Shared Reality,System Justification,and the Relational Basis of Ideological Beliefs

Although it is tempting to think that one's political convictions reflect independent and unbiased thinking, research increasingly suggests that ideologies reflect motivational processes. The present paper integrates system justification and shared reality theories to propose that ideologies may function as prepackaged units of interpretation that spread because of basic human motives to understand the world, avoid existential threat, and maintain valued interpersonal relationships. The authors review evidence suggesting that affiliative motives may influence ideological beliefs to align with the progressive or conservative views shared within a given relationship or group. At the same time, such motives may lead disproportionately to the adoption of system‐justifying worldviews. Implications for the context dependence of ideological convictions, the role that shared reality may play in group conflicts, and the relational bases of revolutionary change are discussed.     

Parents' emotion‐related beliefs and behaviours in relation to children's coping with the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks

To assess relationships between parental socialization of emotion and children's coping following an intensely emotional event, parents' beliefs and behaviours regarding emotion and children's coping strategies were investigated after a set of terrorist attacks. Parents (n=51) filled out the Parents' Beliefs about Negative Emotions questionnaire and were interviewed within two weeks of the attacks. Their elementary and middle school‐aged children were interviewed eight weeks later. First, parents' beliefs were related to two kinds of parental behaviours. Parents' beliefs about both the value of and the danger of children's emotions were positively related to their discussion with their children. Parents' belief about children's emotions as dangerous was also negatively related to parents' expressiveness with their children. Second, parents' beliefs were related to five kinds of coping strategies reported by their children. Parents' belief about children's emotions as valuable predicted children's problem‐solving, emotion‐oriented, and support‐seeking coping following the terrorist attacks. Parents' belief about children's emotions as dangerous predicted children's avoidance and distraction coping following the attacks. Parents' beliefs about the importance of children's emotions may foster a family atmosphere that facilitates children's coping with intensely emotional events. Results support differentiated, multi‐faceted analysis of the broader construct of parental beliefs. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trajectories of externalizing behavior from age 2 to age 9: relations with gender, temperament, ethnicity, parenting, and rater

Trajectories of children's externalizing behavior were examined using multilevel growth curve modeling of data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. According to ratings by both mothers and caregivers/teachers when children were 2, 3, 4, 7, and 9 years old, externalizing behavior declined with age. However, mothers rated children as higher in externalizing behavior than did caregivers and teachers. Higher levels of age 9 externalizing behavior were predicted by the following factors: child male gender (for caregiver/teacher reports only), infant difficult temperament (for children with harsh mothers only), harsher maternal attitude toward discipline, higher level of maternal depression (for maternal reports only), and lower level of maternal sensitivity (especially for boys). Caregivers and teachers reported higher levels of externalizing behavior in African American children than in European American children, increasingly so over time; mothers' ratings revealed the reverse. The declining slope of externalizing behavior was predicted by infant difficult temperament for mother reports only. Additional analyses suggested that the association between parenting and externalizing behavior was bidirectional.     

family responsibilities discrimination: what employment counselors need to know

Family responsibilities discrimination—bias against workers based on their responsibilities to care for family members—is rapidly becoming a 21st‐century workplace concern. Employers who harass, pass over for promotion, or terminate workers because such workers care for children, spouses, elderly parents, or family members with disabilities have been sued with more frequency and have been incurring increasing litigation costs. Recently, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission took an important step toward ending this discrimination by issuing enforcement guidance that addresses family responsibilities discrimination and caregivers' rights and responsibilities. This article addresses the guidance and its importance for employment counselors.     

Searching for and finding meaning in collective trauma: results from a national longitudinal study of the 9/11 terrorist attacks

The ability to make sense of events in one's life has held a central role in theories of adaptation to adversity. However, there are few rigorous studies on the role of meaning in adjustment, and those that have been conducted have focused predominantly on direct personal trauma. The authors examined the predictors and long-term consequences of Americans' searching for and finding meaning in a widespread cultural upheaval--the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001--among a national probability sample of U.S. adults (N=931). Searching for meaning at 2 months post-9/11 was predicted by demographics and high acute stress response. In contrast, finding meaning was predicted primarily by demographics and specific early coping strategies. Whereas searching for meaning predicted greater posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms across the following 2 years, finding meaning predicted lower PTS symptoms, even after controlling for pre-9/11 mental health, exposure to 9/11, and acute stress response. Mediation analyses suggest that finding meaning supported adjustment by reducing fears of future terrorism. Results highlight the role of meaning in adjustment following collective traumas that shatter people's fundamental assumptions about security and invulnerability.     

