Labeling and the Adoption of a Deviant Status

This study explores the role of labeling in the process by which individuals come to perceive their personal indebtedness as indicative of a deviant status. Particular attention is paid to the respective roles one's informal social network and self-help groups play in promoting the transformation from a non-deviant to deviant status. In-depth interviews with a convenience and snowball sample of 46 members of Debtors Anonymous (DA), was supplemented with contextual data from a DA newsletter and other print materials. The theoretical implications for both labeling theory and identity change processes are discussed.     

Using integrated theory to explain the movement into juvenile delinquency

Research grounded in labeling, differential association, social learning, and social control theory provides useful information about various phases of the delinquency process. However, none of these theories accounts for the entire delinquency process. Recent work has demonstrated, for example, that social control theory may be more suitable for explaining initial delinquency, whereas labeling theory is more useful in explaining continued delinquency. This paper incorporates theoretical elements of labeling, differential association, social learning, and social control theories into a model that explains both initial and continued delinquency. Analysis of data from three waves of the National Youth Survey provides support for the model and shows that weakened social controls increase opportunities for associating with delinquent peers, learning delinquent behaviors, and committing initial delinquent acts. Initial delinquency increases the likelihood of being observed and negatively labeled by parents. These labels in turn increase the likelihood of future delinquency. These results lend support to arguments for integrated theory in the study of juvenile delinquency.     

Dyadic Versus Individual Storytelling by Preschool Children

A constructive model of recall and communication (D. Edwards & D. Middleton, 1986) and certain whole-word approaches to learning (C. Pontecorvo & C. Zucchermaglio, 1989) were evaluated in conjunction with an investigation of the benefits of joint storytelling on children's cognitive processes. Preschoolers (N = 36, aged 30-62 months) were prompted to compose a story, working with a classmate (during which they talked together freely and generated a mutual narrative) or individually. Findings revealed that, although dyadically generated stones were longer, containing significantly more words, propositions, and additive conjunctions, stories told by individuals contained proportionally more logically connected statements and greater use of the past tense. Moreover, compared with dyadic stories, individually generated narratives contained fewer alterations of the protagonist.     

Representational momentum when attention is divided

Observers tend to misremember a transforming object's final appearance as further along in the direction of continued transformation. This forward bias, termed representational momentum (RM), suggests that the dynamics associated with an object cannot be ignored in the effort to remember a particular instance of the object. Two experiments tested how attentional focus affects this memory bias. Observers attended to one object, divided attention across more than one object, or performed a secondary task simultaneously with the RM task. For objects translating in space, diminished attention increased the forward memory shift, suggesting that under distraction, motion can be represented but the stopping point is less effectively represented. We propose that object dynamics are well represented when attention is distracted, but that representing a change—including stopping—in the dynamics requires attention. We suggest some experiments to examine this proposal further.     

Integrated Schooling and Religious Tolerance in Northern Ireland

The design of educational institutions has long been seen as a key element in determining social divisions. This article examines the long-term impact of separate and integrated education on relations between the two religious communities (Catholics and Protestants) in Northern Ireland. Using a large-scale survey, the results suggest that in comparison to their previously separate counterparts, individuals who attended an integrated school are more likely to be understanding and respectful of the culture and traditions of others. The finding holds even after a range of background characteristics are taken into account. The results have implications for the role of segregated educational institutions in ameliorating religious, ethnic or racial division in other post-conflict societies. The Northern Ireland evidence suggests that a segregated school system rather than ameliorating intolerance and division may end up exacerbating and reinforcing it.     

Two Concepts or Two Approaches? A Bifactor Analysis of Psychological and Subjective Well-Being

Researchers often debate about whether there is a meaningful differentiation between psychological well-being and subjective well-being. One view argues that psychological and subjective well-being are distinct dimensions, whereas another view proposes that they are different perspectives on the same general construct and thus are more similar than different. The purpose of this investigation was to examine these two competing views by using a statistical approach, the bifactor model, that allows for an examination of the common variance shared by the two types of well-being and the unique variance specific to each. In one college sample and one nationally representative sample, the bifactor model revealed a strong general factor, which captures the common ground shared by the measures of psychological well-being and subjective well-being. The bifactor model also revealed four specific factors of psychological well-being and three specific factors of subjective well-being, after partialling out the general well-being factor. We further examined the relations of the specific factors of psychological and subjective well-being to external measures. The specific factors demonstrated incremental predictive power, independent of the general well-being factor. These results suggest that psychological well-being and subjective well-being are strongly related at the general construct level, but their individual components are distinct once their overlap with the general construct of well-being is partialled out. The findings thus indicate that both perspectives have merit, depending on the level of analysis.     

Emotional impact feedback affects how people remember an analogue trauma event

Do external motivational processes—in the form of social influences—shape people's memories for trauma? In this experiment, we examined the effects of social influence on memory and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomology for an analogue traumatic event. Seventy-two participants watched a distressing film; some received feedback about others' reactions to the film that either emphasised or downplayed the distressing nature of the film; control participants received no feedback. A week later, participants reported their symptoms, rated their memory on a number of characteristics and we tested their memory for the film's content. Participants who received feedback downplaying the film reported fewer PTSD-related analogue symptoms and weaker memory characteristics than their counterparts. The results suggest that people's memory phenomenology and analogue symptoms are influenced by others' feedback, but only when others' reactions downplayed the distressing nature of the film.     

Living liver donation: Attitudes of the general public and general practitioners in Scotland

In April 2006, the Scottish Liver Transplant Unit in Edinburgh became the first NHS transplant unit in the UK to offer adult-to-adult living donor liver transplantation (LDLT). This procedure allows a healthy individual to donate part of their liver to someone with end-stage liver disease. With donations from the deceased in short supply, this procedure has the capacity to save lives. The aim of this study was to explore the attitudes of the general public and general practitioners (GPs) towards LDLT, before its implementation. A total of 1041 members of the Scottish general public and 155 GPs working in Scotland completed a short questionnaire devised for this study. The majority of participants supported the option of LDLT, but frequency counts showed that only 34% of the general public wish to donate their organs following death compared to 85% of GPs. With regards to an acceptable risk of death before volunteering to donate, 25% of GPs would accept a 1 in 20 risk of death, whereas 50% of the general public either could not make a decision or selected ‘No risk’. The question of how well people understand the concept of risk was again highlighted in this study.