Context Of Relationships Research Articles

Keeping score: Past victimization reduces offenders’ conciliatory sentiments for their present transgressions

AbstractMany relationships within which interpersonal transgressions transpire often involve histories of reciprocal wrongdoing, where each party has occupied both the role of victim and offender. We investigate whether past incidents of being wronged by the victim of a present transgression may dampen offenders’ conciliatory sentiments for their present wrongdoing. Across four studies (combined N = 1037), we find evidence that past victimization experiences within the context of an interpersonal relationship can blur offenders’ construal of their role as offender and elicit feelings of victimhood, allowing them to exonerate themselves and feel less guilt for their present wrongdoing, display less empathy for the present victim, and reduce their willingness to reconcile with the present victim. These findings highlight the importance of taking into account historical transgressions within a relationship as a determinant of relationship repair in the aftermath of present wrongdoings.

Promoting Adolescents’ Heritage Cultural Identity Development: Exploring the Role of Autonomy and Relatedness Satisfaction in School-Based Interventions

Given the significance of heritage cultural identity for optimal adolescent development, it is imperative to investigate factors influencing the efficacy of interventions aimed at promoting heritage cultural identity. Using latent profile cluster analysis and multinomial logistic regressions, this longitudinal study examined how autonomy and relatedness need satisfaction at school (1) related to heritage cultural identity development trajectories, and (2) moderated effects of a school-based intervention. The study included N = 198 adolescents (Mage = 12.86 years, SDage = 0.75, 52% female, 41% immigrant descent, 49% intervention group) in Germany. Teacher-student relationships played an important role in facilitating intervention effects on identity development trajectories, emphasizing the importance of the relational context when implementing school-based interventions to promote heritage cultural identity development.

Hitting the road together: how do care workers develop pedagogical praxis in relation to a positive living climate in residential youth care?

ABSTRACT One of the key factors in providing high-quality support in residential youth care (RYC) is developing a positive living climate. The role of group worker and his/her elaboration of the pedagogical praxis are particularly relevant in this regard. Despite its importance, the development of this pedagogical praxis in the current relational and societal context seems to be under pressure. In this study, we aim to investigate how care workers cultivate pedagogical praxis in RYC services. We aim to gain insight into (1) which pedagogical actions are considered as meaningful, (2) which struggles to influence this pedagogical praxis, and (3) how care workers deal with these struggles. Together with the participants, a qualitative research process was co-created. Care workers describe the importance of a basic pedagogy: a pedagogy that is not pre-structured but that allows one to reflect and act in a given situation. However, they mention different struggles on micro-, meso- and macro-level that put pressure on the development of basic pedagogy. On top of that, care workers describe a perceived unsafe context to work in. Actions to deal with this complex matter are described in terms of fight, flight or freeze reactions.

Young adults’ personal and relationship memories: recollections of self, siblings, and family

ABSTRACT We investigated the phenomenological and narrative characteristics of young adults’ self- and other-related memories within the context of significant relationships. We also examined whether participants’ gender and/or gender concordance between participants and their siblings was associated with autobiographical memory characteristics. We collected data from 108 college students who had only one sibling. All participants provided narratives in response to three memory prompts (i.e., self-related, sibling-related, and family-related) and rated their memories along dimensions such as significance, emotional valence, clarity etc. The narratives were coded on thematic content, transformativeness, mentions of others, and event type dimensions. Results revealed differences between self-related memories and sibling- and family-related memories across several dimensions. However, sibling-related and family-related memories were mostly similar to each other. No statistically significant gender or gender concordance differences were observed. Further exploratory analysis showed that memory narratives describing extended events were more transformative than single event narratives. The findings enhance our understanding about the self-in-relation to others through relationship memories.

Understanding marital stability through work–family experiences in proximal and distal contexts: Comparing United States and Japan

AbstractObjectiveGuided by Gottman's framework of marital stability and the ecological theories, the present study aims to understand the relationships between work–family spillover and marital stability within two levels of context—the relational and social cultural contexts.BackgroundThe relational context of marriage is manifested by spousal relationships—spousal support and strain, which would moderate the relationship between work–family spillover and marital stability. Identified relationships also unfold within sociocultural contexts.MethodThis study uses data from the Midlife in the United States 2 (MIDUS 2) and Midlife in Japan (MIDJA) projects to explore these dynamics. The current study involved 500 Japanese and 1,800 American participants who were married and employed at the time of data collection.ResultsResults from multigroup path models revealed cultural differences. The relational context—spousal support and strain—played moderating roles in the associations between work–family spillover and marital stability in both countries. However, distinct sociocultural patterns emerged as spousal strain showed a stronger association among Japanese participants, whereas spousal support was more prominent among Americans in relation to marital stability.ConclusionThe results support Gottman's contention that positive and negative features of marriage are related to marital stability directly and indirectly by shaping the impacts of work–family spillover and sociocultural expectations of work and family.ImplicationsPractitioners and organizations should recognize the role of spouses in addressing the negative effects of work–family spillover in marriage, as well as incorporating clients' or employees' cultural backgrounds when addressing marital concerns.

