Correction to: “Offensiphobia” is a Red Herring: On the Problem of Censorship and Academic Freedom

The Journal of Ethics -     

Dancing with identity: Narrative resistance strategies of male and female stripteasers

Using life history interviews with 14 female and 10 male striptease dancers, the researchers examined how the language of deviance is used in the life narratives of exotic dancers. Past studies have oriented toward striptease as an occupational curiosity for men and as deviant for women. This article addressed both genders in one study. Eschewing typical deviance vocabularies of analysis, the authors drew upon “biographical work” as our theoretical orientation to frame the life history interview materials and to develop the concept of “narrative resistance.” Rather than assuming that deviance is inherent to striptease dancing for women, but not men, the authors demonstrated how deviance is a socially constructed narrative resource that all dancers may draw upon to construct an account of self. The narrative resistance strategies discussed here include two deviance exemplars: sleaze and immersion. The authors concluded with two discussions: one regarding gender and biographical work and the other regarding the generalizability of narrative resistance as a biographical work strategy.     

Emotions in memories of success and failure: a cultural perspective

Americans and Chinese tend to behave differently in response to success and failure: Americans tend to persist on a task after success, whereas Chinese tend to persist after failure. This study examined whether cultural differences in emotional reactions to success and failure account for these differences. American and Chinese students recalled personal success and failure events, evaluated the primary emotion evoked by the event, and responded to measures of concerns, appraisals, and willingness to try the same task again. Americans were more likely than Chinese to report that their success enhanced their self-esteem. Chinese were more likely than Americans to estimate that their success would make others jealous and enhance others' respect for their family. Chinese, compared to Americans, viewed failures as more tolerable, as less problematic for their goals, and as less damaging to their self-esteem. Culture moderated the relations between these components of emotion and willingness to try the task again. In short, culturally framed emotional reactions to success and failure result in different patterns of anticipated self-regulation.     

Defining and Measuring Self-Concept Change

The self-concept and the manners by which it changes are two of the most important, and challenging, areas of psychological study. In this review, we define the self-concept as a multifaceted psychological construct, composed of a variety of characteristics. People with low self-esteem, incremental theorists, self-monitors, and people with a high uncertainty orientation and relational self-construal are mentioned as some of the types of people who are likely to undergo change. Various approaches to measuring the self-concept and investigating it across cultures are also discussed. Recommendations for future research include utilizing an intraclass correlation coefficient measure of change, and accounting for context-specific self-definitions in several cultures.