Lay discourses about Brexit and prejudice: “Ideological creativity” and its limits in Brexit debates

Much research on Brexit has studied whether the vote to leave the EU is a marker of growing prejudice. In this article, we study instead how the relationship between support for Brexit and prejudice is constructed, negotiated and contested in lay discourse. Our analysis of focus groups (N = 12) conducted prior to and following the EU referendum shows that support for Brexit was predominantly constructed as based on nationalism and anti-immigration prejudice, especially in Remain-supporting accounts. This prompted identity management strategies and counter-arguments by Leave supporters, such as providing alternative constructions of prejudice and racism; relating Brexit with “progressive” values; and presenting it as rational and economically sound. In our discussion, we draw attention to the “ideological creativity” that underpins these accounts and also reflect on the possibilities and constraints of developing alternative political narratives under conditions of political polarisation.     

Class Dismissed: Putting Social Class on the Critical Psychological Agenda

Despite persuasive arguments pertaining to the importance of social class in the shaping of human life, this has and continues to be neglected within psychological research. Using primarily a UK focus, we begin by outlining some of the ways in which ‘mainstream’ psychology typically conceptualises class (e.g. socio‐economic status) and argue that such an approach has a number of detrimental implications, for example, neglecting structural inequalities and oppression and ‘othering’ the working class. We then present a selection of ‘critical’ and feminist‐informed research on social class which, we argue, offers a more holistic and sophisticated understanding of class and, in particular, draws attention to the complexities involved in how people experience, understand and construct class, classed identities and class transitions. Further, such work provides insight into the many ways in which people reproduce, re‐work and resist classed discourse in everyday contexts such as the home, work place and beyond. However, we acknowledge the need for investigation into how those with more economic power justify class privilege and discursively protect and maintain their status.     

Recognition of facial emotions on human and canine faces in children with and without autism spectrum disorders

Motivation and Emotion - In children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), it is not clear whether emotion recognition impairments are unique to human faces. In the present study, children with ASD...     

The effectiveness of drug treatment programs in reducing criminal behavior: a meta-analysis

The main aim of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of drug treatment programs in reducing criminal behavior. The research is based on a systematic review and meta-analysis of evaluations of drug treatment programs. The research investigated various drug treatment programs including methadone treatment, therapeutic communities, post-release supervision for drug-misusing offenders, and drug courts, and focused on drug treatment programs that were primarily concerned with heroin, crack and cocaine misuse. The main outcome variable analyzed was reoffending following treatment as measured by self-reports or official records. The study was based on a meta-analysis of 28 evaluations of drug treatment programs. The meta-analysis involved calculating individual effect sizes for each study and weighted mean effect sizes for groups of studies. The mean odds of offending following treatment were significantly lower among clients of the drug treatment programs than among the comparison groups. However, the results varied by type of program, type of evaluation methods used, and characteristics of clients.     

Consultation-based Academic Interventions for Children with ADHD: Effects on Reading and Mathematics Achievement

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the relative efficacy of two consultation-based models for designing academic interventions to enhance the educational functioning of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Children (N=167) meeting DSM-IV criteria for ADHD were randomly assigned to one of two consultation groups: Individualized Academic Intervention (IAI; interventions designed using a data-based decision-making model that involved ongoing feedback to teachers) and Generic Academic Intervention (GAI; interventions designed based on consultant-teacher collaboration, representing "consultation as usual"). Teachers implemented academic interventions over 15 months. Academic outcomes (e.g., standardized achievement test, and teacher ratings of academic skills) were assessed on four occasions (baseline, 3 months, 12 months, 15 months). Hierarchical linear modeling analyses indicated significant positive growth for 8 of the 14 dependent variables; however, trajectories did not differ significantly across consultation groups. Interventions in the IAI group were delivered with significantly greater integrity; however, groups did not differ with respect to teacher ratings of treatment acceptability. The results of this study provide partial support for the effectiveness of consultation-based academic interventions in enhancing educational functioning in children with ADHD; however, the relative advantages of an individualized model over "consultation as usual" have yet to be established.     

Keep it local (and final): Remnant preferences in “let alone” ellipsis

The let alone construction (John can't run a mile, let alone a marathon) differs from standard coordination structures (with and or but) by requiring ellipsis of the second conjunct—for example, a marathon is the remnant of an elided clause [ John run a marathon]. In support of an ellipsis account, a corpus study of British and American English finds that let alone exhibits a Locality bias, as the second conjunct preferentially contrasts with the nearest lexical item of the same syntactic type. Two self-paced reading studies show that the Locality bias is active during online processing, but must be reconciled with indicators of semantic contrast and discourse information. Further, a sentence-rating study shows that the Locality bias interacts with a Finality bias that favours placing the let alone phrase at the end of a clause, which sometimes necessitates a nonlocal contrast. Together, the results show how a general bias in ellipsis for local contrasts is affected by discourse demands, such as the need for scalar contrast imposed by let alone, thereby offering a window into how possibly divergent syntactic and discourse constraints impact sentence processing.     

A feminist therapy application of the boundary model with obese female binge eaters

Increasing empirical attention is being paid to understanding the etiology, course, and duration of binge eating disorder, and numerous types of treatment for this disorder are currently available. This article examines binge eating disorder and discusses problematic issues in its current treatments from a feminist therapy perspective. A model conceptualizing the regulation of food intake and binge eating is presented. Clinical applications of the model consistent with principles of feminist therapy are suggested.     

The Development of the Santa Clara Brief Compassion Scale: An Abbreviation of Sprecher and Fehr’s Compassionate Love Scale

This purpose of this study is to develop a brief version of Sprecher and Fehr’s Compassionate Love Scale (2005). This was accomplished by administering the 21-item scale to college student participants and subsequently selecting five items for a brief version. The five items were selected based on the evaluation of high correlation coefficients between individual item responses and the overall total 21 questions from the original scale, the results of factor analysis, and items that had moderate means and high standard deviations. The correlation between the original and brief version is 0.96, while the internal reliability of the brief version, using Cronbach’s alpha, is 0.90.     

Diversity in Genetic Counseling: Past,Present and Future

Despite decades of efforts to increase ethnic and racial diversity among genetic counselors, African Americans, Hispanics and American Indians, currently constituting almost one-third of Americans, remain only meagerly represented among genetic counselors at a level far under that seen in other health professions. This paper provides the first comprehensive effort to archive published and unpublished initiatives to increase ethnic and racial diversity in the profession. It also provides a review of national data and diversity initiatives in the health workforce in general. The paper reviews diversity initiatives in other health professions and suggests ways to improve recruitment and retention of underrepresented populations into genetic counseling. Increasing the diversity of the genetic counseling workforce stands not only to expand access to genetic services but also to improve the quality of genetic care provided to the American public.     

Learning on Work Placement: The Narrative Development of Social Competence

This paper explores the development of social competence by examining examples of research interviews conducted with 35 British undergraduate students on work placements. Work placement schemes are a characteristic of contemporary higher education, which is particularly geared towards students’ development of employability and transferable skills. Among these skills is that of social competence which is often taken for granted as emerging from normative adult developmental processes. Research on social competence is mostly confined to developmental psychology and focused on studying children and adolescents in their social settings. Moreover, the methodology of social competence is often developed from a child-developmental perspective, neglecting the situation-specific development beyond childhood. The paper argues that social competence is examinable as situated discursive practice and that it is essential to understanding career development. Membership categorisation analysis identifies the participant’s fluid positioning in narrating experiences of work and university. Lastly the paper addresses implications for theories of development and learning and considers ways in which this study can be expanded in the future.