An organizing framework for collective identity: articulation and significance of multidimensionality

The authors offer a framework for conceptualizing collective identity that aims to clarify and make distinctions among dimensions of identification that have not always been clearly articulated. Elements of collective identification included in this framework are self-categorization, evaluation, importance, attachment and sense of interdependence, social embeddedness, behavioral involvement, and content and meaning. For each element, the authors take note of different labels that have been used to identify what appear to be conceptually equivalent constructs, provide examples of studies that illustrate the concept, and suggest measurement approaches. Further, they discuss the potential links between elements and outcomes and how context moderates these relationships. The authors illustrate the utility of the multidimensional organizing framework by analyzing the different configuration of elements in 4 major theories of identification.     

Color naming, lens aging, and grue: what the optics of the aging eye can teach us about color language

Many languages without separate terms for green and blue are or were spoken in locations receiving above-average exposure to ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation. It has been proposed that this correlation is caused by premature lens aging. This conclusion was supported by an experiment in which younger observers used the term "blue" less often when they described simulated paint chips filtered through the equivalent of an older observer's lens-removing much short-wavelength light-than when they described the unfiltered versions of the same paint chips. Some stimuli that were called "blue" without simulated aging were called "green" when filtered. However, in the experiment reported here, we found that the proportion of "blue" color-name responses did not differ between younger subjects and older observers with known ocular media optical densities. Color naming for stimuli that were nominally green, blue-green, or blue was virtually identical for older and younger observers who viewed the same (unfiltered) stimuli. Our results are inconsistent with the lens-brunescence hypothesis.     

Perspectives Following Klein and Bion on the Development of the Internal World: Clinical Implications

Ed Tronick’s comprehensive theory of human development encompasses the psychological, neurobiological, and cultural to address how human beings make meaning. In addition to a large body of theoretical work and empirical studies, he has collaborated with Alexandra Harrison to develop a model of therapeutic process and change. In this article, we explore the divergences and convergences between Tronick’s theories about psychological development and psychotherapeutic process and those of Melanie Klein and Wilfred Bion. We organize our exploration around three areas of interest to both Tronick and Klein: (1) the development of levels of psychic organization, from primitive to organized; (2) the way in which experience is communicated and received across these different levels, and the kind of therapeutic listening necessary to discern this; and (3) the implications for therapeutic interventions that promote psychic change. We discuss Kate, the young patient Harrison and Tronick use to illustrate their model of psychic change, to explicate some differences and commonalities in the perspectives under consideration.     

Assessing Workplace Emotional Intelligence: Development and Validation of an Ability-based Measure

Existing measures of Emotional Intelligence (EI), defined as the ability to perceive, understand, and manage emotions for productive purposes, have displayed limitations in predicting workplace outcomes, likely in part because they do not target this context. Such considerations led to the development of an ability EI measure with work-related scenarios in which respondents infer the likely emotions (perception) and combinations of emotion (understanding) that would occur to protagonists while rating the effectiveness of ways of responding (management). Study 1 (n = 290 undergraduates) used item-total correlations to select scenarios from a larger pool and Study 2 (n = 578) reduced the measure—termed the NEAT—to 30 scenarios on the basis of structural equation modeling. Study 3 (n = 96) then showed that the NEAT had expected correlations with personality and cognitive ability and Study 4 (n = 85) demonstrated convergent validity with other ability EI measures. Last, study 5 (n = 91) established that the NEAT had predictive validity with respect to job satisfaction, job stress, and job performance. The findings affirm the importance of EI in the workplace in the context of a valid new instrument for assessing relevant skills.     

Accountability and Desert

In recent decades, participants in the debate about whether we are free and responsible agents have tended with increasing frequency to begin their papers or books by fixing the terms “free” and “responsible” in clear ways to avoid misunderstanding. This is an admirable development, and while some misunderstandings have certainly been avoided, and positions better illuminated as a result , new and interesting questions also arise. Two ways of fixing these terms and identifying the underlying concepts have emerged as especially influential, one that takes the freedom required for responsibility to be understood in terms of accountability and the other in terms of desert . In this paper, I start by asking: are theorists talking about the same things, or are they really participating in two different debates? Are desert and accountability mutually entailing? I tentatively conclude that they are in fact mutually entailing. Coming to this conclusion requires making finer distinctions among various more specific and competing accounts of both accountability and desert. Ultimately, I argue, that there is good reason to accept that accountability and desert have the same satisfaction conditions.     

Pathways Between Marriage and Parenting for Wives and Husbands: The Role of Coparenting

As family systems research has expanded, so have investigations into how marital partners coparent together. Although coparenting research has increasingly found support for the influential role of coparenting on both marital relationships and parenting practices, coparenting has traditionally been investigated as part of an indirect system which begins with marital health, is mediated by coparenting processes, and then culminates in each partner's parenting. The field has not tested how this traditional model compares with the equally plausible alternative model, in which coparenting simultaneously predicts both marital relationships and parenting practices. Furthermore, statistical and practical limitations have typically resulted in only one parent being analyzed in these models. This study used model-fitting analyses to include both wives and husbands in a test of these two alternative models of the role of coparenting in the family system. Our data suggested that both the traditional indirect model (marital health to coparenting to parenting practices), and the alternative predictor model where coparenting alliance directly and simultaneously predicts marital health and parenting practices, fit for both spouses. This suggests that dynamic and multiple roles may be played by coparenting in the overall family system, and raises important practical implications for family clinicians.     

The effects of priming legal concepts on perceived trust and competitiveness, self-interested attitudes, and competitive behavior

Socio-legal scholars have suggested that, as a ubiquitous social system, law shapes social reality and provides interpretive frameworks for social relations. Across five studies, we tested the idea that the law shapes social reality by fostering the assumptions that people are self-interested, untrustworthy, and competitive. In Studies 1 and 2, we found that people implicitly associated legal concepts with competitiveness. Studies 3-5 showed that these associations had implications for social perceptions, self-interested attitudes, and competitive behavior. After being primed with constructs related to the law, participants perceived social actors as less trustworthy and the situation as more competitive (Study 3), became more against a political issue when it conflicted with their normative self-interest (Study 4), and made more competitive choices during a prisoner’s dilemma game when they believed that social relations were basically zero-sum in nature (Study 5). The implications and applications of these results are discussed.     

Perceptions of the Woman Who Breastfeeds: The Role of Erotophobia,Sexism, and Attitudinal Variables

Perceptions of breastfeeding women were studied in a sample of 201 predominately European American college students. Both men and women had very positive perceptions of breastfeeding women as compared to bottlefeeding women. As predicted, erotophobic women and men had less favorable impressions of the breastfeeding woman than did erotophilic individuals. Men, but not women, who scored high on Glick and Fiske's Benevolent Sexism or Hostile Sexism scales (Glick & Fiske, 1996) had more favorable impressions of the breastfeeding woman than did those with low scores. As predicted, this effect was larger for Benevolent Sexism than for Hostile Sexism. No relationships were found between impressions of breastfeeding women and the Hostility Toward Women Scale (Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1995) or the Trait Guilt and Moral Standards scales (Jones, Schratter, & Kugler, 2000). The results supported hypotheses that sexualization of the breast, discomfort with sexual stimuli, and sexist attitudes are related to perceptions of the breastfeeding woman.