<p>The article presents the case for a more optimistic, power-centered view of change in the Khumbu, Nepal, based on the author's fieldwork in the village of Thame. The author also offer a critical review of Von Fure-Haimendorf's approach to change. The article is based on the survey conducted of over 50 randomly selected Sherpas currently living and working in Kathmandu. Eighty-four percent had returned to Khumbu at least twice over the last five years, and nearly half returned every year. (Rajeev Ranjan Singh 2007-02-11)</p>
Background—It is well established that a depressed baroreflex sensitivity may adversely influence the prognosis in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) and in those with previous myocardial infarction.Methods and Results—We tested whether a slow breathing rate (6 breaths/min) could modify the baroreflex sensitivity in 81 patients with stable (2 weeks) CHF (age, 58Ϯ1 years; NYHA classes I [6 patients], II [33], III [27], and IV [15]) and in 21 controls. Slow breathing induced highly significant increases in baroreflex sensitivity, both in controls (from 9.4Ϯ0.7 to 13.8Ϯ1.0 ms/mm Hg, PϽ0.0025) and in CHF patients (from 5.0Ϯ0.3 to 6.1Ϯ0.5 ms/mm Hg, PϽ0.0025), which correlated with the value obtained during spontaneous breathing (rϭϩ0.202, Pϭ0.047). In addition, systolic and diastolic blood pressure decreased in CHF patients (systolic, from 117Ϯ3 to 110Ϯ4 mm Hg, Pϭ0.009; diastolic, from 62Ϯ1 to 59Ϯ1 mm Hg, Pϭ0.02).
Conclusions—These data suggest that in patients with CHF, slow breathing, in addition to improving oxygen saturation and exercise tolerance as has been previously shown, may be beneficial by increasing baroreflex sensitivity. (Circulation. 2002;105:143-145.)
<p>ABSTRACT: Many programs have been developed to help schools enhance students' health and reduce the prevalence of drug use, violence, and high-risk sexual behaviors. How should educators choose among these? This article describes selection criteria based on theory, research, and best educational practice that identify key social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies and program features. The SEL competencies for students include 17 skills and attitudes organized into four groups: awareness of self and others; positive attitudes and values; responsible decision making; and social interaction skills. The 11 program features critical to the success of school-based SEL programs emphasize curriculum design, coordination with larger systems, educator preparation and support, and program evaluation. Developed by the Collaborative to Advance Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the SEL framework can be used to guide selection of research-based prevention programs that address health, substance abuse, violence prevention, sexuality, character, and social skills.</p>
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To be successful in school and life individuals need to learn to understand and manage their emotions, get along with others and exercise good judgment. Children and youth who are deaf or hard of hearing have long been considered a population at risk for not developing age-appropriate social-emotional skills. The purpose of this study was to identify, review, and summarize the intervention research addressing social and emotional learning with children and youth who are deaf or hard of hearing. We examined the research published in professional peer-reviewed journals between the years 1996 and 2017. Eight hundred and nineteen articles on the topic were reviewed. A total of 11 intervention studies were identified. A summary of each study as well as recommendations for future research are provided.
Mindfulness should be associated with decreased automatic responding and with increased empathy and compassion. Therefore, given an opportunity to express judgments about other people, a highly mindful person should be less inclined to express negative and unnecessary judgments. The present study provided participants the opportunity to express judgments about photographs of other people in a procedure that attempted to control for potential demand characteristics associated with self-report measures of mindfulness. Expressed judgments were panel rated, and the derived judgment scores were regressed with participant scores on the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) and the Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ). Results demonstrated no overall significant relationship between judgments and MAAS or FFMQ total scores. However, a significant relationship between judgment scores and the “act with awareness” and the “non-judgment” facets of the FFMQ was observed. Judgment scores were also related to self-reported involvement in mindfulness activities such as meditation and yoga. These results suggest that self-reported mindfulness may not completely align with behaviors that logically reflect right mindfulness. Moreover, social judgment may be a useful overt measure related to mindfulness. The results also provide empirical evidence of the very strong social tendency to negatively and often derogatorily judge other people.
In recent decades, empathy research has blossomed into a vibrant and multidisciplinary field of study. This text collects cross-disciplinary, cutting-edge work on human empathy from the perspectives of social, cognitive, developmental and clinical psychology and cognitive/affective neuroscience.
