Extraversion and neuroticism influence behaviour and mood. Extreme expressions of these personality traits may predispose individuals to developing chronic functional pains and mood disorders that predominantly affect women. We acquired anatomical MRI scans and personality scores from healthy male and female adolescents and measured gray matter…

Background: The present research extended previous research by broadening the dimensions of personality traits, and focusing on burnout and psychological well-being among staff working with people with intellectual disabilities and challenging behaviour. Methods: This is a cross-sectional survey in which 103 staff completed questionnaires…

The research discussed in this article is based on an Australian Research Council-funded study carried out over three years (2005-2007) in three states in Australia. The study sought to understand students' experiences and decisions at secondary school to ascertain why few girls choose to enter tertiary-level Communication and Information…

This paper explores some of the reasons that primary head teachers in urban schools give for staying in a highly complex and demanding professional occupation. The paper is divided into two sections. The first section contains an overview of what is involved in primary headship in the English setting and what is distinctive in the urban setting…

This article discusses the concepts of happiness, emotional well-being and mental health in the light of recent work on children's spirituality, to argue that such a consideration can help to avoid simplistic and individualistic views of each. Distinguishing between happiness as short-term gratification and as longer-term flourishing, the latter…

In this article, the authors provide an overview of the consequences of war, terrorism, and disaster on children's physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development. Next, they discuss the "resiliency promoting" strategies that adults who work with children may employ prior to and after a catastrophic event. The article concludes with…

Background/Context: The claim of a relationship between a teacher's moral character and a student's moral development has its roots in a rich philosophical tradition. It is a tradition that maintains that the young acquire virtue by associating with virtuous people in a virtuous community. In this way, it is assumed virtue is acquired by example…

This article considers the responsibility for schoolboys' behaviour and character when in liminal spaces between home and school, in an historical account of the annual cricket matches in London between Eton, Harrow and Winchester in the late 1850s. The episode is situated in the context of the Clarendon Commission's discussions on school sports,…

Developmental research has examined individual differences, cognitive developmental bases, and psychosocial factors of adolescent risk-taking. The current paper presents a general adolescent risk-taking model that adopts aspects of each of these primarily independent areas. This model is based on the premise that adolescents take risks when (a)…

The "care challenge" is shown to be both broader and more successful than Walker and Frimer's (this issue, pp. 53-68) critique allows. The main philosophical and psychological tenets of the care challenge foreshadowed the direction of twenty-first century moral psychology.

This study examined the possible risk-buffering and risk-enhancing role of family characteristics on the association between temperament and early adolescent externalizing and internalizing problems, adjusted for familial vulnerability for psychopathology and early childhood problem behavior. Furthermore, it explored whether these effects were…

This study assessed the convergent and divergent validity of the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA; LeBuffe, Shapiro, & Naglieri, 2008). A total of 227 (n = 94 teachers, n = 133 parents) raters completed the DESSA, in addition to the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scales-2 (BERS-2; Epstein, 2004) and/or the Behavior Assessment…

The inherent imprecision of behavioral phenotyping is the single most important factor contributing to the failure to discover the biological factors that are involved in psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., Bearden & Freimer, 2006). In this review article we argue that in addition to an appreciation of the inherent complexity at…

Any organization that is able to promote the importance of increased levels of social capital and individuals who can leverage and use the resources that exist within the network may experience higher levels of performance. This study sought to add to our knowledge about individuals' accessing social resources for the purpose of accomplishing…

Associations between maternal sensitivity to infant distress and nondistress and infant social-emotional adjustment were examined in a subset of dyads from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care (N = 376). Mothers reported on infant temperament at 1 and 6 months postpartum, and maternal sensitivity to distress and nondistress were observed at 6…