Capturing Dynamic Processes of Change in GROW Mutual Help Groups for Mental Health

The need for a model that can portray dynamic processes of change in mutual help groups for mental health (MHGMHs) is emphasized. A dynamic process model has the potential to capture a more comprehensive understanding of how MHGMHs may assist their members. An investigation into GROW, a mutual help organization for mental health, employed ethnographic, phenomenological and collaborative research methods. The study examined how GROW impacts on psychological well being. Study outcomes aligned with the social ecological paradigm (Maton in Understanding the self-help organization: frameworks and findings. Sage, Thousand Oaks 1994) indicating multifactorial processes of change at and across three levels of analysis: group level, GROW program/community level and individual level. Outcome themes related to life skills acquisition and a change in self-perception in terms of belonging within community and an increased sense of personal value. The GROW findings are used to assist development of a dynamic multi-dimensional process model to explain how MHGMHs may promote positive change.     

Liberal and Conservative Values: What We Can Learn From Congressional Tweets

Past research using self‐report questionnaires administered to ordinary citizens demonstrates that value priorities differ as a function of one's political ideology, but it is unclear whether this conclusion applies to political elites, who are presumably seeking to appeal to very broad constituencies. We used quantitative methods of textual analysis to investigate value‐laden language in a collection of 577,555 messages sent from the public Twitter accounts of over 400 members of the U.S. Congress between 2012 and 2014. Consistent with theoretical expectations, we observed that Republican and conservative legislators stressed values of tradition, conformity, and national security (as well as self‐direction), whereas Democratic and liberal legislators stressed values of benevolence, universalism, hedonism, and social/economic security (as well as achievement). Implications for the large‐scale observational study of political psychology are explored.     

Leadership in community mutual support groups for mental health: A qualitative case study from the leaders' perspective

This study explores the experience of leadership of member‐led community‐based mental health mutual support groups. Recent research has documented factors that affect these groups, including leader well‐being, but little is known about the experience of leadership at the individual level. We aimed to understand more about the experience of leadership and how leading members conceptualise their roles. Individual semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 14 leaders of a community mental health mutual support group in England and thematically analysed. Three themes were identified through which leading members conceptualised their roles and group dynamics: (a) “It's a family”; (b) professional values; and (c) working as a team. These knowledge frameworks appeared to influence leaders' well‐being and conceptualisations of their role. The potential impact of this on group stability is discussed. Recommendations are made that group and individual‐level processes be considered together in future research in mental health mutual support contexts due to their interconnected nature.     

When “who we are” and “who I desire to be” appear disconnected: Introducing collective/personal self‐discrepancies and investigating their relations with minority students' psychological health

According to Self‐Discrepancy Theory research, perceiving mismatches between personal aspects of the self‐concept is associated with negative psychological consequences, including depression and anxiety. However, the impact of perceiving mismatches between collective and personal self‐aspects is still unknown. In a first step to address this gap, we introduce collective/personal self‐discrepancies—perceived mismatches between a desired self‐aspect and a collective identity. For cultural minority group members (n = 147), collective/personal self‐discrepancies were associated with more severe anxiety and depression symptoms. Bootstrapping analyses suggest that these relations are mediated by self‐discrepancies experienced at the personal level, but only for group members presenting average or high levels of ethnic identification. This study reaffirms the importance of collective identities, especially as potential antecedents of personal aspects of the self‐concept. The findings are further discussed in terms of their significance for cultural minority group members, who often highly identify with their minority groups.     

The Moderating Effect of Within‐Group Similarity on Change in a Strengths‐Based Programme for Incarcerated Young Men

Many youth who are incarcerated within juvenile correctional facilities experience mental health disorders, histories of victimization and suicide ideation. Strengths‐based intervention programmes are intended to enhance participants' resilience against such challenges. However, little is known about how the composition of intervention groups contributes to programmes' efficacy. This study addresses the impact of within‐group similarity on the success of a strengths‐based intervention for incarcerated young men (n = 141). Similarity was assessed in terms of self‐reported demographics and behaviours and belief systems. Youths' masculine ideology, caring and cooperative behaviours, ethnic pride and respect for differences, self‐efficacy regarding education and non‐violence, and attitudes about criminal behaviour were measured before and after intervention. Results indicate that participants' caring and cooperative behaviour increased during the intervention. However, their education‐related self‐efficacy was reduced, and the perceived benefits of criminal activity increased. These changes were moderated by group composition: less similarity between participants and their group members was associated with less negative change. In the context of juvenile corrections facilities, where staying the same may be a relatively positive outcome, perhaps the more relevant question is not which processes and characteristics of others better enable youth to change but which experiences help them retain positive aspects of themselves. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fostering Feminist Principles in Our Community

SUMMARY

In a recent focus group discussion at the Feminist Therapy Institute conference participants outlined a vision for a future community based on feminist principles. It is built on five critical ideals, including more equitable distribution of resources, genuine respect for human diversity and varying world views, caring and compassionate members, increased connections and collaborations, and political/personal empowerment. While the challenges inherent to such vision must be acknowledged, greater attention will be placed on ways in which we can begin to foster environments and micro communities that are conducive to feminist practice and ideology.     

