulation who also reported an increase in their motivation to manage their body attractiveness reported eating fewer calories out of a desire to lose weight, said Meltzer, lead researcher on the study.
When women were not near peak fertility — regardless of whether they were motivated to manage their body attractiveness, near peak fertility but not motivated to manage their body attractiveness, or using hormonal birth control, they were less likely to want to lose weight and didn’t reduce their calories, Meltzer said.
Book a live interview
To book an interview with Andrea Meltzer call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.
“These findings may help reconcile prior inconsistencies regarding the implications of ovulatory processes,” said Meltzer. “The desire to manage body attractiveness was a motivational factor for desired weight loss when women are nearing ovulation.”
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
The authors note that their study adds to a growing body of ovulation research, particularly as it relates to women’s health and weight management.
Previous studies in the field have found that women, and many non-human mammals, consume fewer calories near peak fertility.
They’ve also found that ovulation shifts a woman’s goals to attract a partner, motivating her to enhance her appearance to compete for men.
The authors note, however, that studies by other researchers attribute those ovulatory shifts in eating behavior solely to physiological factors related to an interaction between the nervous system and the endocrine system.
But Meltzer and her colleagues say the new findings suggest an additional reason, one that is related to cultural norms and influences that dictate one way women may enhance their attractiveness is by managing their weight: Ovulating women may be motivated to lose weight and eat less if they are also motivated to improve their body attractiveness.
“Indeed, in our research we saw that shifting levels of hormones interacted with women’s desires to manage their body attractiveness, which predicted an important behavior — eating less,” Meltzer said. “These findings illustrate that broader social norms that dictate that thin women are more attractive can play a role, in addition to physiological factors.”
Meltzer’s co-authors on the study are James K. McNulty, Florida State University, Saul L. Miller, University of Kentucky, and Levi R. Baker, University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Findings are confirmed across three independent studies
The three independent studies involved three different groups of women.
The first study followed 22 heterosexual women who were not using hormonal contraceptives and found they desired greater weight loss when they were closer to ovulation than when they were not.
The second study followed 92 heterosexual women, some who were using and some who were not using hormonal contraceptives. Its findings replicated the findings of the first study: Women who were not using hormonal contraceptives near peak fertility reported wanting to weigh less. In contrast, women in the study using hormonal contraceptives — which act on the endocrine system to disrupt the menstrual cycle and prevent pregnancy by altering hormonal fluctuations — didn’t demonstrate a desire to lose weight.
A third study followed 89 married women and found that those who were not using hormonal birth control were the ones most motivated to restrict eating during peak fertility, but only when they were more motivated to maintain their body attractiveness.
“Not only did the primary effect replicate across three independent studies,” the authors said, “it emerged in two samples of undergraduate women from different universities and a sample of married women and did not vary across participants’ weight using two samples of women who had a normal weight on average and one sample of women who were overweight on average.” — Margaret Allen
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
“I’m not arguing one should be lax and not engage in any discipline, but one can easily discipline children without hitting them.” — George Holden
Public News Service quoted SMU Psychology Professor George W. Holden as an expert source in an article about a new study from Duke University that warns against resorting to physical punishment.
Holden is a leading expert on parenting, discipline and family violence. He strongly advocates against corporal punishment and cites overwhelming research, including his own, that has demonstrated that spanking is not only ineffective, but also harmful to children, and many times leads to child abuse.
Holden, an expert in families and child development, is a founding member of the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, endhittingusa.org.
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To book a live or taped interview with Dr. George Holden in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
Holden was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently Holden’s research, “Real-time audio of corporal punishment,” found that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being spanked and that parents don’t follow the guidelines for spanking that pro-spanking advocates claim are necessary for spanking to be effective.
Other recent research, “Parents less likely to spank,” showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research, “Corporal punishment: Mother’s self-recorded audio,” provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
His work into the determinants of parental behavior, parental social cognition, and the causes and consequences of family violence has been supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, The Timberlawn Research Foundation, and, most recently, the U.S. State Department.
By Stephanie Carson
Public News Service
This week, many Tennessee children are rejoicing because it’s spring break, but the time off from school may wear on the patience of some parents.
A new study from Duke University warns against resorting to physical punishment.
In the study of 1,000 children and mothers from eight different countries, researchers found that maternal warmth can’t dampen the anxiety and aggression connected to physical punishment.
“A parent who is both causing pain to the child by frequently hitting a child, but also saying they love them and hugging them, is very confusing to a child,” says George Holden, a psychology professor at Southern Methodist University. “It’s virtually unanimous that physical punishment is not an effective parenting technique.”
Instead of spanking or hitting, experts cited in the report recommend examining the causes of the behavior.
For example, asking questions such as, “Is your child hungry? Are you pushing them too hard?”
Holden adds joint problem solving is also effective, as well as modeling good behavior yourself.
Holden is one of the founders of the U.S. Alliance to Stop the Hitting of Children, which is a group of experts and parents lobbying for the end of physical means of punishment.
“It doesn’t promote good, warm, loving relationships, which is what is the most important thing to do in raising a child,” Holden stresses. “Now I’m not arguing one should be lax and not engage in any discipline, but one can easily discipline children without hitting them.”
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
The three developed a video-based program for teaching young women assertiveness training and allowing them to practice it with the goal of helping them resist unwanted sexual overtures that could ultimately result in sexual assault. Jouriles and McDonald also devised a bystander intervention program that teaches young men and women how to recognize and intervene in a dangerous situation.
Simpson Rowe, an associate professor and graduate program co-director in the SMU Department of Psychology, is lead author on the pilot study from SMU.
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To book a live or taped interview with Lorelei Simpson Rowe in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
The virtual-reality simulation component of “My Voice, My Choice” utilizes a software program developed by Jouriles and McDonald in conjunction with SMU’s award-winning Guildhall video gaming program. Jouriles and McDonald are clinical psychologists in the SMU Psychology Department. Jouriles is professor and chair. McDonald is a professor and associate dean of research and academic affairs for Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences.
Results of their study found teen girls were less likely to report being sexually victimized after learning to assertively resist unwanted sexual overtures and practicing resistance in a realistic virtual environment.
The effects persisted over a three-month period following the training.
Melissa Repko, a reporter for The Dallas Morning News, interviewed Jouriles, who told her, “You can make an argument that realistically what we need to do is change the aggressor’s or the perpetrator’s behavior. But on the other hand, as a father, I didn’t want to just wait around,” said Jouriles.
By Melissa Repko
The Dallas Morning News
A boyfriend and girlfriend fighting at a party. A couple stumbling around in an alcohol-fueled stupor. A teen getting pressured to kiss someone who gave her a ride.
Those scenarios are depicted in two programs developed by Southern Methodist University psychology professors to help young adults prevent sexual assault and sexual harassment.
One program uses video to suggest how college students can intervene to help friends in risky situations. The other program uses virtual reality software so that teens practice being assertive and resisting unwanted advances.
Professors Ernest Jouriles and Renee McDonald, a husband-and-wife research team, have studied violence prevention for most of their careers. They’ve researched marital conflict, spousal abuse and children’s response to family violence.
Jouriles said he got interested in adolescent issues, such as dating violence, when their daughter was young. He wanted to help keep her safe.
“You can make an argument that realistically what we need to do is change the aggressor’s or the perpetrator’s behavior. But on the other hand, as a father, I didn’t want to just wait around,” said Jouriles, chair of SMU’s psychology department.
Universities have taken different approaches to fight campus assaults, such as talking about consent at student orientations, posting fliers on campus and hosting speakers. Some offer programs to teach students to recognize and intervene in dangerous situations.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
“Watching young women, who begin by saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, say ‘no, I’m not interested! Stop asking me!’ is the most exciting part.” — Simpson Rowe
The three developed a video-based program for teaching young women assertiveness training and allowing them to practice it with the goal of helping them resist unwanted sexual overtures that could ultimately result in sexual assault. Jouriles and McDonald also devised a bystander intervention program that teaches young men and women how to recognize and intervene in a dangerous situation.
Book a live interview
To book a live or taped interview with Lorelei Simpson Rowe in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
The virtual-reality simulation component of “My Voice, My Choice” utilizes a software program developed by Jouriles and McDonald in conjunction with SMU’s award-winning Guildhall video gaming program. Jouriles and McDonald are clinical psychologists in the SMU Psychology Department. Jouriles is professor and chair. McDonald is a professor and associate dean of research and academic affairs for Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences.
Simpson Rowe, an associate professor and graduate program co-director in the SMU Department of Psychology, is lead author on the pilot study from SMU.
Results of their study found teen girls were less likely to report being sexually victimized after learning to assertively resist unwanted sexual overtures and practicing resistance in a realistic virtual environment.
The effects persisted over a three-month period following the training.
Owens interviewed the researchers,and McDonald told her that girls learn, “You can be nice and strong. But, be strong. And if nice doesn’t work, be strong and don’t worry about being nice. Get out of the situation.”
By Robbie Owens CBS DFW Channel 11 A parent’s drive to protect is a powerful motivator: just ask Ernest Jouriles, PhD and Renee McDonald, PhD. A decade ago, the husband and wife team of researchers in the Psychology department at Southern Methodist University saw their daughter Nicola’s approaching adolescence as a huge incentive to begin work on a training program to help young women diffuse—or at least re-direct– sexually charged situations.
But, early results failed to engage the teenage mind. So why not tap into the video game generation’s love of gadgets? “We were thinking, ‘can we do something with virtual reality that could help teens basically practice skills to get out of situations that are potentially difficult—that might be dangerous’,” says Dr. Jouriles, co-author on the research, clinical psychologist, professor and chair of the SMU Department of Psychology.
Here’s how it works: students are first taught assertiveness skills. Those skills are then tested during a real time ‘virtual reality’ session. A male research assistant controls the avatar and acts as an aggressor. Of course, the goggles and monitor give up the gig—this exercise in assertiveness isn’t real. But, research assistant and SMU Senior Katie Bridges says it certainly feels real. “You start feeling uneasy,” says Bridges.
Students first learn assertiveness skills. Then those skills are tested during a real time ‘virtual reality’ session. A male research assistant controls the avatar and acts as an aggressor.
“It’s very brief,” says Dr. McDonald, co-author on the research, “which is unusual, and has such a strong effect on victimization rates.” Dr. McDonald is a clinical psychologist, professor and associate dean of research and academic affairs for SMU’s Dedman College. “We’ve been able to reduce them by half among women who go through the program.”
