Affective influences on stereotype judgements

Abstract

What role does affect play in stereotype judgements? This experiment investigated mood effects on perceptions of Asian (heterosterotype) or Causcasian (autostereotype) characters who were part of a same-race or a mixed-race dyad. We expected that mood should (a) distort stereotype judgements in a mood-consistent direction, and (b) that mood biases should be stronger for mixed-race dyads that require more detailed and inferential processing. Happy, neutral or sad mood was induced in subjects (n=198) using an audio-visual mood induction procedure in an allegedly separate experiment. Subjects were then asked to form impressions of Asian or Caucasian targets associated with a same-race or an other-race partner. As predicted, we found consistent mood-congruent biases in such. However, both positive and negative mood effects were significantly greater when a target was part of a mixed-race dyad, a condition presumably requiring more detailed and substantive inferential processing. These findings are interpreted in terms of current affect-cognition theories, and the implications of the results for everyday affective influences on stereotype judgements are considered.     

From Exotic to a Dime a Dozen

Abstract

SUMMARY. An historical context is briefly summarized to understand three generational cohorts of mixed-race women's experience in the United States: exotic, vanguard, and biracial baby boomers. Legislative changes have contributed to increased race mixing since the late sixties. Across cohorts, as the construction of race evolves and changes, the interaction between the objectification of female gender and race figures prominently in the struggles to assert identity.     

The psychosocial impact of caregiving in dementia and quality of life: a systematic review and meta-synthesis of qualitative research

ABSTRACT

Objective: A systematic meta-synthesis of qualitative studies was conducted to interpret and synthesise findings from studies investigating the experiences, quality of life, and psychosocial impact of caregiving on adult informal caregivers of people with dementia.

Design: The meta-synthesis was conducted according to the principles of meta-ethnography.

Results: Fourteen studies describing the experiences of 265 informal caregivers were reviewed. The meta-synthesis elicited the following themes: (1) understanding and making sense of the dementia diagnosis, changing symptoms, and the caregiver role; (2) coping strategies, psychological facilitators and rewards of caregiver role; (3) challenges of caring for a person with dementia and their behaviour; (4) caregivers' relationships with care-recipient and other informal caregivers; and (5) caregivers’ experiences of formal support services and material resources.

Conclusion: Our findings highlight the need for a person-centred approach to care planning that also accounts for the needs of the informal caregiver to promote better caregiver well-being and quality of life. Caregivers’ emotional support, coping, resilience, need for information and respite care and adjustment to caregiver identity should be reviewed as part of the care package for the person with dementia.     

Beyond-personal love – Experiencing love beyond the person

ABSTRACT

Love is seen as interpersonal phenomenon in western society. The love of things that are non-interpersonal or ‘beyond-personal’ is less understood. A sample of 208 adults responded to a questionnaire asking what they loved, and how much they loved 61 common objects, activities, experiences and ideas. An exploratory factor analysis yielded five distinct categories of beyond-personal love including spiritual ideology, physical activity, material objects, hedonic experiences and social experiences. Loving physical activities predicted life satisfaction, happiness, and presence of meaning. Loving social experiences predicted happiness and presence of meaning. Loving hedonic experiences, spiritual ideas or material objects did not predict any of the outcome variables when all factors were considered, but material love was correlated with search for meaning. Results show that beyond-personal love can be considered adaptive, yet the target of beyond-personal love can predict whether one feels life satisfaction, feels subjectively happy or has meaning in one’s life.     

Early life experiences and self-compassion: a structural equation modelling / Experiencias en la vida temprana y autocompasión: un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to examine the relationships between early life experiences and self-compassion. Sample of the study consists of 268 university students, in Turkey. Participants completed the Early Life Experiences Scale and the Self-compassion Scale. The relationships between early life experiences and self-compassion were examined using correlation analysis and the hypothesis model was tested through structural equation modeling. In correlation analysis, self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness factors of self-compassion were found negatively and self-judgment, isolation and over-identification factors of self-compassion were found positively related to early life experiences. The structural model fitted well (χ² = 21.92, df = 9, χ²/df = 2.43, p = .00914, AGFI = .93, GFI = .97, CFI = .98, NFI = .97, NNFI = .95, IFI = .98, RFI = .92, SRMR = .047, RMSEA = .073). According to path analysis results, self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness were predicted negatively by early life experiences. Further early life experiences predicted self-judgment, isolation and over-identification in a positive way. This research shows that early life experiences have a direct impact on the self-compassion.     

