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Objectives: The current study explored the relationship between parental attachment and disordered eating among college students. This study also explored the potential mediating role of factors associated with emotion regulation. Participants: One hundred sixty-seven undergraduates (M = 18.93 years, SD = 1.02) participated in the current study. Methods: Participants completed an anonymous questionnaire reporting their perceptions of their parental attachment relationships, emotional reactivity, difficulty regulating emotions, and disordered eating. Results: Analyses using structural equation modeling indicated that difficulty regulating emotions mediated the relationship between maternal attachment and disordered eating, but not between paternal attachment and disordered eating. Emotional reactivity did not emerge as a significant mediator. Conclusions: These findings suggest that maternal attachment relationships may be associated with difficulty regulating emotions in adulthood, which may in turn impact disordered eating attitudes and behaviors.

With the aid of techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, neuroscience is providing a new perspective on human behaviour. Many areas of psychology have recognised and embraced the new technologies, methodologies and relevant findings. But how do the tools of neuroscience affect the fields of moral development and moral education? This paper reviews neuroscience research germane to moral development using as an organisational framework Rest's Four Component Model of moral functioning, which proposes that moral behaviour requires moral sensitivity, moral judgement, moral motivation/focus and moral action skills. Issues such as the importance of early brain development and attachment are addressed. The authors conclude with a brief description of an integrative theory, Triune Ethics Theory, which provides an example of how moral development and neuroscience can be integrated. (Contains 3 notes.)

Although instructional self-efficacy has proved to be one of the most powerful teaching beliefs that influence teacher classroom behavior and student outcomes, little is known about teacher self-efficacy for moral education. Self-efficacy for moral education refers to teachers' beliefs that their efforts can bring about improvements in student moral character and behavior. Like instructional self-efficacy, self-efficacy for moral education should also be related to teacher classroom behavior and favorable student outcomes, at least those related to moral development. We constructed a new measure, the Teacher Efficacy for Moral Education measure (TEME) following standard scale developmental procedures. Seventeen items were generated and subjected to factor analysis resulting in a 13-item scale. The items were administered to 76 middle school teachers. TEME demonstrated good validity, correlating with higher scores on attitudes typically held by more successful teachers--efficacy for helping students learn, and efficacy for promoting positive relationships--as well as a related character education efficacy measure. TEME was also correlated with teacher perceptions of school climate. TEME may be a useful measure for use in evaluating the effects of preservice and inservice programs that emphasize fostering moral character in students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]