Lorelei Simpson Rowe, PhD, is the lead author on the study, a clinical psychologist, and associate professor in the department. She says she taught young women self-defense during her undergraduate days at Michigan State and says the ‘virtual reality’ training is a perfect extension of her passion to help strengthen young women.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Simpson Rowe, an associate professor and graduate program co-director in the SMU Department of Psychology, is lead author on the pilot study from SMU.
The virtual-reality simulation component of “My Voice, My Choice” utilizes a software program developed by Jouriles and McDonald in conjunction with SMU’s award-winning Guildhall video gaming program. Jouriles and McDonald are clinical psychologists in the SMU Psychology Department. Jouriles is professor and chair. McDonald is a professor and associate dean of research and academic affairs for Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences.
Results of their study found teen girls were less likely to report being sexually victimized after learning to assertively resist unwanted sexual overtures and practicing resistance in a realistic virtual environment.
The effects persisted over a three-month period following the training.
Newsweek journalist Lauren Walker interviewed Simpson Rowe, who told Walker, “We don’t want to support victim blaming of any kind,” she said, “so what we emphasize instead are these are skills you can use to protect yourself, like locking your door…but the only person who is responsible for the occurrence of any kind of violence or victimization is the perpetrator.”
By Lauren Walker
Newsweek
Most women have dealt with unwanted sexual advances. In fact, one national survey estimates that 65 percent have experienced some form of street harassment. But a study out of Southern Methodist University found that teenage girls were less likely to report being sexually victimized after undergoing assertive resistance training in virtual reality.
While virtual reality is routinely used to train soldiers or treat anxiety disorders, training of this nature is new.
Virtual simulations “seem to be more immersive than face-to-face role plays,” said clinical psychologist Lorelei Simpson Rowe, the study’s lead author. “The participant is not thinking any more about being in a room in a psychology study with other people around,” she is “focused on what she is seeing through the glasses and what she’s hearing.”
The study included 78 female students aged 14 to 18 from an all-girls urban high school. First, all were asked to fill out questionnaires related to their experiences with sexual violence and victimization. Next, the girls were split into two groups; 42 participated in the “My Voice, My Choice” (MVMC) training program, while 36 remained in the control group and received no training.
Each 90-minute training session was led by a female facilitator and included two to four young women. The group first discussed what assertiveness means and what it looks like, and then the bulk of the training was practicing these skills in virtual simulation.
“A lot of times when women engage in verbal standing up for themselves, it is very hard because we are pretty much socially conditioned to be agreeable,” said Kelli Dunlap, a doctor of psychology, JoLT fellow at American University and self-proclaimed huge gamer. “The idea of being in an environment that is building and practicing those skills so that you can take them into a real world scenario, I think that can be really helpful.”
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Au’s coverage includes details of how SMU researchers developed the training simulation by modifying the popular first-person video game Half-Life 2, combined with a virtual reality headset.
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To book a live or taped interview with Lorelei Simpson Rowe in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
Simpson Rowe, an associate professor and graduate program co-director in the SMU Department of Psychology, is lead author on the pilot study from SMU.
The virtual-reality simulation component of “My Voice, My Choice” utilizes a software program developed by Jouriles and McDonald in conjunction with SMU’s award-winning Guildhall video gaming program. Jouriles and McDonald are clinical psychologists in the SMU Psychology Department. Jouriles is professor and chair. McDonald is a professor and associate dean of research and academic affairs for Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences.
Results of their study found teen girls were less likely to report being sexually victimized after learning to assertively resist unwanted sexual overtures and practicing resistance in a realistic virtual environment.
The effects persisted over a three-month period following the training.
By Wagner James Au
New World Notes
Can virtual reality and 3D gaming help people stand up for themselves in real life? In a pilot study developed by Southern Methodist University, a group of young women practiced assertiveness against male sexual aggression using a modified version of Half-Life 2 and a VR headset. After the training (dubbed “My Voice, My Choice”), as this summary indicates, the early results were extremely positive: “22 percent in the control group reported sexual victimization during the three-month follow-up period, compared to only 10 percent in the ‘My Voice, My Choice’ group.” (Emphasis mine, because it bears emphasis.) While this is just initial data working from a small sample, the growth of virtual reality makes this study one worth repeating in other pilot programs, so I reached out to the lead researchers, Dr. Lorelei Simpson Rowe and Anthony Cuevas, for more details on their training program:
What were some of the most interesting personal reactions to this simulation?
Dr. Lorelei Simpson Rowe: “Many participants were surprised at how difficult it was to be assertive. They thought of themselves as being able to be assertive, but found it more challenging in the simulations than they expected. At the same time, many of the participants also seemed to feel more confident after they successfully used the skills and got positive feedback from others.
“Most students chose to participate in the study because they were given gift cards to thank them for their time – they weren’t initially interested in the program – but afterward, they told us how important it was and that they felt all students should go through MVMC.”
What advice would you give other researchers and developers working on similar VR experiences?
Dr. Lorelei Simpson Rowe: “I think important next steps will include developing fully computerized protocols (i.e., those that don’t require an actor). Additionally, the simulations need to be realistic and consistent with experiences that participants might actually have.”
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Study participants in the “My Voice, My Choice” program practiced saying “no” to unwanted sexual advances in an immersive virtual environment
Teen girls were less likely to report being sexually victimized after learning to assertively resist unwanted sexual overtures and practicing resistance in a realistic virtual environment, finds a new study.
The effects persisted over a three-month period following the training, said clinical psychologist Lorelei Simpson Rowe, lead author on the pilot study from Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
The research also found that those girls who had previously experienced dating violence reported lower levels of psychological aggression and psychological distress after completing the program, relative to girls in a comparison group.
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To book a live or taped interview with Lorelei Simpson Rowe in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
“The virtual simulations allowed girls to practice being assertive in a realistic environment. The intent of the program is for the learning opportunity to increase the likelihood that they will use the skills in real life,” said Simpson Rowe, an associate professor and graduate program co-director in the SMU Department of Psychology. “Research has shown that skills are more likely to generalize if they are practiced in a realistic environment, so we used virtual reality to increase the realism.”
The training program, called “My Voice, My Choice,” emphasizes that victims do not invite sexual violence and that they have the right to stand up for themselves because violent or coercive behavior is never OK.
“It is very promising that learning resistance skills and practicing them in virtual simulations of coercive interactions could reduce the risk for later sexual victimization,” said Simpson Rowe.
She cautioned, however, that the research is preliminary and based on a small sample: 42 in the “My Voice, My Choice” condition and 36 in a control condition. Future research is needed to establish the benefits of the program across different age groups and populations, for example, college versus high school students.
The study’s strengths included its randomized controlled design and a high participant retention rate among the 78 teen girls in the study.
The virtual-reality simulation component of “My Voice, My Choice” utilizes a software program developed by study co-authors Ernest N. Jouriles and Renee McDonald in conjunction with SMU’s Guildhall video gaming program. Jouriles and McDonald are clinical psychologists in the SMU Psychology Department. Jouriles is professor and chair. McDonald is a professor and associate dean of research and academic affairs for Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences.
“One advantage the virtual simulations offer is the ability to actually observe whether, and how, the girls are using the skills in coercive situations that feel very real,” McDonald said. “This provides girls with opportunities for immediate feedback and accelerated learning, and for facilitators to easily spot areas in need of further strengthening. The value of this advantage can’t be overstated.”
One question that remains for future research is whether the practice in virtual simulations was the operative factor that reduced sexual victimization, Simpson Rowe said.
“We need to determine if practice in a virtual setting is the key factor in making the intervention effective, or if other factors, such as being encouraged to stand up for themselves, led to the outcomes,” she said.
Females who firmly resist unwanted advances stand a greater chance of escaping a sexually coercive situation The current study builds on decades of earlier related studies by a broad range of researchers.
– About 25 to 50 percent of women in the U.S. are victims of sexual violence, usually in their teens or early 20s, according to a 2006 report by the U.S. Department of Justice. While many sexual violence prevention programs have been developed, few have been rigorously evaluated and even fewer have been shown to actually reduce sexual victimization.
– Historically, risk-reduction programs teach skills to identify and escape threats, and are typically targeted at females. Usually they only have small-to-moderate effects on victimization, or don’t succeed in any reduction.
– There is significant research evidence, however, that girls and women who say “no” firmly, yell, or physically fight back have a better chance of escaping a sexually coercive situation without being raped, compared to those who freeze, cry, apologize or politely resist, which some attackers view as “token” refusals.
– Simulation training using virtual reality is used routinely and successfully to train soldiers, physicians and pilots. Extensive research has shown that skills learned under stressful or dangerous conditions similar to those occurring in real life are more likely to generalize to the real world. The real-world context, in the case of the current study, is sexual coercion or unwanted sexual advances.
Small groups met with trained facilitator, provided peer feedback
Participants were 78 female students in 9th through 12th grade from an all-girls urban high school.
The teens were randomly assigned to either the group that received the “My Voice, My Choice” training or to a wait-list control group. In total, 42 girls completed the virtual reality training, while 36 were in the control group that received no training until the end of the follow-up.
“Although young women are aware of the risk of sexual violence, they don’t always view that risk as relevant to themselves and aren’t always eager to sit through a 90-minute program,” Simpson Rowe said. The girls were thus provided gift cards to a local store for their time.
Training started with a small group of 2 to 4 young women led by a trained female facilitator. For 30 minutes the facilitator explained and modeled assertive resistance, teaching the girls how to make it clear that sexual coercion and unwanted advances are not acceptable, such as using a firm voice tone, showing confident body language, and stating their limits (e.g., “I don’t want to have sex with you, so stop asking me”).
Each small group then transitioned to practicing the skills in the virtual coercive simulations.
Variety of scenarios are simulated in a virtual bedroom
“In the small group setting, there was usually some nervous giggling or shyness at first, but the girls became really engaged when they practiced the skills in the virtual simulations,” Simpson Rowe said.
Through virtual-reality goggles connected to the computer with the simulation software, each girl viewed a male avatar seated next to her on a couch in a virtual bedroom. The avatar’s speech, facial expressions and movement were manipulated via computer by a male actor. The girls interacted with the avatar in a variety of simulations which were observed by the facilitator and other group members.
