Posttraumatic Growth Experiences of Adolescents With Parental Loss: A Phenomenological Study

This study examines the post-traumatic growth of adolescents who have lost their parents about their experiences. Eight adolescents whose parents had died participated in the study conducted in the phenomenological design. The data were collected with three-step semi-structured interviews and analyzed using the phenomenological analysis technique performed in five stages. The findings were grouped into three main themes as “reactions to loss,” “readjustment,” and “post-traumatic growth,” and nine subthemes under each, and these sub-themes were categorized into forty-five codes.

A functional model explaining the dynamics of flourishing during adolescence: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

PurposeThe objectives of the study were to explore the lived experiences of adolescents for understanding the process of their flourishing and develop a functional model to explain the dynamics of flourishing during adolescence.Design/methodology/approachGuided by the qualitative approach, the authors used interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to explore how various factors affect the process of flourishing during adolescence. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with 10 adolescents to collect qualitative data.FindingsA total of eight boosters (four internal and four external) and seven barriers (five internal and two external) emerged. The results highlighted the importance of a functional model that explained the dynamics of adolescents' flourishing. Though the authors conceded that the presence of boosters and absence of barriers were instrumental in enhancing flourishing during adolescence, based on the extant literature, the authors assumed the existence and operation of other intra-individual and inter-individual factors or correlates.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, the study participants are school-going adolescents living in a supported urban family environment where expectations to study and achieve are an important cultural component. Second, the study has focussed on the participants belonging to late adolescence—a transitional phase to emerging adulthood.Practical implicationsThere are three implications of the study—theoretical (conceptualisation of a functional model), practical (construction of a new measure of flourishing) and clinical (designing intervention programmes to enhance positive living in adolescents).Originality/valueThe study has provided a deeper insight into adolescents' flourishing from insiders' perspectives using the framework of IPA and discovered and elaborated a functional model of adolescents' flourishing.

Wife's Accountability in Islamic Household Accounting

This study was conducted to find the form of a wife's responsibility in Islamic household accounting, with a transcendental phenomenological approach. Transcendental phenomenological analysis techniques include 5 stages, namely: noema, noesis, epoche, intentional analysis and eidetic reduction. The results of the study indicate that the responsibility carried out by the wife in an Islamic household carried out in her household is accountability with the aim of maintaining self-esteem and maintaining self-image of her husband, for the expenses made, where there are 6 responsibilities, namely: income, maintenance, ZIS , consumption, investment, and saving into 4 responsibility centers, namely: revenue center, cost center, investment center and wealth center.

Empathizing and Sympathizing With Robots: Implications for Moral Standing

This paper discusses the ethical nature of empathetic and sympathetic engagement with social robots, ultimately arguing that an entity which is engaged with through empathy or sympathy is engaged with as an “experiencing Other” and is as such due at least “minimal” moral consideration. Additionally, it is argued that extant HRI research often fails to recognize the complexity of empathy and sympathy, such that the two concepts are frequently treated as synonymous. The arguments for these claims occur in two steps. First, it is argued that there are at least three understandings of empathy, such that particular care is needed when researching “empathy” in human-robot interactions. The phenomenological approach to empathy—perhaps the least utilized of the three discussed understandings—is the approach with the most direct implications for moral standing. Furthermore, because “empathy” and “sympathy” are often conflated, a novel account of sympathy which makes clear the difference between the two concepts is presented, and the importance for these distinctions is argued for. In the second step, the phenomenological insights presented before regarding the nature of empathy are applied to the problem of robot moral standing to argue that empathetic and sympathetic engagement with an entity constitute an ethical engagement with it. The paper concludes by offering several potential research questions that result from the phenomenological analysis of empathy in human-robot interactions.

“Intertwined Lives”

Sibling relationships are complex and unique, often spanning a range of deep emotions. The experiences of children with disabilities and their siblings are arguably seldom documented, particularly in the Global South. The aim of this chapter was to uncover the narratives of young children with disabilities and their siblings in Sri Lanka. Ten dyads of children with disabilities and their siblings and one quartet of siblings were included in this study. Opportunities were offered to the participants to engage in conversation aided by kinetic family drawings. An interview guide was used to support this process. The participant data were analyzed through the lens of the “lived experience” of family dynamics in the tradition of interpretative phenomenological analysis. This chapter will discuss the two complex broad themes of a surrogate parenting role and normative sibling relationships, which at times converge and at times diverge.

Phenomenology

This chapter provides an insight into the origins and traditions of phenomenology as both philosophy and methodology. Emphasis is placed in the earlier parts of the chapter on the delineation between Husserl and Heidegger, the forefathers of the discipline, whose work into epistemology and ontology have fundamentally shaped contemporary qualitative research. Understanding the key concepts of epoché and the implications of the ‘self' within phenomenological research are explicated so that the reader can consider the practicalities of whether it is possible to suspend presupposition and epistemic bias, or whether the ‘self' is something that has simply to be acknowledged as having a fundamental relevance to what and how interpretation is undertaken and how this has a consequent and tangible impact on research findings. The latter part of the chapter gives an insight into interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) as one contemporary approach to the integration of phenomenological research methods.