Bullies and victims in rural African American youth: behavioral characteristics and social network placement

Bullying and victimization are serious problems for youth of many ages and from a variety of backgrounds. These behaviors have not, however, been widely studied in rural minorities. The current work examined behavioral and social correlates of bullying and victimization in a sample of rural African American youth. Incidence rates of bullying, victimization, and aggressive victimization parallel those in other populations. Bullies were rated as aggressive, hyperactive, and manipulative. Bullies and victims were both sociometrically rejected, but while victims were on the margin of the social network, bullies were integrated in their groups. Bullies' associations were heterogeneous: they belonged to both aggressive and non-aggressive and popular and unpopular groups. They also were highly likely to be leaders of their groups.     

Deliberate self-harm and sexual abuse in adolescence

Helping a young person to render repeated self-injury redundant as a solution to problems connected with having been sexually abused requires a containing context which both supports autonomic healing in the patient and provides an experiential model for the restoration of relationship with adults as a safe (non-abusive) activity. In this paper a case study is presented and some treatment issues for individual psychotherapeutic work are addressed. These include ensuring that the power balance between patient and therapist is acknowledged by emphasizing the patient's self-determination, recognizing patterns of re-enactment within sessions, and addressing here-and-now behaviour and its link with the original trauma. This paper also examines the changing function of self-injurious behaviour and how it can be perceived as addictive after the establishment of a proper alliance between patient and therapist. the circular logic involved in avoiding identification with the abuse-perpetrator by way of self-injury is explored. the therapeutic relationship as an alternative to this is discussed.     

Risk and resilience: The moderating role of social coping for maternal mental health in a setting of political conflict

Violence can threaten individual wellbeing and tear at the social fabric of communities. At the same time, suffering can mobilize social coping and mutual support. Thus, the backdrop of political violence increases risk factors and stimulates resilience. The current study examined the moderating role of social coping as reflective of risk and resiliency in Northern Ireland, a setting of protracted conflict. Specifically, structural equation modeling was used to investigate whether social coping protects from or exacerbates the negative impact of sectarian crime and nonsectarian crime on maternal mental health (N = 631). Nonsectarian crime predicted greater psychological distress for mothers in Belfast. Mixed support was found for the buffering and depletion moderation hypotheses; social coping functioned differently for nonsectarian crime and sectarian crime. Greater social coping buffered mothers’ psychological distress from the negative effects of nonsectarian crime, but exacerbated maternal mental health problems when facing sectarian crime. Results suggest that social coping is a complex phenomenon, particularly in settings of protracted political violence. Implications for interventions aimed at alleviating psychological distress by enhancing mothers’ social coping in contexts of intergroup conflict are discussed.     

Longitudinal Pathways Between Political Violence and Child Adjustment: The Role of Emotional Security about the Community in Northern Ireland

Links between political violence and children’s adjustment problems are well-documented. However, the mechanisms by which political tension and sectarian violence relate to children’s well-being and development are little understood. This study longitudinally examined children’s emotional security about community violence as a possible regulatory process in relations between community discord and children’s adjustment problems. Families were selected from 18 working class neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Participants (695 mothers and children, M = 12.17, SD = 1.82) were interviewed in their homes over three consecutive years. Findings supported the notion that politically-motivated community violence has distinctive effects on children’s externalizing and internalizing problems through the mechanism of increasing children’s emotional insecurity about community. Implications are considered for understanding relations between political violence and child adjustment from a social ecological perspective.     

What is Postnormal When There is no Normal? A Postdichotomous View of the Histories of the Past,Present, and Future

In this paper, I discuss the concept of ‘postnormal times’ and argue that the term postnormal is misrepresentative where applied to describe a state beyond so-called ‘normal’ times. Such normality is characterized by, i) progress towards social, economic and political equilibrium, and ii) future betterment for all. I posit that these conditions represent, at best, misplaced optimism and, at worst, a deliberate veil of untruths. I also argue that the foundation of thinking on normalcy, based on the classical free market economics of Adam Smith, was flawed from the outset. I propose that what are termed postnormal times actually represent an extreme set of long-term ‘normal times’. Importantly, I propose that human responses to a situation of extreme normalcy will be different from responses to the novel and truly postnormal. Action, or lack thereof, to address extreme normalcy requires a different mindset and starting point to that for addressing a new or post-normalcy. As such, I call for fundamental change to economic and political priorities and for a focus on social needs and values in the very near future. Finally, I posit that, whether we live in postnormal, ‘hyper-normal’, abnormal or ‘new normal’ times, we must accept that, for most of humanity and for the planet on which we live, these are not good times, and we must strive to bring about urgent and radical change.     

Honour and Kingship in Herodotus: Status,Role, and the Limits of Self-Assertion

The notion of timê (τιμή, normally translated “honour”) is a key concept when it comes to thinking about virtues, roles, and duties in ancient Greek ethics and society, both in popular and in philosophical terms. This discussion concentrates on the work of the fifth-century historian, Herodotus, where the idea of timê as the fulfilment of a specific role in society takes on particular and interesting inflections. In Herodotus, as in Greek generally, timê covers both the esteem that one receives from others and the claim to esteem that the individual him- or herself brings to bear in social interaction. Thus timê is both “deference” and “demeanour” (to use Goffman’s terminology). As a quality of an individual that commands others’ respect, timê also encompasses the roles that are bound up with one’s status. Roles and offices express, attract, and demand timê, but such demands are normally constrained by reciprocal respect for the timê of others. The office of the Persian king, however, appears at first sight to involve unconditional claims to recognition respect, powerful drives towards appraisal respect (in Darwall’s terminology), and only limited acknowledgement of either ethical norms or others claims as potential limitations to regal self-assertion. Closer inspection, however, reveals that the values of mutual respect that underpin the freedom enjoyed by citizens of Greek poleis are also felt by Herodotus to ground claims to freedom and independence on the part of those poleis themselves, claims that the historian’s narrative suggests are ultimately upheld by the gods and embedded in the structure of the cosmos itself.     

The development of reflection-impulsivity: further data

The MFF20 was administered to 617 children aged 7–12yr. The resulting development trends for latency and errors suggest errors decrease to about age 10 yr then level off while a corresponding, though less dramatic, increase in latency was observed. These results were obtained without evidence of ceiling or floor effects or any evidence of a decrease in the relationship between latency and errors after age 10 yr, in contrast to those obtained by Salkind and Nelson (1980).     

The Effect of Mugshot Inspections on Eyewitness Identification Accuracy1

This study assessed the effect of commitment to an earlier mugshot identification on the ability to make a subsequent lineup identification. Shortly after viewing videotape of a staged assault some subjects rated a group of 18 photos for attractiveness, whereas other subjects attempted to identify the assailant publicly or privately in the same (target-absent) set of 18 “mugshot” photos. The remaining subjects had no intervening task. Two days later, all subjects attempted to identify the assailant from a six-person target-present photo lineup which contained their mugshot choice (if made) as well as the original assailant. Lineup identifications were significantly less accurate for subjects who had viewed the intervening mugshots (33% accuracy) than those who had only rated the intervening photos for attractiveness (64% accuracy) or had seen no intervening photos (69% accuracy). When viewing lineups, experimental subjects tended to remain committed to their earlier action of choosing or not choosing anyone from the mugshots. More witnesses who had publicly stated their mugshot choice reproduced their (incorrect) choice at the lineup (78%), than did those who made a private mugshot choice (45%), though this difference was not statistically reliable. Witnesses' confidence in their lineup decision was not significantly related to overall accuracy. Contrary to predictions from self-perception theory, confidence in one's decision decreased significantly as further identifications were attempted.