Written by four leading researchers in the study of prosocial behavior, this book introduces a new perspective on prosocial behavior for the 21st century. Building on the bystander intervention work that has defined this area since the 1960s, The Social Psychology of Prosocial Behavior examines prosocial behavior from a multilevel perspective that explores the diverse influences that promote actions for the benefit of others and the myriad ways that prosocial actions can be manifested. The authors expand the breadth of the field, incorporating analyses of biological and genetic factors that predispose individuals to be concerned for the well-being of others, as well as planned helping, such as volunteering, and organizational citizenship behavior and cooperative behavior within and between groups. Further, they identify both the common and the unique processes that underlie the broad spectrum of prosocial behavior. In summary this book addresses the following: The evolution of altruistic tendencies and other biological explanations of why humans are predisposed to be prosocial; How the situation and motives that are elicited by these situations affect when and how people help; The causes and maintenance of long-term helping, such as volunteering; How prosocial behavior changes over time and the developmental processes responsible for these changes; The consequences of helping for both the people who provide it and those who receive it; Helping and cooperation within and between groups and the implications of these actions.
As featured in Bill Moyers’s PBS special “Spirit and Nature“, leaders from major traditions around the world speak out in this volume about what spiritual resources we may turn to in our age of unprecedented danger to the planet.
<p>This work encapsulates the full spectrum of extant Tibetan religious heritage. To date, no other ethnographic or literary source has demonstrated such an unmodified and rich juxtaposition of disparate cultural components. The main bodies of tradition (qualitatively and historically) represented include: Indigenous folk culture related to the physical and numinous environment of Upper Tibet, doctrinal material derived from Vajrayana, gCod cult practices, Gling ge-sar bardic content, and Phya-gshen elements specifically pertaining to dpyad (diagnosis), gto (beneficial rites) and the cult of dgra-lha (sgra-bla).</p>
<i>Background:</i> This study examined the effects of an 8-week stress reduction program based on training in mindfulness meditation. Previous research efforts suggesting this program may be beneficial in terms of reducing stress-related symptomatology and helping patients cope with chronic pain have been limited by a lack of adequate comparison control groups. <i>Methods:</i> Twenty-eight individuals who volunteered to participate in the present study were randomized into either an experimental group or a nonintervention control group. <i>Results:</i> Following participation, experimental subjects, when compared with controls, evidenced significantly greater changes in terms of: (1) reductions in overall psychological symptomatology; (2) increases in overall domain-specific <i>sense</i> of control and utilization of an accepting or yielding <i>mode</i> of control in their lives, and (3) higher scores on a measure of spiritual experiences. <i>Conclusions:</i> The techniques of mindfulness meditation, with their emphasis on developing detached observation and awareness of the contents of consciousness, may represent a powerful cognitive behavioral coping strategy for transforming the ways in which we respond to life events. They may also have potential for relapse prevention in affective disorders.
Factor analysis of Hogan's Empathy Scale, scored in Likert format, yielded four factors: Social Self-Confidence, Even Temperedness, Sensitivity, and Nonconformity. Correlations with 16 different personality measures and a set of 12 adjective rating scales confirmed the factors' unique psychological meanings. Empathy subscales, created from items loading primarily on one factor, accounted for roughly equal amounts of variance in Hogan's original Q-set empathy criterion, although the Sensitivity and Nonconformity factors appeared to be slightly more important. Implications discussed include ways to improve the scoring of the Empathy Scale for future research and several broader measurement issues: the costs and benefits of using sophisticated statistics, the importance of manifest item content, and the importance of scale homogeneity.
The period of early childhood sets the stage for how well children view themselves, each other, and their world. Shared positive emotional experiences between caregivers and children serve as building blocks for the development of social and emotional well-being in infants and toddlers. Incorporating the three principles of promotion, prevention, and intervention within a systems framework (child-parent-environment) will enable early childhood practitioners to foster the emotional health and well-being of all children and families, especially those individual children who are more vulnerable due to the presence of multiple risk factors. The primary intent of the authors of this paper is to discuss the importance of attending to the social and emotional well being of very young children as a primary focus of early learning and school success.
What happens when people suppress their emotions when they sacrifice for a romantic partner? This multimethod study investigates how suppressing emotions during sacrifice shapes affective and relationship outcomes. In Part 1, dating couples came into the laboratory to discuss important romantic relationship sacrifices. Suppressing emotions was associated with emotional costs for the partner discussing his or her sacrifice. In Part 2, couples participated in a 14-day daily experience study. Within-person increases in emotional suppression during daily sacrifice were associated with decreases in emotional well-being and relationship quality as reported by both members of romantic dyads. In Part 3, suppression predicted decreases in relationship satisfaction and increases in thoughts about breaking up with a romantic partner 3 months later. In the first two parts of the study, authenticity mediated the costly effects of suppression. Implications for research on close relationships and emotion regulation are discussed.
