The “doing” or the “being”? Understanding the roles of involvement and social identity in peer-led addiction support groups

While the efficacy of peer-led support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) are well established for people recovering from addiction, the “active ingredients” which underpin their efficacy are less understood. Drawing on social identity perspectives, in particular the Social Identity Model of Cessation Maintenance, the current study aimed to explore the relative effects of two possible processes: social identification and involvement with the group's activities. A sample (n = 44) of AA members completed measures pertaining to their social identification with AA, their involvement in the group's activities and their quit efficacy. The findings suggest that AA involvement was significantly related to identity. Mediation analysis revealed a relationship between involvement and efficacy meditated by identity. However, in contrast, the identity-efficacy link was not mediated by involvement. The findings suggest that social identification with AA is as important as, or more important than, simple involvement in the group's activities. This suggests that group planners and facilitators should therefore encourage opportunities to generate a sense of belonging alongside the activities the group revolve around.     

Brain activity patterns of phonemic representations are atypical in beginning readers with family risk for dyslexia

There is an ongoing debate whether phonological deficits in dyslexics should be attributed to (a) less specified representations of speech sounds, like suggested by studies in young children with a familial risk for dyslexia, or (b) to an impaired access to these phonemic representations, as suggested by studies in adults with dyslexia. These conflicting findings are rooted in between study differences in sample characteristics and/or testing techniques. The current study uses the same multivariate functional MRI (fMRI) approach as previously used in adults with dyslexia to investigate phonemic representations in 30 beginning readers with a familial risk and 24 beginning readers without a familial risk of dyslexia, of whom 20 were later retrospectively classified as dyslexic. Based on fMRI response patterns evoked by listening to different utterances of /bA/ and /dA/ sounds, multivoxel analyses indicate that the underlying activation patterns of the two phonemes were distinct in children with a low family risk but not in children with high family risk. However, no group differences were observed between children that were later classified as typical versus dyslexic readers, regardless of their family risk status, indicating that poor phonemic representations constitute a risk for dyslexia but are not sufficient to result in reading problems. We hypothesize that poor phonemic representations are trait (family risk) and not state (dyslexia) dependent, and that representational deficits only lead to reading difficulties when they are present in conjunction with other neuroanatomical or—functional deficits.     

"A right to lead": The role of leader legitimacy on group reactions to transgressive leadership

Research on the transgression credit shows that groups may sometimes turn a blind eye to ingroup leaders who transgress moral norms. Although there is substantial research investigating the underlying criteria of what makes a “good” leader, research often neglects to investigate the role of followers in leader-group dynamics. In this paper, we offer a novel approach to transgressive leadership by proposing that leader legitimacy is a key factor that determines whether followers’ reactions to transgressive leaders are positive or negative. Across two experiments, participants ascribed transgression credit only to transgressive ingroup leaders perceived as legitimate (Studies 1–2, total n = 308). Transgressive illegitimate leaders were viewed as more threatening to the group, were targeted for formal punishment, received less validation for their behavior, triggered negative emotions (anger and shame), and raised higher consensus for their removal from the leadership position than did legitimate leaders. This effect also occurred irrespective of the absence of formal social control measures implemented toward the transgressive leader (Study 2). Mediation analysis showed that leader illegitimacy triggered stronger feelings of group threat and stronger negative emotions which, consequently, fuelled agreement with collective protest against the transgressive leader. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Adaptation and validation to Spanish of the Psychological Capital Questionnaire–12 (PCQ–12) in academic contexts

Current Psychology - Psychological Capital is a construct that is experiencing strong growth within the framework of Positive Psychology. In work contexts, it has been related to employee...     

Prevalence of depression during the COVID-19 outbreak: A meta-analysis of community-based studies

Introduction: COVID-19 pandemic, declared on March 11, 2020, constitute an extraordinary health, social and economic global challenge. The impact on people's mental health is expected to be high. This paper sought to systematically review community-based studies on depression conducted during the COVID-19 and estimate the pooled prevalence of depression. Method: We searched for cross-sectional, community-based studies listed on PubMed or Web of Science from January 1, 2020 to May 8, 2020 that reported prevalence of depression. A random effect model was used to estimate the pooled proportion of depression. Results: A total of 12 studies were included in the meta-analysis, with prevalence rates of depression ranging from 7.45% to 48.30%. The pooled prevalence of depression was 25% (95% CI: 18% ? 33%), with significant heterogeneity between studies (I² = 99.60%, p < .001). Conclusions: Compared with a global estimated prevalence of depression of 3.44% in 2017, our pooled prevalence of 25% appears to be 7 times higher, thus suggesting an important impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on people's mental health. Addressing mental health during and after this global health crisis should be placed into the international and national public health agenda to improve citizens’ wellbeing.     

Face value: testing the utility of contextual face cues for face recognition

The presence of multiple faces during a crime may provide a naturally-occurring contextual cue to support eyewitness recognition for those faces later. Across two experiments, we sought to investigate mechanisms underlying previously-reported cued recognition effects, and to determine whether such effects extended to encoding conditions involving more than two faces. Participants studied sets of individual faces, pairs of faces, or groups of four faces. At test, participants in the single-face condition were tested only on those individual faces without cues. Participants in the two and four-face conditions were tested using no cues, correct cues (a face previously studied with the target test face), or incorrect cues (a never-before-seen face). In Experiment 2, associative encoding was promoted by a rating task. Neither hit rates nor false-alarm rates were significantly affected by cue type or face encoding condition in Experiment 1, but cuing of any kind (correct or incorrect) in Experiment 2 appeared to provide a protective buffer to reduce false-alarm rates through a less liberal response bias. Results provide some evidence that cued recognition techniques could be useful to reduce false recognition, but only when associative encoding is strong.     

Reformation,Africa, and Diakonia

What does the inheritance of Reformation mean for Africa in church and in society in the context of the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace of the World Council of Churches? This article argues that the commemoration of the Reformation provides important markers for the global and ecumenical context drawing from the three dimensions of the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace; namely, celebrating the gifts of the Reformation, visiting the wounds of injustices, and identifying areas that require transformation or have already showed signs of hope for transformation toward justice for all. Throughout the conversation, there is constant questioning of what the Reformation should look like in the context of Africa to reject distortion of truth and embrace the experience of justice for all. For the way forward, the proposal is made that focusing on action through diakonia will bring meaningful transformation in the church and society in a way that promotes ecumenism and life in fullness for all the children of God and God's creation.     

Clinical Utility of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) in the Spanish Transsexual and Nontranssexual Population

The aim of the study is to evaluate the usefulness of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1974), an overall measurement of the cultural construct of masculinity and femininity, in the psychological assessment of Spanish transsexuals. Seventy male-to-female transsexuals (MF), 51 female-to-male transsexuals (FM), 77 control men, and 79 control women completed the Spanish version of the BSRI. Statistically significant differences between groups were only found on the femininity scale, on which MF transsexuals and control women scored significantly higher than FM transsexuals and control men. The results indicate that (a) only the femininity scale of the BSRI appears to be useful today for evaluating differences in the sex-role identification in Spanish controls and transsexuals; and (b) MF and FM transsexuals score as a function of their gender identity instead of their anatomical sex on the BSRI femininity scale.