The young women then took turns practicing the “My Voice, My Choice” skills, reassured that they could stop at any time and would never actually be touched. Each participant engaged in three 2- to 3-minute simulations.
Simulations started with less intense scenarios, where the male was mildly pressuring, such as asking repeatedly for the girl’s phone number. Scenarios escalated to increasingly more severe situations, such as verbally coercing the girl to kiss him, becoming increasingly aggressive in speech, and being more persistent in the face of resistance.
Following each simulation, other group members and the facilitator provided feedback to each girl on how she could increase the effectiveness of her response. Suggestions included using a firmer tone of voice, and refusing without apologizing.
“The students really gave one another good feedback about how to improve,” Simpson Rowe said. “And once they went through the training they told us it was so valuable they’d recommend it for everyone.”
Reports of multiple episodes of sexual or physical victimization uncommon
Each month for three months afterward, the girls completed an established and well-validated 25-question survey, the Conflict in Adolescent Dating Relationships Inventory, to assess occurrence of any sexual, physical or psychological victimization. They also completed a measure of psychological distress.
Results showed 22 percent in the control group reported sexual victimization during the three-month follow-up period, compared to only 10 percent in the “My Voice, My Choice” group.
“My Voice, My Choice” did not reduce rates of physical victimization. However, among those girls who had higher rates of previous dating violence victimization, completion of “My Voice, My Choice” was associated with lower rates of psychological victimization — being yelled at or called names, having a boy try to frighten or spread rumors about her — and lower rates of psychological distress.
That finding indicates the “My Voice, My Choice” training could also reduce the risk for psychological victimization and distress among girls who have been previously victimized.
“This finding is particularly noteworthy because other violence prevention programs have generally been ineffective or less effective for previously victimized young women,” said Simpson Rowe, who also heads the Couples Research Lab at SMU.
The research was funded by the Timberlawn Psychiatric Research Foundation, Dallas. — Margaret Allen
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Study found that heterosexual women who were told males preferred females with fuller figures felt better about their weight.
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To book an interview with Andrea Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.
New York’s Daily News newspaper reported on the research of SMU social psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who was lead author on a new series of studies that found that telling women that men desire larger women who aren’t model-thin made the women feel better about their own weight.
Results of the three independent studies suggest a woman’s body image is strongly linked to her perception of what she thinks men prefer. The researchers found that how women perceive men’s preferences influenced each woman’s body image independent of her actual body size and weight. “On average, heterosexual women believe that heterosexual men desire ultra-thin women,” says Meltzer.
AFP RelaxNews
When told that men desire full-bodied, voluptuous figures, women felt better about their own weight, say researchers at Southern Methodist University in Texas.
“A woman’s body image is strongly linked to her perception of what she thinks men prefer,” says lead author and social psychologist Andrea Meltzer of SMU.
Heterosexual women, says Meltzer, tend to believe that men prefer the dieted-down, ultra-thin bodies that dominate the media.
“Consequently, this study suggests that interventions that alter women’s perception regarding men’s desires for ideal female body sizes may be effective at improving women’s body image,” she says.
This would be an important step for women’s health and well-being because prior research has shown that women with a positive image of their physique tend to eat healthier, exercise more and have a superior overall self-image.
On the flipside, those who are unhappy with their body have less sex, less sexual satisfaction and less marital satisfaction.
“It is possible that women who are led to believe that men prefer women with bodies larger than the models depicted in the media may experience higher levels of self-esteem and lower levels of depression,” says Meltzer.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Prior research has shown that women with a positive image of their physique tend to eat healthier, exercise more and have a superior overall self-image.
Book a live interview
To book an interview with Andrea Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.
The popular news site Huffington Post reported on the research of SMU social psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who was lead author on a new series of studies that found that telling women that men desire larger women who aren’t model-thin made the women feel better about their own weight.
Results of the three independent studies suggest a woman’s body image is strongly linked to her perception of what she thinks men prefer. The researchers found that how women perceive men’s preferences influenced each woman’s body image independent of her actual body size and weight. “On average, heterosexual women believe that heterosexual men desire ultra-thin women,” says Meltzer.
AFP/Relaxnews
When told that men desire full-bodied, voluptuous figures, women felt better about their own weight, say researchers at Southern Methodist University in the US.
“A woman’s body image is strongly linked to her perception of what she thinks men prefer,” says lead author and social psychologist Andrea Meltzer of SMU.
Heterosexual women, says Meltzer, tend to believe that men prefer the dieted-down, ultra-thin bodies that dominate the media.
“Consequently, this study suggests that interventions that alter women’s perception regarding men’s desires for ideal female body sizes may be effective at improving women’s body image,” she says.
This would be an important step for women’s health and well-being because prior research has shown that women with a positive image of their physique tend to eat healthier, exercise more and have a superior overall self-image.
On the flipside, those who are unhappy with their body have less sex, less sexual satisfaction and less marital satisfaction.
“It is possible that women who are led to believe that men prefer women with bodies larger than the models depicted in the media may experience higher levels of self-esteem and lower levels of depression,” says Meltzer.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
prior studies have suggested that women who are happy with their bodies tend to eat better, be more active, have more self-esteem, are less prone to depression, and shun eating disorders and excessive dieting.
Book a live interview
To book an interview with Andrea Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.
HealthDay writer Robert Preidt reported on the research of SMU social psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer for the news site U.S. News & World Report. Meltzer was lead author on a new series of studies that found that telling women that men desire larger women who aren’t model-thin made the women feel better about their own weight.
Results of the three independent studies suggest a woman’s body image is strongly linked to her perception of what she thinks men prefer. The researchers found that how women perceive men’s preferences influenced each woman’s body image independent of her actual body size and weight. “On average, heterosexual women believe that heterosexual men desire ultra-thin women,” says Meltzer.
By Robert Preidt
HealthDay
When it comes to how satisfied they are with their own bodies, notions women hold of what men look for in females may be key, a new study suggests.
Researchers at Southern Methodist University in Dallas found that women are happier with their weight if they believe that men prefer full-bodied women instead of those who are model-thin.
“Women who are led to believe that men prefer women with bodies larger than the models depicted in the media may experience higher levels of self-esteem and lower levels of depression,” lead researcher Andrea Meltzer, a social psychologist at Southern Methodist, said in a university news release.
The study included almost 450 women, the majority of whom were white, who were shown images of women who were either ultra-thin or larger-bodied.
Some women were also told by the researchers that men who had viewed the pictures had tended to prefer the thinner women, while others were told that men had preferred the larger women.
Both groups of women then completed a questionnaire meant to assess how they felt about their weight.
The result: women who were told that men prefer larger-bodied women were more satisfied with their own weight.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
In a new study, female participants felt better about their bodies when told that men are attracted to plus-sized models.
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To book a live or taped interview with Andrea Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.
Writer Julie Beck at the popular news site The Atlantic reported on the research of SMU social psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who was lead author on a new series of studies that found that telling women that men desire larger women who aren’t model-thin made the women feel better about their own weight.
Results of the three independent studies suggest a woman’s body image is strongly linked to her perception of what she thinks men prefer. The researchers found that how women perceive men’s preferences influenced each woman’s body image independent of her actual body size and weight. “On average, heterosexual women believe that heterosexual men desire ultra-thin women,” says Meltzer.
By Julie Beck
The Atlantic
Last summer, Meghan Trainor’s doo-woppy single “All About That Bass” was seen by a lot of people as a body-positive empowerment anthem, with its condemnation of magazine Photoshop, and accompanying video of people of all sizes dancing in front of pastel backgrounds. But other people took issue with some of the lyrics — “I’ve got that boom boom that all the boys chase,” or “boys like a little more booty to hold at night.” Writers at Jezebel, Slate, and other publications accused the song of implying that self-esteem comes from male acceptance, that of course women shouldn’t worry about their size, because men still like them.
“Loving yourself because dudes like what you’ve got going on is a pretty flimsy form of self-acceptance,” Chloe Angyal wrote at Feministing. “In fact, it’s not really self-acceptance at all if it depends on other people thinking you’re hot.”
Trainor’s message might not be a perfect one, but new research shows it is effective. A recent study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science found that telling women men were attracted to non-stick-thin models increased their body satisfaction.
The researchers, from Southern Methodist University and Florida State University, had undergraduate heterosexual women look at images of plus-sized models (“plus-sized” in model terms—the models in the photos were estimated to be between a size 8 and 10, or “representative of the average female undergraduate,” the study says). In some cases, the width of the pictures was reduced by 30 percent, “to depict the thin-ideal.”
The women were either told that men picked the images because they found them attractive, or just that the images were taken from the media. In one experiment, another control group was told that men prefer thin women.
The participants reported higher satisfaction with their weight when they were told men were attracted to the average-sized models. But body satisfaction when women were told nothing was the same as when they were told men are attracted to ultra-thin women. This didn’t surprise the researchers, though.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Results of three independent studies suggest a woman’s body image is strongly linked to her perception of what she thinks men prefer
Telling women that men desire larger women who aren’t model-thin made the women feel better about their own weight in a series of new studies.
Results of the three independent studies suggest a woman’s body image is strongly linked to her perception of what she thinks men prefer, said lead researcher and social psychologist Andrea Meltzer, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
How women perceive men’s preferences influenced each woman’s body image independent of her actual body size and weight.
Book a live interview
To book a live or taped interview with Andrea Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.
“On average, heterosexual women believe that heterosexual men desire ultra-thin women,” said Meltzer, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at SMU. “Consequently, this study suggests that interventions that alter women’s perception regarding men’s desires for ideal female body sizes may be effective at improving women’s body image.”
The findings could have significant implications for women’s health and well-being, Meltzer said.
Prior research has shown that women satisfied with their body and weight tend to eat healthier, exercise more, and have higher self-esteem. They also tend to avoid unhealthy behaviors, such as excessive dieting and eating disorders, and they suffer less from depression.
In contrast, other research has demonstrated that women unhappy with their body and weight have less sex, less sexual satisfaction, and less marital satisfaction.
“It is possible that women who are led to believe that men prefer women with bodies larger than the models depicted in the media may experience higher levels of self-esteem and lower levels of depression,” Meltzer said.
A total of 448 women participated in the three studies, conducted by Meltzer and co-author James K. McNulty, Florida State University.
The authors note that prior research has shown that women who watch TV and read more fashion magazines are less satisfied with their weight and have a poor body image.