EMOTION HELPERS: THE ROLE OF HIGH POSITIVE AFFECTIVITY AND HIGH SELF-MONITORING MANAGERS

Who provides help to employees suffering anxiety and emotional pain in organizations? From an interactionist perspective, we anticipated that increasing levels of managerial responsibility would unlock discretionary helping behavior related to differences in self‐monitoring and positive affectivity. Results from a study of 94 members of a recruitment firm confirmed that those active in providing emotional help to others in the workplace tended to possess a combination of managerial responsibility and a high self‐monitoring or high positive affectivity disposition. By contrast, when members were low in positive affect or self‐monitoring they provided less emotional help to others, irrespective of the level of managerial responsibility. These interaction results remained significant after taking into account centrality in friendship and workflow networks, as well as significant effects of gender.     

Identification with arts‐based groups improves mental wellbeing in adults with chronic mental health conditions

People experiencing chronic mental health conditions (CMHC) often report feeling socially marginalised. There is emerging evidence that social and mental wellbeing can be enhanced through participation in arts‐based programmes. In this paper, a social identity theoretical approach was applied to explore how participation in the arts may improve mental health in a longitudinal study. A one‐year prospective study of 34 choir members and 25 creative writing group members (M_age = 46, 51% female) with CMHC, involved three assessments of participants’ group identification and mental wellbeing, measured by the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale. The programmes were community‐based and facilitated by arts professionals. Multilevel modelling analyses demonstrated that participants’ mental wellbeing significantly improved over time. Greater identification with their arts‐based group (ABG) was significantly related to an increased rate of improvement in mental wellbeing. The trajectory of improvement in mental wellbeing did not differ between participants partaking in the choir or creative writing group. This study demonstrates that participation in ABGs can be effective in improving mental wellbeing in adults with chronic mental health problems, particularly for those who strongly identify with the group. This study supports ABG participation as an accessible component of mental health services.     

Helping others or helping oneself? An episodic examination of the behavioral consequences of helping at work

Scholars have paid an increasing amount of attention to organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), with a particular emphasis on helping others at work. In addition, recent empirical work has focused on how OCB is an intraindividual phenomenon, such that employees vary daily in the extent to which they help others. However, one limitation of this research has been an overemphasis on well‐being consequences associated with daily helping (e.g., changes in affect and mental depletion) and far less attention on behavioral outcomes. In this study, we develop a self‐regulatory framework that articulates how helping others at work is a depleting experience that can lead to a reduction in subsequent acts of helping others, and an increase in behaviors aimed at helping oneself (i.e., engaging in political acts). We further theorize how two individual differences—prevention focus and political skill—serve as cross‐level moderators of these relations. In an experience sampling study of 91 full‐time employees across 10 consecutive workdays, our results illustrate that helping is a depleting act that makes individuals more likely to engage in self‐serving acts and less likely to help others. Moreover, the relation of helping acts with depletion is strengthened for employees who have higher levels of prevention focus.     

A Comparison of Help Giving to Individuals Versus Humanitarian Organizations1

The theories of social conduct, seriousness of need, and similarity; cost–benefit models; and individual differences in ideology are used to predict self‐reported help giving that is interpersonal or through humanitarian organizations. The results indicate that persons tend to be more helpful interpersonally than through organizations, are more responsive to characteristics of the needy when helping interpersonally than through organizations, and have stronger affective responses toward individuals than toward individuals represented by organizations. For both interpersonal and organization‐mediated assistance, perceived benefit to the donor strongly predicts help giving. Relatively conservative persons report less helpfulness, both interpersonally and through humanitarian organizations. Collectively, these findings offer an integrative approach to help giving and have implications for fundraising in the humanitarian sector.     

“It kind of fosters a culture of interdependence”: A participatory appraisal study exploring participants' experiences of the democratic processes of a peer‐led organisation

Peer‐led mental health organisations operate through participatory democracy, enabling participants to take an active role in decision making about the running of these organisations. U.K. national policy recommends increased involvement of people accessing statutory mental health services in service development, for example, through co‐production. This study employed a participatory research method to explore participants' perspectives of the democratic processes of a U.K.‐based peer‐led mental health organisation, The Bridge Collective, and the influence of these processes on participant wellbeing. A range of data collection methods were used to gather the perspectives of 16 participants. Participatory thematic analysis identified how the organisations' democratic processes both nurtured and challenged participants' wellbeing. Three main themes captured the influences of the democratic processes on participant wellbeing: (a) negotiating relationships, (b) feeling the responsibility of involvement, and (c) sharing power. The findings identify the value of democratic processes in enabling meaningful social support and empowerment, and also identify the challenges of inclusion and workload management in participatory democracy. These insights may inform the development of co‐production methods and enable The Bridge Collective and other peer‐led organisations to further develop their processes.     

