The international student sojourn,identity conflict and threats to well-being

ABSTRACT

This article reports findings from a qualitative (interview) study of the identity conflict experienced by five international students at a university in the south of England for whom real and perceived challenges to national self-image were shown to be unsettling. The article suggests that our cultures of origin are centrally important to our private and personal sense of self and it argues that counsellor educators and counsellors need to understand their students' and clients' emotional and behavioural problems in the context of their cultural identities. In this research, there was a strong emotional response to threats to collective identity, which appeared to be influenced by both the degree of students' cultural identification and their country's global standing. The following themes were generated from a thematic analysis and capture the essence of student responses to perceived derogation of their national identity: re-identifying with the culture of origin; allying with the West; resisting the discourse of western supremacy; and acquiescence with stigma. Of importance to all participants' perceptions of derogation was their location in the western world.     

African jewel fish (Hemichromis bimaculatus) distinguish individual faces based on their unique iridophore patterns

Animal Cognition - Previous research has shown that African jewel fish (Hemichromis bimaculatus) recognize pair-bonded mates during their exchanges of egg-guarding duties. The current research...     

Does the horny man think women want him too? Effects of male sexual arousal on perceptions of female sexual willingness

ABSTRACT

Disputes over acquaintance rape typically center on the issue of whether the alleged victim consented to sex. Disputed sexual encounters often take place when one or both involved parties is sexually aroused, and this arousal might influence the extent to which the parties perceive sexual consent. Two studies tested the effects of men’s sexual arousal on their interpretations of the extent to which 25 hypothetical female behaviors reflected sexual willingness. Arousal was manipulated via written fantasies (Study 1) or exposure to erotic material (Study 2). Manipulated arousal and individual differences in rated arousal were each associated with greater perceptions of female sexual willingness. Manipulated arousal was significant only for single men in Study 2. Findings suggested present-state sexual arousal affects single men’s interpretations of women’s sexual willingness. Men’s sexual arousal might prominently contribute to misunderstandings in sexual communication.     

Side Streets and U-Turns: Effects of Context Switching,Direction Switching,and Factor Switching on Interitem Correlations and Misresponse Rates

This study tested implications of the context switching perspective proposed by Hamby, Ickes, and Babcock (2016 Hamby, T., Ickes, W., &; Babcock, M. (2016). Evidence for context switching in the effects of average item length and item-length variability on internal consistency. Journal of Personality Assessment, 98, 491–502. doi:10.1080/00223891.2016.1147044[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Using trained raters to assess the amount of reframing required to interpret the meaning of the subsequent (second) item within all adjacent item pairs, we first established that this process variable could be measured reliably. Then, in the data for 18 personality measures drawn from 3 individual-difference domains, we found that the amount of reframing (i.e., context switching) needed to interpret successive items predicted both lower interitem correlations and a greater percentage of misresponders. Similarly, item pairs that were mismatched in “directional” wording also predicted both lower interitem correlations and more misresponders. Finally, item pairs representing different factors predicted lower interitem correlations. Although the effects of direction switching and factor switching were partially mediated by the amount of reframing required, they remained significant even when the mediating effect of reframing was statistically controlled. These results indicate that interpreting the meaning of test items is a task for which the level of difficulty can vary with each successive item, as a function of how the current item compares to the previous item in aspects such as its context generality or specificity, directional wording, and content domain.