How power shapes behavior: Evidence from physicians.

Power-the asymmetric control of valued resources-affects most human interactions. Although power is challenging to study with real-world data, a distinctive dataset allowed us to do so within the critical context of doctor-patient relationships. Using 1.5 million quasi-random assignments in US military emergency departments, we examined how power differentials between doctor and patient (measured by using differences in military ranks) affect physician behavior. Our findings indicate that power confers nontrivial advantages: "High-power" patients (who outrank their physician) receive more resources and have better outcomes than equivalently ranked "low-power" patients. Patient promotions even increase physician effort. Furthermore, low-power patients suffer if their physician concurrently cares for a high-power patient. Doctor-patient concordance on race and sex also matters. Overall, power-driven variation in behavior can harm the most vulnerable populations in health care settings.

Advanced paramedics' restraint decision-making when managing acute behavioural disturbance (ABD) in the UK pre-hospital ambulance setting: A qualitative investigation.

Acute behavioural disturbance (ABD), sometimes called 'excited delirium', is a medical emergency. In the UK, some patients presenting with ABD are managed by advanced paramedics (APs), however little is known about how APs make restraint decisions. The aim of this research is to explore the decisions made by APs when managing restraint in the context of ABD, in the UK pre-hospital ambulance setting. Seven semi-structured interviews were undertaken with APs. All participants were experienced APs with post-registration, post-graduate advanced practice education and qualifications. The resulting data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, informed by critical realism. We identified four interconnected themes from the interview data. Firstly, managing complexity and ambiguity in relation to identifying ABD patients and determining appropriate treatment plans. Secondly, feeling vulnerable to professional consequences from patients deteriorating whilst in the care of APs. Thirdly, negotiating with other professionals who have different roles and priorities. Finally, establishing primacy of care in relation to incidents which involve police officers and other professionals. A key influence was the need to characterise incidents as medical, as an enabler to establishing clinical leadership and decision-making control. APs focused on de-escalation techniques and sought to reduce physical restraint, intervening with pharmacological interventions if necessary to achieve this. The social relationships and interactions with patients and other professionals at the scene were key to success. Decisions are a source of anxiety, with fears of professional detriment accompanying poor patient outcomes. Our results indicate that APs would benefit from education and development specifically in relation to making ABD decisions, acknowledging the context of inter-professional relationships and the potential for competing and conflicting priorities. A focus on joint, high-fidelity training with the police may be a helpful intervention.

Paternal Incarceration, Family Relationships, and Adolescents’ Internalizing and Externalizing Problem Behaviors

Little is known about the conditions under which paternal incarceration is harmful to children and the mechanisms that explain this. This study addressed the family relationship context in the associations between paternal incarceration and adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. Using data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a moderated mediation model was specified where paternal incarceration predicted adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors through family relationship quality, and where the mediating role of family relationship quality was moderated by pre-incarceration family relationship characteristics. Using latent profile analyses, three pre-incarceration family clusters were identified (“Cohesive”; “Fragmented”; “Disharmonious”). Analyses indicated that the association between paternal incarceration and family relationship quality differed across pre-incarceration family clusters and that decreased father-mother relationship quality mediated the negative association between paternal incarceration and adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors among “Cohesive” and “Fragmented”, but not among “Disharmonious” family clusters. The findings suggest that adolescents with more harmonious pre-incarceration family relationships are most vulnerable to the negative consequences of paternal incarceration. The study demonstrates the need to consider the family relationship context to understand the intergenerational consequences of incarceration.

The Impact of Social Work Relationships on Preschool Teachers' Social and Emotional Competence

In recent years, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) initiated a survey focused on the social and emotional competence (SEC) of educators, garnering significant attention across the educational community. Despite this interest, there remains a notable gap in research concerning the development of SEC among preschool teachers within the context of various social relationships. Addressing this gap, our study examines the influence of leadership trust, collegial relationships, pro-teacher relationships, teacher-child interactions, and self-efficacy on the SEC of preschool educators. This investigation aims to elucidate the role these social relationships play in shaping the SEC of preschool teachers. The study sample consisted of 223 Chinese preschool teachers, with data analyzed through hierarchical regression techniques. Findings reveal that leadership trust, pro-teacher relationships, and self-efficacy are significant predictors of teachers' SEC. These results underscore the importance of fostering a positive, trust-based, and supportive social work environment as a pivotal strategy for enhancing preschool teachers' SEC, thereby contributing to the broader understanding of how social relationships influence educators' emotional and social capabilities.

