Recalibrating Everyday Futures during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Futures Fissured, on Standby and Reset in Mass Observation Responses

This article contributes to sociologies of futures by arguing that quotidian imaginations, makings and experiences of futures are crucial to social life. We develop Sharma's concept of recalibration to understand ongoing and multiple adjustments of present-future relations, focusing on how these were articulated by Mass Observation writers in the UK during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic. We identify three key modes of recalibration: fissure, where a break between the present and future means the future is difficult to imagine; standby, where the present is expanded but there is an alertness to the future, and; reset, where futures are modestly and radically recalibrated through a post-pandemic imaginary. We argue for sociologies of futures that can account for the diverse and contradictory ways in which futures emerge from and compose everyday life at different scales.

Mixed methods pilot evaluation of interpersonal psychotherapy for body image for adolescents

Body dissatisfaction is common in adolescence and associated with poor outcomes. The aim of this mixed method pilot evaluation was to determine acceptability, feasibility and preliminary efficacy of Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Body Image (IPT-BI), a school-based group intervention for young people with high levels of body dissatisfaction. Eighteen participants (11-13 years, 78% female) took part in two IPT-BI groups (n = 10; n = 8). Feasibility was measured by recruitment and attrition rates; acceptability using a treatment satisfaction questionnaire and focus groups; and clinical outcomes at baseline, each session and post intervention. The majority of young people (72%, n = 18/25) who were referred or expressed interest went on to take part. Average session attendance was 100% and 89%. Participants expressed high levels of treatment satisfaction with 94% (n = 16/17) rating IPT-BI as 'quite helpful' or 'very helpful' and 94% (n = 16/17) stating they would recommend it to others. Preliminary exploration of efficacy showed significant improvements in body image and significant reductions in interpersonal difficulties and appearance-based conversations. Young people valued specific IPT-BI skills (role play, communication strategies), alongside generic therapeutic factors (therapeutic alliance, group cohesion). IPT-BI is feasible and acceptable with promising provisional clinical outcomes indicating the need for a fully powered randomised controlled trial.

Strategy mediation in working memory training in younger and older adults

Working memory (WM) training with the N-Back task has been argued to improve cognitive capacity and general cognitive abilities (the Capacity Hypothesis of training), although several studies have shown little or no evidence for such improvements beyond tasks that are very similar to the trained task. Laine et al. demonstrated that instructing young adult participants to use a specific visualisation strategy for N-back training resulted in clear, generalised benefits from only 30 min of training (Strategy Mediation Hypothesis of training). Here, we report a systematic replication and extension of the Laine et al. study, by administering 60 younger and 60 older participants a set of WM tasks before and after a 30-min N-back training session. Half the participants were instructed to use a visualisation strategy, the others received no instruction. The pre-post test battery encompassed a criterion task (digit N-back), two untrained tasks N-back tasks (letters and colours), and three structurally different WM tasks. The instructed visualisation strategy significantly boosted at least some measures of N-back performance in participants of both age groups, although the strategy generally appeared more difficult to implement and less beneficial for older adults. However, the strategy did not improve performance on structurally different WM tasks. We also found significant associations between N-back performance and the type and level of detail of self-generated strategies in the uninstructed participants, as well as age group differences in reported strategy types. WM performance appeared to partly reflect the application of strategies, and Strategy Mediation should be considered to understand the mechanisms of WM training. Claims of efficient training should demonstrate useful improvement beyond task-specific strategies.