Stressful Life Events,Psychopathology, and Adolescent Suicide: A Case Control Study

The relationship between stressful life events and adolescent suicide was assessed in 67 adolescent suicide victims and 67 matched community controls. In the year before death, suicide completers were more likely to have experienced: (1) interpersonal conflict with parents and with boy/girlfriends, (2) disruption of a romantic attachment, (3) legal or disciplinary problems. Legal or disciplinary problems were more commonly associated with suicide in conduct and substance abuse disordered youth. Interpersonal loss was more commonly associated with suicide in substance abuse as well. Even after controlling for psychopathology, legal and disciplinary problems in the past year were associated with an increased risk of suicide.     

Subtle Discrimination Overtakes Cognitive Resources and Undermines Performance

Meta-analyses demonstrate that the negative effects of subtle forms of discrimination on a range of work-related outcomes can be worse than those of overt discrimination (Dhanani et al. Personnel Psychology, 71(2), 147–179, 2018; Jones et al. Journal of Management, 42(6), 1588–1613, 2016). Yet, these syntheses and the primary studies on which they are based offer little insight into how or why these effects emerge. In the current study, we examine consequences of both of these types of discrimination on task performance and citizenship intentions via cognitive resource depletion. A total of 131 women experienced (a) overt discrimination, (b) subtle discrimination, (c) overt and subtle discrimination, or (d) no discrimination and were then asked to conduct a series of in-basket performance tasks. Results revealed that subtle (but not overt) discrimination significantly impaired measures of task performance and that cognitive resource depletion mediated these relationships. By pinpointing cognitive resource depletion as the mechanism that transmits the negative consequences of subtle discrimination, this work sheds new light onto this detrimental psychological experience and further opens up new opportunities for its remediation.

     

Creaturely Solidarity

This essay examines several recent contributions to the growing literature on animal ethics from Christian perspectives. I categorize the four books under review in one of three ways depending on the scholars' methodological points of departure: (1) a reconstruction of the place of other animals in Christian history through a selective retrieval of texts and practices; (2) an identification of a key Christian ethical principle; and (3) a reconsideration of foundational doctrines of systematic theology. On the premise that social ethicists are interested in not only understanding the world, but also changing it, I observe that these authors have offered different answers to the following three questions: (1) whether the theoretical basis for reform is ultimately grounded upon notions of human sameness or difference with other animals; (2) whether scholar‐activists should emphasize logic over passion or values over interests (or vice versa) in their calls for transformation; and (3) whether moral motivation for their targeted audiences is best served by reliance upon secular argumentation and interdisciplinary research or upon the distinctive claims of revelation and other tradition‐specific norms. I conclude by offering my own thoughts about which approaches might prove more effective than others.