The practice of using makeup: A consumption ritual of adolescent girls

The consumption of makeup by teenage girls may represent a ritual critical to the rite of passage to adulthood. To explore this issue, depth interviews were conducted with 25 teenage girls in France, ages 14–18 years, about their makeup use. The data in this exploratory study suggest that putting on makeup is a ritual that plays a critical role for adolescent girls separating from their childhood and transitioning toward adulthood. Evidence of ritual dimensions (repetition, symbolic, codification, and dramaturgy) was found. The data further suggest that the traditional rite of passage associated with primitive societies is useful in identifying ritual teenage girls' makeup consumption in modern society, although with some differences. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Formal Defensive Aspects of Cognition and Modes of Thinking Exemplified by Freud's Case History of the Rat Man

Autoerotic gratifications are necessary for children suffering from a disturbed mother relation, and constitute symptoms of the same (jactatis capitis, extreme masturbation, etc.). The origins of the autoerotic functions go as far back as the foetal stage (thumbsucking). In the habits of so-called normal human beings, they also have an important stabilizing function to psychic autonomy. We are accompanied by primary and sublimated autoerotic functions all through our lives, which offer comfort and satisfaction during the different vicissitudes of life. Freud's monistic drive theory seems more plausible to me than his later dualistic theories. In accordance with the former, man can regress from object-libidinal cathexes into autoerotic positions when feeling psychically or physically threatened, and during normal conditions when asleep, sleep constituting a normal narcissistic state.     

On the Stability of Psychological Hardiness: A Three-Year Longitudinal Study

More than 30 years of research has established psychological hardiness as an important individual resiliency resource. One important question still remaining is whether psychological hardiness can be trained. The present study explored this question longitudinally within the context of a 3-year military academy training program. Cadets from 3 different Norwegian military academies (N = 293) completed hardiness questionnaires during the first week of their training, and then again at the end of each year, resulting in a total of 4 waves of data. Using hierarchical linear modeling, no statistically significant effect of time on hardiness scores was found. The nonsignificant growth parameter was examined further using Bayesian statistics as an indicator of the relative evidence for the null hypothesis of no change over time versus the alternative hypothesis of change. The resulting Bayes factor provided substantial support in our data for the null hypothesis of no hardiness development during the 3-year officer training programs.