Meltzer and McNulty wanted to test whether a woman’s feelings about her own weight would be influenced if she viewed images of larger-bodied women when told they were judged attractive by men.
Women’s weight satisfaction improved after image manipulation exercise
In all three studies, female participants viewed images of female models with bodies larger than the thin-ideal wearing a variety of clothing, ranging from typical street clothes to bathing suits. In each image, the models’ heads were cropped so participants wouldn’t be influenced by facial attractiveness. The women in the images were cataloged by participants as ranging in U.S. clothing size from 8 to 10, which is slightly smaller than the average for American women, size 12-14, but larger than model-thin, typically size 2-4.
Each study also included one or more control groups. Some women were shown the images of large-bodied women, but without portraying them as attractive to men. Others were shown images of women who were ultra-thin and told that men preferred them. Still another group was shown both the larger-bodied and ultra-thin women and told that women felt the larger-bodied women were more attractive.
Women in all groups completed a self-report questionnaire designed to measure weight satisfaction.
In all three studies, women had higher levels of satisfaction with their own weight after viewing the images of the larger women who were portrayed as attractive to men, while statistically controlling their actual weight.
“Although the current studies demonstrated that telling women that men prefer women with body sizes larger than the thin-ideal can have immediate positive effects on women’s body image, it is unclear how long these effects may last,” Meltzer said. “Indeed, all studies assessed women’s weight satisfaction immediately after the manipulation. It would likely take repeated exposure to images of larger-bodied women ostensibly desired by men to strongly rival the patterns of reinforcement that are so pervasive in the media.”
All participants were heterosexual women and the majority identified as Caucasian. — Margaret Allen
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
The pill may be altering how attractive a woman finds a man, depending on whether he’s judged good looking
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To book a live or taped interview with Andrea Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.
Choosing a partner while on the pill may affect a woman’s marital satisfaction, according to a new study from Florida State University and Southern Methodist University.
In fact, the pill may be altering how attractive a woman finds a man.
In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers examined 118 newlywed couples for up to four years. The women were regularly surveyed with questions asking them about their level of satisfaction with the relationship and their use of contraceptives.
The results showed that women who were using hormonal contraceptives when they met their husband experienced a drop in marital satisfaction after they discontinued a hormone-based birth control. But, what’s interesting is how the change in their satisfaction related to their husbands’ facial attractiveness.
Women who stopped taking a hormonal contraceptive and became less satisfied with their marriage tended to have husbands who were judged as less attractive. The women who were more satisfied after stopping contraceptive use had husbands who were judged as good looking.
“Our study demonstrated that women’s hormonal contraceptive use interacted with their husbands’ facial attractiveness to predict their marital satisfaction,” said SMU psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, a co-author on the study.
Specifically, women who met their relatively more attractive husbands while using hormonal contraceptives experienced a boost in marital satisfaction when they discontinued using those contraceptives, said Meltzer, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology.
In contrast, women who met their relatively less attractive husbands while using hormonal contraceptives experienced a decline in marital satisfaction when they discontinued using those contraceptives, she said.
Hormonal processes may be at work, said Michelle Russell, a doctoral candidate at Florida State and lead author on the study.
“Many forms of hormonal contraception weaken the hormonal processes that are associated with preferences for facial attractiveness,” Russell said. “Accordingly, women who begin their relationship while using hormonal contraceptives and then stop may begin to prioritize cues of their husbands’ genetic fitness, such as his facial attractiveness, more than when they were taking hormonal contraceptives. In other words, a partner’s attractiveness plays a stronger role in women’s satisfaction when they discontinue hormonal contraceptives.”
In contrast, beginning a hormonal contraceptive after marriage did not appear to have negative or positive impacts on a woman’s satisfaction, regardless of her husband’s looks.
In the United States, 17 percent of women ages 17 to 44 were on birth control pills in 2010, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Nearly 5 percent more used other hormonal contraception methods such as injections or a vaginal ring.
Psychology Professor James McNulty, who is Russell’s adviser and one of her co-authors, noted that it is important to understand that this is only one factor affecting satisfaction.
“The research provides some additional information regarding the potential influences of hormonal contraceptives on relationships, but it is too early to give any practical recommendations regarding women’s family planning decisions.” — Kathleen Haughney, Florida State University
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
SMU psychologist and child development expert George Holden commented about the dangers of spanking for an article on corporal punishment in The Christian Science Monitor
Reporter Stephanie Hanes for The Christian Science Monitor interviewed SMU psychologist and child development expert George W. Holden for his perspective on corporal punishment. Holden, a noted expert on the dangers of corporal punishment, is a leader of the nation’s anti-spanking movement.
Holden was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently Holden’s research, “Real-time audio of corporal punishment,” found that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being spanked and that parents don’t follow the guidelines for spanking that pro-spanking advocates claim are necessary for spanking to be effective.
Other recent research, “Parents less likely to spank,” showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research, “Corporal punishment: Mother’s self-recorded audio,” provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
By Stephanie Hanes
The Christian Science Monitor
The way corporal punishment evolved in Sandy Haase’s family is, in many ways, typical. Growing up in Orange County, in California, in the 1960s, Ms. Haase knew what would happen if her father got angry. If she or one of her siblings talked back, or perhaps turned on the TV when they were not supposed to do so, “it was ‘Go and get the yardstick,’ ” she says.
The “spankings” that would follow, she says, were angry, severe, and scary. One instance left her in need of bandages. When she had children of her own, she and her husband agreed that they would use spanking only as a last resort.
Which is what they did, recalls her 22-year-old son, Colin.
“Looking at it now, I don’t see it as a negative thing,” he says. He describes his and his sister’s upbringing as warm and loving, with spanking only a very minor part of childhood: “It helped me. It set me straight when I wasn’t listening to words.”
Still, he says, he does not think he will spank his own children when he has them.
For her part, Sandy Haase expresses ambivalence about it. […]
A few recent studies, however, have questioned those early 2000s connections between corporal punishment and race. Prof. George Holden of Southern Methodist University in Dallas says that the difference in attitudes and outcomes is socioeconomic and regional rather than racial. Other studies show that families with more children tend to spank more. And, as with just about everything in the research about corporal punishment, the effect attributed to spanking depends on how numbers are crunched and interpreted. […]
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
“There are hundreds of studies finding that children who are spanked more are more likely to show a variety of problems,” — SMU parenting expert George Holden
SMU Psychology Professor George W. Holden, psychology, and Michael Farris, president of ParentalRights.Org, debated opposite sides of the controversial question “Should parents be allowed to practice corporal punishment?” The debate aired Sept. 25 on NBC’s Meet the Press: Make the Case.
Holden is a leading expert on parenting, discipline and family violence. He strongly advocates against corporal punishment and cites overwhelming research, including his own, that has demonstrated that spanking is not only ineffective, but also harmful to children, and many times leads to child abuse.
Holden, an expert in families and child development, is a founding member of the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, endhittingusa.org.
Book a live interview
To book a live or taped interview with Dr. George Holden in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
Holden was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently Holden’s research, “Real-time audio of corporal punishment,” found that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being spanked and that parents don’t follow the guidelines for spanking that pro-spanking advocates claim are necessary for spanking to be effective.
Other recent research, “Parents less likely to spank,” showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research, “Corporal punishment: Mother’s self-recorded audio,” provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
His work, into the determinants of parental behavior, parental social cognition, and the causes and consequences of family violence, has been supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, The Timberlawn Research Foundation, and, most recently, the U.S. State Department.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Holden was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently Holden’s research, “Real-time audio of corporal punishment,” found that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being spanked and that parents don’t follow the guidelines for spanking that pro-spanking advocates claim are necessary for spanking to be effective.
Other recent research, “Parents less likely to spank,” showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research, “Corporal punishment: Mother’s self-recorded audio,” provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
By Jonathan Merritt
The Week
As everyone living above ground knows, Minnesota Vikings’ star running back Adrian Peterson has been indicted on child abuse charges. The NFL star hit his four-year-old son with a “switch,” creating welts on the child’s legs, scrotum, and buttocks. In response, the outspoken Christian athlete invoked the Almighty, tweeting a picture from a popular religious devotional, Jesus Calling, with a quote about the perils of “habitual judging.”
Peterson isn’t the only Christian who thinks good parents should hit their children, or even that their faith commands it. Eighty percent of born-again Christians believe that spanking is acceptable. This is 15 percent higher than the general population.
But the wrong-headed belief that hitting children is not only a good thing but a “God thing” is rooted in poor and partial readings of the Bible, as well as ignorance about modern social science.
This false gospel of spanking preached by many belt-swinging believers is harmful to children. It must stop.
An article on the “Focus on the Family” website written by evangelical author Chip Ingram says, “The Bible’s word on discipline clearly demands that parents be responsible and diligent in spanking.”
I grew up in the evangelical South in a pro-spanking family. When my fellow Christians talked about protecting parents’ “rights to discipline their children,” they would often quote Proverbs 13:24: “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.”
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Holden also appeared on the NPR Public radio show “On Point” with host Tom Ashbrook as part of a guest panel of experts talking about corporal punishment in light of the Adrian Peterson case. The segment, “Kids, Discipline, And The Adrian Peterson Debate” aired Sept. 17.
Holden, an expert in families and child development, is a founding member of the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, endhittingusa.org.
Book a live interview
To book a live or taped interview with Dr. George Holden in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
Holden was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently Holden’s research, “Real-time audio of corporal punishment,” found that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being spanked and that parents don’t follow the guidelines for spanking that pro-spanking advocates claim are necessary for spanking to be effective.
Other recent research, “Parents less likely to spank,” showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research, “Corporal punishment: Mother’s self-recorded audio,” provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
By Emily Mathis
Dallas Observer
The internet has gone wild over the past few days with news that Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings is facing child abuse charges after disciplining his 4-year-old son with a switch, and was separately accused of leaving a scar on another 4-year-old son’s face. A native of Palestine, Texas, Peterson’s charge has spurred an impassioned debate between corporal punishment advocates and fierce opponents. But in nearby DeSoto ISD, the practice is a long-standing tradition, and one that is shied away from public eyes.
Last school year, DeSoto ISD administered corporal punishment 227 times. DISD spokeswoman Beth Trimble points out that some of those kids were repeat offenders, so the actual number of children paddled is unclear. Nevertheless, the incident is indicative of a continuing trend across Texas public schools for corporal punishment. According to Dr. George Holden, a psychologist and family violence researcher at SMU, Texas leads the nation in cases of corporal punishment.
