Self‐evaluative consequences of social support receipt: The role of context self‐relevance

Past research suggests that receiving social support can increase distress if it threatens self‐esteem, self‐efficacy, or competence. These costs may be more apparent in self‐relevant contexts, as such concerns should be more salient in these situations. This research tests whether context self‐relevance moderates affective responses to support receipt and whether this pattern is mediated by self‐evaluation. We report support for these hypotheses in both a daily diary study (N = 304 couples) of real‐world stress and a laboratory experiment (N = 77 students) in which support receipt and task self‐relevance are manipulated. We discuss connections between this work and the broader literature on social support receipt, including how other social processes (e.g., social comparison) may contribute to the costs associated with support receipt.     

Predicting nonmarital romantic relationship dissolution: A meta‐analytic synthesis

A meta‐analysis of predictors of nonmarital romantic relationship dissolution was conducted, including data collected from 37,761 participants and 137 studies over 33 years. Individual, relationship, and external variables were investigated, and results suggest that commitment, love, inclusion of other in the self, and dependence were among the strongest predictors of dissolution. Other relational variables such as satisfaction, perceptions of alternatives, and investments were modest predictors of breakup, and the external factor of social network support was also a robust predictor. Personality measures were found to have limited predictive utility, with small effects found for dimensions relational in nature (e.g., adult attachment orientations). Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed within the context of future research on nonmarital relationship dissolution.     

EMPLOYEES THAT THINK AND ACT LIKE OWNERS: EFFECTS OF OWNERSHIP BELIEFS AND BEHAVIORS ON ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS

A model of the psychological experience of employee ownership in work groups was developed to investigate antecedents (participation in a 401 (k) program and a climate of self-determination) and consequences (employee attitudes and financial performance) of psychological ownership. Based on data from a large retail organization, results showed that working in a climate supporting self-determination and 401(k) participation were positively related to the level of ownership beliefs in the 204 work groups studied. Ownership beliefs were positively related to ownership behaviors and employees' attitudes toward the organization, whereas ownership behaviors were positively related to financial performance. Implications of psychological ownership for organizational behavior and performance are discussed.     

“BEYOND GLASS DOORS . . . THE SUN NO LONGER SHINING”: ENGLISH PLATONISM AND THE PROBLEM OF SELF‐LOVE IN THE LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL WORK OF IRIS MURDOCH1

Certain oddities of Iris Murdoch's Platonism have a significance beyond that of being the personal and idiosyncratic opinion of one author, of interest only to Murdoch enthusiasts. First of all, they provide richly suggestive indications of what can happen to Platonism when it is brought into interaction with a mechanical and deterministic model of the physical universe. Secondly, Murdoch's work acts as a particularly perspicuous theological flash‐point, showing the intrinsic difficulties with combining demanding features of Platonism with a strong sense of human selfishness (self‐love) and imperfectibility. This is illuminated through a comparison with a strand of neo‐Lutheran theology.     

THINKING ANIMALS AND EPISTEMOLOGY

We consider one of Eric Olson's chief arguments for animalism about personal identity: the view that we are each identical to a human animal. The argument was originally given in Olson's book The Human Animal . Olson's argument presupposes an epistemological premise which we examine in detail. We argue that the premise is implausible and that Olson's defense of animalism is therefore in trouble.     

THE SIMPLICITY OF THE LIVING GOD: AQUINAS, BARTH, AND SOME PHILOSOPHERS

The traditional notion of divine simplicity is frequently misunderstood. Philosophers of religion who defend it and theologians who dismiss it agree on its Greek, rather than biblical, heritage. On the contrary, a particularly Christian account of divine simplicity, as reflected for example in Thomas, maintains a Creator‐creature distinction as understood in light of Trinity and Incarnation. Stump and Kretzmann's discussion of simplicity appears to follow Aquinas, but misses the character of this distinction, and so treats a human idea of “the simple” instead of Thomas's living source of being. The true modern follower of Thomas on simplicity is not Stump and Kretzmann, but Barth.     

‘THEY KNOW HIM BY HIS VOICE’: NEWMAN ON THE IMAGINATION,CHRISTOLOGY, AND THE THEOLOGY OF RELIGIONS

Newman's gift to Catholic theology is the gift of ‘wisdom’: an ability to discern the shape of the whole, not by way of ‘generalized laws or metaphysical conjectures’ but through the ‘concrete’ and ‘living’ soil of the religious imagination. Newman's elemental trust in the religious sensibilities of non‐Christians and the revelatory roots of ‘natural religion’ proceeds from his view of the religious imagination as the experiential, pre‐verbal, and pre‐conceptual realm of contact between God and human persons always and everywhere. Above all Newman recognizes the salvific character of a life of personal holiness. In this respect the life of Christ exemplifies continuity and not radical interruption with countless human beings outside our usual ken who quietly lead lives of sacramental holiness. Bringing Newman into dialogue with contemporary theologians such as Jacques Dupuis, Roger Haight, Terrence Merrigan, and Thomas Merton, the author proposes four lessons for a theology of religions cast ‘under the light of Wisdom’.