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<p>This facility enables one to identify the Chinese, Tibetan, and Sanskrit "parallels" or "counterparts" to the suttas of the four main Pali Nikayas - or vice versa. It is designed for those whose interest in the Early Buddhist discourses extends beyond the limits of the Pali Sutta-piṭaka to include the extensive corresponding materials found elsewhere: the Agamas and individual sutras preserved in Chinese, the occasional sutra translations contained in the Tibetan Kanjur, and the numerous published fragments of sutras in Sanskrit and related languages. It is an up-dated and revised successor to Akanuma's <em>Comparative Catalogue of Chinese Agamas & Pali Nikayas</em> (1929), and is the natural starting point in navigating around this vast mass of textual material.</p>
The scientific discovery of novel training paradigms has yielded better understanding of basic mechanisms underlying cortical plasticity, learning and development. This study is a first step in evaluating Tai Chi (TC), the Chinese slow-motion meditative exercise, as a training paradigm that, while not engaging in direct tactile stimulus training, elicits enhanced tactile acuity in long-term practitioners. The rationale for this study comes from the fact that, unlike previously studied direct-touch tactile training paradigms, TC practitioners focus specific mental attention on the body’s extremities including the fingertips and hands as they perform their slow routine. To determine whether TC is associated with enhanced tactile acuity, experienced adult TC practitioners were recruited and compared to age–gender matched controls. A blinded assessor used a validated method (Van Boven et al. in Neurology 54(12): 2230–2236, 2000) to compare TC practitioners’ and controls’ ability to discriminate between two different orientations (parallel and horizontal) across different grating widths at the fingertip. Study results showed that TC practitioners’ tactile spatial acuity was superior to that of the matched controls (P < 0.04). There was a trend showing TC may have an enhanced effect on older practitioners (P < 0.066), suggesting that TC may slow age related decline in this measure. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate a long-term attentional practice’s effects on a perceptual measure. Longitudinal studies are needed to examine whether TC initiates or is merely correlated with perceptual changes and whether it elicits long-term plasticity in primary sensory cortical maps. Further studies should also assess whether related somatosensory attentional practices (such as Yoga, mindfulness meditation and Qigong) achieve similar effects.
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Grace Bullock interviews John A. Powell during the Mind & Life Institute’s 2014 International Symposium of Contemplative Studies pre-conference keynote. They discuss the bridge between the active and contemplative life as well as sameness and difference. They explore why the contemplative movement in the United States has not engaged black traditions, how race and culture are implicit in educational systems, ways to frame uncomfortable conversations, problems with the idea of inclusion, and what contemplative social justice looks like. The final 30-minutes are especially poignant.
<p>Few counseling programs directly address the importance of self-care in reducing stress and burnout in their curricula. A course entitled Mind/Body Medicine and the Art of Self-Care was created to address personal and professional growth opportunities through self-care and mindfulness practices (meditation, yoga, qigong, and conscious relaxation exercises). Three methods of evaluating this 15-week 3-credit mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course for counseling students indicated positive changes for students in learning how to manage stress and improve counseling practice. Students reported positive physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and interpersonal changes and substantial effects on their counseling skills and therapeutic relationships. Information from a focus group, qualitative reports, and quantitative course evaluations were triangulated; all data signified positive student responses to the course, method of teaching, and course instructor. Most students reported intentions of integrating mindfulness practices into their future profession.</p>
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This book includes papers written by teachers and how they engage holistic education in their classrooms. The papers come from a course taught by Jack Miller at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto entitled The Holistic Curriculum. This is a rich and diverse collection of papers showing how holistic education can be brought into public education despite the pressures of testing and other accountability measures. Although most of the teachers teach in public schools there are also examples from teachers working in private and post secondary settings. This book can inspire other teachers who are looking for ways to teach the whole person in a more connected manner.
This book includes papers written by teachers and how they engage holistic education in their classrooms. The papers come from a course taught by Jack Miller at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto entitled The Holistic Curriculum. This is a rich and diverse collection of papers showing how holistic education can be brought into public education despite the pressures of testing and other accountability measures. Although most of the teachers teach in public schools there are also examples from teachers working in private and post secondary settings. This book can inspire other teachers who are looking for ways to teach the whole person in a more connected manner.
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