Eating disorders and related psychological features among Arabs and Jews in Israel: Does culture play a moderating role?

Eating disorders (EDs) have been documented in various cultural settings. A continuous increase in ED' rates among non-Western cultures (e.g.

Psychological resilience: Predictors and measurement among Israel Defense Force combat officer candidates.

The goal of the current study was to develop a resilience selection tool for combat officers that would augment the test battery at the Israel Defense Force (IDF) Officer Selection Center (OSC). To enable this goal, we sought to explore the underlying structure of resilience in a diverse number of resilience predictors. Participants were 1,533 male candidates at the IDF OSC.

The association between deficiencies in paternal and maternal reflective functioning and anorexia nervosa symptomatology.

Background: A large theoretical body of knowledge exists emphasizing the importance of parental mentalizing in the context of anorexia-nervosa (AN). However, the empirical support to these assumptions is still scarce. The aim of the present study was to examine whether parents of patients with AN are characterized by a lower mentalizing ability, and whether it is associated with impaired mentalizing, AN symptomatology and eating disorder (ED) related psychological traits in the daughters.

Mentalizing ability, mentalizing impairments, and anorexia nervosa: Validation of the Hebrew version of the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC).

The goal of this study was to validate the Hebrew version of the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC)-an ecological measure for assessing mentalizing ability-among patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) and healthy individuals. We examined the validity of the MASC's general mentalizing ability scale and of its mentalizing impairments subscales using validated measures of mentalizing ability (Reading the Mind in the Eyes test, Cambridge Mindreading Face-Voice Battery, and Reflective Function questionnaire) among female patients with AN (N = 35) and control participants (N = 42). ED symptoms were assessed via self-report questionnaires.

The moderating effects of self and other mentalizing on the relationship between distress and disordered eating: A cross-cultural examination.

Objective: Cross-cultural comparisons that focus on underlying psychological mechanisms in disordered eating (DE) are lacking. With the aim of addressing this gap, we investigated the interplay between mentalizing, distress, and DE in two cultural groups: the ultra-Orthodox and secular Jewish societies in Israel.

Method: A combination of performance-based and self-report measures of two mentalizing-related constructs (emotional awareness and alexithymia), along with self-report measures of distress, DE, and values preferences, were employed in a community sample (N = 300) of ultra-Orthodox and secular Jewish women.

Individual Resilience: A Major Protective Factor in Peer Bullying and Victimization of Elementary School Children in Israel.

Peer violence in school has become a major issue for schools around the world. The present study examined the impacts of cultural settings and of protective individual attributes on peer bullying and victimization in school. These protective attributes were self-esteem, sense of autonomy, emotional regulation, and individual resilience.

The neural underpinnings of cross-cultural differences in creativity.

Whereas Western individualistic cultures emphasize uniqueness, collectivistic East-Asian cultures discourage it. Here we examined whether cross-cultural differences in creativity as measured by a task of divergent thinking (DT) are explained by enhanced activity in brain regions that mediate inhibitory control (e.g.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) targeting the left inferior frontal gyrus: Effects on creativity across cultures.

Although evidence points to the existence of cultural differences in creativity, the mechanisms that underlie these differences are largely unknown. The twofold model of creativity posits two recursive stages: a generation phase and an evaluation phase. Considering that recent studies suggest that the left inferior frontal gyrus) L-IFG(may inhibit creativity during the evaluation phase, we hypothesized that manipulating IFG activity would affect participants' level of creativity.

Perspectives on Filial Responsibility Among Uprooted Families From South Lebanon.

This study focuses on filial responsibilities among uprooted families. Views of 20 mothers and 20 adolescents and young adults from southern Lebanon residing in Israel were compared to identify the roles that adolescent children assume and the perceived effects of these roles. Eight domains of filial responsibilities were agreed upon: language broker, cultural broker, financial supporter and breadwinner, surrogate parent and sibling caretaker, emotional supporter of parents, mediator of family conflicts, heritage transmitter, and role model.

Family obligations and individuation among immigrant youth: Do generational status and age at immigration matter?