KANTIAN VALUE REALISM

Why should we be interested in Kant's ethical theory? One reason is that we find his views about our moral responsibilities appealing. Anyone who thinks that we should treat other people with respect, that we should not use them as a mere means in ways to which they could not possibly consent, will be attracted by a Kantian style of ethical theory. But according to recent supporters of Kant, the most distinctive and important feature of his ethical theory is not his claims about the particular ethical duties that we owe to each other, but his views about the nature of value. They argue that Kant has an account of the relationship between practical reason and value, known as “Kantian constructivism” that is far superior to the traditional “value realist” theory, and that it is because of this that we should accept his theory. ¹ 1 Korsgaard (1996a, 1996b, 2003 ).
It is now standard for both supporters and critics to claim that Kant's moral theory stands or falls with Kantian constructivism. ² 2 Gaut (1997 ), Regan (2002 ).
But this is a mistake. In this paper, I sketch a rival Kantian theory of value, which I call Kantian value realism. I argue that there is textual evidence that Kant himself accepted value realism rather than constructivism. Whilst my aim in this paper is to set out the theory clearly rather than to defend it, I will try to show that Kantian value realism is preferable to Kantian constructivism and that it is worthy of further study.     

Family Demands and Job Attribute Preferences: A 4-Year Longitudinal Study of Women and Men

A longitudinal data set was used to examine the relationships between family demands and job attribute preferences. Study participants were 207 students who responded to surveys upon entering the MBA program of a large university and to follow-up surveys 1, 2, and 3 years later. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that preferences for short, flexible work hours at earlier time periods positively predicted hours of household labor at later times, which supports a rational action model. Significant interaction effects indicated that the relationship between the importance of work hours and household labor was stronger for women than for men, which indicates that women were more likely than men to develop plans for combining work and family. Higher levels of household labor were associated with increased preferences for short, flexible work hours, and a comfortable work environment, which supports an accommodation model, but MBA students performing more household labor did not show a reduction in the desire for high salaries, good benefits, and intrinsically rewarding work.     

Irigaray and Hölderlin on the relation between nature and culture

This paper explores the compatibility of Luce Irigaray's recent insistence on the need to revalue nature, and to recognise culture's natural roots, with her earlier advocacy of social transformation towards a culture of sexual difference. Prima facie, there is tension between Irigaray's political imperatives, for if culture really is continuous with nature, this implies that our existing, non-sexuate, culture is naturally grounded and unchallengeable. To dissolve this tension, Irigaray must conceive culture as having self-transformative agency without positioning culture as active vis-à-vis an inert and passive nature. I argue that Irigaray achieves this by conceiving culture to arise from a division internal to nature. She derives this idea from Hölderlin, who claims that nature originally divides itself into subjects and objects, and from Heidegger, who maintains that nature inflicts an originary violence upon itself. Critically reworking Hölderlin and Heidegger, Irigaray argues that male nature tends to turn against itself to generate an anti-natural, ecologically destructive, culture. She argues, however, that this tendency can be redirected and alleviated by the very cultural resources which male nature generates in dividing itself. Irigaray thus develops a unique way to advocate social change while recognising nature's profound impact and influence upon culture.     

Behavioral Goals for a Diverse Organization: The Effects of Attitudes, Social Norms, and Racial Identity for Asian Americans and Whites

This research identified 5 behaviors that may enhance the effectiveness of a diverse organization and used Fishbein and Ajzen's (1975) theory of reasoned action to identify predictors of these behaviors. Results from samples of White and Asian undergraduate students from 2 universities generally supported the Fishbein and Ajzen model. Attitudes and subjective norms were significant predictors of behavioral intentions when gender, race, and social desirability bias were controlled. Racial identity also had a significant, positive effect on attitudes toward diversity-related behaviors among the Asian American students, but no significant effect among Whites. These results supported our reasoning that members of historically excluded racial groups with strong racial identities will be most likely to welcome organizational attempts to become more pluralistic because pluralism means that their valued identities will be respected rather than repressed.     

Typicality and group variability as dual moderators of category-based inferences

We propose and test two alternative hypotheses bearing on the dual roles of group variability and typicality when people form impressions of single category members. The latitude of acceptance hypothesis suggests that a wider range of individual group members are likely to be seen as good-fitting members (i.e., typical) if the group is heterogeneous, thereby increasing the extent to which stereotypical attitudes are used as a basis for responding to these persons. In contrast, the typicality-functionality hypothesis suggests that typicality plays different roles depending on group variability. This view suggests that typicality plays the “gatekeeper function” as postulated by Fiske and Neuberg (1990) when the group is homogeneous, but not when it is heterogeneous. Across two studies, stronger support was found for the typicality-functionality hypothesis. Implications for the extant literature on category-based processing are discussed.