Stigma modifies the association between social support and mental health among sexual violence survivors in the Democratic Republic of Congo: implications for practice

Background and Objectives: The aim of this study was to further understanding of the relationship between social support, internalized and perceived stigma, and mental health among women who experienced sexual violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Methods: Drawing from baseline survey data collected in eastern DRC, researchers conducted a secondary cross-sectional analysis using data from 744 participants. Regression and moderation analyses were conducted to examine associations between social support variables, felt stigma, and depression, anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Results: Emotional support seeking and felt stigma were positively associated with increased symptom severity across all three mental health variables. Stigma modified associations between emotional support seeking and depression (t?=??2.49, p?=?.013), anxiety (t?=??3.08, p?=?.002), and PTSD (t?=??2.94, p?=?.003). Increased frequency of emotional support seeking was associated with higher mental health symptoms of anxiety and PTSD among women experiencing all levels of stigma.

Conclusions: Enhancing understanding of social support and stigma may inform research and intervention among Congolese forced migrant populations across circumstances and geographic locations. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

The experience of receiving scholarship aid and its effect on future giving: a listening guide analysis

Why are there so many people who receive scholarship aid who do not give back to the schools that gave it? Social exchange theories grounded in the assumption of direct reciprocity have long been the framework used within higher education to understand donative behavior. As a result, conventional wisdom within higher education holds that recipients of scholarship aid will later donate money to the institution that provided it. However, the philanthropic data show that most aid recipients do not, in fact, give back. This study probes the underlying factors for this phenomenon by using the Listening Guide, a voice-centered relational method of discovery, to analyze and interpret interviews with 10 scholarship recipients. By providing a more robust understanding of the experience of receiving, the findings challenge some of the most basic psychological and sociological assumptions about giving and generosity within higher education.     

Sexual attitudes and behavior of Guatemalan teenagers: considerations for prevention of adolescent pregnancy

Two studies were conducted to explore the prevalence of adolescent pregnancy in Guatemala, and to identify the level of contraception. The first study assessed sexual attitudes and behavior of 850 adolescents. In this group, 89% of the males and 38% of the females said they had experienced coitus. Youngsters of upper-middle and lower-middle socioeconomic status had higher rates of coital activity than did those of the middle class. Only 10% of the sexually active couples were using some type of contraception. Boys indicated greater inclination toward "recreational" sex, while girls tended to be more affectively involved with their lovers. Ninety-six percent of sexually active girls planned to marry their current sexual partner, while 5.5% of the boys planned to do so. The second study assessed the prevalence of pregnancy in minors (17 years or younger) attending the gynecology department at a local general hospital. Over a period of two years, 551 cases were identified. Although rates of pregnancy increased with age, the rate of annual increase was dramatically highest from ages 13 to 14, after which it decreased progressively with age. Based on these results, it is recommended that, at least in the Guatemalan population, sex education be implemented at an early age in order to prevent adolescent pregnancy.     

Classification and perceptual development: Exploring issues about integrality and differential sensitivity

Pre- and elementary-school children, 4 and 11 years of age, were given a classification task similar to those given in research testing an account that posits a developmental shift from integral to separable perception. The development of perceptual sensitivity and its role in determining similarity and dimensional classifications was assessed with the variables of predisposed and distinctiveness-based salience. The results indicated that the level of perceptual sensitivity to the dimensions in the task determined the frequency of types of classifications. Children in both age groups made both kinds of critical classifications as a function of predisposed and distinctiveness-based salience.     

Five women talk about work‐related brief therapy and therapeutic writing

Therapeutic writing can play a valuable role in brief, workplace counselling. The present study explores the experiences of five women who used therapeutic writing in this context. Ethical and methodological dilemmas in carrying out this research are highlighted. The study also demonstrates the use of ‘fictionalist’ accounts as a way of overcoming some of the difficulties associated with the dual role of practitioner/researcher, especially confidentiality.     

