Dissidence from within: Examining the effects of intergroup context on group members’ reactions to attitudinal opposition

The successful achievement of a group’s goals often requires a broad base of support among members. Because group and individual interests can diverge, however, dissension is likely. We argued that reactions to such dissension on an issue that is relevant to the group’s status can vary as a function of contextual goals. Whereas dissension from an ingroup member would be rejected in an intergroup context, it might be tolerated in an intragroup context. Regression analyses of women’s (N=96) responses to dissension on an attitudinal issue (abortion on demand) indicated that in an intergroup context, women derogated a dissenting woman more if they had a strong gender identity and viewed the issue as gender relevant. Dissent in an intragroup context was evaluated more positively. The results provided insight into the factors involved in defining a collective identity.     

Primary Care Provider Familiarity with Binge Eating Disorder and Implications for Obesity Management: A Preliminary Survey

Current guidelines for the evaluation and treatment of obesity recommend referring individuals with binge eating disorder (BED) to a mental health professional. However, it is unclear how familiar primary care providers are with BED. The purpose of this study was to assess providers' familiarity with BED diagnosis and treatment. Providers in two primary care clinics completed a questionnaire, which assessed perceived familiarity with BED and demonstrated familiarity with BED diagnosis and treatment. Results indicated that 61% of respondents demonstrated familiarity with the essential symptoms of BED, and 80% reported familiarity with the diagnosis of BED. However, 35% of respondents who perceived themselves as familiar with BED did not demonstrate familiarity with the most basic symptoms. These results demonstrate that while many providers in primary care are familiar with BED, steps to improve provider familiarity with the disorder and provide appropriate mechanisms to address BED are warranted.     

Telling a story or telling it straight: the effects of entertaining versus accurate retellings on memory

People retell events for different reasons. Sometimes they try to be accurate, other times entertaining. What characterizes retellings from different perspectives? How does retelling perspective affect later recall of events? In the current research, participants retold a story either three times or not at all. By instruction, retellings were either entertaining or accurate. Compared to accurate retellings, entertaining retellings contained more affect, but fewer sensory references. On a subsequent memory test, participants who retold with an accuracy goal recalled the greatest number of story events, and their recall protocols were the most accurate and detailed, and least exaggerated. However, recognition memory did not differ across groups, suggesting that differences in retrieval structures (necessary for recall but not recognition) were key to understanding later differences in memory. Compared to telling it straight, the creative process of telling a story leads to qualitative and quantitative changes in later recall. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coping with a threatened group identity: Psychosocial and neuroendocrine responses

Given the stress associated with belonging to a socially devalued group, members' reactions to a threat were evaluated within a stress and coping framework. Participants (N=72) were presented with an explicit or nonexplicit (positive vs. neutral cues) threat to a devalued identity. Regressions indicated that problem-focused coping was related to appraising the identity threat as controllable, and with a greater sense of optimism. Together these variables were associated with lower salivary cortisol levels. The role of emotion-focused coping was most evident under explicit threat conditions, such that it was associated with sustained cortisol elevations and a diminution of identity importance. The findings suggest that intergroup responses involve a complex interplay among stressor appraisals and coping propensities.     

Mothers' Reactions to Children Misbehaving in Ways That Can Lead to Injury: Implications for Gender Differences in Children's Risk Taking and Injuries

A scenario methodology in which mothers imagined themselves and their school-age children in different home situations was used to examine mothers' reactions to sons and daughters when the children were misbehaving in ways that could, and sometimes did, result in injuries. Prior to injury, mothers predominantly expressed anger to sons and disappointment to daughters, focusing primarily on safety issues in response to daughters' misbehavior and discipline issues in response to sons' misbehavior. Once an injury resulted, mothers became concerned about their children, but the degree of concern was greater for injuries to daughters than to sons. Sons' risky misbehavior was attributed predominantly to nonmodifiable characteristics, whereas daughters' risky misbehavior was attributed to factors that a parent could expect to influence. Consistent with these attributions, mothers advocated active injury-prevention approaches to prevent injury recurrence to daughters, but did not believe that much else could be done to prevent injury recurrence to sons. Generally, the pattern of results support the notion that mothers expect more risky behavior of sons than of daughters, are more concerned about injuries to daughters than sons, and believe they can have greater influence on the risk-taking behavior of daughters than sons. Implications of these results for understanding gender differences in children's risk-taking and injuries are discussed.     

Comments on Jason Stanley's “On the Linguistic Basis for Contextualism”

Philosophical Studies -     

The therapeutic alliance: Adolescent perspectives

This paper presents a conceptualisation of the therapeutic alliance from the adolescent perspective and discusses implications for practitioners. The main aim of the study was to focus on the factors that participants identified as important in relationship formation and maintenance. Eighteen individuals were interviewed using a semi‐structured format. Three major themes were identified: therapeutic environment, uniqueness of the therapeutic relationship, and therapist characteristics. Participants identified both positive and negative aspects of the therapeutic relationship. A strong alliance was found to be necessary in that the perception of the therapist as accepting, supportive and trustworthy influenced the adolescent's evaluation of the appropriateness of therapeutic tasks and goals. Participants stressed the importance of the supportive nature of the relationship in their willingness to collaborate in therapeutic interventions.     

Relationships Between Sex-Role Attitudes, Division of Household Tasks, and Marital Adjustment

Relationships between sex-role attitudes, household tasks, and marital adjustment were explored. Eighty-five married couples completed the Osmond-Martin Sex Role Attitude Scale (Osmond & Martin, 1975), the Krausz Household Task scale (Krausz, 1986) and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976). Modern husbands reported greater marital adjustment than traditional husbands. Traditional spouses reported more traditionally male household tasks being completed by husbands and traditionally female tasks being completed by wives. Spouses reported greater marital adjustment when husbands completed male tasks. Sex-role attitudes and household tasks related independently to marital adjustment. The results support assessing husbands and wives separately. Clinicians are advised to assess couples' sex-role attitudes while maintaining neutral attitudes themselves. Several clinical techniques are offered.     

Personal epistemology and theory of mind: deciphering young children's beliefs about knowledge and knowing

The beliefs that individuals hold about knowledge and knowing have been the focus of a growing body of work on “personal epistemology.” There has been general agreement among researchers about a developmental trajectory of epistemological understanding that takes place in adolescence and adulthood. Rarely has this research included children, however, and we know little about the origins of epistemological awareness or its early development. A separate group of researchers have investigated children's “theory of mind,” or the ability to understand others’ beliefs, actions, and desires, with primary attention to the onset of this cognitive achievement between the ages of 3 and 5. This article reviews the theoretical foundation for a proposed relation between these constructs, and reports on an exploratory investigation with 3–5 year olds, in which epistemological level was significantly related to theory of mind ability. Results are discussed in relation to a general timeline depicting the development of children's beliefs about knowledge and knowing, a process that involves an ongoing tension between objective and subjective perspectives. We propose that the trajectory of epistemological development be expanded to include an initial period of egocentric subjectivity that characterizes epistemological thinking prior to the achievement of theory of mind.