“The most common reason parents approve is that it was done to them as children. They turned out okay, so they do it to their kids. It’s an easy technique to use to get immediate behavior change from the child,” says Holden. Still, specific data is often unclear for the number of kids physically punished in Texas schools. “It’s also something that school districts don’t want to advertise or draw attention to,” says Holden. “And students are embarrassed.”
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Holden was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently Holden’s research, “Real-time audio of corporal punishment,” found that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being spanked and that parents don’t follow the guidelines for spanking that pro-spanking advocates claim are necessary for spanking to be effective.
Other recent research, “Parents less likely to spank,” showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research, “Corporal punishment: Mother’s self-recorded audio,” provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
By Stephen Hendrix The Washington Post George Holden is not glad that Adrian Peterson whipped his boy. But he’s glad that so many people are talking about it. The father of the fledgling ban-spanking movement has been spending the last few days fielding media calls and writing op-eds because he knows now is the time to get his no-hitting message out to a public in which huge majorities say spanking is okay.
“It’s like fighting a glacier,” said Holden, a professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University and co-founder of the group EndHittingUSA.org. “But the Peterson case is a teachable moment. It’s a chance to tell parents that there is a lot of research evidence showing that hitting is not only ineffective but can result in unintended negative consequences for children.”
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Holden was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently Holden’s research, “Real-time audio of corporal punishment,” found that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being spanked and that parents don’t follow the guidelines for spanking that pro-spanking advocates claim are necessary for spanking to be effective.
Other recent research, “Parents less likely to spank,” showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research, “Corporal punishment: Mother’s self-recorded audio,” provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
By Geetika Rudra
ABC News
The pending child abuse case against Minnesota Viking Adrian Peterson has brought spanking, a common form of child discipline used by parents, back into public scrutiny.
“By the the time they reach adolescence, 85 percent of the nation’s children will have been, at one point or another, spanked,” Dr. Alan Kazdin, a psychologist at Yale University told ABC News. The figure comes from a 2003 study in which Kazdin investigated the use of spanking in disciplining children.
And between 70 percent and 90 percent of Americans admit to using some form of physical force when disciplining their kids, according to Southern Methodist University psychology professor George Holden.
“Physical punishment is extremely common for young children,” Holden told ABC News. “It’s very common in the United States.”
Kazdin’s 2003 study defines spanking as “hitting a child with an open hand on the buttocks or extremities with the intent to discipline without leaving a bruise or causing physical harm.”
But while spanking is prevalent, it is ineffective, Kazdin said.
“You don’t need spanking to change behavior,” Kazdin said. “It is not effective at all. It increases aggression in children, has emotional consequences.”
The line between spanking and more serious physical abuse is often muddled by theoretical and practical definitions, Kazdin said.
His study defines physical abuse as “corporal punishment that is harsh and excessive, involves the use of objects … is directed to other parts of the body than the extremities, and causes or has the potential to cause physical harm.”
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
The world recognized publisher of news and information, U.S News, has covered the research of psychology expert Chrystyna Kouros, assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology.
Chrystyna Kouros focuses on understanding depressive symptoms and depression in the context of family stress.
One line of her research focuses on the etiology, maintenance, and progression of child and adolescent depression, and how symptoms change over time. She has a particular interest in the effects of children’s exposure to everyday marital conflict and parental psychopathology.
U.S. News reporter Robert Preidt explains that the repercussion of a marital dispute can be a damaged relationship between parents and their children in his article “Parents’ Fights May Strain Bonds With Their Kids,” which published Aug. 28.
By Robert Preidt
U.S News
Arguments between parents may damage their relationships with their children, a new study indicates.
Parents in more than 200 families were asked to make daily diary entries for 15 days. At the end of each day, mothers and fathers rated the quality of their marriage and their relationship with their children.
On days when parents reported conflict and tension in their marriage, their dealings with their children were also strained, according to the study recently published in the Journal of Family Psychology.
However, there were notable differences between mothers and fathers. Marital conflict affected mothers’ relationships with their children for just one day.
“In fact, in that situation, moms appeared to compensate for their marital tension. Poor marital quality actually predicted an improvement in the relationship between the mom and the child. So, the first day’s adverse spillover is short-lived for moms,” study author Chrystyna Kouros, an assistant professor in the psychology department at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, said in a university news release.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
One line of her research focuses on the etiology, maintenance and progression of child and adolescent depression, and how symptoms change over time. She has a particular interest in the effects of children’s exposure to everyday marital conflict and parental psychopathology.
The Huffington Post reporter Taryn Hillin highlighted Kouros’ most recent research which found that the repercussion of a marital dispute can be a damaged relationship between parents and their children. Her article “Here’s Why Dads Should Think Twice Before Arguing With Their Wives” published Aug. 13.
By Taryn Hillin
The Huffington Post
It’s known that when parents argue, it has a negative effect on their kids. Now, new research suggests that it’s the father’s relationship with his children that suffers the most following marital conflict.
The study, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, analyzed 203 families over the course of 15 days. Couples involved in the study had been married an average of 15 years and had at least one child aged eight to 16.
Families were first interviewed by researchers; the parents were asked about marital satisfaction, marital conflict and depression, and the children reported on their parents’ parenting skills.
The husbands and wives were then asked to keep separate daily diaries for two weeks in which they rated the emotional quality of their relationship with their spouse and their child at the end of each day.
At the end of the study, researchers found that when parents argued, their relationship with their child was negatively affected. However, mothers were able to recover from this fairly quickly and the next day, even showed improvement in their parent-child relationship.
“Moms appeared to compensate for their marital tension,” said Chrystyna D. Kouros, lead author of the study, in a press release. “Poor marital quality actually predicted an improvement in the relationship between the mom and the child. So, the first day’s adverse spillover is short lived for moms.”
Fathers, on the other hand, did not recover so quickly, and their relationship with their child remained strained even into the following day.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Dads, in particular, let conflict adversely impact relationships with children, while moms compartmentalize marital conflict after first day.
Children suffer consequences, too, when mom and dad argue or have tension in their relationship, experts warn.
Dads, in particular, let the negative emotions and tension from their marriage spill over and harm the bond they have with their child, says a new study’s lead author, psychologist Chrystyna D. Kouros, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
The findings drive home the conclusion that the quality of a marriage is closely tied to each parent’s bond with their child, Kouros said.
The findings are based on data provided by 203 families, where family members completed daily diary entries for 15 days. Moms and dads rated the quality of their marriage and their relationship with their child at the end of each day.
The authors found that when parents reported tension and conflict in their marriage, simultaneously that day’s interactions with their child were peppered with tension and conflict.
Even so, distinct differences also were identified in moms and dads.
In situations where the quality of the marriage was low, moms appeared to compartmentalize the problems they were having in their marriage by the next day.
“In fact, in that situation, moms appeared to compensate for their marital tension,” Kouros said. “Poor marital quality actually predicted an improvement in the relationship between the mom and the child. So, the first day’s adverse spillover is short lived for moms.”
That was not the case for dads, the researchers found.
“In families where the mom was showing signs of depression, dads on the other hand let the marital tension spill over, with the result being poorer interactions with their child, even on the next day,” she said.
Couple’s marriage is a hub or anchor for the entire family
Marriage quality, the authors concluded, affects the whole family, said Kouros, an assistant professor in SMU’s SMU Department of Psychology.
“We see from the findings that the marriage is a hub relationship for the family,” she said. “The quality of that relationship spills over into each parent’s interactions with the child. So if mom and dad are fighting, it will show up initially — and in some cases on the second day — in a poorer quality relationship with their kids.”
Co-authors of the research were Lauren M. Papp, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Marcie C. Goeke-Morey, The Catholic University of America, and E. Mark Cummings, University of Notre Dame.
The research was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the National Institutes of Health. — Margaret Allen
Holden was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently Holden’s research found that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being spanked and that parents don’t follow the guidelines for spanking that pro-spanking advocates claim are necessary for spanking to be effective.
Other recent research showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
by Abby Phillip
The Washington Post
With the culture war over spanking still well underway, you might expect that parents who adhere to the practice are starting to feel the stigma.
If they are, it’s not stopping some of them from doling out discipline with the palm of their hands even when researchers are listening in.
A new study in the American Psychological Association Journal of Family Psychology conducted by researches at Southern Methodist University used audio recording devices to track the behavior of parents with their kids.
Mothers were asked to wear Olympus digital voice recorders on their arms in a sport pouch (not exactly an easy thing to forget about) and turn it on when they returned from work, and back off again when their child fell asleep. After six days, 45 percent of the families studied had recorded incidents of corporal punishment, and some started on the very first night.
You can listen to some examples below, but they range from fairly innocuous infractions like “messing with” the pages of a book, to playing with a stove.
The study is considered a preliminary investigation of a potential model for further research that doesn’t just rely on self-reported information that can be riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies.
For example, who remembers what how many times they disciplined their child over the course of a year?
Southern Methodist University Professor George Holden, the lead on this project, explained that they solicited parents for a study that was specifically focused on recording yelling behavior as it occurred naturally in the home.
They found 56 people willing to participate, and of those, they studied 33. By the time these mothers returned from work and began dealing with their children, worrying about the recorder strapped to their arm was the least of their worries.
“A lot of parents, particularly in the south, think of it as a good technique to use. They were reared that way so they’ve developed this fundamental belief that spanking is the way to teach people right or wrong,” Holden said. “My guess is they weren’t bashful about using it.”
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
by David Schechter
WFAA ABC News 8
New research from Southern Methodist University, based on recordings made of parents using corporal punishment, finds spanking and slapping are often used to punish minor behavior problems and did little to keep the same behavior from happening again — sometimes within 10 minutes.
For his research, Dr. George Holden deliberately chose many families with two working parents. He wanted to test people with real-world stresses.
One key finding was that parents typically under-report how often they spank or slap their children.
Holden, a vocal advocate against corporal punishment, made several audio clips from his research available. On the clips you can hear parents slapping or spanking their children for minor behavior infractions.
“If you hit the child or slap the child, they’re focusing on the punishment — the pain, the upset they felt from it,” Holden explained. “It’s not getting them to reflect on their behavior.”
