Audience Activity and Soap Opera Involvement A Uses and Effects Investigation

This investigation examined the role of motives, attitudes, and audience activity in explaining the affective, cognitive, and behavioral involvement of 328 daytime soap opera viewers. Because inter correlations were found among motives, attitudes, activities, and involvement variables, canonical correlation analysis was used. There were two multivariate patterns. First, except for viewing to pass time, more salient viewing motivations (especially exciting entertainment and social utility), perceived realism, viewing intention, and attention were related to parasocial interaction, post viewing cognition, and post viewing discussion. Second, viewing for social utility, but not for voyeurism, and the lack of realism were related to post viewing discussion, but not to parasocial interaction. These audience orientations and the role of involvement in media uses and effects were discussed.     

The Last Will and Testament in Literature: Rupture,Rivalry, and Sometimes Rapprochement from Middlemarch to Lemony Snicket

Although the psychological literature on the last will and testament is sparse, authors of fiction and memoir have filled the gap, writing in rich detail about the impact of wills on families. Henry James, George Eliot, J. R. Ackerley, and others reveal that a will is not only a legal document but a microcosm of family life: a coded and nonnegotiable message from the will's writer to its intended readers, the heirs, delivered at a stressful time and driving home the truth that options for discussion between testator and heirs are now gone, all factors which may intensify the ambivalence of grief and stall its resolution. Among the problems the authors chronicle: reinvigorated sibling rivalries, vindictive testators, and the revelation of traumatic family secrets. Writers also demonstrate how contemporary social factors, such as divorce, second families, and geographic distance between family members, may complicate wills and ensuing family relations. Exemplary wills, or will‐like documents, appear in fiction by Maria Katzenbach and Marilynne Robinson, allowing the living to make rapprochements with the dead, and pointing to testamentary strategies clinicians might develop to lead to a resolution of grief. The depth of these writers' accounts allows clinicians to imagine points at which they might productively intervene in matters pertaining to a will.     

Low Subjective Social Status Promotes Ruminative Coping1

Correlational research has shown that lower social standing is associated with poorer health, but it is unknown if this association is causal. Two experiments tested whether randomly assigned low subjective social status would promote ruminative coping, a mechanism leading to the development of poor health outcomes. Participants were college females, split about evenly between Blacks and Whites. Experiment 1 (N = 39) found those imagining themselves at the bottom (vs. top) of a social ladder showed more ruminative coping using rater‐assessed responses. Experiment 2 (N = 42) replicated these results, extended them with a self‐report outcome measure, and demonstrated that negative affect did not mediate between subjective social status and ruminative coping. Across both experiments, race/ethnicity had no effect.     

HOW MUCH DO HIGH‐PERFORMANCE WORK PRACTICES MATTER? A META‐ANALYSIS OF THEIR EFFECTS ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Although there is growing evidence that high performance work practices (HPWPs) affect organizational performance, varying sample characteristics, research designs, practices examined, and organizational performance measures used has led extant findings to vary dramatically, making the size of the overall effect difficult to estimate. We use meta-analysis to estimate the effect size and test whether effects are larger for (a) HPWP systems versus individual practices, (b) operational versus financial performance measures, and (c) manufacturing versus service organizations. Statistical aggregation of 92 studies reveals an overall correlation that we estimate at .20. Also, the relationship is stronger when researchers examine systems of HPWPs and among manufacturers, but it appears invariant across performance measures. We use our findings as a basis to offer 4 suggestions intended to shape research practices such that future meta-analyses might answer today's emerging questions.     

The experience of worry in parent–adult child relationships

This study examined the experience of worry in the parent–adult child relationship. A mother, father, and adult son or daughter from 213 families participated (N= 639). Parents and adult children commonly worried about one another and their worry reflected individual characteristics (e.g., neuroticism) and relationship characteristics (e.g., importance of the relationship and ambivalence). In addition, how much adults and their parents worried about one another influenced the other party’s perceptions of relationship quality. Specifically, adults and parents rated their relationships more positively and more negatively when the other party reported worrying about them more and communicating their worries to them more frequently. Findings underscore the importance of including experiences such as worry in research on emotional complexities in the parent–adult child relationship.     

Empathic Family Stress as a Sign of Family Connectedness in Haitian Immigrants

Research on familial experiences has documented the important role of receiving family support, but has not examined the effects of providing such support. Empathic family stress refers to the stress that individuals experience in response to difficult life circumstances of family members. The current study took a first step in examining the empathic family stress of 134 Haitian immigrants. Results from hierarchical regressions indicate that empathic family stress is a significant predictor of depressive symptoms, but not acculturative stress, for Haitian immigrants. Findings from the study are examined from a strengths-based perspective, where empathic family stress is viewed as a sign of strong family connections among Haitian immigrants. Recommendations are provided for clinicians working with Haitian immigrants to help them experience empathic family stress in a healthy manner.