Conceptualizations of respect: qualitative and quantitative evidence of four (five) themes

Respect is a term used frequently in the vernacular and psychological literature. However, frequency of use has not yielded a coherent body of psychological research on the topic, perhaps because of its elusive and contextual nature. Examining the divergent literature on respect yields 4 general themes in how it is conceptualized: (a) social rules, (b) equality, (c) caring, and (d) social power. In this study, the author used qualitative and quantitative assessment to explore the soundness of these themes. The 4 themes emerged in each of the different methods, and there was evidence of convergence of the themes across methods. A 5th unexpected theme, personal attributes, was revealed in the qualitative measures. This study provides an empirical foundation for acknowledging the complexity and potential importance of respect. Understanding the thematic variability in how respect is conceptualized will improve research, theory, and application.     

Crime scene actions and offender characteristics in a sample of Finnish stranger rapes

The crime scene actions employed by offenders in stranger rapes were analysed in relation to offender characteristics. Data were drawn from an official police database and consisted of stranger rapes occurring in Finland between 1992 and 2001 (n = 100). The structure of dichotomous variables derived through a content analysis of crime scene actions and offender characteristics were analysed with non‐metric multidimensional scaling (MDS). The first analysis revealed three separate action themes, with thematic emphases on Hostility, Involvement or Theft. The MDS‐solution for offender characteristics suggested four themes: Conventional; Psychiatric/Elderly; Criminal/Violent; and Criminal/Property. Each case was assigned to one of the themes or as a hybrid in order to analyse the associations between action themes and characteristics. The only significant association was found between the action theme, Theft and characteristics theme Criminal/Property. The results are discussed in relation to previous research. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social Cognition Permeates Social Psychology: Motivated Mental Processes Guide the Study of Human Social Behavior

Social cognition provides a metatheoretical approach to understanding the mental underpinnings of human social behavior. This paper reviews some of the major themes in social cognition research, tracing its progression from a methodological hybrid between cognitive and social psychology to a major foundation of social psychology. We stress the most recent trend in social cognition research – the motivated tactician theme – which focuses on the roles of motives and goals in people's mental processes and social behavior; examples from our laboratory illustrate this theme. Our brief historical overview emphasizes diversity within the social cognition approach; its applicability to multiple psychological and social issues; and directions for collaboration with other notable research traditions, particularly cross-cultural perspectives.     

Rediscovering James' Principles of Psychology

This paper is an introduction to a special issue celebrating the 125^th anniversary of William James' Principles of Psychology. The special issue demonstrates the continued relevance and insight offered by James. It reviews the articles in this issue and delineates three main themes: (1) he recognition of the inherent relationality of psychological phenomena, (2) a science of psychology ought to include biology and sociocultural phenomena (e.g. language); and (3) human consciousness is addressed as the flow of experience from the perspective one living it. It discusses each theme and briefly touches on how they continue to be developed in James' later work, which also provides innovative new directions for psychologists. Undergirding each of these contributions is James' admonition that psychological research is especially difficulty due to the complexity of psychological phenomena. As such, this paper also discusses challenges to doing psychological research that James raises and his ideas that can inform future endeavors.     

Genograms in counselling practice: A review (Part 1)

Genograms are an important clinical tool for many counsellor, therapists and other health care professionals and can be used for assessment, gathering information on family relationships and exploring themes in counselling practice. This article reviews the recent literature on genograms and examines the efficacy and use of this tool from a number of perspectives including the use of genograms in health care, psychological counselling and in genetic counselling. The predictive value, and future development of the use of the genogram in counselling are also discussed.     

Preschoolers' attention and emotion in an achievement and an effect game: A longitudinal study

Understanding positive emotions' shared and differentiating features can yield valuable insight into the structure of positive emotion space and identify emotion states, or aspects of emotion states, that are most relevant for particular psychological processes and outcomes. We report two studies that examined core relational themes (Study 1) and expressive displays (Study 2) for eight positive emotion constructs—amusement, awe, contentment, gratitude, interest, joy, love, and pride. Across studies, all eight emotions shared one quality: high positive valence. Distinctive core relational theme and expressive display patterns were found for four emotions—amusement, awe, interest, and pride. Gratitude was associated with a distinct core relational theme but not an expressive display. Joy and love were each associated with a distinct expressive display but their core relational themes also characterised pride and gratitude, respectively. Contentment was associated with a distinct expressive display but not a core relational theme. The implications of this work for the study of positive emotion are discussed.     

