Resisting Gendered Smoking Pressures: Critical Consciousness as a Correlate of Women's Smoking Status

Gender is one of the social structures, along with social class and ethnicity, that shapes women's smoking behaviors. We examined how different responses to gender pressures (internalization and resistance) relate to smoking. We analyzed data from a national random digit dial survey of 945 women and found that never smokers scored high on resistance to gender pressure (indicated by high scores on feminist consciousness) and on education and Body Mass Index; current smokers had the reverse pattern. Ex-smokers scored high on one measure of resistance (advertising skepticism) and on two measures of internalization (embodied femininity and weight concern); they were also likely to have high household income and to be European American. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for smoking cessation programs and antismoking campaigns.     

The big two dictionaries: Capturing agency and communion in natural language

Four studies developed and validated two dictionaries to capture agentic and communal expressions in natural language. Their development followed the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) approach (Study 1) and we tested their validity with frequency-based analyses and semantic similarity measures. The newly developed Agency and Communion dictionaries were aligned with LIWC categories related to agency and communion (Study 2), and corresponded with subjective ratings (Study 3), confirming their convergent validity. Very low or absent correspondence between proposed dictionaries and unrelated LIWC categories demonstrated their discriminant validity (Study 2). Finally, we applied both dictionaries to language used in advertisements. In correspondence to gender stereotypes, male-dominated jobs were advertised with more agentic than communal words, and female-dominated jobs with more communal than agentic words (Study 4). Both dictionaries represent reliable tools for quantifying agentic and communal content in natural language, and will improve and facilitate future research on agency and communion.     

Was Thomas Aquinas a Sociobiologist? Thomistic Natural Law,Rational Goods,and Sociobiology

Abstract. Traditional Darwinian theory presents two difficulties for Thomistic natural‐law morality: relativism and essentialism. The sociobiology of E. O. Wilson seems to refute the idea of evolutionary relativism. Larry Arnhart has argued that Wilson's views on sociobiology can provide a scientific framework for Thomistic natural‐law theory. However, in his attempt to reconcile Aquinas's views with Wilson's sociobiology, Arnhart fails to address a critical feature of Aquinas's ethics: the role of rational goods in natural law. Arnhart limits Aquinas's understanding of rationality to the Humean notion of economic rationality–that “reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions.” On Aquinas's view, rationality discovers goods that transcend the merely biological, viz., the pursuit of truth, virtue, and God. I believe that Aquinas's natural‐law morality is consistent with some accounts of sociobiology but not the more ontologically reductionist versions like the one presented by Wilson and defended by Arnhart. Moreover, Aquinas's normative account of rationality is successful in refuting the challenges of evolutionary relativism as well as the reductionism found in most sociobiological approaches to ethics.     

Perceived motivational team climate in relation to task and social cohesion among male college athletes

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between perceptions of the motivational team climate and task and social cohesion among male college athletes. Basketball and soccer players (n = 179) completed two response measures, the Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire‐II (Newton, Duda, & Yin) and the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ; Carron, Widmeyer, & Brawley) before practice in a team setting near the end of the competitive season. Hierarchical linear modeling analysis revealed that individual perceptions of a task‐involving climate positively predicted, and perceptions of an ego‐involving climate negatively predicted, individual‐attraction‐to‐group task cohesion. Further analysis indicated that perceptions of a task‐involving climate also significantly predicted individual‐attraction‐to‐group social cohesion and group‐integration task cohesion. Perceptions of an ego‐involving climate failed to demonstrate any other predictive value in relation to team cohesion. Discussion underscores the beneficial nature of a task‐involving motivational team climate in regard to the formation and development of task and social cohesion among competitive male college athletes.     

The politics of time: Conservatives differentially reference the past and liberals differentially reference the future

Conservatives are thought to favor certainty and value tradition (suggesting a focus on the past), whereas liberals are thought to favor change (suggesting a focus on the future), even when it is associated with some degree of uncertainty. On this basis, two studies contrasted references to the past versus the future in language usage. Study 1 analyzed 600 texts from conservative and liberal websites. After adjusting for normative differences, a cross‐over interaction was obtained: Conservative posts referenced the past to a greater extent than the future and liberal posts referenced the future more than the past. A conceptually parallel cross‐over interaction was obtained in Study 2, which analyzed 145 State of the Union addresses. The temporal orientation of conservatives and liberals, then, appears qualitatively different.     

Successes and failures in resisting cigarettes affect partner support for smoking cessation

Objective: Potential support providers may rely on observable behaviours (e.g. resisting a cigarette vs. smoking) to determine how much and what kind of support to provide. We evaluated the effect of smokers’ salient behaviour on partners’ likelihood of providing positive and negative support.

Design: Partners of smokers (N = 131) were randomly assigned to recall a time when their partner either successfully resisted a cigarette, failed to resist a cigarette or a control condition (no recall). All participants reported the likelihood of providing positive and negative support to their partner. Perceived commitment to quitting smoking was measured as a potential mediator.

Main Outcome Measures: The main outcome was intention to provide support for a quit attempt.

Results: Participants who recalled their partners’ past failures reported more intentions to engage in negative support and smaller ratios of positive to negative intended support than did participants in the success or control condition. These effects were partially mediated by perception of commitment to quitting.

Conclusion: Lapses in a quit attempt may change the nature of the support quitters receive. Interventions to improve communication between partners about the smoker’s commitment to quitting and experienced challenges may result in better support.     

Margarita Von Lüttichau: Intermediary between Jung and Bill Wilson

This paper details Von Lüttichau’s relationship with Carl Jung and Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), and her role as intermediary in the relationship between the two men. Her contribution within this mediator role has not been previously recognized but is an important factor in explaining how Jung became introduced to the AA 12-step format and validated the effectiveness of group work. After the Second World War, Von Lüttichau travelled between America and Switzerland and introduced the writings and ideas of Wilson and Jung to each other and acted as an intermediary between both titans. Jung gave Von Lüttichau extraordinarily detailed instructions on how the 12-step programme of AA could be applied to ‘general neurotics’. Von Lüttichau’s private papers provide a bridge between Jung and Wilson’s correspondence and help to piece together gaps in both Jungian and AA history.