The descriptive adequacy of qualitative findings

Abstract

This article describes ways of understanding early injuries in the life journey affect the experience of clients in therapy. After introducing Langer's (1951) distinction between discursive and presentational symbolism, I describe the ways that presentational symbolism is used to subsume early life experiences including early traumas. Many clients wind up stuck in early developmental injuries and often have experiences that seem chaotic both to them and their therapists. However, if the therapist can understand the nature of presentation‐ally symbolized experiences, a truly transforming relationship can be created. Clinical examples will be used to illustrate my points.     

Narratives of trauma,recovery, and growth: The complex role of sport following permanent acquired disability

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to explore how participation in sport may assist an individual in working through experiences of physical trauma.DesignAn instrumental, collective case study was used to illustrate the experiences of two men with acquired disabilities.MethodBoth men participated in sport at a high level and suggested that participation was a central feature of their recovery from trauma. Interviews invited participants to describe their lives pre-trauma, the trauma experience, and the recovery process. A narrative analysis was used to focus on the progression of the plot outlined in each participant's story.ResultsOur results exemplify two narrative types: assimilation and positive accommodation. The narrative of positive accommodation demonstrates how sport provided mastery experiences, enhanced relationships, corporeal understanding and enhanced life philosophies. The alternative narrative of assimilation was associated with resilience to trauma. Our case illustrates that such a narrative may be focused on re-capturing previous life meanings and creating an athletic identity using past definitions of sport.ConclusionWhile the narrative of positive accommodation is most frequently associated with posttraumatic growth, our case outlines the occurrence of synchronous positive and negative experiences, even within the same dimensions of growth. The narrative of assimilation demonstrates the challenges presented by the rehabilitation and sporting environments for an individual who aimed to restore their pre-trauma self and pre-trauma beliefs.     

Self-starvation and the performance narrative in competitive sport

ObjectivesTo provide an alternative to medical understanding of disordered eating in sport through an emphasis on personal perspectives.DesignThis study draws on narrative theory to interpretively analyse the life of Holly, a female athlete who engages in severe self-starvation.MethodsMore than 7 hours of life history data was gathered over a period of 8 months through unstructured interviews. Holly's story was analyzed through principles of narrative analysis, with attention afforded to both narrative content and structure.ResultsHolly's life is characterized by a struggle to align her life experiences with a culturally specified “performance narrative” that lauds normative success. When neither her academic nor sporting endeavors are perceived to fulfil the achievement narrative, Holly is thrust into emotional turmoil and begins to conceive of self-starvation as a means to achieve.ConclusionsThe performance narrative spans both academic and sporting cultural domains and it can play a role in athlete disordered eating.     

Multiple Learning Contexts and the Development of Life Skills Among Canadian Junior National Team Biathletes

The purposes of this study were to identify and explore (a) the life skills learning contexts experienced by Canadian junior national team biathletes and (b) the ways in which they learned life skills in these contexts. Nine members of the Canadian junior national biathlon team participated in individual semi-structured interviews. Results of thematic analysis revealed 3 life skills learning contexts: sport, school/work, and family. Participants reported learning life skills by using cognitive processes of observational learning and reflections on experiences. Some athletes reported that life skills learning occurred automatically, which may suggest implicit cognitive learning.

Lay Summary:

The different contexts in which Canadian junior national team biathletes learned life skills were studied. Nine athletes were interviewed. Athletes learned life skills in sport, school/work, and family contexts. They used cognitive strategies of observational learning and reflecting on experiences. Some athletes thought they learned life skills automatically, which may suggest implicit cognitive learning.     

Service users’ perceptions of shared agency in mental health services

Objective: The concept of shared agency is used in examining the collaboration between the service user and the professionals. The study aims to find out what kind of experiences on shared agency mental health service users have.

Method: The study was based on interviews of 19 service users. The data set was formed of those parts of the interviews that dealt with shared aims, being heard, collaboration and joint planning and decision-making. Typical methods of inductive content analysis were applied.

Results: Three domains of shared agency were found: emotional, communicative and supportive ones. The emotional domain included elements of becoming heard and building confidence. In the communicative one, the main features were mutual information sharing, finding words to describe the chaos and reconstructing harmony. The supportive domain included encouragement and giving support. Experiences on non-shared agency were also found.