Erikson's life cycle theory and the local church

This paper recommends the use of Erik H. Erikson's life cycle theory to clarify the dynamics of the corporate life of the local church. To support this recommendation, it illustrates how an incipient institutional crisis in an inner-city church reflects the conflict ofinitiative vs. guilt. In the analysis of this case, the initiative vs. guilt conflict is broken down into four basic themes. Each of these themes focuses on a different form of interaction between participants in the conflict, and each theme provides specific recommendations for the resolution of the crisis. While only one of the eight life crises has been applied in this study, the paper concludes that there is genuine merit in the application of the life cycle theory to the corporate life of the church.Dr. Capps is Associate Professor of Pastoral Care and Psychology of Religion at The Graduate Seminary, Phillips University, Enid, Oklahoma 73701. This article reflects research done for Dr. Capps' forthcoming book,Pastoral Care: A Thematic Approach (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1979).     

Local pragmatics in a Gricean framework,revisited: response to three commentaries

There are two central themes that occupy the commentaries, and hence this response. The first is the character and role of what is said, both in my account, and in pragmatic theory in general. In response, I lay out in more detail the proposal from my original paper that the starting point for Gricean reasoning should be not what is said, but the pragmatically uncommitted what is expressed. As part of this argument, I restate and provide further arguments for my claim that global and local pragmatic effects are continuous. The second central theme of the commentaries concerns the value of a Gricean account, which is not intended to model the psychological processes of interpretation. I respond to this concern in Section 5, ‘Pragmatics, psychology and processing’.     

The impact of obesity surgery and the paradox of control: A qualitative study

In light of the failure of psychological approaches to obesity some clinicians and patients are turning to surgery. The present qualitative study aimed to explore patients' experiences of having obesity surgery and in-depth interviews were carried out with 15 men and women, who had had surgery in the past four years. The data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The patients described their experiences in terms of four broad themes: personal weight histories; the decision-making process, which involved general motivations such as worries about health and specific triggers such as symptoms; the impact of surgery on eating behaviour and their relationship with food; the impact of weight loss on health status, self-esteem and relationships with others. The central theme of control permeated all areas of the interviews. The current clinical climate highlights the importance of self-control and patient choice as the path to patient empowerment. Obesity surgery illustrates that in contrast to this perspective, imposed control and limited choice can sometimes paradoxically result in a renewed sense of control.     

The Psychological Processes of Discerning the Vocation to the Catholic Priesthood: A Qualitative Study

This study explores the psychological process of discerning the vocation to the Catholic priesthood. Grounded theory, a qualitative research methodology, was used to uncover the meaning and essence of the psychological processes of discerning the vocation to the Catholic priesthood. Five themes emerged from the data paralleling other developmental theories. Presently, assessment work follows similar patterns used in vocational testing in relation to any career. Based on the findings of this research, another facet of psychological assessment in regards to developing a sense of self may be beneficial in understanding a man’s readiness to serve the Catholic Church as a priest.     

Parents’ Experiences of Their Child’s Disclosure of Child Sexual Abuse

A child’s disclosure of sexual victimization is a difficult experience for parents and has been associated with traumatization, disbelief, denial, self-blame, and clinical difficulties. To date, most studies on parents’ responses have been quantitative assessments of the psychological impact of disclosure on parents. A paucity of research has qualitatively explored mothers’ experiences of their child’s disclosure of child sexual abuse (CSA) and fathers’ experiences have been even further neglected. The current study seeks to characterize parents’ experiences of their child’s disclosure of CSA and to uncover the process-oriented nature of parental responses. This qualitative study, using a grounded theory approach to analysis, involved interviews with 10 mothers and four fathers whose children (3–18 years) had experienced sexual abuse. Three themes emerged from the analysis. The first theme—making sense of the abuse in retrospect—captured the process through which parents sought to make sense of their child’s disclosure, focusing on why their child had not disclosed the abuse to them earlier, and how they had noticed something was wrong but misattributed their child’s behavior to other factors. The second theme—negotiating parental identity as protector—reflected how parents’ identity as a protector was challenged, their perception of their world had been forever altered, and they now experienced themselves as hypervigilant and overprotective. The final theme—navigating the services—pertained to parents’ struggle in navigating child protection and police services, and feelings of being isolated and alone. These findings highlight the need for empathy and parental support following child disclosure of sexual victimization.     