Number line estimation in highly math‐anxious individuals

In this study, we aimed to investigate the difficulties highly math‐anxious individuals (HMA) may face when having to estimate a number's position in a number line task. Twenty‐four HMA and 24 low math‐anxiety (LMA) individuals were presented with four lines with endpoints 0–100, 0–1,000, 0–100,000, and 267–367 on a computer monitor on which they had to mark the correct position of target numbers using the mouse. Although no differences were found between groups in the frequency of their best‐fit model, which was linear for all lines, the analysis of slopes and intercepts for the linear model showed that the two groups differed in performance on the less familiar lines (267–367 and 0–100,000). Lower values for the slope and higher values for the intercept were found in the HMA group, suggesting that they tended to overestimate small numbers and underestimate large numbers on these non‐familiar lines. Percentage absolute error analyses confirmed that HMA individuals were less accurate than their LMA counterparts on these lines, although no group differences were found in response time. These results indicate that math anxiety is related to worse performance only in the less familiar and more difficult number line tasks. Therefore, our data challenge the idea that HMA individuals might have less precise numerical representations and support the anxiety–complexity effect posited by Ashcraft and colleagues.     

The self-protective and undermining effects of attributional ambiguity

Two experiments assessed the self-protective and undermining effects of attributional ambiguity. Both studies utilized immersive virtual environment technology to achieve otherwise difficult manipulations of stigma. In Experiment 1, White and Latino participants were either stigmatized (represented as Latino) or not (represented as White) and given negative leadership performance feedback. Afterwards, stigmatized participants reported higher well-being and attributed negative feedback more to discrimination than nonstigmatized participants. In Experiment 2, Latinos represented veridically showed self-protective effects after receiving negative leadership feedback. Additionally, this experiment revealed undermining effects of attributional ambiguity such that those participants represented as Latino discounted positive feedback and reported lower well-being. Thus, attributional ambiguity of stigmatized individuals (real or induced) buffered well-being in the face of negative feedback but undermined the well-being effects of positive feedback.     

Phobic anxiety in 11 nations. Part I: Dimensional constancy of the five-factor model

The Fear Survey Schedule-III (FSS-III) was administered to a total of 5491 students in Australia, East Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, and Venezuela, and submitted to the multiple group method of confirmatory analysis (MGM) in order to determine the cross-national dimensional constancy of the five-factor model of self-assessed fears originally established in Dutch, British, and Canadian samples. The model comprises fears of bodily injury-illness-death, agoraphobic fears, social fears, fears of sexual and aggressive scenes, and harmless animals fears. Close correspondence between the factors was demonstrated across national samples. In each country, the corresponding scales were internally consistent, were intercorrelated at magnitudes comparable to those yielded in the original samples, and yielded (in 93% of the total number of 55 comparisons) sex differences in line with the usual finding (higher scores for females). In each country, the relatively largest sex differences were obtained on harmless animals fears. The organization of self-assessed fears is sufficiently similar across nations to warrant the use of the same weight matrix (scoring key) for the FSS-III in the different countries and to make cross-national comparisons feasible. This opens the way to further studies that attempt to predict (on an a priori basis) cross-national variations in fear levels with dimensions of national cultures.     

Evaluación de la escala de control de la acción

Resumen

El objetivo ele la investigación fue determinar las propiedades psicométricas básicas de la Escala de Control de la Acción de Kuhl en una muesta de estudiantes mexicanos. La escala fue traducida y sometida a varias revisiones por los autores, después de lo cual se aplicó a una muestra de 180 estudiantes universitarios. La confiabilidad alfa de Cronbach de las diferentes subescalas fue baja. Un análisis de componentes principales con rotación ortogonal mostró que el porcentaje de varianza explicada por el primer factor de cada subescala fue muy pequeño. Se intenta explicar los resultados con base en la deficiente caracterización que hace Kubl de las diferentes clases de orientación hacia el estado y factores de tipo cultural.