In search of the silver lining: the justice motive fosters perceptions of benefits in the later lives of tragedy victims

Past research has demonstrated that people's need to perceive the world as fair and just leads them to blame and derogate victims of tragedy. The research reported here shows that a positive reaction--bestowing additional meaning on the lives of individuals who have suffered--can also serve people's need to believe that the world is just. In two studies, participants whose justice motive was temporarily heightened or who strongly endorsed the belief that reward and punishment are fairly distributed in the world perceived more meaning and enjoyment in the life of someone who had experienced a tragedy than in the life of someone who had not experienced tragedy, but this pattern was not found for participants whose justice motive was not heightened or who did not strongly endorse a justice belief. These results suggest that being motivated to see the world as just--a motivation traditionally associated with victim derogation--also leads people to perceive a "silver lining" to tragic events.     

Can I Make a Difference? Efficacy,Employment, and Disability

Political efficacy is a widely studied phenomenon and an important predictor of political participation, but little is known about the political efficacy of the millions of people with disabilities in the United States. This paper reports the results of a nationally representative telephone survey of 1,240 people—stratified to include 700 people with disabilities—following the November 1998 elections. Several measures of efficacy that help predict political activity were found to be significantly lower among people with disabilities than among otherwise similar people without disabilities. Although lower levels of internal efficacy and civic skills could largely be explained by educational and employment gaps, lower levels of other variables (external efficacy, perceived influence of people with disabilities, and perceived treatment of people with disabilities) remained after applying a wide range of controls, indicating that people with disabilities are less likely to see the political system as responsive to them. This perception is concentrated among non–employed people with disabilities. The lower efficacy levels linked to "disability gaps" in employment, income, education, and group attendance appear to account for as much as half of the disability political participation gap; hence, policies intended to increase employment and educational opportunities for people with disabilities have potentially important political effects.     

Ideologies of Diversity and Inequality: Predicting Collective Action in Groups Varying in Ethnicity and Immigrant Status

Ideological positions regarding social diversity and status inequality are examined as predictors of people's willingness to engage in collective action. Using social dominance theory and social identity theory, we hypothesized that the relationships between ideology, ethnic identification, and orientation toward collective action will vary depending on the position of one's group. Comparisons were made between four U.S. groups: White natives, White immigrants, Black/Latino natives, and Black/Latino immigrants. Groups differed in their endorsement of social diversity and social inequality, as well as in their orientation toward collective action and their ethnic group identification. For all groups, ethnic identity mediated the link between ideology and collective action, but the valence and magnitude of paths differed as a function of ethnicity and immigrant status. Social diversity was more critical for U.S. immigrants (White and Black/Latino); social inequality accounted for more variance in native-born U.S. groups (although in opposite directions for the two groups).     

Addressing issues of workplace harassment: counseling the targets

Workplace violence has recently received attention because of the killing of several individuals by their coworkers. However, more common are passive and nonfatal forms of aggressive behavior that are manifested as psychological and emotional harassment. Workplace harassment includes dysfunctional personal interactions characterized by bullying behaviors, personal attacks, and attempts to denigrate others. Targets of workplace harassment may experience stress, depression, low self‐esteem, loss of sleep, and even posttraumatic stress disorder. Strategies that counselors can use to work effectively with targets are discussed.     

Use of the CAFAS to Evaluate Outcome for Youths with Severe Emotional Disturbance Served by Public Mental Health

Outcomes are reported for youths with serious emotional disturbance receiving customary services from community mental health service providers who receive state mental health funds. Various outcome indicators for the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS) are described, as well as a procedure for categorizing youths into client types based on the CAFAS subscale scores. The youth's intake assessment was compared to the last CAFAS evaluation that the youth received. A statistically significant reduction in mean CAFAS total score was observed for the entire sample and for each client type. In addition, the mean number of subscales on which the youth was rated as severely impaired significantly decreased for the total sample and for each client type. The proportion of youths who experienced a clinically meaningful improvement in functioning was 58.6%. For the subset of youths who were rated as severely impaired on one or more subscales at intake, 53.1% left services without any severe impairments. The pattern of outcome results differed for subgroups based on type and extent of impairment. Implications of these findings and suggestions for using outcome monitoring to improve services in the public mental health sector are discussed.     

