Would you post that picture and let your dad see it? Culture,honor, and Facebook

Honor means “high respect; esteem,” but it has different associations for different cultures. In honor cultures (Turkey), esteem depends on one's own perception of self‐worth and on other people's opinions. In those cultures, honor is easily lost and difficult to regain. In dignity cultures (northern America), esteem mainly depends on the individual and cannot be taken away by others. One way to lose honor in Turkey is through behaviors that may be seen as “potentially improper.” Thus, we expected that posting pictures of such behaviors on Facebook (e.g., at a party; with one's boyfriend/girlfriend) and letting others see them would be less likely in Turkey than in the northern United States. Moreover, we investigated whether honor endorsement was the reason for this difference. We examined participants' posting intentions and actual Facebook behaviors. As expected, Turkish participants were less willing to post and let others (especially their relatives) see their potentially improper pictures compared with northern Americans. Moreover, honor endorsement negatively predicted the willingness to post such pictures only in Turkey, especially for women. This suggests that in honor cultures, the concern for losing honor could be the underlying reason for avoiding social media postings that could be potentially perceived as improper. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can the Alevis Speak? The Politics of Representation in Early Writings on Alevism

This study historicizes and contextualizes the contrasting representations of Alevism in the early writings of Stephen van Rensselaer Trowbridge, a Protestant missionary, and Baha Said Bey, a Turkish activist and researcher. Both Trowbridge and Baha Said undertook extensive research on Alevi culture in the early twentieth century. Though their works appear to be “benevolent” endeavors, giving voice to the Alevi subaltern, by first studying the political and cultural backgrounds of Trowbridge and Baha Said, this article exposes the cultural and ideological motivations that influenced their studies. It then focuses on how these political concerns are expressed in representations of Alevism. Given the dearth of postcolonial and critical perspectives on Alevism, investigating the praxis of representation can help trace overtly political concerns beyond their scholarly treatments. Based on Gayatri Spivak's theorization in her essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” this paper scrutinizes how these writings negate the agency of Alevis and portray them as waiting for salvation by external proxies – be they Western missionaries or the Turkish government.     

Fragility of Happiness Beliefs Across 15 National Groups

The belief that happiness is fragile—that it is fleeting and may easily turn into less favourable states—is common across individuals and cultures. However, not much is known about this belief domain and its structure and correlates. In the present study, we use multigroup confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel modelling to investigate the measurement invariance, cross-level isomorphism, predictive validity, and nomological network of the fragility of happiness scale across 15 nations. The results show that this scale has good statistical properties at both individual and cultural levels, and is associated with relevant psycho-social concepts in expected directions. The importance of the results, limitations, and potential directions for future research are discussed.     

An Analysis of Speech Disfluencies of Turkish Speakers Based on Age Variable

The focus of this research is to verify the influence of the age variable on fluent Turkish native speakers’ production of the various types of speech disfluencies. To accomplish this, four groups of native speakers of Turkish between ages 4–8, 18–23, 33–50 years respectively and those over 50-year-olds were constructed. A total of 84 participants took part in this study. Prepared and unprepared speech samples of at least 300 words were collected from each participant via face-to-face interviews that were tape recorded and transcribed; for practical reasons, only the unprepared speech samples were collected from children. As a result, for the prepared speech situation, there was no statistically significant difference in terms of age in the production rates of filled gaps, false starts, slips of the tongue and repetitions; however, participants in the over 50-year-old group produced more hesitations and prolongations than participants in the 18–23 and 33–50-year-old groups. For the unprepared speech situation, age variable was not effective on the production rates of filled gaps. However, 4–8 and over 50-year-old participants produced more hesitations and prolongations than the 18–23 and 33–50-year-old groups. 4–8-year-old children produced more slips of the tongue than the 18–23 and 33–50-year-old groups, and more false starts and repetitions than the participants in the other three age groups (18–23, 33–50, over 50). Further analyses revealed more extensive insights related to the types of disfluencies, the position of disfluencies, and the linguistic units involved in disfluency production in Turkish speech.     