Differentiation of international terrorism: attack as threat,means, and violence

This study examined whether international terrorism could be differentiated into different behavioural themes related to the way of using force. The sample consisted of 217 international terrorist organisations that had perpetrated five or more terrorist incidents. A non‐metric multidimensional scaling analysis revealed that all of the terrorist incidents could be assigned to one of three themes reflecting different styles of the use of force: ‘attack as threat’, ‘attack as means’, and ‘attack as violence’. In the current sample, 189 of the terrorist organisations repeated one theme in more than 50% of their series of incidents, suggesting their preference for one of the three themes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Women's experiences of workplace bullying: changes in social relationships

This article reports a qualitative study, which investigated social processes in workplace bullying, based on in‐depth interviews with ten British women professionals who were targets of workplace bullying. Data were analysed using grounded theory methods. The resulting analysis showed links between disclosures of bullying, reactions of others, and some impacts on targets' psychological health. Key themes which emerged from the data included ‘being heard’ which describes how others reacted to disclosures of bullying behaviours, and the ‘ripple effect’ which describes how bullying impacted upon targets' significant others; these predominantly describe relationships with others outside the workplace. The theme of ‘withdrawal’ describes how targets and others managed relationships within the workplace, and ‘denial’ and ‘personalizing problems’ describe how others within the workplace responded to knowledge of bullying behaviours. The theme ‘maintaining self’ describes how participants responded to changed relationships and struggled to maintain a coherent sense of self during and subsequent to bullying. This research emphasizes the role of social processes and social environments, rather than individual or personality characteristics, in explaining the development of workplace bullying and its impacts on targets. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preference ratings of images representing archetypal themes: an empirical study of the concept of archetypes

Archetype Theory is consistent with the full range of empirical psychological research, yet has not itself been empirically studied. As part of a project to integrate psychological theory, especially psychotherapeutic theory, with empirical research, I asked 151 subjects to rate their preferences for images representing archetypal themes and factor analysed their responses. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that archetypal themes determine affective responses in adults. Archetype theory may prove itself to be useful in operationalizing a number of contemporary psychological theories.     

Être mère dans la famille recomposée : défis de la conciliation des rôles de belle-mère et de mère biologique

This study examines issues related to occupying both the role of stepmother and biological mother in a stepfamily. A sample of twelve participants was interviewed. The central theme of the interviews concerned the psychological state of the women as they tried to reconcile their biological maternity with their role as a stepmother. A qualitative analysis of the interviews enabled us to propose three themes emerging from their experience: a) a comparison of their different parental roles in the stepfamily; b) the issues related to managing stepfamily dynamics; c) the challenges linked to the development of a family identity.     

Social comparison processes in an organizational context: New directions

The goal of this article is to frame some new directions to social comparison research in organizational settings. Four themes are developed. First, we examine the role of organizational variables in shaping the basic sub processes in social comparison, such as the selection of referents. The second theme focuses on the meaning of level of analysis in social comparison processes. The third theme develops how time can enhance our understanding of social comparison. Lastly, we explore some methodological issues inherent in the three prior themes.     

INTELLIGENCE TESTING,COGNITION, AND INSTRUCTION*

This paper examines the implications of recent theory and research in cognitive psychology for the understanding and assessment of intelligence. Three major themes are developed. The first has to do with how changes in the social and educational climate for testing can influence the conception of intellectual competence and the technology of testing. The second theme concerns the ways that cognitive psychology, with its emphases on memory, problem-solving, and knowledge acquisition, has begun to provide a new framework for viewing differences in intellectual functioning. Finally, it is argued that study of the kinds of performances required for success in school suggests ways in which intelligence testing can be made more responsive to current social and educational needs.     

Intimate Violence Against Women: Trajectories for Pastoral Care in a New Millennium

This article reviews progress made in the theory and practice of pastoral care and counseling with regard to the issue of intimate violence against women since the 1970’s. It includes a comprehensive survey of sociological, psychological, and pastoral literature, and a summary of research on teaching about domestic violence in mainline Protestant seminaries. Social and theological themes, including gender, power, and social and political context, and the challenges of justice-making are traced historically. The article concludes with new recommendations for churches, pastoral caregivers, counselors, and theologians.     

Consonances and controversies: Investigation and its discontents revisited

The author responds to the commentaries of 13 experts on his 1980 American Psychologist article, “Investigation and its discontents: On some constraints on progress in psychological research.” Among the themes addressed are the role of theory in psychological research, the meanings and implications of “productivity” by scholars and researchers, the role of grants, and of money in general, in directing research efforts, and the relation between psychological and neuropsychological research.