Building the Environment for Narrative Inquiry With Young People With Intellectual Disability

Narrative inquiry methods are central to qualitative research that seeks to understand phenomena through the lived experiences of research participants. This research used a form of narrative inquiry—storytelling, to invite four young people with intellectual disability referred to as the “story owners” to share their stories about sexuality and relationships. Through a reflexive approach, this article unpacks the relational and physical contexts that surrounded the narrative inquiry methods, which the researchers describe as the narrative environment. In this narrative environment, each story owner co-developed their story with an academic researcher. The research found that the key components of the narrative environment which were co-created somewhat differently by each story owner were space and place, objects, people, and relationships and communication. Take home messages provided in this research can assist novice researchers and co-researchers in their methodological approach to narrative research with people with intellectual disability.

Fishing businesses, women's entrepreneurship, and the performance of femininity

Although recent work has examined how masculinities are performed through fishing work at sea, less research has focused on how femininities are performed in the gendered fisheries context. By focusing on a particular group of women in fisheries – the women entrepreneur – this study examines the performances of femininities in their entrepreneurialism. It explores whether women entrepreneurs can perform gender differently and, by effect, subvert the gender order in the fisheries context. I draw on Schippers' (2002, 2007) concepts of ‘gender hegemony’, ‘gender maneuvering’ and three forms of femininities: ‘hegemonic femininity’, ‘pariah femininity’ and ‘alternative femininity’. My research found that women's performances of femininities are multiple and versatile as women adapted their gender performances to varying situated, relational and spatial contexts. All women entrepreneurs performed a type of hegemonic femininity that supported, confirmed and upheld hegemonic masculinity. Yet, through their entrepreneurial work in male-dominated fishing spaces, women also performed a form of pariah femininity which incorporated many features of hegemonic masculinity – such as getting dirty and displaying strength. In food spaces, on the other hand, women performed a type of ‘alternative femininity’, predicated on being sociable, skilled in cooking and being service minded, which was not predicated on their subordination to that of masculinity. The wider significance of these findings is that women fisheries entrepreneurs maneuver their gender by adopting versatility in their gender performances. This versatility allows them to simultaneously be ‘good’ female partners of fisher-men and tough fish workers, whilst also carving out a space for themselves in food entrepreneurship which was more liberating, enjoyable and self-fulfilling.

Lead News Coverage of Buddhist Monks in The Nation Online Newspaper: A Syntactic Analysis

This research conducts Lead News Coverage of Buddhist Monks in The Nation Online Newspaper: A Syntactic Analysis. It delves into syntactic sentence types, phrase-level structures in subjects and predicates, and word-level structures within the same context. The qualitative study utilizes data collected from The Nation's website over a decade (2013–2023) to analyze sentence types categorized into simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex, revealing a preference for simple (51.79%) and complex sentences (39.29%), indicating a journalistic inclination towards clarity and in-depth information presentation. Phrase-level analysis highlights a dominance of Noun Phrases (43.26%) and Prepositional Phrases (32.01%), underscoring their role in establishing relational context and subjects in sentences. Word-level analysis uncovers a significant use of determiners (44.07%) and nouns (38.45%), emphasizing their essential roles in conveying meaning and specifying noun phrases. The study's findings suggest a strategic balance in The Nation's syntactic choices, reflecting a nuanced approach to ensuring readability while providing comprehensive information, aligning with broader trends in digital journalism. This research contributes to understanding the syntactic strategies in journalism, particularly in the context of online media and its representation of religious figures.

Adolescent responses to paternal verbal aggression: Assessing spillover and compensatory processes using random intercept cross-lagged panel models.