Self‐regulation of Group Members: The Case of Regulatory Focus

For a long time, research on motivation and (inter)group behaviour mainly focused on needs and motives, but did not take self‐regulation (i.e., the processes underlying motivated action) into account. Similarly, self‐regulation research concentrated on the regulation of the personal self, but did not study the regulation of the social self. The current article summarizes work applying self‐regulation approaches to intergroup behaviour. Within this approach, it has been shown (a) that the social self is regulated based on the same mechanisms as the personal self, (b) that intergroup contexts impact on group members’ self‐regulation strategies, and (c) that the fit between an individual's self‐regulation strategy and the behavioural options provided by the group impact on group liking and potentially also on the integration of the group into the self‐concept. The relation between current and earlier approaches to motivation in groups and further avenues for research on group‐based self‐regulation are discussed.     

Responding to historical injustices: Does group membership trump liberal‐conservative ideology?

In the legal literature, “privity” refers to the link between a minority's current social, psychological, and economic problems and its previous mistreatment by the government. Scholars speculate that judgments of privity underlie support for redress for historical injustices. There is no gold standard for evaluating privity, however, and its assessment is susceptible to personal and situational influences. We conducted three studies to examine how liberal‐conservative ideology interacts with group membership to predict judgments of privity and support for redress. This research is the first to examine the combined effects of liberal‐conservative ideology and group membership among respondents who belong to previously victimized minorities. Across both actual and hypothetical injustices, increasing conservatism was inversely related to judgments of privity, except when respondents were members of the victimized group. Victimized group members claimed privity regardless of ideology. The effects on support for reparations paralleled those for privity with one exception involving African Americans (Study 2). We discuss the implications of the findings for understanding the nature of liberalism‐conservatism. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ideological Asymmetries and the Essence of Political Psychology

Individuals are not merely passive vessels of whatever beliefs and opinions they have been exposed to; rather, they are attracted to belief systems that resonate with their own psychological needs and interests, including epistemic, existential, and relational needs to attain certainty, security, and social belongingness. Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway ( 2003 ) demonstrated that needs to manage uncertainty and threat were associated with core values of political conservatism, namely respect for tradition and acceptance of inequality. Since 2003 there have been far more studies on the psychology of left‐right ideology than in the preceding half century, and their empirical yield helps to address lingering questions and criticisms. We have identified 181 studies of epistemic motivation (involving 130,000 individual participants) and nearly 100 studies of existential motivation (involving 360,000 participants). These databases, which are much larger and more heterogeneous than those used in previous meta‐analyses, confirm that significant ideological asymmetries exist with respect to dogmatism, cognitive/perceptual rigidity, personal needs for order/structure/closure, integrative complexity, tolerance of ambiguity/uncertainty, need for cognition, cognitive reflection, self‐deception, and subjective perceptions of threat. Exposure to objectively threatening circumstances—such as terrorist attacks, governmental warnings, and shifts in racial demography—contribute to modest “conservative shifts” in public opinion. There are also ideological asymmetries in relational motivation, including the desire to share reality, perceptions of within‐group consensus, collective self‐efficacy, homogeneity of social networks, and the tendency to trust the government more when one's own political party is in power. Although some object to the very notion that there are meaningful psychological differences between leftists and rightists, the identification of “elective affinities” between cognitive‐motivational processes and contents of specific belief systems is essential to the study of political psychology. Political psychologists may contribute to the development of a good society not by downplaying ideological differences or advocating “Swiss‐style neutrality” when it comes to human values, but by investigating such phenomena critically, even—or perhaps especially—when there is pressure in society to view them uncritically.     

Mutual Help Groups for Mental Health Problems: A Review of Effectiveness Studies

This paper reviews empirical studies on whether participating in mutual help groups for people with mental health problems leads to improved psychological and social functioning. To be included, studies had to satisfy four sets of criteria, covering: (1) characteristics of the group, (2) target problems, (3) outcome measures, and (4) research design. The 12 studies meeting these criteria provide limited but promising evidence that mutual help groups benefit people with three types of problems: chronic mental illness, depression/anxiety, and bereavement. Seven studies reported positive changes for those attending support groups. The strongest findings come from two randomized trials showing that the outcomes of mutual help groups were equivalent to those of substantially more costly professional interventions. Five of the 12 studies found no differences in mental health outcomes between mutual help group members and non-members; no studies showed evidence of negative effects. There was no indication that mutual help groups were differentially effective for certain types of problems. The studies varied in terms of design quality and reporting of results. More high-quality outcome research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of mutual help groups across the spectrum of mental health problems.     