Holden was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently Holden’s research found that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being spanked and that parents don’t follow the guidelines for spanking that pro-spanking advocates claim are necessary for spanking to be effective.
Other recent research showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
TV journalist Shelly Slater with WFAA ABC News 8 covered the research of SMU psychologist George W. Holden about the controversial practice of corporal punishment. Her interview, “SMU study: Spanking doesn’t work,” aired April 22.
Holden, an expert in families and child development, is a founding member of the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, endhittingusa.org.
Book a live interview
To book a live or taped interview with Dr. George Holden in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
WFAA ABC News 8
It’s an age-old debate: Is spanking an effective way to control your child’s behavior?
Not according to a new study by a psychology professor at Southern Methodist University.
The spanking study followed 37 families. The mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their children over the course of six days. The results may surprise you.
Dr. George Holden led the study and joined News 8’s Shelly Slater to talk about his findings.
Holden was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently Holden’s research found that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being spanked and that parents don’t follow the guidelines for spanking that pro-spanking advocates claim are necessary for spanking to be effective.
Other recent research showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
He was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently Holden’s research found that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being spanked and that parents don’t follow the guidelines for spanking that pro-spanking advocates claim are necessary for spanking to be effective.
Other recent research showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
By Susan Perry
Minnesota Post
Parents spank their children much more often than they admit and for trivial misbehaviors, suggest the just-published results of a study based on real-time home audio recordings.
The study also found that parents tend to strike their children out of anger and quite quickly after the children misbehaved — in other words, not as last resort.
Furthermore, the spanking doesn’t work. The children in the study who were hit or slapped by their parents typically misbehaved again within 10 minutes.
“From the audio, we heard parents hitting their children for the most extraordinarily mundane offenses, typically violations of social conventions,” said George Holden, the study’s lead researcher and a parenting and child development expert at Southern Methodist University, in a statement released with the study. “Also, corporal punishment wasn’t being used as a last resort. On average, parents hit or spanked just half a minute after the conflict began.”
If these findings sound familiar, it’s because Holden collected the data for this study a couple of years ago and publicly reported on them at that time. The findings were not officially published, however, until Monday, when they appeared in the Journal of Family Psychology.
Given the wide acceptance of parental corporal punishment in the United States, it seems important to highlight these findings again. Surveys suggest that as many as 80 percent of American parents use spanking to discipline their children, even, as inconceivable as it may sound, with infants.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Science journalist Anna Kuchment with The Dallas Morning News covered the research of SMU psychologist George W. Holden about the controversial practice of corporal punishment. The article, “Study: Parents Hit Children For Trivial Reasons,” published April 21.
Holden, an expert in families and child development, is a founding member of the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, endhittingusa.org.
Book a live interview
To book a live or taped interview with Dr. George Holden in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
He was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently Holden’s research found that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being spanked and that parents don’t follow the guidelines for spanking that pro-spanking advocates claim are necessary for spanking to be effective.
Other recent research showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
By Anna Kuchment
The Dallas Morning News
A new study suggests that three-quarters of parents who hit their children do so for “extraordinarily mundane” offenses, such as turning the pages of a storybook.
(Listen as a mother in the study slaps her child while reading to him. The child’s name has been bleeped out for privacy: Reading Slap)
The study, published in the online version of the Journal of Family Psychology followed 33 Dallas area mothers as they came home from work and prepared to put their children to bed. The mothers used voice recorders, which they wore in sport pouches on their upper arms, to chronicle their interactions with their families.
Those evening hours constitute “the most stressful time period of the day, when emotional spillover from prior events are likely and children are most at risk for [corporal punishment],” write the paper’s authors, who recruited families at local daycare and Head Start centers.
Forty-five percent of the families in the sample struck their children; many did so more than once over the course of four to six consecutive evenings. One family resorted to the practice 10 times.
“The fact that we heard [corporal punishment] as much as we did, and in limited time samples, underscores the fact that it is an extremely common practice,” says George Holden, a professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University and lead author of the study.
Nationwide, 70 percent to 90 percent of parents hit or slap their children, says Holden. The practice is especially common in the south, and the punishment is most often meted out by mothers, who tend to be the primary caregivers.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
He was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently Holden’s research found that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being spanked and that parents don’t follow the guidelines for spanking that pro-spanking advocates claim are necessary for spanking to be effective.
Other recent research showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
By Scott Kaufman
The Raw Story
New research published in the Journal of Family Psychology indicates not only that parents punish their children more frequently than they admit, but that the form of the punishment — spanking — is an ineffective means of behavioral modification.
The study analyzed real-time audio recordings of parents interacting with their children. The parents had been given guidelines: spank infrequently, only for serious misbehavior, and only as a last resort.
Thirty-three families were recorded for between four and six evenings, and in 90 percent of the incidents involving corporal punishment, the immediate cause was “noncompliance,” such as a refusal to stop sucking fingers, eating improperly, leaving the house without asking permission. In 49 percent of the spanking incidents, the parent sounded angry prior to initiating the spanking.
“The recordings show that most parents responded either impulsively or emotionally, rather than being intentional with their discipline,” lead author George Holden, a psychology professor at Southern Methodist University, said. On average, it only required 30 seconds for nonviolent discipline to escalate to corporal punishment.
“From the audio, we heard parents hitting their children for the most extraordinarily mundane offenses, typically violations of social conventions,” Holden added. “Also, corporal punishment wasn’t being used as a last resort. On average, parents hit or spanked just half a minute after the conflict began.”
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
A new study based on real-time audio recordings of parents practicing corporal punishment discovered that spanking was far more common than parents admit, that children were hit for trivial misdeeds and that children then misbehaved within 10 minutes of being punished.
Advocates of corporal punishment have outlined best practices for responsible spanking. But real-time audio from this study revealed that parents fail to follow the guidelines, said psychologist George Holden, who is lead author on the study and a parenting and child development expert at Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
The real-time audio interactions revealed that parents were not always calm, as the guidelines recommend, but instead were often angry when they spanked or hit their child; they didn’t spank as a last resort; and they gave spankings for minor infractions, not just serious misbehavior. And while many spanking advocates recommend hitting children no more than twice, parents in the audio recordings were slapping and hitting their children more often.
“From the audio, we heard parents hitting their children for the most extraordinarily mundane offenses, typically violations of social conventions,” Holden said. “Also, corporal punishment wasn’t being used as a last resort. On average, parents hit or spanked just half a minute after the conflict began.”
Parents who used corporal punishment in the audio commonly violated three of the six “use” guidelines the researchers examined: Spank infrequently, use it only for serious misbehavior, and only as a last resort.
“The recordings show that most parents responded either impulsively or emotionally, rather than being intentional with their discipline,” said Holden, who favors humane alternatives to corporal punishment.
Parents agreed to wear tape recorders to capture home interactions
The unique recordings captured parent and child interactions in 33 families over the course of four to six evenings. Parents volunteered to wear the recorders; most were mothers who were home with their children after a day’s work. The recordings captured 41 instances of corporal punishment, mainly during everyday activities such as fixing supper and bathing children.
More than 80 percent of the moms were married and had completed more education than the general population. About 60 percent were white and worked outside the home, and their children averaged just shy of 4 years old.
In 90 percent of the incidents, noncompliance was the immediate cause, such as sucking fingers, eating improperly, getting out of a chair, and going outside without permission. In 49 percent of the incidents, the parent sounded angry prior to spanking or hitting. On average, less than 30 seconds elapsed from the time when parents initiated nonviolent discipline to when they used corporal punishment. In 30 of the 41 incidents, the children misbehaved again within 10 minutes of being hit or spanked. The youngest child hit was 7 months old. One mother hit her child 11 times in a row.
Most remarkably, the researchers noted an unusual finding: The rate of corporal punishment exceeded estimates in other studies, which relied on parents self-reporting. Those studies found that American parents of a 2-year-old typically report they spank or slap about 18 times a year.
“The average rate we observed using the real-time audio equates to an alarming 18 times a week,” said Holden, a professor in the SMU Department of Psychology who has carried out extensive research on spanking.
Holden co-authored the study with Paul A. Williamson and Grant W.O. Holland, also of SMU. Funding for the study was provided by the nonprofit Timberlawn Psychiatric Research Foundation, Dallas.
“Although spanking advocates may acknowledge these incidents as inappropriate use of corporal punishment, evidence indicates that mothers who report their child gets spanked are also more likely to report physical abuse of that child,” the authors noted. — Margaret Allen
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Michael Chmielewski in the SMU Broadcast Studio call News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
The editors of Men’s Health magazine relied on the expertise of SMU psychologist Michael Chmielewski, an assistant professor of psychology. The popular magazine asked Chmielewski’s expert opinion for a reader’s question “I can’t work if my office is a mess. Am I normal?” The article published online March 10.
Chmielewski’s research broadly covers psychopathology and normal-range personality with an emphasis on structure and assessment in both domains. He’s interested in how psychopathology and personality relate to each other as well as how to best conceptualize and classify both domains. His research is based on a strong measurement foundation and the use of empirically based quantitative models.
Men’s Health
Question: I can’t do real work unless my office is completely in order. Am I normal?
Answer: Do you mean you need five minutes to tidy up every morning? Fine. You’re just a conscientious guy—especially if your effort is efficiency-related, such as filing documents. But if the sight of an out-of-place paper can keep you from completing tasks at hand, you may have a problem, says Michael Chmielewski, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University. Think about your home life: Do you feel anxious if the floor isn’t freshly vacuumed? Do you spend hours cleaning each day? If you’re nodding “yes,” then you may want to talk with a psychologist (find one at locator.apa.org). But if your fixation is limited to office cleanliness, then it may just be an excuse to put off work. Establish a time for tidying up, like the first 10 minutes after lunch, and limit yourself to that window.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
He was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently his research showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
UPI
U.S. adults exposed to research on spanking showing subsequent child behavioral problems may change their discipline methods, researchers say.
Child psychologist George Holden of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who favors alternatives to corporal punishment, wanted to see if parents’ positive views toward spanking could be reversed if they were made aware of the existing research.
Holden and three SMU colleagues used a simple, fast, inexpensive method to briefly expose 118 college students to short research summaries that detailed spanking’s negative impact.
The summary consisted of several sentences describing the link between spanking and short- and long-term child behavior problems, including aggressive and delinquent acts, poor quality of parent-child relationships and an increased risk of child physical abuse.
