Connecting the dots between fantasy and reality: The social psychology of our engagement with fictional narrative and its functional value

This essay provides an overview of research and theory on narrative and its important, functional role in human experience, including the ways people use media to interrogate their own beliefs and feelings, and derive social meaning. Thought‐provoking film, television, and books can help us make meaning of our lives and grow in ways that are important for our successful social functioning. Research reviewed here demonstrates that exposure to fiction can increase empathy and social skills and reduce prejudice. Our connection to characters and stories has been studied in various ways as extensions of the self into another, while at the same time bringing the other into the self. Bringing together disparate perspectives, we propose that connecting to story worlds involves a process of “dual empathy”—simultaneously engaging in intense personal processing while also “feeling through” characters, both of which produce benefits. Because the value of entertainment narratives may not always be well understood, we explain how those experiences can be personal, social, and can serve important adaptive functions.     

White Women and the Dark Mother

One of the foremost champions of the ‘Dark Mother’ today is the overwhelmingly white feminist spirituality movement, based in the United States and Europe. Over the past twenty-five years, white spiritual feminists have approached the figure of the Dark Mother, which is borrowed from Hindu, African and Christian sources, with a uniquely fraught mix of longing, envy, hope, fear and guilt. This article first discusses the explicit justifications that white spiritual feminists offer for the incorporation of the Dark Mother into their religiosity, including their analysis of how the concepts of ‘lightness’ and ‘darkness’ are deployed and gendered in patriarchal religions. It then argues that, contrary to spiritual feminist claims, the Dark Mother as such does not exist cross-culturally but is rather the joint creation of the history of religions, Jungian psychology and spiritual feminist ingenuity, and that she is constructed and utilised primarily as a means of working through white racial guilt.     

Social demand characteristics in children's and adults' eyewitness memory and suggestibility: the effect of different interviewers on free recall and recognition

Shortly after viewing a video of a theft, 5‐ and 7‐year‐old children and adults were interviewed with free recall and either misleading or unbiased‐leading questions. After a 2‐day delay, participants were interviewed with free recall and recognition questions administered by either the same or a different interviewer. Results from day 1 replicate previous findings with levels of recall and resistance to suggestibility increasing with age. Counter to predictions, correct recognition performance on day 2 was greater for some participants interviewed by the same as opposed to a different interviewer, and incorrect recognition was greater for all groups of participants for those interviewed by a different as opposed to the same interviewer. Results are discussed in terms of the role of context dependence on memory performance. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of a Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention Program to Treat Anxiety and Social Deficits in Teens with High-Functioning Autism

Anxiety is a common co-occurring problem among young people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Characterized by deficits in social interaction, communication problems, and stereotyped behavior and restricted interests, this group of disorders is more prevalent than previously realized. When present, anxiety may compound the social deficits of young people with ASD. Given the additional disability and common co-occurrence of anxiety in ASD, we developed a manual-based cognitive-behavioral treatment program to target anxiety symptoms as well as social skill deficits in adolescents with ASD [Multimodal Anxiety and Social Skills Intervention: MASSI]. In this paper, we describe the foundation, content, and development of MASSI. We also summarize data on treatment feasibility based on a pilot study that implemented the intervention.     

Political Liberalism and Male Supremacy

In Equal Citizenship and Public Reason, Watson and Hartley dispute the claim that Rawls’s doctrine of political liberalism must tolerate gender hierarchy because it counts conservative and orthodox religions as reasonable comprehensive doctrines. I argue that their defense in fact contains two arguments, both of which fail. The first, which I call the ‘Deliberative Equality Argument’, fails because it does not establish conclusively that political liberalism’s demand for equal citizenship forbids social practices of domination, as the authors contend. The second, which I call the ‘Equal Liberties Argument’, fails because it supports a particular version of political liberalism and not the doctrine itself.     

