All you fear is love: The roles of rejection by intimate others

Interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory (IPARTheory) asserts that recollections of parental rejection in childhood tend to result in psychological maladjustment and intimacy problems in later romantic relationships. Informed by IPARTheory, we investigated the association between maternal & paternal rejection, and fear of intimacy by the mediating role of psychological maladjustment in a Turkish sample with 462 mostly young adults. We further explored the moderator role of gender in Model 1 and the moderating roles of both gender and intimate partner rejection in Model 2. Model 1 revealed that adults who had experienced maternal and paternal rejection in childhood tended to be psychologically maladjusted. Consequently, they also tended to have a fear of intimacy, regardless of gender. Model 2 revealed that women who recall having been rejected in childhood by their mothers tended to be psychologically maladjusted and to have a significant fear of intimacy when they also experienced moderate or more than moderate intimate-partner rejection. However, both women and men who experienced paternal rejection in childhood tended to be psychologically maladjusted and to experience a greater fear of intimacy when they perceived any degree of intimate partner rejection. Implications of the results for theory, research, and practice are discussed.     

Gender Differences,Infidelity, Dyadic Trust,and Jealousy among Married Turkish Individuals

In the present study, relationships among gender, emotional response to partner’s imagined infidelity (emotional and sexual infidelity), and dyadic trust (low and high levels of trust) were investigated as functions of married Turkish individuals’ jealousy types (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral). Five hundred thirty seven (276 women and 261 men) married individuals living in urban areas in Turkey participated in the study. Results of the Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) revealed significant main effects for gender, infidelity types, and dyadic trust. Particularly, married Turkish men in this study were found to be more emotionally jealous than women. Participants who responded to sexual infidelity as more upsetting had higher levels of emotional jealousy when compared to the participants who found emotional infidelity more upsetting. Moreover, participants with low dyadic trust for their partners were found to be high in their cognitive jealousy and behavioral jealousy reactions. Results are discussed in details with implications for future research and suggestions for mental health practitioners.     

Irrational Beliefs and Attention Bias Towards Symptoms-Related Stimuli in Maintaining Gastrointestinal Symptoms: Results from a Pilot Study

Recent etiopathogenic theories of gastrointestinal conditions state that information processing biases can be a possible major factor involved in the aetiology and maintenance of these conditions. This exploratory study investigated the role of attention biases (AB) towards symptoms-related cues in gastrointestinal patients with respect to symptom maintenance, simultaneously taking into consideration the role of irrational beliefs. We included 32 patients diagnosed with gastrointestinal conditions. Patients completed a battery of psychological tests and an experimental task aimed to measure the preferential attention processing of linguistic stimuli related to gastrointestinal symptoms when they compete for attention resources with neutral stimuli. AB was positively related to irrational beliefs [r(31) = .376, p = .037] and analgesics use [r(32) = .518, p = .002], but not to self-report gastrointestinal symptoms [r(30) = ?.165, p = .382]. Irrational beliefs correlated with pain catastrophizing [r(31) = .373, p = .039], but not to gastrointestinal symptoms, pain intensity, visceral sensitivity or negative emotions; however, pain catastrophizing correlated with all of these. Taken together, our results suggest that core irrational beliefs action as general vulnerability factors that trigger specific implicit and explicit cognitive mechanisms (i.e., AB, pain catastrophizing) involved in the onset and maintenance of symptoms. Future experimental studies should test the robustness of these results in larger samples and aim to further advance our understanding of how cognitive factors interact and potentiate each other in generating and maintaining debilitating suffering.     

Book reviews

Blue Dragon White Tiger. Michael Saso, 1990 Hawaii, University of Hawaii Press 215 pp., No price given

Chuang‐Tzu for Spiritual Transformation. Robert E. Allinson, 1989 Albany, State University of New York Press 203 pp., $39.50 hb, $14.95 pb

Japanese Martial Arts and American Sports. Cross‐Cultural Perspectives on Means to Personal Growth M. Kiyota & H. Kinoshita (Eds), 1990 Tokyo, Nihon University 247 pp., No price given

The Question of Rationality and the Basic Grammar of Intercultural Texts. Hwa Yol Jung, 1989. IUJ Monograph 3, Nigata, International University of Japan ¥2000

The Arabic Linguistic Tradition. G. Bohas, J.‐P. Guillaume & D. E. Kouloughli, 1990 London and New York, Routledge 163+x pp., £30.00

The Body: Toward an Eastern Mind‐Body Theory. Yuasa Yasuo, edited by T. P. Kasulis and translated by Nagatomo Shigenori Albany, State University of New York Press $14.95 hb

Sainthood, Its Manifestations in World Religions. Richard Kieckerhefer & George D. Bond (Eds), 1990 University of California Press XII + 263 pp., $12.95 pb

East of Existentialism: The Tao of the West. Ray Billington, 1990 London, Unwin Hyman xviii+316 pp., No price given     

Lens on International Clinical Supervision: Lessons Learned from a Cross-National Comparison of Supervision

Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy - Clinical supervision is an essential mechanism for training psychologists internationally. But although it is performed globally, scholarship has primarily...     