Prior research suggests several pathways through which verbal aggression manifests across adolescent relationship contexts, including spillover (continuity of aggression across different relationships) and compensation (offsetting an aggressive relationship with less aggression in other relationships). These pathways vary across timescales in ways that between-person analytic approaches are unlikely to adequately capture. The current study used random intercept cross-lagged panel modeling (RI-CLPM) to examine adolescents' spillover and compensatory responses to paternal verbal aggression. Participants were 184 adolescents (53.2% female) from a United States community sample participating in a longitudinal study. Annually from ages 13-17, participants reported on their experiences of verbal aggression in their paternal and maternal relationships and participated in observed interactions with a close peer that were coded for aggressive behavior. Spillover was observed from father-adolescent to mother-adolescent and adolescent-peer contexts in analyses at the between-person level, likely capturing long-term, cumulative effects of paternal aggression. Conversely, compensation was observed in analyses at the within-person level, likely capturing medium-term (i.e., year-to-year) adaptations to paternal aggression: Adolescents who experienced more aggression from their father than expected at a specific time point were less likely to both perpetrate and experience aggression in maternal and peer relationships the following year. Several findings differed across teen gender, with compensation more likely to occur in males than females. These findings highlight the multiple pathways by which father-adolescent aggression may be linked to behavior in other relationships in the medium- and long-term. They also support the value of RI-CLPM in decomposing these effects.

The Effects of Work-Family Conflict and Work-Family Support on Job Performance of Chinese Grassroots Civil Servants

Objective: As an important and special professional group in Chinese society, the career development of grassroots civil servants has received much attention. With the development of information technology and the strengthening of workplace competition, new conflicts between work and family continue to intensify, and their conflict issues have received widespread attention. Theoretical framework: This study focuses on grassroots civil servants and explores the impact of work family relationships on job performance. Theoretical assumptions are proposed based on management science theory and previous research on the relationship between variables. Method: Obtain survey data and interview response texts through questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews. The proposed hypothesis was validated based on quantitative and qualitative analysis methods. Results and Conclusion: The empirical results indicate that the quality and balance of work family relationships have a significant impact on job performance, and work engagement and job burnout play a mediating role in the influencing process. Implication of the Study: The research results enrich the systematic exploration of the specific context of work family relationships and the impact of groups on work behavior, which is conducive to improving humanized and organized management mechanisms, providing guidance for the practice of work family coordination and division of labor within the grassroots civil servant team. Originality/Value: The study aims to improve the living and development environment of grassroots civil servants, and stimulating deep work motivation.

Genome-scale annotation of protein binding sites via language model and geometric deep learning.

Revealing protein binding sites with other molecules, such as nucleic acids, peptides, or small ligands, sheds light on disease mechanism elucidation and novel drug design. With the explosive growth of proteins in sequence databases, how to accurately and efficiently identify these binding sites from sequences becomes essential. However, current methods mostly rely on expensive multiple sequence alignments or experimental protein structures, limiting their genome-scale applications. Besides, these methods haven't fully explored the geometry of the protein structures. Here, we propose GPSite, a multi-task network for simultaneously predicting binding residues of DNA, RNA, peptide, protein, ATP, HEM, and metal ions on proteins. GPSite was trained on informative sequence embeddings and predicted structures from protein language models, while comprehensively extracting residual and relational geometric contexts in an end-to-end manner. Experiments demonstrate that GPSite substantially surpasses state-of-the-art sequence-based and structure-based approaches on various benchmark datasets, even when the structures are not well-predicted. The low computational cost of GPSite enables rapid genome-scale binding residue annotations for over 568,000 sequences, providing opportunities to unveil unexplored associations of binding sites with molecular functions, biological processes, and genetic variants. The GPSite webserver and annotation database can be freely accessed at https://bio-web1.nscc-gz.cn/app/GPSite.

Genome-scale annotation of protein binding sites via language model and geometric deep learning

Revealing protein binding sites with other molecules, such as nucleic acids, peptides, or small ligands, sheds light on disease mechanism elucidation and novel drug design. With the explosive growth of proteins in sequence databases, how to accurately and efficiently identify these binding sites from sequences becomes essential. However, current methods mostly rely on expensive multiple sequence alignments or experimental protein structures, limiting their genome-scale applications. Besides, these methods haven’t fully explored the geometry of the protein structures. Here, we propose GPSite, a multi-task network for simultaneously predicting binding residues of DNA, RNA, peptide, protein, ATP, HEM, and metal ions on proteins. GPSite was trained on informative sequence embeddings and predicted structures from protein language models, while comprehensively extracting residual and relational geometric contexts in an end-to-end manner. Experiments demonstrate that GPSite substantially surpasses state-of-the-art sequence-based and structure-based approaches on various benchmark datasets, even when the structures are not well-predicted. The low computational cost of GPSite enables rapid genome-scale binding residue annotations for over 568,000 sequences, providing opportunities to unveil unexplored associations of binding sites with molecular functions, biological processes, and genetic variants. The GPSite webserver and annotation database can be freely accessed at https://bio-web1.nscc-gz.cn/app/GPSite.

