<p>Social cognition is a comprehensive term used to describe knowledge and skills that are applied to social situations and skills used to understand others. These skills include emotion perception, problem solving, executive functioning, and self-cognition. This study investigated the effectiveness of specific intervention strategies on social cognitive skills. The intervention strategies included activities for abstract thinking, emotion competence, Theory of Mind (ToM), and self-regulation of behaviors. Currently, little research exists to describe evidence based effective intervention strategies to improve social cognitive skills. The retrospective case study was completed with a female participant who was 11-years, 3 months old at the time of intervention. Data recorded from 20 intervention sessions was analyzed to determine the effectiveness of employed social cognition intervention tasks. Results indicated improvements in abstract thinking during a Mystery Box activity. Additionally, results showed the participant made improvements in her understanding of social cognition through use of social vocabulary and self-monitoring. Findings from the present study concluded that using concrete vocabulary for social concepts can improve an individual?s social communication skills.

<p> Psychological struggle seems to be an inherent part of the human experience. Unfortunately, the public attitude towards the obese focuses more on negative stereotypes (e.g., undisciplined, ugly, stupid, and lazy) than on the underlying psychological components that lie at the heart of the struggle. Negative stereotypes like these have an affect upon the way the obese think about themselves and may lead to self-stigmatization, which in turn may interfere with a person's attempt to gain control of their health and emotional well-being when eating is used to relieve the associated distress. Many people who struggle with their weight are found to be very rigid in their thought processes regarding food. Perhaps it is not the content of food and body-related cognitions that is important, but the inflexibility with which they are held.</p><p> The current study will investigate the relationships among avoidant eating behavior, perceived stigmatization, self-stigmatization, and psychological flexibility. Participants will be recruited from a population of obese individuals who are seeking help at a bariatric clinic, and from Facebook. Participants will initially complete a packet of questionnaires on psychological flexibility, perceived stigmatization, self-stigmatization, and eating behavior online. Then for seven days they will receive four text messages a day for seven days, three of which will provide them with a link to the Periodic Assessment of Stigmatizing Experiences, and one text message providing a link to the Daily Eating Survey. It is hypothesized that 1) Perceived stigmatizing experiences (i.e., a fear of enacted stigma from society) will predict disordered eating 2) Weight- and food-related psychological inflexibility will moderate the relationship between perceived stigmatizing experiences and disordered eating 3) Self-stigma (i.e., self-devaluation due to perceived stigmatization from society) will moderate the relationship between perceived stigmatizing experiences and disordered eating 4) Psychological inflexibility will predict increased perceived self-stigma.</p>

<p> This investigation considered the relationship among attitudes toward interracial relationships, tolerance of ambiguity, and mindfulness using a correlational design. The exploratory research question was: Does a tolerance of ambiguity plays a role in the acceptance of interracial relationships? Adult participants (<i>N</i> = 253) between the ages of 18 and 78 included male, female, and genderqueer adult individuals in the United States. Participants were recruited through online advertisements. They responded to items on a demographic questionnaire, along with four assessment instruments measuring mindfulness (MAAS), tolerance for ambiguity (MSTAT-II), attitudes toward interracial relationships (ATID), and cognitive load (WPM). The key finding in this study was that level of mindfulness was positively related to the level of tolerance for ambiguity (<i>p</i> &lt; .001). However, no significant relationships among mindfulness, cognitive load, or attitudes toward interracial relationships were found. Results for the variable measuring attitudes toward interracial relationships was heavily skewed in the negative direction, indicating a very accepting group, which influenced the nature of data analysis.</p><p>