Games for health conference 2004: issues, trends, and needs unique to games for health.

The first-ever Games for Health Conference (Madison, WI, September 16-17, 2004) identified issues, trends, and needs unique to games for healthcare. More than 130 doctors, educators, therapists, and game makers gathered to share experiences particular to the health industry, health practitioners, and patient treatment. Co-sponsored by Games for Health, Project of the Serious Games Initiative, the Academic ADL Co-Lab, and the Federation of American Scientists, the conference highlighted applications for direct patient care and therapy, as well as health education, policy, and management ideas. This paper presents key concepts from the conference's panel discussions and summarizes successful projects demonstrated at the conference that can serve as models for the field.     

Social skill in self-assertive strategies of toddlers with depressed and nondepressed mothers

The authors examined the effects of maternal depression on the skillfulness of toddlers' self-assertive strategies in interactions with their mother and with a female examiner. The participants were 110 mothers and their 26-month-old toddlers. Of these mothers, 57 had experienced an episode of clinical depression sometime since their child's birth, and 53 had had no history of depression. Toddlers exposed to maternal depression demonstrated significantly less social skill in their self-assertive strategies and more defiance when interacting with their mothers than did toddlers who were never exposed to maternal depression. The chronicity and severity of toddlers' exposure to maternal depression did not account for more pronounced differences in toddlers' skill in self-assertion toward mothers; however, toddlers exposed to more chronic courses of depression demonstrated less skill in their self-assertion toward the examiner. Toddlers who were exposed to maternal depression with a comorbid anxiety disorder did not exhibit less skill in their self-assertion toward mothers than did toddlers in either the depression-only or nondepressed groups. These findings suggest that exposure to maternal depression may interfere with toddlers' development of socially competent self-assertion strategies and may pose risks for future problems in the mother-toddler relationship.     

Language, thought and color: recent developments

The classic issue of color naming and color cognition has been re-examined in a recent series of articles. Here, we review these developments, and suggest that they move the field beyond a familiar rhetoric of 'nature versus nurture', or 'universals versus relativity', to new concepts and new questions.     

Hand preference in simultaneous unimanual tasks: a preliminary examination

The aim of the current investigation was to determine the pattern of hand use during simultaneous unimanual tasks. Two studies were conducted. The first experiment examined the pattern of hand use in a catching task, while performing a secondary writing task. Results showed that individuals had a decreased tendency to catch with their preferred hand when their preferred hand was occupied, in comparison to when the preferred hand was unoccupied. The second experiment examined the pattern of hand use during a support and reach task, where the use of both hands was required. Here, results indicated that participants preferred to support themselves with their nonpreferred hand and reach with preferred hand toward right hemispace. With respect to left hemispace, participants showed the reverse pattern. This pattern of hand use indicates an important role for the nonpreferred hand, which has been relatively unexplored by researchers.     

Perceptions of Married Women and Married Men with Hyphenated Surnames

A predominately European American sample of 197 middle-class college students rated married women and men with hyphenated surnames on the Big Five personality factors (R. Lippa, 1991), the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (J. T. Spence & R. L. Helmreich, 1978), the adjectives masculine and feminine, and 12 adjective phrases reflecting different aspects of marriage. Both men and women perceived women and men with hyphenated last names as different from other married people. In comparison with the average married woman, the woman with a hyphenated name was perceived as more friendly, good-natured, industrious, and intellectually curious. She was also perceived as well educated and as more likely to have a career. Men with hyphenated surnames were also perceived as accommodating and good-natured, and viewed as being both nurturing and committed to their marriage. Women and men with hyphenated names were generally perceived as having higher levels of both instrumental and expressive traits than other married people. Women appear to have more positive perceptions than men, particularly of the man with a hyphenated name. The results suggest that college students have generally positive perceptions of married people with hyphenated names.