“I Wanted to Feel the Way They Did”: Mimesis as a Situational Dynamic of Peer Mentoring by Ex-Offenders

Despite growing enthusiasm for peer mentoring as a criminal justice intervention, very little is known about what actually happens within these relationships. Drawing on an ethnographic study of peer mentoring in the North of England this article will foreground the concept of “inspiration” in these settings. It will argue that Rene Girard’s theory of mimesis offers a framework with which to analyze role modeling in mentoring relationships and that a Girardian reading also offers interesting insights into the unresolved problem of the origins of personal change.     

Assessing good qualitative research in the work psychology field: A response to the commentaries

This article is a response to three commentaries (Halbesleben, 2011; Hickson, 2011 & Locke, 2011) on ‘Assessing “good” qualitative research in the work psychology field: A narrative analysis’ (Cassell & Symon, 2011).     

Assessing ‘good’ qualitative research in the work psychology field: A narrative analysis

This paper considers how work psychologists define ‘good’ qualitative research in the work psychology domain. In addressing the assessment of quality in work psychology research, we draw on 22 in‐depth interviews with work psychologists about their current practices and expectations around qualitative research. Using narrative analysis, the various plots and narratives that constitute how interviewees understand good qualitative research are identified. The implications of the use of these narratives for both how quality is understood and the use of qualitative research in this area are addressed. Drawing on Weick's concept of sensemaking as a theoretical framework, it is argued that the narratives identified enable the construction of a hegemonic understanding of what is good methodological practice within the work psychology discipline. The implications of this for the work psychology field and the methodological practices of work psychologists are considered.     

Target animacy influences gorilla handedness

We investigated the unimanual actions of a biological family group of twelve western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) using a methodological approach designed to assess behavior within social context from a bottom-up perspective. Measures of both the lateralization of unimanual actions (left, right) and the target of the action (animate, inanimate) were assessed during dual, synchronized video observations of naturalistic behavior. This paper demonstrates a corelationship between handedness and the animate quality of the target object. Analyses demonstrated a significant interaction between lateralized unimanual actions and target animacy and a right-hand bias for actions directed toward inanimate targets. We suggest that lateralized motor preference reflects the different processing capabilities of the left and right hemispheres, as influenced by the emotive (animate) and/or functional (inanimate) characteristics of the target, respectively.     

Insights into the development of face recognition mechanisms revealed by face aftereffects

An important question in person perception is how we acquire the perceptual/cognitive mechanisms that characterize adult expertise. Children's performance on face recognition tests improves dramatically between age 4 and adolescence suggesting that our face recognition system may change during childhood. Yet, the source of this improvement is controversial. In this review, we consider whether changes in the way identity is represented/coded in face space could contribute to this age-related improvement. Face aftereffects have been extensively applied to studying face coding in adults and more recently they have been applied to studying the mechanisms of face coding in children. Face aftereffects are temporary distortions of perception induced by exposure to faces and are thought to reflect the mechanisms underlying face perception. Face aftereffect techniques have revealed that children as young as 4 years of age show evidence of adult-like face space organization, with opponent coding of face dimensions. These findings are consistent with an emerging picture that the key mechanisms of face perception are present early in childhood.     

Can MFTs Address Spirituality with Clients in Publically Funded Agencies?

Many marriage and family therapy (MFT) trainees and therapists working toward licensure are accumulating hours in publically funded treatment centers. The increasingly diverse clientele in the U.S. likely will be served in the public sector, especially as many states are providing more funding for county agencies and increased tuition reimbursement and/or loan forgiveness for students and graduates who work for these organizations. MFTs may feel ill-equipped to address spiritual issues in therapy at these sites, especially when grappling with ethical concerns. This article delineates a case example in which an MFT attends to spiritual issues when working with a family in a county mental health center. The authors illustrate how a therapist can navigate the ethical dilemmas of this case when working from a Bowenian perspective.     

Individual differences in dispositional focus of attention predict attentional blink magnitude

When identifying two targets presented in a rapid serial visual presentation stream, one’s accuracy on the second target is reduced if it is presented shortly (within 500 msec) after the first target—an attentional blink (AB). Individuals differ greatly in the size of their AB. One way to learn about the AB is to understand what underlies these individual differences. Recent studies have suggested that when a broadened or diffused attentional state is induced, the AB deficit can be attenuated. The present study examined whether natural (dispositional) individual differences in focus and diffusion of attention as assessed by the global/local task could predict performance on the AB task. Performance that was consistent with diffusion correlated negatively with AB size, and performance that was consistent with focusing correlated positively with AB size, showing that dispositional focus and diffusion of attention can predict individual differences in the AB. These findings are consistent with the Olivers and Nieuwenhuis (2006) overinvestment hypothesis.     

Smooth pursuit in schizophrenia: a meta-analytic review of research since 1993

Abnormal smooth pursuit eye-tracking is one of the most replicated deficits in the psychophysiological literature in schizophrenia [Levy, D. L., Holzman, P. S., Matthysse, S., &; Mendell, N. R. (1993). Eye tracking dysfunction and schizophrenia: A critical perspective. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 19, 461–505]. We used meta-analytic procedures to quantify patient-control differences in eye-tracking and to evaluate potential moderators of effect size including patient and target characteristics and characteristics of the control population (matched or not). The magnitude of patient-control differences in pursuit depended on the measure. Global measures had large effect sizes. Among specific measures, maintenance gain and leading saccades yielded large effect sizes, with gain also yielding the narrowest confidence interval. Effect sizes associated with specific measures of smooth pursuit vs. specific measures of intrusive saccades did not clearly implicate one system over the other. Patient demographics and target characteristics generally had little influence on effect sizes. However, studies that failed to sex-match patients and controls tended to have smaller effect sizes for maintenance gain and catch-up saccade rate. Average effect sizes and confidence limits for global measures of pursuit and for maintenance gain place these measures alongside the very strongest neurocognitive measures in the literature [Heinrichs, R. W. (2004). Meta-analysis, and the science of schizophrenia: Variant evidence or evidence of variants? Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 28, 379–394] for distinguishing between patients with schizophrenia and controls.     

The promise and peril of self-affirmation in de-escalation of commitment

Drawing on the motivated cognition literature, we examine how self-affirmation processes influence self-justification needs and escalation decisions. Study 1 found that individuals with a larger pool of affirmational resources (high self-esteem) reduced their escalation compared to those with fewer affirmational resources (low self-esteem). Study 2 extended these findings by demonstrating that individuals also de-escalated their commitments when they were provided an opportunity to affirm on an important value. Finally, Study 3 found that affirming on traits that were of low relevance (e.g., creativity) to an initial decision reduced escalation, but affirming on decision-relevant traits (e.g., decision-making ability) ironically increased escalation. Across three studies, using three instantiations of self-affirmations and two measures of escalation, the results highlight the potential benefits and costs of using self-affirmation as a vehicle to de-escalate commitment.