Conclusion: Many experiences on shared agency were found. Joint planning and working with life goals were, however, seldom reported. This result, together with experiences of non-shared agency, sets a challenge for mental health services.     

Meaning in life and violations of beliefs and goals: reciprocal relations among individuals with congestive heart failure

Background and objectives: In the context of highly stressful experiences, violations of beliefs and goals and meaning in life may have a reciprocal relationship over time. More violations may lead to lowered meaning, whereas higher meaning may lead to lowered violations. The present study examines this relationship among congestive heart failure (CHF) patients.

Design: A cross-lagged panel design was used.

Methods: CHF patients (N?=?142) reported twice, six months apart, on their meaning in life and the extent to which CHF violates their beliefs and goals.

Results: Overall, results were consistent with a reciprocal relationship, showing that greater goal violations led to negative subsequent changes in meaning, whereas greater meaning led to favorable subsequent changes in violations of beliefs and goals.

Conclusions: Meaning in life and violations may contribute to one another, and therefore, in understanding the adjustment process, it is important to consider their interrelationship. The results are also broadly informative regarding the experience of meaning, showing that disruption of beliefs and goals may undermine meaning.     

Using Relational-Cultural Theory to Conceptualize International Student Transitions

ABSTRACT

In this article, Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) is applied to international student transition experiences. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the lived experiences of international students transitioning to college life in the rural United States using the principles of RCT. Five women and four men enrolled at a mid-sized university agreed to participate in the study. In the data analysis phase, four components of RCT emerged as themes. The authors provide implications for campus-based mental health professionals (e.g., college counselors).     

Relationship Context,Body-Esteem,Religiosity, and Sexual Experience: Associations with Well-Being and Relationship Status

Abstract

In this study we explored why there are sometimes conflicting findings regarding the influence of past sexual experience on relationships. Consequently, we studied the effects of body-esteem and religiosity on sexual experience in two relational contexts (casual or committed relationships) and how all of these variables were associated with life satisfaction, and the likelihood that a person would be married by their early thirties. With a national sample of 4966 participants, our results indicated that sexual experiences in casual relationships had negative associations with life satisfaction and relationship status, whereas sexual experiences in committed relationships had positive associations.     

Marriage and Attachment

SUMMARY

Attachment behavior (Bowlby, 1969) is considered an integral part of intimate human relating throughout the life span. This research examined the recollections of ten happy couples in long-term marriages as to their attachment experiences in childhood, and their current attachment experiences in marriage. The findings indicated that none of these happily married subjects were raised in homes where both parents were physically and emotionally available. Yet, in adult life they had clearly succeeded in establishing fulfilling long-term relationships. These findings suggested that attachment behavior is subject to modification throughout the life cycle and is not rigidly fixed in childhood. The data suggested that insight, changes in the parent/subject relationship, and the marital relationship were some of the primary factors which could account for the changes in attachment behavior.     

Disability,inclusive adventurous training and adapted sport: Two soldiers' stories of involvement

ObjectivesTo generate insights into the personal meaning and value of an inclusive adventurous training and adapted sport course for military personnel who have experienced physical disability as a result of injuries sustained during active service.DesignNarrative storytelling approach based on collaboratively written creative nonfictions.MethodFirst-person stories were constructed with two male soldiers on the basis of informal interviews and conversations across five days of a residential adventure training and sport course.ResultsThe stories portray the personal benefits, meaning, and value of adventurous training and sport by illuminating each individual's experiences since injury/trauma, his experiences while on the course, and how these interact to shape psychological wellbeing and future life horizons. They reveal a complex interplay between physical, psychological, and social disability among some military personnel.ConclusionsThe story as analysis expands current understanding of the psychological effects of physical activity for injured military personnel through: (i) providing an alternative analytical approach; (ii) revealing subjectivities, personal meaning, and biographical connections to generate a holistic understanding of the individual; (iii) preserving the complexity and ambiguity that characterize lived experience to support plural understandings; (iv) sharing an embodied representation as an ethical act of witnessing another's life. We suggest these kinds of understandings are necessary for physical activity practitioners who wish to support military personnel who have sustained a disability.     

