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The study explored experiences of stress in children aged 10–12. An inductive qualitative design was used. Ten focus group interviews were conducted with Swedish schoolchildren (n = 42) aged 10–12. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The study identified one theme—“Body and mind react”—and three subthemes: (1) Friendships matters, (2) Parental stress affect, and (3) Trying to do my best. Stress often occurred in the children’s everyday environment. The children had experienced how stress could be expressed both physically and mentally, inside and outside school. The children also had the experience of seeing people in their environment being stressed, which could create feelings that affected the children. The experience of the children was also that stress can sometimes be good. Stress related to peers, family, school, and society was commonly experienced by children aged 10–12. Both positive and negative stress was reported.

A repertory grid-based study (n ¼ 20) investigated the issues that people identify when considering different types of products. Participants were each presented with four sets of three stimuli, each representing a different product type. For each set of stimuli they were asked to pick an 'odd-one-out' and to describe why they had placed it apart from the other two in the set. Participants' responses differed markedly by product type. This suggests that approaches to affective design need to be seen in the context of the type of product under development. The outcomes of the study challenge some of the orthodoxies of human factors affective design. While, for some products, the key to positive affect might be a rich array of lifestyle associations and a positive user experience, for others it may simply be about styling or functionality.

Aim To explore the experience of pain in 10‐ to 12‐year‐old children. Methods This interview study included students (n = 42) in grade 4‐6 in focus groups (n = 10) in southern Sweden (52% girls); mean age, 11.3 years (range 10‐12 years). The interviews were audio‐recorded and transcribed verbatim and analysed with qualitative content analysis. Results The analysis resulted in one theme: Pain as a unique experience for each individual, which was divided into five categories: (a) Feeling bodily pain; (b) Pain related to the school environment and schoolwork; (c) Internal pain related to sorrow and grief; (d) Pain related to conflicts and remorse; and (e) Pain can be good. Conclusion The children made distinctions between physical pain and emotional pain. Bullying, noisy school environments, grief and remorse were reported to be linked with headaches, stomachache and heartache.

This article examines birth scenes in five mainstream films in order to explore the way norms about birthing are reproduced or challenged. The films are: Juno (Reitman, 2007), Knocked Up (Apatow, 2007), Baby Mama (McCullers, 2008), The Back-up Plan (Poul, 2010) and What to Expect When You’re Expecting (Jones, 2012). What do the birthing scenes look like, are they realistic with non-on-set births and does the directors’ and writers’ gender, age, skin colour and class have any parallels with what is portrayed? The analysis shows that certain norms are upheld in all films; vaginal delivery in hospital, birthing positions of half sitting or laying down and present partners or friends during delivery. Scenes not representing this were depicted as the Other and thus made deviant. Homogeneity in the group behind the camera was found which correlates with certain homogeneity on screen as well. Of all the eight scenes, the women give birth half sitting or laying down in seven, implying a dominance of certain positions. These positions were found to be very common off-screen too, despite the wide range of birthing positions available and recommendations to try different ones during labour. This implies that the practicality for personnel goes beforehand. By using feminist theories on the body and medical studies on births, these findings reveal power structures devaluating female-coded bodies. The results also enhance the importance of analysing patterns of representation in general, but birthing depictions in particular, since these representations can affect people’s understanding of how a birth should be in real life.