Bullying as a group process: Participant roles and their relations to social status within the group

Bullying was investigated as a group process, a social phenomenon taking place in a school setting among 573 Finnish sixth-grade children (286 girls, 287 boys) aged 12–13 years. Different Participant Roles taken by individual children in the bullying process were examined and related to a) self-estimated behavior in bullying situations, b) social acceptance and social rejection, and c) belongingness to one of the five sociometric status groups (popular, rejected, neglected, controversial, and average). The Participant Roles assigned to the subject were Victim, Bully, Reinforcer of the bully, Assistant of the bully, Defender of the victim, and Outsider. There were significant sex differences in the distribution of Participant Roles. Boys were more frequently in the roles of Bully, Reinforcer and Assistant, while the most frequent roles of the girls were those of Defender and Outsider. The subjects were moderately well aware of their Participant Roles, although they underestimated their participation in active bullying behavior and emphasized that they acted as Defenders and Outsiders. The sociometric status of the children was found to be connected to their Participant Roles. © 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

In Memoriam

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Knowledge,Attitudes, and Beliefs of Catholic Clerics’ Regarding Mental Health in Lebanon

Journal of Religion and Health - Arabic speakers rarely seek the help of professional mental health providers while they heavily rely on religious leaders. However, little is known about the...     

Does Religious Activity Distinguish the Mortality Experiences of Older Taiwanese? An Analysis Using Eighteen Years of Follow-Up Data

This paper extends investigation of religiosity and longevity to Taiwan using a 1989 survey: N = 3849, aged 60+, with 18 years of follow-up. Religious activity is measured as worship and performance of rituals. A Gompertz regression, adjusted and non-adjusted for covariates and mediating factors, shows the hazard of dying is lower for the religiously active versus the non-active. Transformed into life table functions, a 60-year-old religiously active Taiwanese female lives more than 1 year longer than her non-religious counterpart, ceteris paribus. Mainland Chinese migrants are examined carefully because of unique religious and health characteristics. They live longer, but the religiosity gap is similar.

     

Feeling time in nature: The influence of directed and undirected attention on time awareness

In the present study, we examined the impact of the interaction of environmental and task-induced attentional focus on time perception, specifically awareness of the time flow. We tested 48 participants in either a natural or urban setting over three 25- to 35-min sessions. We manipulated the within-subjects factor task by means of two tasks—one requiring directed attention on the task itself, the other undirected attention on the environment—alongside a control condition with no specific task. We measured time awareness, passage of time judgments, felt time judgments, and estimated time as dependent variables. For time awareness, we found an interaction between environment and task: in the natural environment, only a task requiring directed attention reduced time awareness; whereas, in the urban environment, both tasks reduced time awareness compared to the control condition. The results suggest that natural environments increase time awareness unless we focus our attention on a task.     

Correction to: Effects of reward magnitude and training frequency on the learning rates and memory retention of the Port Jackson shark Heterodontus portusjacksoni

Animal Cognition - In the original publication of the article, the Fig. 4 was erroneously published.     

Mothers and fathers and mothers and babies: Interrelationship among relationships

The relationship between perceived marital satisfaction and early mother-infant interaction was investigated. Seventeen mothers and their three-day-old infants served as subjects. Dyads were observed via a modified time-sampling technique during a hospital feeding session. Then mothers completed a questionnaire concerning their perceptions of the marital relationship. Correlational analyses revealed a significant covariance of positive perceptions of the expressive aspects of the marital relationship and heightened social interaction for mother and infant. An interrelationship was observed between mother-neonate social-visual communication and maternal reports of planned pregnancies, time spent talking with spouse, general ratings of “getting along with spouse,” and positive overall evaluations of the material relationship. Also observed was the interrelationship of mother holding infant away from close bodily contact with reports of decreased love felt toward spouse, less optimal perceptions of ease of emotional expression and spousal interest in maternal daily activities, and less optimal overall ratings of the relationship. Implications of the results and the need for further research are discussed.