Nearly 75 percent of the study subjects said after seeing the research they thought less favorably of spanking.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
The independent news provider Indo-Asian News Service covered the research of SMU psychologist George W. Holden about the controversial practice of corporal punishment. The coverage published in a Jan. 29 article “Spanking your kids won’t make them disciplined” in The Times of India and in India’s Business Standard.
Holden, an expert in families and child development, is a founding member of the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, at endhittingusa.org.
Book a live interview
To book a live or taped interview with Dr. George Holden in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
He was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently his research showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
Indo-Asian News Service
For parents who spank their children believing it’s an effective form of discipline, think again.
According to child psychologists, spanking is actually a harmful practice.
“Parents spank with good intentions – they believe it will promote good behaviour, and they don’t intend to harm the child. But research thinks otherwise,” said child psychologist George Holden, a professor in the Southern Methodist University’s department of psychology in Texas who has carried out extensive research on spanking.
Holden and her colleagues used a simple and inexpensive method to briefly expose participants to short research summaries that detailed spanking’s negative impact.
Carrying out two studies, one with non-parents and one with parents, Holden and his co-authors found that attitudes were significantly altered.
“These studies demonstrate that a brief exposure to research findings can reduce positive corporal punishment attitudes in parents and non-parents,” stressed Holden.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Studies demonstrate that brief exposure to research findings can reduce positive corporal punishment attitudes in parents and non-parents
Parents who spank their children believe it’s an effective form of discipline. But decades of research studies have found that spanking is linked to short- and long-term child behavior problems.
Is there any way to get parents to change their minds and stop spanking? Child psychologist George Holden, who favors humane alternatives to corporal punishment, wanted to see if parents’ positive views toward spanking could be reversed if they were made aware of the research.
Book a live interview
To book a live or taped interview with Dr. George Holden in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
Holden and three colleagues at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, used a simple, fast, inexpensive method to briefly expose subjects to short research summaries that detailed spanking’s negative impact.
Carrying out two studies, one with non-parents and one with parents, Holden and his co-authors on the research found that attitudes were significantly altered.
“Parents spank with good intentions — they believe it will promote good behavior, and they don’t intend to harm the child. But research increasingly indicates that spanking is actually a harmful practice,” said Holden, lead author on the study. “These studies demonstrate that a brief exposure to research findings can reduce positive corporal punishment attitudes in parents and non-parents.”
The researchers believe the study is the first of its kind to find that brief exposure to spanking research can alter people’s views toward spanking. Previous studies in the field have relied on more intensive, time-consuming and costly methods to attempt to change attitudes toward spanking.
“If we can educate people about this issue of corporal punishment, these studies show that we can in a very quick way begin changing attitudes,” said Holden, a professor in the SMU Department of Psychology who has carried out extensive research on spanking.
Study probed attitudes, which research has found predict behaviors
Research has found that parents who spank believe spanking can make children behave or respect them. That belief drives parental behavior, more so than their level of anger, the seriousness of the child’s misbehavior or the parent’s perceived intent of the child’s misbehavior.
Additionally, parents form their opinions based on advice from others they trust, primarily their own parents, their spouse and pediatricians, followed by mental health workers, teachers, parent educators and religious leaders.
Two studies with parents and non-parents both find changed attitudes
In the first SMU study, the subjects were 118 non-parent college students divided into two groups: one that actively processed web-based information about spanking research; and one that passively read web summaries.
The summary consisted of several sentences describing the link between spanking and short- and long-term child behavior problems, including aggressive and delinquent acts, poor quality of parent-child relationships and an increased risk of child physical abuse.
The majority of the participants in the study, 74.6 percent, thought less favorably of spanking after reading the summary. Unexpectedly, the researchers said, attitude change was significant for both active and passive participants.
A second study replicated the first study, but with 263 parent participants, predominantly white mothers. The researchers suspected parents might be more resistant to change their attitudes. Parents already have established disciplinary practices, are more invested in their current practices and have sought advice from trusted individuals.
But the results indicated otherwise. After reading brief research statements on the web, 46.7 percent of the parents changed their attitudes and expressed less approval of spanking.
“Given the brevity of our intervention, the results are notable,” said the authors. “Our Web-based approach is less expensive, potentially quicker, and more easily scaled up to use at a community level.”
With spanking a public health concern, this approach offers a simple way to reach a large audience to change attitudes and reduce parents’ reliance on corporal punishment, said Holden, who was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass. For example, educational modules could be developed for high school students, the authors said.
Co-authors were: Alan S. Brown, professor, SMU Department of Psychology and department chair, SMU Department of Sociology; Austin S. Baldwin, assistant professor, SMU Department of Psychology; and Kathryn Croft Caderao, graduate student, SMU Department of Psychology. — Margaret Allen
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
He was recently elected president of Dallas’ oldest child abuse prevention agency, Family Compass.
Most recently his research showed that parents who favor spanking changed their minds after they were briefly exposed to summaries of research detailing the negative impact of corporal punishment on children. Holden, who considers spanking a public health problem, said the research indicates that parents’ attitudes about spanking could economically, quickly and effectively be changed to consider alternative disciplinary methods.
Holden’s earlier research provided a unique real-time look at spanking in a way that’s never before been studied. In a study of 37 families, mothers voluntarily recorded their evening interactions with their young children over the course of six days, including incidents of corporal punishment.
Kathleen Raven
Reuters
Regardless of the culture a child lives in, corporal punishment may do lasting psychological harm, German researchers say.
In a new study conducted in Tanzania, where physical punishment is considered normal, primary school students who were beaten by teachers or family members in the name of discipline tended to show more behavior problems, not fewer, the researchers found.
“Parents aim to educate children through corporal punishment, but instead of learning good social behaviors, the beatings often have the opposite effect,” said Tobias Hecker, a psychologist at the University of Konstanz, who led the study.
“Some people still believe, despite an overwhelming body of evidence, that corporal punishment in some cultures won’t result in as many negative effects,” George Holden told Reuters Health.
“But, as this study shows, it’s difficult to find support for that argument,” said Holden, a professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who was not involved in the study.
Past research, mainly in industrialized countries, has found that children and teens who experience corporal punishment may “externalize” their negative experiences in the form of bad behavior and emotional problems, Hecker and his colleagues write in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Real clue to whether a marriage is happy isn’t found in what you say about your spouse, but in gut instincts, study demonstrates
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The New York Daily news reports on the research of SMU psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who was co-author on a four-year longitudinal study of 135 newlywed couples that found that a spouse’s implicit feelings about their partner predicted marital satisfaction later.
New York Daily News
A new study finds that newlyweds know on a subconscious level whether their marriage will be a happy one or not, and that when it comes to tying the knot, listen to your gut instincts.
Florida State University scientists recruited 135 heterosexual couples who had been married for less than six months and then followed up with them every six months over a four-year period.
They found that the feelings the study participants verbalized about their marriages were unrelated to changes in their marital happiness over time. Instead, it was the gut-level negative evaluations of their partners that they unknowingly revealed during a baseline experiment that predicted future happiness, the researchers said.
The study was published November 29 issue of the journal Science.
“Everyone wants to be in a good marriage,” said head researcher James K. McNulty. “And in the beginning, many people are able to convince themselves of that at a conscious level. But these automatic, gut-level responses are less influenced by what people want to think. You can’t make yourself have a positive response through a lot of wishful thinking.”
To conduct the experiment, the researchers asked subjects to report their relationship satisfaction and the severity of their specific relationship problems. Subjects also were asked to provide their conscious evaluations by describing their marriage according to 15 pairs of opposing adjectives, such as “good” or “bad,” “satisfied” or “unsatisfied.”
Most interesting to the researchers, though, were the findings regarding another measure designed to test their automatic attitudes, or gut-level responses. The experiment involved flashing a photo of the study participant’s spouse on a computer screen for just one-third of a second followed by a positive word like “awesome” or “terrific” or a negative word like “awful” or “terrible.” The individuals simply had to press a key on the keyboard to indicate whether the word was positive or negative.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Data for the study was gathered from 135 newlywed couples recruited within the first six months of marriage, completing measures of their attitudes
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Journalist Meeri Kim reports in The Washington Post about the research of SMU psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who was co-author on a four-year longitudinal study of 135 newlywed couples that found that a spouse’s implicit feelings about their partner predicted marital satisfaction later.
By Meeri Kim
The Washington Post
The harbinger of an unhappy marriage may be your gut.
A new study by psychologists found that newlyweds had underlying positive or negative gut feelings about their spouses that many were unaware of and that predicted marital satisfaction years later.
The experiment used a photo of the newlywed spouse and a series of positive and negative words to elicit a so-called automatic attitude.
“Either people are completely unaware of this automatic attitude, or they’re completely aware and just not willing to talk about it,” said psychologist and study author James McNulty of Florida State University. The study was published online Thursday in the journal Science.
Automatic attitudes are unfiltered, knee-jerk reactions that can sometimes oppose the conscious thoughts.
McNulty, who primarily conducts research on romantic relationships, showed a newlywed the photo of his or her spouse for just a third of a second, followed by a word that was positive or negative: “delightful” or “disgusting,” for instance. The newlywed, as fast as possible, had to push a button indicating the word that was good or bad.
Psychologists say that seeing the photo for just long enough to recognize who you’re looking at, but not enough to study the detail of the picture, causes your brain to automatically retrieve from memory any associations you have. This facilitates a speedier response to any words that match those associations.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Data for the study was gathered from 135 newlywed couples recruited within the first six months of marriage, completing measures of their attitudes
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Journalist Steve Connor reports in The Independent about the research of SMU psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who was co-author on a four-year longitudinal study of 135 newlywed couples that found that a spouse’s implicit feelings about their partner predicted marital satisfaction later.
By Steve Connor
The Independent
Oscar Wilde once said that marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Now scientists have shown that the best advice for people contemplating matrimony is to put their gut instinct ahead of wishful thinking.
A study of 135 newly-wed couples who were followed over a four-year period found that what people say about their partner is not always what they think deep down – but it is this gut reaction that matters for future marital happiness.
The optimism shown by all the couples at the outset of their marriage generally declined over time but the level of growing dissatisfaction with their spouse was directly related to the inner-most feelings at the outset – which they actively suppressed, the scientists found.
Those who harboured the most negative gut reaction to their partners after six months of marriage were also the ones who felt the most dissatisfied and unhappy after four years of marriage, according to Professor James McNulty of Florida State University in Tallahassee, who led the study published in the journal Science.