Mental health professionals' support of self‐help groups

Objective. Self‐help groups and other consumer‐led services are viewed as valuable additions to mental health services. This study describes professional support for self‐help groups and examines the hypothesis that professional support of self‐help is influenced by the degree to which professionally‐led groups are viewed as more helpful than self‐help groups. Method. Survey data were obtained from a representative sample of over 900 mental health professionals employed in mental health agencies in a large US State. The survey assessed beliefs, behaviours, attitudes, and intentions toward professional and self‐help groups. Results. Respondents who perceive professionally‐led groups to be significantly more helpful than self‐help groups were less inclined to support self‐help groups through referrals, help in organizing groups, or financially. Conclusion. To the extent that professional support of the self‐help movement is diminished, valuable allies in the struggle to expand the reach of mental health services are lost. It is proposed that mental health professionals should obtain additional information about the benefits of self‐help and the constructive role that self‐help groups can play in expanding the availability and continuum of beneficial mental health services. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Misattribution in Virtual Groups: The Effects of Member Distribution on Self‐Serving Bias and Partner Blame

Interest in virtual groups has focused on attribution biases due to the collocation or distribution of partners. No previous research examines self‐attributions in virtual groups, yet self‐attributions—the acknowledgment of personal responsibility or its deflection—potentially determines learning and improvement. This study reviews research on attributions in virtual groups and the effects of distance on members’ proclivity to blame others or themselves. An experiment involved groups whose members were geographically collocated, distributed, or mixed, working over 2 weeks exclusively using asynchronous computer‐mediated communication. Attributions for participants’ own poor performance reflected a self‐serving bias in completely distributed groups, whose members eschewed personal responsibility and blamed their partners more than in collocated groups. Mixed groups’ results help distinguish among competing theoretical perspectives. Moreover, an externally imposed observational goal mitigated attributional bias among distributed members by raising awareness of the sociotechnical effects of communication medium among those for whom the goal was successfully induced.     

Strategic Communication and the Integrative Complexity‐Ideology Relationship: Meta‐Analytic Findings Reveal Differences Between Public Politicians and Private Citizens in Their Use of Simple Rhetoric

Research on the relationship between political conservatism and integrative complexity has yielded contradictory results, and little effort has been made to place these mixed results in a theoretical context. The present article considers this issue through a strategic model of language that suggests different psychological processes apply to public politicians versus private citizens. We use a methodologically precise meta‐analytic test of the relationship between political ideology and integrative complexity to examine the degree that conservative simplicity can be understood as a function of public versus private samples. Across 35 studies, findings revealed that conservatives are significantly less complex than liberals overall; however, while this effect was significant for public politicians, no relationship emerged for private citizens. Consistent with a strategic model, conservative simplicity was particularly in evidence for elected officials. This theoretical analysis has many consequences for our understanding of psychological theories that help explain the consequences of political ideology.     

A comparison of natural and professional help

The study investigated the process and effectiveness of three natural and professional groups who commonly provide help to persons experiencing the important critical life event of marital disruption. Subjects were 42 helpers: 14 mental health professionals, 14 divorce lawyers, and 14 leaders of mutual help groups. Analyses, based on variables derived from coded audiotapes of simulated helping interactions and from ratings of helper effectiveness, indicated many similarities between mental health professionals and mutual help leaders but considerable differences between these two groups and divorce lawyers. Lawyers did more talking overall, showed greater proportions of information giving and closed questions, and were more effective in the legal/financial domain. Additional analyses indicated that all helpers showed fewer information-gathering behaviors and more information- and advice-giving behaviors as the helping interaction progressed.     

Who's Right About the Right? Comparing Competing Explanations of the Link Between White Evangelicals and Conservative Politics in the United States

Five competing explanations for why white evangelicals hold right‐of‐center political attitudes are examined using data from the 2000–2004 National Election Studies. Dependent variables include attitudes about abortion, homosexuality, immigration, national defense, and social spending. The five competing explanations accounting for conservative positions are: religiosity, moral standards traditionalism, gender and family ideology, class culture, and cultural geography. Moral standards traditionalism attenuated the evangelical effect on attitudes about abortion, homosexuality, and social spending. Religiosity and male‐dominant gender ideology attenuated the effect on abortion and homosexuality only. In a second set of models, which include members of all major religious groups, these three variables, together with low levels of education, were significantly associated with conservative attitudes. Moral standards traditionalism demonstrated the most consistent, and generally the strongest, effects across dependent variables.