Helping the One You Hurt: Toddlers’ Rudimentary Guilt,Shame, and Prosocial Behavior After Harming Another

This study explored the role of guilt and shame in early prosocial behavior by extending previous findings that guilt‐ and shame‐like responses can be distinguished in toddlers and, for the first time, examining their associations with helping. Toddlers (n = 32; M_age = 28.9 months) were led to believe they broke an adult's toy, after which they exhibited either a guilt‐like response that included frequently confessing their behavior and trying to repair the toy; or a shame‐like response that included frequently avoiding the adult and seldom confessing or attempting to repair the toy. In subsequent prosocial tasks, children showing a guilt‐like response helped an adult in emotional distress significantly faster and more frequently than did children showing a shame‐like response.     

Exploring Emotional Intelligence Among Master's‐Level Counseling Trainees

The authors explored the relationship between counseling trainees' emotional intelligence (EI), empathy, stress, distress, and demographics. Results indicated that higher levels of EI were associated with lower stress and distress, higher affective and cognitive empathy, and age. These findings suggest curricular integration of EI and potential utility of EI measures to evaluate students' progress throughout the program.     

Imagining a future,living in the present and remembering the past

The remit for this short piece was to identify themes emerging from the articles in this edition by Julie McLeod, Duncan Waite and Eugenie Samier, to consider how these themes reflect on the current field, and to identify their ongoing relevance. Additionally, I was asked to consider the current challenges that the field is facing and what this means for research and journals such as this one. My short response is that our research has to matter. It has to matter to us as individuals so that what we do is worthwhile; it has to matter that we can provide rigorous research that is reliable so that it can inform policy makers and administrators; and it has to provide teachers and students with a greater understanding of why they are doing what they are being asked to do.     

A Behavioral Approach to Building Cognitive Foundations for Effective Thought and Action

This research documents the process and results of an approach to teaching university undergraduates intentional self-development skills designed to promote self-generated goals, routines, and lifestyle choices. These skills may provide effective behavioral foundations for developing metacognitive awareness, intentionality, and individual well-being. The results of six original behavioral interventions, implemented in two James Madison University courses, provide initial support for the effectiveness of these instructional methodologies.     

Masculinity, moral atmosphere, and moral functioning of high school football players

In order to identify factors associated with on-field moral functioning among student athletes within the unique context of football, we examined masculine gender role conflict, moral atmosphere, and athletic identity. Using structural equation modeling to assess survey data from 204 high school football players, results demonstrated that moral atmosphere (i.e., the influence of coaches and teammates) was significantly associated with participants' process of on-field moral functioning across the levels of judgment, intention, and behavior. Neither masculine gender role conflict nor athletic identity significantly predicted moral functioning, but the results indicated that participants' identification with the athlete role significantly predicted conflict with socialized gender roles. Results suggest that in the aggressive and violent sport of football, coaches can have a direct influence on players' moral functioning process. Coaches can also have an indirect effect by influencing all the players so that a culture of ethical play can be cultivated among teammates and spread from the top down.     

Assessing Outcomes: Practical Methods and Evidence

University counseling center clients’ (N = 52) perceptions of precounseling functioning were highly correlated with their actual well‐being scores at intake. The magnitude of change based on perceptions of precounseling functioning to current well‐being was approximately double of what is found from the difference of actual precounseling well‐being to current well‐being scores. Retrospective methods for assessing precounseling functioning are best suited for comparison among clients or counseling processes.     

Beyond Punnett Squares: Student Word Association and Explanations of Phenotypic Variation through an Integrative Quantitative Genetics Unit Investigating Anthocyanin Inheritance and Expression in Brassica rapa Fast Plants

Genetics instruction in introductory biology is often confined to Mendelian genetics and avoids the complexities of variation in quantitative traits. Given the driving question “What determines variation in phenotype (Pv)? (Pv=Genotypic variation Gv + environmental variation Ev),” we developed a 4-wk unit for an inquiry-based laboratory course focused on the inheritance and expression of a quantitative trait in varying environments. We utilized Brassica rapa Fast Plants as a model organism to study variation in the phenotype anthocyanin pigment intensity. As an initial curriculum assessment, we used free word association to examine students’ cognitive structures before and after the unit and explanations in students’ final research posters with particular focus on variation (Pv = Gv + Ev). Comparison of pre- and postunit word frequency revealed a shift in words and a pattern of co-occurring concepts indicative of change in cognitive structure, with particular focus on “variation” as a proposed threshold concept and primary goal for students’ explanations. Given review of 53 posters, we found ∼50% of students capable of intermediate to high-level explanations combining both Gv and Ev influence on expression of anthocyanin intensity (Pv). While far from “plug and play,” this conceptually rich, inquiry-based unit holds promise for effective integration of quantitative and Mendelian genetics.