Understanding Islamic aid flows to enhance global humanitarian assistance

In 2008 the then Organisation of the Islamic Conference established its own Islamic Cooperation Humanitarian Affairs Department (ICHAD) as an alternative to the OECD DAC. Subsequently, aid from ICHAD predominantly goes to Muslims. This is most likely because zakat is one of the five pillars of Islam and regarded as ibadah (worship), from which non-Muslims are excluded. As such, this paper will examine the theology and ethics of giving in Islam (zakat and sadaqa) and explore these aid flows and, and whether there is room for a more inclusive interpretation that can lead to greater integration and co-operation.     

Relationships among self‐construal,gender, social dominance orientation,and interpersonal distance

The present research focuses on the cognitive embodiment of physical proximity, through interpersonal distance’s relationship with self‐construal, gender, and social dominance orientation. Previous work showed that more independent self‐construal was associated with higher distancing preferences of participants, and that females tend to have higher interdependent self‐construal that lead them to prefer less interpersonal distance. We expected to replicate these findings. However, due to the relationship between power and interpersonal distance, it was argued that gender and perceptions regarding the social hierarchy would also play a role in predicting interpersonal distance. More specifically, it was predicted that while females who accept social hierarchies between males and females would prefer more distance when interacting with males, males would not differ in their preference for social distance. One hundred participants (67 female) completed the Comfortable Interpersonal Distance Scale, Independent and Interdependent Self‐Construal Scales and the Social Dominance Orientation Scale. Interdependent self‐construal was negatively correlated with overall preferred interpersonal distance. Moreover, females high on social dominance orientation preferred larger interpersonal distance from male adult strangers than from female adult strangers. The findings provide further support for the embodiment of self‐construal by showing that psychological closeness and heteronomy are related to physical closeness. The findings also highlight the importance of investigating communal sharing and authority ranking dimensions simultaneously when focusing on interpersonal distance as well as differentiating females’ interpersonal sensitivity due to low power with their high affiliation.     

The production of Turkish relative clauses in agrammatism: Verb inflection and constituent order

This study presents results from a sentence completion test that examines the production of finite main clauses and non-finite relative clauses in Turkish agrammatic speech. In main clauses, the verb is finite and all its constituents are in their base positions. In relative clauses, the verb is a participle and the NP undergoes overt movement to an A-bar position. The results show that non-finite relative clauses with overt movement as such are more difficult to produce than finite main clauses with a base order. The findings are discussed with respect to several hypotheses on finite verbs and syntactic complexity. The conclusion is that Turkish agrammatic speakers have more problems in producing structurally derived clauses and the production of verbs is influenced by linguistic factors such as the overt movement of the NP.     

Psychological well-being: its relation to work personality, vocational identity, and career thoughts

The authors examined the impact of the 6 dimensions of psychological well-being on participants' career thoughts, vocational identity, and developmental work personality. Undergraduates (N = 91) completed 4 measures: (a) C. D. Ryff's (1989, 1995) Scales of Psychological Well-Being (SPWB), (b) J. P. Sampson, G. W. Peterson, J. G. Lenz, R. C. Reardon, and D. E. Saunders's (1996) Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI), (c) the Vocational Identity (VI) subscale of J. L. Holland, D. C. Daiger, and G. Power's (1980) My Vocational Situation, and (d) D. R. Strauser and J. M. Keim's (2002) Developmental Work Personality Scale (DWPS). The authors then conducted multiple regression analyses to examine the relations between psychological well-being and the 3 career variables. Results indicated the following: (a) Psychological well-being accounted for a significant portion of the variance in all 3 career variables; (b) scores on the Purpose in Life subscale of the SPWB made a unique contribution to scores on the Commitment Anxiety subscale of the CTI (CTI-CA) and to VI; (c) scores on the Personal Growth subscale of the SPWB made a unique contribution to CTI-CA scores; and (d) scores on the Self-Acceptance and Environmental Mastery subscales of the SPWB each made a unique contribution to DWPS scores.