Linguistic Reflections on Psychotherapy: Change in Usage of The First Person Pronoun in Information Structure Positions

Aim of present study was to understand changes in speech of clients with regard to certain linguistic features from 5th to 15th session of psychotherapy. First person pronoun use in information structure positions were analyzed in speech of clients. Participants of this study were 11 psychotherapists (clinical psychology master and doctorate students) and 16 clients (applicants to AYNA Psychotherapy Unit). In present study word count results of clinets’ speeches were analyzed by ANOVA method. According to results, use of first person pronoun changed significantly in preverbal position from 5th to 15th sessions of psychotherapy. Findings of this study suggest that, psychotherapy leads to certain linguistic changes, and these changes discussed to be means of understand change of clients during psychotherapy     

Relation of Repetitive Thinking Styles with Anxiety and Depression in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

In this study, we aimed to evaluate the relationship between the repetitive thinking styles and anxiety and depression in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). One hundred IBD outpatients (39 active and 61 remission) attending the gastroenterology clinic and 100 healthy controls were included.The rumination and worry scores of IBD patients, particularly in their active period, were significantly higher than controls. Additionally, the correlation of rumination and worry with anxiety and depression was statistically significant. Our results suggest that psychological interventions targeting repetitive thinking would alleviate depression and anxiety as well as GI symptoms in people with IBD which should be confirmed by further studies.

     

Toward a Better Understanding of the Relationship Between Friendship and Happiness: Perceived Responses to Capitalization Attempts, Feelings of Mattering, and Satisfaction of Basic Psychological Needs in Same-Sex Best Friendships as Predictors of Happiness

Friendship is a consistent correlate of happiness, yet less is known about the associations of friendship specific experiences and feelings with happiness. In this study (n = 4,382) the roles of perceived responses to capitalization attempts, perceived mattering to and satisfaction of basic psychological needs in same-sex best friendships in happiness among men and women were investigated. Findings showed that although all of the friendship variables were positively associated with happiness to varying degrees, basic needs satisfaction emerged as the strongest predictor of happiness. Additional analyses revealed that competence need satisfaction was the most important need predicting happiness. Importantly, these findings were gender invariant. The findings were discussed in light of theory and empirical literature and suggestions were made for future research.     

Interactions With Men and Whites Matter Too

We propose that individual differences in personality should be studied during periods of environmental change because these periods provide an opportunity to discern the general mechanisms that govern the functions and processes of personality. We delineate the circumstances wherein personality differences are accentuated and then specify the conditions whereby change is produced. Personality differences are likely to be revealed during transitions into unpredictable new situations, when there is a press to behave but no information about how to behave adaptively. Dispositional differences are thus accentuated as each person seeks to transform novel, ambiguous, and uncertain circumstances into familiar, clear, and expectable social encounters. Our theory also accounts for turning points in behavioral development: Systematic change is likely to occur during transitions into new situations, when there is a press to behave and when previous responses are actively discouraged while clear information is provided about how to behave adaptively.     

Genetic Screening Services Provided in Turkey

In Turkey, the rate of consanguineous marriage is quite high (22–24 %) and as a result, the incidence of autosomal recessive diseases and congenital anomalies is also very high and gives rise to a serious public health problem. In the last three decades, great effort has been made to avoid increases in the prevalence of these hereditary diseases. For this purpose, population-based premarital, prenatal, neonatal and adult genetic screening programs are performed in various centers such as Community Health Centers, Early Diagnosis of Cancer and Education Centers (KETEM), Prenatal and Neonatal Departments of Universities and State Hospitals and Thalessemia Screening Centers. Such centers are staffed by health professionals including physicians, family physicians, nurses, midwives, biologists and medical geneticists. Genetic counseling is also provided to patients attending these centers after screening tests are performed. Since there are no specialized training programs for genetic counselors, genetic counseling is generally provided by doctors or medical geneticists. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the genetic screening services provided in Turkey, the prevalence of genetic diseases and the design of intensive educational programs for health professionals.