The Drawback of Sexual Empowerment: Perceiving Women as Emancipated but Still as Sexual Objects

Sex Roles - The belief that sexualization might be used as a source of power for women in Western societies is spreading (Anderson 2014; Erchull and Liss 2013). The present research aims at...     

Memory and Counterfactual Simulations for Past Wrongdoings Foster Moral Learning and Improvement

In four studies, we investigated the role of remembering, reflecting on, and mutating personal past moral transgressions to learn from those moral mistakes and to form intentions for moral improvement. Participants reported having ruminated on their past wrongdoings, particularly their more severe transgressions, and they reported having frequently thought about morally better ways in which they could have acted instead (i.e., morally upward counterfactuals; Studies 1–3). The more that participants reported having mentally simulated morally better ways in which they could have acted, the stronger their intentions were to improve in the future (Studies 2 and 3). Implementing an experimental manipulation, we then found that making accessible a morally upward counterfactual after committing a moral transgression strengthened reported intentions for moral improvement—relative to resimulating the remembered event and considering morally worse ways in which they could have acted instead (Study 4). We discuss the implications of these results for competing theoretical views on the relationship between memory and morality and for functional theories of counterfactual thinking.     

P. F. Strawson was neither an externalist nor an internalist about moral responsibility

Internalism about moral responsibility is the view that moral responsibility is determined primarily by an agent's mental states; externalism is the view that moral responsibility is determined primarily by an agent's overt behaviour and by circumstances external to the agent. In a series of papers, Michelle Ciurria has argued that most if not all current accounts of moral responsibility, including Strawsonian ones, are internalist. Ciurria defends externalism against these accounts, and she argues that, in contrast to his contemporary followers, P.F. Strawson himself was an externalist. I believe that Ciurria's reading of Strawson is problematic. The aim of this paper is to elucidate Strawson's position with regard to the internalism‐externalism issue against the background of Ciurria's reading of him. I conclude that Strawson was neither an internalist nor an externalist about moral responsibility. I draw extensively upon the whole body of Strawson's work, much of which is sadly neglected in discussions of ‘Freedom and Resentment’, although it illuminates many of the issues discussed there.     

Positive Personality Traits as Predictors of Psychotherapy Progress

Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy - The objectives of this paper were to study if the traits of the Positive Personality Model (PPM; de la Iglesia and Castro Solano, in Front Psychol 9:2025,...     

Social status and friendship in peer victimization trajectories

Background/Objective: Most studies have evaluated victimization at a single time point, making it difficult to determine the impact of the time during which an individual is victimized. This longitudinal study aims to examine the differences in the levels of social status (social preference and perceived popularity) and friendship in peer victimization trajectories, and to analyse if there were changes over time in the levels of social status and friendship in each trajectory. Method: The final sample was composed of 1,239 students (49% girls) with ages between 9 and 18 (M = 12.23, SD = 1.73), from 22 schools in southern Spain. Peer nominations were collected. Results: The General Linear Model results associated the highest levels of social preference, perceived popularity and friendship with the sporadic victimization profile and the lowest levels of these dimensions with the stable profile. Conclusions:The results are discussed based on important personal aspects of stable victimization that confirms social rejection, unpopularity, and the low social support that victimization causes. This contribution is discussed in terms of health and social welfare in adolescence.     

Effects of fluprazine (DU 27716) upon aggressive and sexual behavior of testosterone-treated female rats

Female rats, chronically treated with Testosterone Propionate (TP), were injected with Fluprazine (DU 27716) or saline and tested for social aggression, masculine and feminine sexual behavior. Fluprazine-treated females were less aggressive than saline-treated females, as indicated by a shift from offensive to less offensive parameters of aggression. At the same time, mounting in Fluprazine-treated females was almost totally abolished, both in aggression tests and in tests for sexual behavior. Feminine sexual responses increased during aggressive encounters but were slightly inhibited when females were confronted with sexually active males. Females treated with Fluprazine and tested for mounting with a receptive female showed a substantial increase of offensive aggression directed at the receptive stimulus female. It is concluded that Fluprazine does not selectively inhibit offensive aggression in TP-treated female rats.     

The Nature of Client Agency Prior to Therapy: A Qualitative Study on Clients’ Narratives

Client agency is considered a crucial contributor to good treatment outcome. Recent studies, however, differ strongly in how they conceptualise and investigate agency. The current study explores the nature of client agency in ten clients’ pre-treatment interviews. Applying Consensual Qualitative Research, we constructed three overarching categories, subdivided into 14 sub-categories capturing both between- and within-person differences in agency before therapy. We found that all participants oscillated between the experience of a lack of grip on problems on the one hand and noticing their involvement in the problem and taking action on the other. These results present a dynamic conceptualisation of client agency. This allows us to ask pertinent questions for both future research and clinical practice.     

Reliability and Validity of a Paper-and-Pencil Test Measuring Hemisphere Preference

The present studies examined the reliability and validity of the Preference Test (PT), a widely used self-report index of preferred hemisphere thinking styles. The PT consists of items that intend to tap left-hemisphere and right-hemisphere cognitions. In the first study (N=47), PT scores were found to have reasonable test–retest stability. In the second study (N=334), a factor analysis of PT scores showed that the PT has a two-factor solution that can best be interpreted in terms of putative left- and right-hemisphere items. In the third study (N=29), background EEG activity (F3, F4, P3 and P4) of subjects was recorded. PT scores were found to be related to EEG asymmetry patterns for frontal, but not for parietal, recording sites. More specifically, subjects with a left-hemisphere preference displayed relatively stronger left frontal activity than subjects with a right-hemisphere preference. By and large, the present findings provide strong support for the reliability and some suggestive evidence for the validity of the PT.     

Immigration Enforcement Policies and the Mental Health of US Citizens: Findings from a Comparative Analysis

We examined the differential impact of having a family member, friend, or co-worker/community member detained or deported on the mental health of US citizens. In 2019, a sample of 3446 adult participants of White, Black, and Latinx racial/ethnic descent were recruited to complete an online questionnaire. Participants completed the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 to screen for anxiety, depression, and psychological distress. Analyses were restricted to US citizens (n = 3282). Multivariable logistic and linear regressions were conducted to examine the mental health of US citizens who reported personally knowing a migrant who has been detained or deported and by their relationship to the migrant, overall and among Latinxs only. Among US citizens, 32% reported personally knowing someone who has been detained or deported. In multivariable analyses, US citizens who personally knew a detained or deported migrant were more likely to report anxiety, depression, and greater psychological distress. Associations were more pronounced among those who reported having a family member detained or deported. US-citizen Latinxs with social ties to migrants who have been detained or deported were especially more likely to report poor mental health than White and Latinx participants who did not personally know a migrant who has been detained or deported. It is critical that policy makers consider the potential mental health harms on migrants and its own citizens when designing policies targeting migrant communities.