The concept of freedom in the thought of St. Augustine

The article discusses St. Augustine’s arguments for the existence of free will and its theological contexts in relation to human nature. The bishop of Hippo refers to the philosophical works of Plato and Plotinus as well as texts from the New Testament, and in justifying the existence of free will points to the direct consciousness of man. Augustine was deeply convinced that this intrinsic action is necessary for valuation and therefore for moral judgment resulting from the choice between good and evil. Without free will, man would not be himself, it is the condition of humanity and the foundation of responsibility. In his writings, the author distinguished between the freedom from autonomy and self-determination; independent acts of will that are an ontological feature of human being. He believed that the ultimate source of man’s inner freedom is God. Augustine was also aware that human freedom is imperfect, which manifests itself in ethical dilemmas related to decision-making. The human freedom is never absolute, as a result of man’s fallen nature, which God has bestowed with the grace of goodness in the form of the gift of free will. Among other things, this accounted for Augustine’s rejection of the concept of grace proposed by Pelagius, who denied its supernatural character claiming that it is given according to merit. Many scholars have attempted to interpret the issue of how grace affects the human will. Their statements seem to support the conclusion in light of which freedom of the will is not abrogated due to the action of grace.

Balance and deep connections: the impact of physical activity on body and sexual self-esteem, psychological distress, and marital satisfaction among adults.

To date, no research has examined the relationship between sexual self-esteem, body self-esteem, psychological distress, marital satisfaction, and engagement in physical activities. Through a study involving 443 adults the aim of this research was to analyze the connections between engaging in physical activities, body self-esteem, sexual self-esteem, marital satisfaction, and psychological distress among adults. The results obtained through Partial Least Squares (PLS) modeling with SmartPLS reveal significant interconnections among these variables. The correlation between body self-esteem and psychological distress, the positive relationship between sexual satisfaction and positive sexual self-esteem, as well as the beneficial influence of engaging in physical activities on marital satisfaction, are key highlights of this study. The robustness of the measures, confirmed by high coefficients, strengthens the credibility of the results. Despite these advancements, the cross-sectional nature of the study emphasizes the need for longitudinal research to gain a deeper understanding of psychological and relational dynamics over time. In conclusion, this study offers significant contributions to promoting balanced marital relationships, highlighting the importance of considering body and sexual self-esteem, psychological distress, and physical activity within the context of human relationships.

Sensemaking Process of Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Identification of Specific Clusters of “Sense of Grip”

AbstractAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) represents a pervasive neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent atypicalities in social communication and social interactions across different domains of life, often with restricted, repetitive, stereotyped patterns of behaviors, interests, and activities. A large corpus of previous research shows that parental involvement in caregiving is perceived as stressful and challenging, in many cases resulting in poorer parental quality of life. The authors present a quali-quantitative mixed method research on sensemaking process of 34 parents (16 mothers and 18 fathers) of children with ASD. The interviews were collected and analyzed according to the “Sense of Grip” (SoG) methodology. SoG indeed refers to the sensemaking processes that a person realizes to manage the relationship with diseases or disorders by organizing several degrees of flexibility, differentiation, and adaptation to the variability of experiences and contexts of life. This construct of health psychology—semiotically and clinically oriented—is based on specific narrative functions (i.e., temporal, integrative, emotional, sharing, and agentive functions). The cluster analysis procedure allowed to identify three different SoG profiles: (a) enterprising (parents who are able to construct flexible and dynamic familiar routines), (b) opposing (parents who experience the ASD disorder as a deep unacceptable crisis, hindering the rest of familiar and professional activities), and (c) condescending (parents who organize family life completely on adherence to medical prescriptions and care protocols). These profiles show interesting implications for clinical practice and support as showing specific aspects of treating, managing, and sharing children conditions within family and relational contexts of life.

Patient-led co-production in community mental health nursing practice: part 2

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an example of patient-led co-production. Design/methodology/approach The New Economics Foundation’s six principles of co-production (nef, 2013) have been used to frame the activities undertaken during the author’s relationship with a community mental health nurse. Findings This paper describes a co-produced project between a patient and a community mental health nurse to create a range of resources and to deliver training, resulting in mutual benefit for both parties. Practical implications This paper invites policy makers to consider the unique role that community mental health nurses can play in supporting patients with long-term challenges that have developed because of an imbalance and an abuse of power within earlier relationships; by adopting a co-production approach, centred on the patient’s interests and skills, a working partnership can be achieved wherein both parties feel that they matter. Originality/value Co-production is usually used with groups of stakeholders working together in an equitable way to design or deliver a new service; this paper, however, seeks to demonstrate how the process can be effectively used when the project is patient-led within the context of a therapeutic relationship.