“Everyone wants to be in a good marriage and in the beginning many people are able to convince themselves of that at a conscious level,” Professor McNulty said.
“But these automatic, gut-level responses are less influenced by what people want to think. You can’t make yourself have a positive response through a lot of wishful thinking,” he said.
Measuring gut feelings was not straightforward and the researchers used an established psychological technique for determining someone’s subconscious thoughts by measuring the time it took for them to react to photographs of a spouse.
The experiment involved flashing a photograph of someone’s partner on a computer screen for just one third of a second, followed by a positive word such as “awesome” or “terrific” or a negative word such as “awful” or “terrible.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Data for the study was gathered from 135 newlywed couples recruited within the first six months of marriage, completing measures of their attitudes
Book a live interview
To book a live or taped interview with Andrea Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.
Data for the study was gathered from 135 newlywed couples, who were recruited within the first six months of marriage and completed measures of implicit attitudes toward their partners and explicit attitudes toward their relationship.
Researchers flashed the faces of participants’ spouses and asked the newlyweds to quickly, and unconsciously, determine if words such as awesome or horrible were positive or negative.
Individuals who responded the quickest to positive words after seeing a picture of their spouse were happier over the 4-year-study period.
Conscious attitudes were not accurate predictors of happiness
Questionnaires asking about couples’ conscious attitudes were not accurate predictors of the happiness of the pairs, but people’s automatic responses could foretell the course of the couple’s relationship, the researchers found.
Andrea L. Meltzer, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology, is one of four co-authors on the study on newlywed marital satisfaction.
The study, one of the first to apply implicit attitudes to relationships, found that spouses’ implicit attitudes toward their partners predicted changes in their marital satisfaction over four years.
Spouse was exposed to partner’s image, then responded to positive, negative words To measure their implicit attitudes, spouses were briefly exposed to an image of their partner and then asked to indicate as quickly as possible whether a word was either positive (e.g., “wonderful”) or negative (e.g., “horrible”). The difference between the time it took them to respond to the positive and negative words was an index of their implicit satisfaction. Spouses who responded quicker to the positive words and slower to the negative words indicated higher satisfaction with their partner.
To measure their explicit attitudes, couples reported the extent to which various adjectives described their marriage. Following this initial assessment, couples reported their marital satisfaction every six months for four years.
The study found that newlyweds’ automatic, implicit attitudes were an accurate indicator of changes in marital satisfaction across the first four years of marriage whereas their explicit attitudes were not an indicator of changes in marital satisfaction. Consistent with other studies of newlywed couples, this study found that marital satisfaction decreased over time.
Findings demonstrate implicit positive attitudes predict less decline in satisfaction But the findings demonstrated that those partners with more positive implicit attitudes toward their spouse experienced less-steep declines in marital satisfaction across the four-year course of the study.
Notably, many factors predict marital satisfaction; this study covers just one component. Therefore, it likely would not be ideal to use implicit attitudes as a compatibility indicator or as a way to predict a long and happy marriage, the researchers cautioned. — SMU, Science
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
To book a live or taped interview with Andrea Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.
Journalist Roxanne Palmer reports in the International Business Times about the research of SMU psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who found in a four-year longitudinal study of 450 newlywed couples that men with physically attractive wives remained much more satisfied in their marriage than men without physically attractive wives.
By Roxanne Palmer
International Business Times
Men place a higher value on the attractiveness of their life partners than women, one group of psychologists says.
Southern Methodist University psychologist Andrea Meltzer and colleagues drew on four different studies with a pool of more than 450 newlywed heterosexual couples. At the start of the studies, independent researchers scored the attractiveness of the husband and wife in each pair. Experimenters then interviewed the newlyweds and followed up later, asking them to rate their marital satisfaction on eight separate occasions over the next four years.
“Whereas husbands were more satisfied at the beginning of the marriage and remained more satisfied over the next four years to the extent that they had an attractive wife, wives were no more or less satisfied initially or over the next four years to the extent that they had an attractive husband,” Meltzer and colleagues wrote in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
To book a live or taped interview with Andrea Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.
Journalist Benjamin Fearnow reports on CBS Houston about the research of SMU psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who found in a four-year longitudinal study of 450 newlywed couples that men with physically attractive wives remained much more satisfied in their marriage than men without physically attractive wives.
By Benjamin Fearnow
CBS Houston
The physical attractiveness of one’s spouse plays a major role in marital satisfaction for men, while women’s happiness in their marriage was not affected by their husband’s looks.
A study of more than 450 newlywed couples over the course of four years found that men with physically attractive wives remained much more satisfied in their marriage than men who did not. However, the attractiveness of a woman’s husband played no part in the satisfaction that women felt from their marriage.
The study, recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, first rated each member of the couples by “objective,” independent researchers, and then asked up to eight times over the first four years of marriage to rate their satisfaction.
The study strengthened support that there is a gender gap for how much physical attractiveness corresponds to (self-reported) marriage happiness.
Husbands with attractive wives in all four independent, longitudinal studies analyzed were more satisfied than their wives at the beginning of each marriage. As the marriage progressed, the husbands with the attractive wives remained more satisfied, and the attractive wives in these couples also reported being more satisfied.
“Whereas husbands were more satisfied at the beginning of the marriage and remained more satisfied over the next 4 years to the extent that they had an attractive wife, wives were no more or less satisfied initially or over the next 4 years to the extent that they had an attractive husband,” wrote researcher Andrea Meltzer, of Southern Methodist University’s Dedman College of Humanities & Sciences.
“Most importantly, a direct test indicated that partner physical attractiveness played a larger role in predicting husbands’ satisfaction than predicting wives’ satisfaction,” reported the researchers.
The researchers attributed this to the concept that the self-reported happier husbands led to a happier marriage as a whole.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
To book a live or taped interview with Andrea Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.
UPI wire service reported about the research of SMU psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who found in a four-year longitudinal study of 450 newlywed couples that men with physically attractive wives remained much more satisfied in their marriage than men without physically attractive wives.
UPI
A direct test indicated a partner’s physical attractiveness played a larger role in predicting husbands’ satisfaction than wives’, U.S. researchers say.
Andrea L. Meltzer of Southern Methodist University in Dallas and colleagues analyzed the data of four independent, longitudinal studies to examine sex differences in the implications of partner physical attractiveness and marital satisfaction.
In all four studies, both partners’ physical attractiveness was objectively rated at baseline, and both partners reported their marital satisfaction up to eight times over the first four years of marriage.
The study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found husbands were more satisfied at the beginning of the marriage and remained more satisfied over the next four years to the extent that they had an attractive wife, while wives were no more or less satisfied initially or over the next four years to the extent that they had an attractive husband.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
To book a live or taped interview with Andrea Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.
Journalist Victoria Woollaston reports in London’s Daily Mail about the research of SMU psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, who found in a four-year longitudinal study of 450 newlywed couples that men with physically attractive wives remained much more satisfied in their marriage than men without physically attractive wives.
By Victoria Woollaston
Daily Mail
It appears that for men, the key to a long and happy marriage has less to do with compatible personalities and similar interests and more about how attractive the women they are married to is.
A researcher from Texas has discovered that men with attractive wives have happier marriages and this marital satisfaction remains over time.
Yet the same can’t be said for women. According to the study, the attractiveness of a husband played no part in how happy or satisfied a wife said they were.
Psychologist Andrea Meltzer from the Southern Methodist University Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences polled more than 450 newlywed couples over a four-year period.
This involved four different studies with four different groups of newlyweds.
Before the studies, each couple member was rated for attractiveness by an objective and independent team of researchers.
Over the four years, each husband and wife were separately asked on up to eight occasions to rate how satisfied they were in their respective marriages.
Husbands across all four studies were more satisfied than their wives at the beginning of each marriage.
Over time, husbands with wives that had been rated as attractive remained more satisfied than their spouses.
The attractive wives in these marriages were also, on average, more satisfied and the researchers attributed this to the fact having a happier husband led to a happier marriage overall.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
Findings suggest mental health providers could target adolescents who are most at risk, providing treatment aimed at early intervention
Some adolescents who suffer with symptoms of depression also may be at risk for developing anxiety, according to a new study of children’s mental health.
The study found that among youth who have symptoms of depression, the risk is most severe for those who have one or more of three risk factors, said psychologist Chrystyna D. Kouros, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, who led the study.
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Specifically, those who are most vulnerable are those who have a pessimistic outlook toward events and circumstances in their lives; those who have mothers with a history of an anxiety disorder; or those who report that the quality of their family relationships is poor, Kouros said.
A depressed adolescent with any one of those circumstances is more at risk for developing anxiety, the researchers found.
Adolescents with one or more risk factors can be targeted for intervention
The findings suggest that mental health professionals could target adolescents with those risk factors. Early intervention might prevent anxiety from developing, Kouros said.
“Depression or anxiety can be debilitating in itself,” said Kouros, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Psychology. “Combined, however, they are an even bigger threat to a child’s well-being. That’s particularly the case during adolescence, when pre-teens and teens are concerned about fitting in with their peers. Anxiety can manifest as social phobia, in which kids are afraid to interact with friends and teachers, or in school refusal, in which children try to avoid going to school.”
Kouros co-authored the research with psychiatrist Susanna Quasem and psychologist Judy Garber, both of Vanderbilt University. Data for the study were collected by Garber, a Vanderbilt professor of psychology and human development.
Study confirms previous link of anxiety elevating to depression, finds new link of depression elevating to anxiety
The finding was based on data from 240 children from metropolitan public schools and their mothers, all of whom were assessed annually for six years. The children were followed during the important developmental period from sixth grade through 12th grade. The study was evenly divided between boys and girls.
Consistent with previous research, the authors found also that “symptoms of anxiety were a robust predictor of subsequent elevations in depressive symptoms over time in adolescents.” That link has been known for some time, Kouros said, and the current study confirmed it.
Less well understood by researchers, however, has been the link between depressive symptoms developing further into elevated anxiety, she said.
“The current study showed that depressive symptoms were followed by elevations in anxious symptoms for a subset of youth who had mothers with a history of anxiety, reported low family relationship quality, or had a more negative attributional style,” the authors reported.
Moreover, at-risk youth are likely to have more than one of these vulnerability factors. More research is needed to examine how the var
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