Emotional Intelligence: Toward a Consensus of Models and Measures

This article outlines the many different ways that emotional intelligence (EI) has been conceptualized, measured, and used from the early antecedents of emotional abilities such as facial expression research to the recent multimedia assessment paradigms. The divide between models describing EI as a character trait versus modeling EI as a form of information processing or knowledge is described, with both kinds of models evaluated based on theory and empirical evidence. It is concluded that the latter type of model, exemplified by the four-branch hierarchical model of EI, is the only logical construct to bear the label ‘EI’. Potential emendations to the way EI is currently conceptualized and measured are discussed, with this review covering emotion recognition assessments, situational judgment tests, and multimedia assessments such as the empathic agent paradigm. The article concludes with a suggested agenda for future research in the EI field.     

A listing of therapists doing family therapy

Pastoral Psychology -     

Optimizing Engagement in Behavioral Parent Training: Progress Toward a Technology-Enhanced Treatment Model

Low-income families are more likely to have a child with an early-onset Behavior Disorder (BD); yet, socioeconomic strain challenges engagement in Behavioral Parent Training (BPT). This study follows a promising pilot to further examine the potential to cost-effectively improve low-income families’ engagement in and the efficiency of BPT. Low-income families were randomized to (a) Helping the Noncompliant Child (HNC; McMahon & Forehand, 2003), a weekly, mastery-based BPT program that includes both the parent and child or (b) Technology-Enhanced HNC (TE-HNC), which includes all of the standard HNC components plus a parent mobile application and therapist web portal that provide between-session monitoring, modeling, and coaching of parent skill use with the goal of improved engagement in the context of financial strain. Relative to HNC, TE-HNC families had greater homework compliance and mid-week call participation. TE-HNC completers also required fewer weeks to achieve skill mastery and, in turn, to complete treatment than those in HNC without compromising parent satisfaction with treatment; yet, session attendance and completion were not different between groups. Future directions and clinical implications are discussed.     

Investigating the role of E-contact and self-disclosure on improving Turkish-Kurdish interethnic relations

While recent research has started to pay more attention to the role of contact strategies on promoting intergroup harmony between Turkish and Kurdish communities, the effectiveness of a novel form of indirect contact strategy, E-contact—where participants engage in a cooperative and structured online interaction with an individual from the outgroup—has not yet been tested. Across two studies (N_{Study 1} = 110, N_{Study 2} = 176), we investigated the effects of E-contact among Turks on promoting positive attitudes and behavioral tendencies toward Kurds, testing outgroup trust and intergroup anxiety as mediators and incorporating a distinction between lower and higher self-disclosure conditions. As expected, E-contact led to more positive outgroup attitudes, as well as greater approach tendencies and decreased avoidance tendencies through increased outgroup trust (Studies 1 and 2) and reduced intergroup anxiety (Study 2). Study 2 also found that E-contact produced lower perceived interethnic conflict through increased outgroup trust. While both lower and higher personal disclosure conditions provided similar effects in the two studies, E-contact with heightened self-disclosure was especially effective at promoting more positive outgroup attitudes and reducing avoidance tendencies. Findings highlight potential benefits of using E-contact as a prejudice-reduction strategy in conflict settings.     

Fons Iustitiae: Justice in the City of God

This article seeks to account for the nature of human justice in the City of God. I argue that finite justice, for Augustine, is participatory; it always ‘refers’ itself to the font of justice from which it overflows; it is always received by participation in Christ’s justice. This claim implicates both of Augustine’s central adversaries in the City of God, namely, imperial paganism and Pelagianism. Attention to how Augustine weaves the two major polemical antagonists of the City of God, imperial paganism and Pelagianism, into the same cloth reveals a unified claim about justice in the City of God. Both of Augustine’s antagonists are guilty of claiming a self‐referential and self‐manufactured conception of justice. Pagans and Pelagians do not confess justice as a gift received; they instead treat it as something constructed on the tottering foundation of collective or personal virtue. Justice in both cases fails and finds its end in self‐glorification and pride. Finally, I propose that Augustine’s participatory account of justice has implications for a vexed twentieth‐century debate about the City of God, namely the question of what allegiance, responsibilities and loves citizens of the heavenly city ought to have towards the earthly city in which they live as pilgrims.     

Fight the power: A heuristic exploration of systemic racism through dreams

Systemic racism, like many forms of difference and diversity, is poorly understood within the realms of counselling and psychotherapy. Whereas our profession has shied away from using its skills to explore the meaning and relevance of racism, this author over a number of years has studied many forms of intersectional otherness and recognises that racism is as much a relational experience between subject and other, both internally and externally. This paper therefore explores how an internalised experience of systemic racism can be understood through client work and dreamwork, offering ideas as to how the dreams of the racialised other may be understood; the symbolism, and the relevance of the racial complex hidden within them.     

Weber's influence in Weimar Germany

The thesis that Weber was without influence in Weimar Germany is examined. It is shown that in contemporary published assessments and in private statements in interviews contemporary sociologists regarded him as important. The many dissertations on Weber and the enormous secondary literature are noted. This literature, which was contributed by some of the best minds of the day, included both the philosophical and sociological aspects of Weber's work. It is concluded that the thesis that Weber was without influence is false.