Immigrant children and adolescents often assume parental roles in their families and may feel guilty about psychologically separating and individuating from the family. However, little is known about this phenomenon and youth' generational status and age at immigration. We investigated various aspects of family obligations (instrumental and emotional roles, language and culture brokering, perceived unfairness) and individuation among 302 immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Israel: first-generation (n = 44) and second-generation immigrant adolescents (n = 56); young adults who had arrived in Israel before the age of nine (n = 72) and from this age onward (n = 130).

Adjustment enhancer or moderator? The role of resilience in postmigration filial responsibility.

The current study investigated resilience factors in filial responsibility and their relationships to adjustment indicators. Young adult immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel (N = 220) completed the Comprehensive Filial Responsibilities Inventory and 4 proxy measures of adjustment: An adapted version of the Brief Symptom Inventory, the Satisfaction With Life Scale, the General Self-Efficacy Scale, and selected items from the General Life Functioning Inventory. The resilience factors examined included individual characteristics of Sense of Coherence, Optimism, and perceived social support from an adapted version of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support.

Mothers' Dreams, Children Realities: The Case of Uprooted Families from South Lebanon.

In this exploratory qualitative study, 15 mothers and 18 adolescents who, as family members of the South Lebanon Army, were uprooted from that country and now living in Israel, were interviewed separately. The mothers described their image of the adaptive adult, which stressed the positive values of loyalty to the family, orientation toward the group, respect, and acceptance of hierarchy and guided their child-rearing goals and socialization. The children shared similar attitudes about the importance of family loyalty and orientation toward the group, but differed from their mothers with regard to the issues of respect and obedience.

How Good Am I? Implicit and Explicit Self-Esteem as a Function of Perceived Parenting Styles Among Children With ADHD.

Objective: To investigate implicit and explicit self-esteem and academic self-evaluation among children with ADHD as a function of parenting styles, namely, authoritarian, authoritative and permissive parenting.

Method: Participants included 43 children with ADHD and 35 non-ADHD controls who filled out self-concept and perceived parenting style questionnaires. They also took an Implicit Association Test (IAT) that measured unacknowledged self-esteem.

When role reversal and brokering meet: filial responsibility among young immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union.

Traditional conceptualizations of role reversal and brokering (language and cultural in immigration), in which children assume culturally atypical adult responsibilities, have developed as different scholarly domains, despite their theoretical similarity. The purpose of the present article is to increase the integration between the two bodies of literature to achieve a better understanding of filial responsibilities children assume upon immigration and their differential correlates with adjustment. The structure of filial responsibility in immigration, interrelations between its distinct components, and the ability of the brokering roles to add significantly to the predicting of adjustment are studied.

Parent-child role reversal and psychological adjustment among immigrant youth in Israel.

Parent-child role reversal and its relation to psychological adjustment was investigated in Israel among immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Study 1 examined immigrant and Israeli-born college students (n = 184), and Study 2 examined adolescents (n = 180) by means of self-report questionnaires. Two major factors of role reversal emerged: child dominance and family support.

Self-enhancement, self-regulation and self-improvement following failures.

Two studies tested the relations between self-enhancement and self-improvement. Within these studies, two self-improvement stages were distinguished: the recognition stage and the action stage. The first study (N=132), conducted in a laboratory setting, investigated self-improvement processes that took place following bogus negative feedback as a function of self-enhancement.

Acculturation attitudes, perceived attitudes of the majority, and adjustment of Israeli-Arab and Jewish-Ethiopian students to an Israeli University.

The authors investigated adjustment to an Israeli university by students from two minority groups, Israeli Arabs and Jewish Ethiopians, as a function of their different acculturation attitudes (J. W. Berry, 1990).

The role of perceived specificity level of failure events in self-enhancement and in constructive self-criticism.

Three studies tested the role played by perceived specificity level of failures in self-enhancement and in constructive self-criticism. The first study demonstrated that perceived specificity level of events can serve as a self-protection mechanism (N = 137). The second study, based on retrospective reports of past failures and their implications, showed that perception of failures as specific induced a higher level of constructive self-criticism (N = 171).