Acknowledging the skeletons in our closet: the effect of group affirmation on collective guilt, collective shame, and reparatory attitudes

Just as with threats to personal identity, people defend against social identity threats. In the context of intergroup injustice, such defensiveness undercuts collective guilt and its prosocial consequences. The current research examines whether group affirmation allows perpetrator groups to disarm threat without undermining guilt. In Study 1, men accepted greater guilt for gender inequality after affirming the ingroup. Given the distinction between collective guilt and collective shame, Studies 2-4 assessed both emotions and revealed that Canadians accepted greater guilt and shame over the mistreatment of Aboriginals following group affirmation. In Study 3, group affirmation also moderated the relation of each emotion with reparatory attitudes. When controlling for each other, collective shame predicted compensation in a nonaffirmation control condition whereas guilt predicted compensation once identity threat had been disarmed by group affirmation. In Study 4, the effect of group affirmation on the collective emotions was mediated by defensive appraisals of the injustice.     

Demythologizing the machine: Patrick Geddes, Lewis Mumford, and classical sociological theory

This paper reconsiders the work of the Scottish biologist, sociologist, and town planner Patrick Geddes and his most famous intellectual disciple: the American independent scholar Lewis Mumford. It is argued that existing interpretations of their work, ranging from a dismissal of the two men as eccentric polymaths to the speculative emphasis on the importance of psychological theories in Mumford's oeuvre, are fundamentally flawed. Examining their writings and the letters they exchanged during their 17-year correspondence, this paper shows that the only way we can appreciate the scholarly conventions underpinning Geddes's and Mumford's work, as well as the context in which it was produced, is by looking to the principles of classical sociological theory.     

A test of the validity of the IS PATH WARM warning signs for suicide

The 10 warning signs for suicide, encapsulated in the mnemonic IS PATH WARM, did not differentiate between genuine suicide notes and those written by people simulating a suicidal crisis or between notes written by completed suicides and those written by attempted suicides.     

Be yourself,believe in yourself,and be happy: Self‐efficacy as a mediator between personality factors and subjective well‐being

Strobel, M., Tumasjan, A. & Spörrle, M. (2011). Be yourself, believe in yourself, and be happy: Self‐efficacy as a mediator between personality factors and subjective well‐being. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 52, 43–48. Research has shown close connections between personality and subjective well‐being (SWB), suggesting that personality traits predispose individuals to experience different levels of SWB. Moreover, numerous studies have shown that self‐efficacy is related to both personality factors and SWB. Extending previous research, we show that general self‐efficacy functionally connects personality factors and two components of SWB (life satisfaction and subjective happiness). Our results demonstrate the mediating role of self‐efficacy in linking personality factors and SWB. Consistent with our expectations, the influence of neuroticism, extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness on life satisfaction was mediated by self‐efficacy. Furthermore, self‐efficacy mediated the influence of openness and conscientiousness, but not that of neuroticism and extraversion, on subjective happiness. Results highlight the importance of cognitive beliefs in functionally linking personality traits and SWB.     

Promoting Recovery Identities Among Mothers with Histories of Addiction: Strategies of Family Engagement

Changes in identity are critical to managing transitions to recovery from substance and alcohol addictions. Identity change is particularly important for mothers, whose recovery processes are often in the context of critical but complex family relationships and societal expectations. But research and practice often underestimate the relational dimensions that promote or inhibit changes in one's identity during recovery. Here we analyze data from a study that involved interviews with 30 formerly incarcerated women participating in a community-based substance use treatment program in the Midwest. Drawing from Constructivist Grounded Theory Methods, our analysis identified three factors shaping levels of engagement with family members: (1) the relational consequences of a shared past; (2) ascribing permanence to the old identity of “addict” versus the ability to see women's capacity to change; and (3) the current provision of caregiving support to participants’ children. Our analysis supports and extends existing research by highlighting how family can both promote and inhibit a recovery identity process. We discuss potential implications for theorizing “recovery” and “identity” as relational and identify key elements to support practices more attuned to the hidden complexity of family support.     

The Influence of Gender Identities on Body Image and Breast Health among Sexual Minority Women in Taiwan: Implications for Healthcare Practices

The present paper presents constructions of gender roles among Taiwanese sexual minority women with different gender identities (i.e., butch and femme, known as T and Po, respectively, in Taiwan) and associations between their views toward their own breasts and breast healthcare intentions and behaviour. A total of 37 face-to-face interviews were conducted among women aged 20 years or older who self-identified as lesbians or women who partnered with other women in four areas of Taiwan between August 2012 and October 2012. The majority of the T –identity lesbians held negative views toward their own breasts. The T-identified lesbians’ negative intentions toward breast cancer screenings were associated with their negative views toward their own breasts and body construction process. All Po-identified lesbians reported positive views toward their own breasts; these views facilitated positive breast healthcare intentions and behaviour. The study findings can be used to help healthcare providers in understanding the importance of providing competent cultural care to sexual minority women and to help policymakers in formulating suitable policy to meet women’s healthcare needs.     

Evaluation of Interactive Computerized Training to Teach Paraprofessionals to Implement Errorless Discrete Trial Instruction

Efficient and effective training strategies for paraprofessionals in special education settings face many challenges. Interactive computerized training (ICT)—a self-paced program that incorporates audio narration, video models, interactive activities, and competency checks—is one potential solution. ICT has been successful in training college students and special education teachers to implement discrete trial instruction (DTI), but its effectiveness to train paraprofessionals is unknown. Using a multiple-baseline design, we evaluated the feasibility of ICT, to train six paraprofessionals to implement DTI with an errorless learning procedure. Following ICT, the fidelity of implementation of DTI increased for all participants when implemented with a student in their classroom; however, competency varied. We added additional training components that progressed from low to more intensive feedback delivered remotely in attempt to increase fidelity to 90% or higher implementation. We also evaluated generalization to novel instructional programs and maintenance of instruction in the absence of feedback.     

Lifelong hyperarousal in the spontaneously hypertensive rat indicated by operant behavior

Instrumental conditioning techniques were used to obtain objective evidence of differences in behavioral arousal between the spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) and the normotensive ancestral Wistar Kyoto (WKY) strain. Subjective emotionality ratings previously indicated that the genetically hypertensive rats were more active and aggressive than their normotensive cousins. In a lengthy series of operant conditioning sessions using a small number of adult female SHR and WKY rats, hyperarousal in the SHR was confirmed by their significantly higher response outputs on either response contingent or time contingent schedules of reinforcement. Conditioned emotionality tests during this series of experiments also suggested hyperarousal and aggressiveness in the SHR, since the fear-conditioned stimulus suppressed bar-pressing in the SHR much less than in the WKY. Further experiments with young prehypertensive SHR rats provided the same evidence of hyperresponsivity in the SHR compared to the WKY strain. Furthermore, these young SHR failed to develop hypertension by the end of the study (14 weeks of age), while their nonconditioned SHR cousins had become clearly hypertensive by the same age. This suggests that factors related to the conditioning methods modified the development of high blood pressure in this animal model of essential hypertension.