The impact of organizational change on the perceptions of UK managers

Abstract

This study describes what kind of impact the relocation of an organization has on the daily life and experiences of its employees and their families. The organization—the defence forces—was closing some garrisons and relocating personnel. The research question is: 'What kind of everyday life and experiences have those who got new jobs in other garrisons in the same area and who stayed in their home towns (stayers) compared to those who had to move to other areas (movers) and also to those who chose to commute between their home town and the new job (commuters).' The hypothesis is that the stayers have less demanding changes in everyday life and less stressful experiences than the movers and commuters. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire before and 18 months after the relocation. The first sample consists of 183 members of the personnel and the follow-up sample 132 members. The results showed that the relocation had not been an easy transition for any group. The life situation of the commuters was the hardest. A considerable portion of the stayers also evaluated their life situation to have been unfavourable and stressful.     

Editorial: Studies of the Development of Emotion-Cognition Relations

Abstract

This issue of Cognition and Emotion is devoted to studies of the development of emotion-cognition relations. children's knowledge of the causes of emotions, and the relations of that knowledge to expectations or anticipations of emotion experiences. The studies show that infants of seven months display different expressive behaviours to confirmed and disconfirmed expectations; that the first words of 13-month-olds are not coordinated with expressions of joy or negative emotions and 19-month-olds vocabulary spurts contain very few emotion labels; that 3- to 7-year-olds can label their emotions and understand relations among beliefs, desires, and emotion experiences; and that understandings of relations among causal attributions and emotion experiences are stable over the life span. These findings suggest interesting possibilities for research on developmental processes that integrate emotion, cognition, and action.     

“By the time I got to London I was like a coke bottle that had been shaken up and was about to explode!” A case study of performance expectations with a retired athlete

ObjectivesThis study aimed to address voids in academic literature by exploring the consequences of performance expectations from the perspective of a retired athlete.MethodologyAn instrumental case study was used to capture the experiences of a retired female athlete who had been exposed to performance expectations throughout her career. Six conversational life story interviews were conducted with the athlete and the data were represented in two portrait vignettes.ResultsThe vignettes provide a rich and holistic account of the participant’s experiences of performance expectations. Salient points that are detailed throughout the vignettes include: i) the consequences (e.g., fear of failure, perceptions of pressure, magnification of intrapersonal expectations) of media expectations for the athlete; ii) factors that the athlete perceived to influence the consequences of media expectations (e.g., the amount of media attention received); iii) the cumulative consequences (e.g., nausea, lack of perceived control, butterflies) of interpersonal expectations from multiple perceivers (e.g., the media, coaches, the public, opponents); and iv) the presence of a fear culture associated with expectations, which had ramifications for the athlete’s well-being and their ability to talk about their experiences.ConclusionsThis article offers a novel insight to the multi-modal consequences of performance expectations for an athlete, the dominant role that the media played in shaping the athlete’s experiences, and the athlete’s inability to disclose her experiences of expectations. Stakeholders are encouraged to develop their own meanings, interpretations, and evaluations of the vignettes, and apply their interpretations to policy and practice.     

Narrative, identity and mental health: How men with serious mental illness re-story their lives through sport and exercise

ObjectivesIt has been suggested that mental illness threatens identity and sense of self when one's personal story is displaced by dominant illness narratives focussing on deficit and dysfunction. One role of therapy, therefore, is to allow individuals to re-story their life in a more positive way which facilitates the reconstruction of a meaningful identity and sense of self. This research explores the ways in which involvement in sport and exercise may play a part in this process.DesignQualitative analysis of narrative.MethodWe used an interpretive approach which included semi-structured interviews and participant observation with 11 men with serious mental illness to gather stories of participants’ sport and exercise experiences. We conducted an analysis of narrative to explore the more general narrative types which were evident in participants’ accounts.FindingsWe identified three narrative types underlying participants’ talk about sport and exercise: (a) an action narrative about “going places and doing stuff”; (b) an achievement narrative about accomplishment through effort, skill or courage; (c) a relationship narrative of shared experiences to talk about combined with opportunities to talk about those experiences. We note that these narrative types differ significantly from—and may be considered alternatives to—dominant illness narratives.ConclusionThis study provides an alternative perspective on how sport and exercise can help men with serious mental illness by providing the narrative resources which enabled participants to re-story aspects of their lives through creating and sharing personal stories through which they rebuilt or maintained a positive sense of self and identity.