No evidence that alcohol intoxication impairs judgments of learning in face recognition

Alcohol use is frequently involved in crime, making it crucial to understand the role of alcohol in facial recognition to maximize correct perpetrator identifications. Although the majority of the alcohol and face recognition research has investigated recognition with retrospective confidence judgments, we examined the effects of alcohol intoxication on face recognition with prospective metacognitive judgments. Participants (N = 54 university students without a history of hazardous alcohol/substance use) consumed either alcohol (mean breath alcohol concentration of 0.06 at pretest and 0.07 at post‐test) or a non‐alcoholic placebo drink. Participants then studied unfamiliar male and female faces and made judgments of learning (JOLs) for each face (i.e., predicted the likelihood of recognizing that face on a future memory test). After a brief distractor task, participants completed an old–new recognition test on which they attempted to distinguish the studied faces from new faces. It was found that the alcohol manipulation had minimal effect on face recognition performance or judgments of learning. Our results suggest that theory‐based cues about the effects of alcohol might play a greater role in retrospective judgments than prospective judgments. Although not a primary focus of the study, face recognition was better for male faces than female faces, and this occurred for both female and male participants. Limitations and implications of the research are discussed.     

The Effectiveness of Psychosocial Interventions Delivered by Teachers in Schools: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The growing mental health needs of students within schools have resulted in teachers increasing their involvement in the delivery of school-based, psychosocial interventions. Current research reports mixed findings concerning the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions delivered by teachers for mental health outcomes. This article presents a systematic review and meta-analysis that examined the effectiveness of school-based psychosocial interventions delivered by teachers on internalizing and externalizing outcomes and the moderating factors that influence treatment effects on these outcomes. Nine electronic databases, major journals, and gray literature (e.g., websites, conference abstract) were searched and field experts were contacted to locate additional studies. Twenty-four studies that met the study inclusion criteria were coded into internalizing or externalizing outcomes and further analyzed using robust variance estimation in meta-regression. Both publication and risk of bias of studies were further assessed. The results showed statistically significant reductions in students’ internalizing outcomes (d = .133, 95% CI [.002, .263]) and no statistical significant effect for externalizing outcomes (d = .15, 95% CI [?.037, .066]). Moderator analysis with meta-regression revealed that gender (%male, b = ?.017, p < .05), race (% Caucasian, b = .002, p < .05), and the tier of intervention (b = .299, p = .06) affected intervention effectiveness. This study builds on existing literature that shows that teacher-delivered Tier 1 interventions are effective interventions but also adds to this literature by showing that interventions are more effective with internalizing outcomes than on the externalizing outcomes. Moderator analysis also revealed treatments were more effective with female students for internalizing outcomes and more effective with Caucasian students for externalizing outcomes.     

Maternal and infant affect at 4 months predicts performance and verbal IQ at 4 and 7 years in a diverse population

Using existing longitudinal data from 570 infants in the Maternal Lifestyle Study, we explored the predictive value of maternal and infant affect and maternal vocalizations during 2 minutes of face‐to‐face interactions at 4 months on IQ scores at 4.5 and 7 years. After controlling for demographic factors, maternal depression, and prenatal drug exposure, maternal positive affect and maternal positive vocalizations emerged as predictors of both verbal and performance IQ at 4.5 and 7 years. Although infant positive affect during the interaction with the mother was not predictive of these outcome measures, infant positive affect towards an examiner predicted verbal but not performance IQ at 4.5 years. These results suggest that maternal positive affect may index emotional engagement in interaction that facilitates both verbal and nonverbal cognitive development, while infant social positive affect is specifically related to the acquisition of verbal reasoning abilities. These findings are significant because they are based on a discrete snapshot of observable behavior in infancy (just 2 minutes of interaction), because they extend the range of maternal behaviors and characteristics known to support positive developmental outcomes, and because they are derived from high‐risk infants where prevention efforts may be beneficial. Potential mechanisms for these associations are discussed, as are the clinical implications for identifying dyads most in need of targeted interventions.