Suicide and self-inflicted injuries

The present study addressed itself to the problem of self-inflicted injuries (SII) in the Israeli army, and to the wider question whether non-fatal self injuries and suicide are part of the same phenomenon. The findings show that in some cases SII is an unsucessful suicide while in others SII is anything but a reflection of a death wish. It appears that the modus operandi is a major indication as to the intentions of the actor. The study also demonstrates the difference between the population of the suiciders and that of the SII victims. While suiciders seem to score higher on the Performance Prediction Score (PPS) and Combat Suitability Scale, the SII population seems to be overly represented in the lower parts of the PPS and the Combat Suitability Scale. The study used a data set that represents a 5 year period, and followed the consequences of the SII in terms of medical status and occupational assignment of the actors. The findings yielded some possible policy implications, in terms of a better classification of the relevant populations, and a possible attribution of a more refined meaning to the behavior. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Selective pressures on the once and future contents of ethnic stereotypes: effects of the communicability of traits

It is hypothesized that traits that are most likely to be the subject of social discourse (i.e., most communicable) are most likely to persist in ethnic stereotypes over time and that this effect is moderated by the extent to which an ethnic group is the subject of social discourse. Study 1 yielded communicability ratings of 76 traits. Study 2 tested the relation between a trait's communicability and its presence in stereotypes of 4 Canadian ethnic groups. Study 3 tested the relation between a trait's communicability and its persistence over time in stereotypes of 8 American ethnic groups. Results supported the hypotheses. A communication-based analysis of stereotypes appears helpful in predicting persistence and change in the contents of stereotypes of real groups in the real world.     

Framing, intentions, and trust–choice incompatibility

The present paper examines how framing of messages and the intentions inferred from different—positive vs. negative—framings, interact with the development of trust. Empirical evidence is presented showing that different, logically equivalent, frames are supposedly interpreted as implying different intentions. Next, the relationship between different frames (and the corresponding intentions reflected from these frames) and trust are explored. Finally, and most important, the relationship between the assessment of trust, inferred from different frames, and the corresponding choice behavior resulting from these frames, are investigated. Specifically, consider agents A and B offering to sell exactly the same commodity, except that one agent formulates it in a positive and the other in a negative frame. The different frames may lead to different assessments of the trustworthiness of the two agents. Following common wisdom, if agent A is trusted more than B, then one should prefer to conduct transactions with the former rather than with the latter agent. Several experiments are presented that are incompatible with this conjecture. For example, when faced with a choice between two butchers, whose ground beef is advertised as containing 25% fat (negative frame) or 75% lean (positive frame), respectively, most people have more trust in the former yet most indicate they would buy their meat from the latter butcher. This phenomenon, in which negative framing weighs more in trust assessments, and positive framing weighs more in choice, is labeled trust–choice incompatibility. The robustness of the phenomenon is further demonstrated in several experiments, and possible explanations for its occurrence are discussed.     

Career construction counseling: A thematic analysis of outcomes for four clients

Thematic analysis was used in this study of career construction counseling with four diverse, purposively-selected participants. After the intervention, the participants who sought and received career construction counseling were interviewed to determine their experience of the intervention. The results showed the value of career construction counseling in bringing about change in the participants' career-life stories.     

Order effects in sequentially judged options due to the direction of comparison

Many real-world judgment tasks present options in sequence. Typically, these judgments are made step-by-step, immediately after considering each option, or end-of-sequence, after all have been seen. We report similar order effects in both procedures, due to direction of comparison. It appears that judges form an impression of each new option by comparing it to those that preceded it. Using that option’s features as a “checklist,” more weight is given to unique ones than to ones shared with previous options. This unidirectional comparison process produces increasing ratings in options with unique positive features, and decreasing ratings when options have unique negative features. By manipulating the barriers to making multiple comparisons, we show that the direction-of-comparison effect is not limited to judgment tasks with sequential presentation. Even simultaneously presented options may show order effects, if they are judged one at a time—in sequence. Possible explanations and implications are discussed.     

Ethnic Identity in Emerging Adults in Sub‐Saharan Africa and the USA,and Its Associations with Psychological Well‐Being

Ethnic identity as a social dimension of identity is argued to be developmentally important for psychological well‐being. However, the relationships between these constructs are mainly examined in Western contexts, amongst dominant–non‐dominant groups. We investigate ethnic identity across the mainstream group of a prototypical Western society (the USA) and several multi‐ethnic sub‐Saharan African countries (Cameroon, Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia), as well as how it relates to psychological well‐being. A total of 1255 university students (61.8% females, M_age = 20.94 years, SD = 2.97) completed a questionnaire with ethnic identity and psychological well‐being measures. Results indicated that ethnic identity was most salient in two different South African ethnocultural samples and least salient in a mainstream US sample. These results suggest that groups that are more exposed to ethnic strain in multicultural societies tend to have more salient ethnic identities. Furthermore, the underlying structure in the ethnic identity psychological well‐being relationship was similar across groups. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Finding the Loch Ness Monster: Left‐Wing Authoritarianism in the United States

Although past research suggests authoritarianism may be a uniquely right‐wing phenomenon, the present two studies tested the hypothesis that authoritarianism exists in both right‐wing and left‐wing contexts in essentially equal degrees. Across two studies, university (n = 475) and Mechanical Turk (n = 298) participants completed either the RWA (right‐wing authoritarianism) scale or a newly developed (and parallel) LWA (left‐wing authoritarianism) scale. Participants further completed measurements of ideology and three domain‐specific scales: prejudice, dogmatism, and attitude strength. Findings from both studies lend support to an authoritarianism symmetry hypothesis: Significant positive correlations emerged between LWA and measurements of liberalism, prejudice, dogmatism, and attitude strength. These results largely paralleled those correlating RWA with identical conservative‐focused measurements, and an overall effect‐size measurement showed LWA was similarly related to those constructs (compared to RWA) in both Study 1 and Study 2. Taken together, these studies provide evidence that LWA may be a viable construct in ordinary U.S. samples.     

Resistance to extinction of human evaluative conditioning using a between‐subjects design

Surprise has been described in various contexts as a neutral, a positive, or a negative emotion. Six experiments are reported in which surprise ratings of unexpected positive and negative outcomes, with identical prior probabilities, were compared. For unexpected occurrences of events that are beyond the control of the protagonist, successes were consistently perceived as more surprising than failures. For unexpected action controlled outcomes for which the protagonist was partly responsible, failures were rated as more surprising than successes. The findings are interpreted as being due to an implicit contrast between out-of-control situations and success, in the first case, and between goal-directed efforts and failure, in the second.