ABSTRACTION,IDEALIZATION, AND OPPRESSION

Abstract: Feminists, critical race scholars, and other social‐justice theorists sometimes object to “abstraction” in liberal normative theory. Arguing that oppression affects individual agents in powerful yet subtle ways, they contend that allegedly abstract theories often reinforce oppressive power structures. Here I critically examine and ultimately reject Onora O'Neill's “abstraction without idealization” as a solution to this problem. Because O'Neill defines abstraction as simply the “bracketing of certain predicates,” her methodology fails to guide decisions about what to bracket and what to include in the theory. Moreover, it may not be possible to abstract without also relying on some particular ideals. While abstraction is unavoidable, I conclude that it must be employed with greater attention to sociopolitical hierarchies and by using ideals that do not collude with structures of oppression. I discuss the work of Susan Babbitt and Elizabeth Anderson as examples of how nonoppressive ideals might be incorporated into normative theory.     

How was your day? Couples’ affect when telling and hearing daily events

This study examined day‐to‐day mood changes associated with disclosure of positive and stressful events as affect regulation within couples. In daily diaries, 48 couples cohabiting in the United States reported whether they told their partner about the most positive and stressful event of their day. Participants reported greater positive affect on days when they told their partner about the most positive event of their day. This effect was less pronounced among avoidant women. Participants also reported greater positive affect on days when their partner shared their most positive event. Sharing about stressors was not associated with greater negative affect. These findings underscore the importance of investigating affect regulation processes such as daily event disclosures from a dyadic perspective.     

Tinnitus and short-term serial recall in stable versus intermittent masking conditions

The relation between tinnitus and short-term memory performance in varying background sounds is not well understood. In the present study a sample of 18 persons with tinnitus completed a serial recall test in three conditions, silence, masking and intermittent masking. The performance of a matched control group without tinnitus was also investigated. Based on the literature on the "irrelevant sound effect" we expected that the tinnitus group would perform worse during intermittent masking and that they would score lower overall compared to the control group. Results revealed no statistically significant differences between the groups, nor any group interaction within sound conditions for the serial recall test. Groups did however differ regarding subjective measures of concentration problems, anxiety and depression. Results are discussed in relation to thought suppression and distraction from tinnitus.     

Sculpting Present and Future: A Systemic Intervention Model Applied to Psychosomatic Families

We present a therapeutic intervention model for use with psychosomatic families. This method, the result of our extensive research on various psychosomatic disorders, uses family sculptures of the "present" and "future": each family member is requested to represent the family as it now "is," and how it "will be" in the future. We discuss the theoretical reasons for our choice of this method: (a) the opportunity to use a therapeutic language that is similar to the nonverbal language of the psychosomatic symptom, and (b) the usefulness of reinserting temporal dimensions into family systems that seem to have lost their evolutionary potential and to be in a sort of "time lock." Two clinical cases are discussed (a child with chronic asthma and an anorexic adolescent); the use of sculptures in both cases revealed the underlying problems and made positive therapeutic interventions possible. Finally, we point out how the use of sculpture as a therapeutic technique enables therapists to deal with multiple systemic levels.     

Two of a kind: Perceptions of own and partner's attachment characteristics

Because it is universally relevant, and because it is formed in infancy, giving it a strong preconscious quality, attachment was chosen for a study of Allport's (1924) construct of social projection. Individuals in 301 dating couples rated themselves and their partners on each of four continuous attachment dimensions (i.e., security, dismissiveness, preoccupation, fearfulness). The individual's own rating on a particular dimension significantly predicted the individual's perception of how the partner rated on the dimension, after controlling for the partner's self-rating on the dimension. Thus people perceived their partners to be more similar to themselves than they really were, demonstrating social projection. In general, the higher the degree of emotional intimacy was, the more social projection was demonstrated.     

Adolescent reactions to maternal responsiveness and internalizing symptomatology: A daily diary investigation

A daily diary methodology was employed to gather teens' perceptions of maternal responsiveness to daily stressful events and teens' reactions to maternal responsiveness in a diverse sample (792 entries from 104 teens; 81% African American, mean age = 13.7 years). Additionally, parents and teens completed baseline reports of internalizing symptoms. Diary findings were congruent with prior studies employing self‐report measures of global maternal responses to emotion (e.g., higher probability of Accepting reactions to supportive responses, higher probabilities of Attack, Avoid‐Withdraw reactions to nonsupportive responses). Elevated baseline internalizing symptoms were related to perception of elevated Punish and Magnify responses during the week, and more Avoidant (Avoid‐Withdraw and Avoid‐Protect) reactions to responsiveness. Results are discussed in the context of reciprocal emotion socialization processes.     

Male/Female Gaze in Same-Sex and Mixed-Sex Dyads Gender-Linked Differences and Mutual Influence

In this study, 108 university students (54 men and 54 women) were each videotaped in two 8-minute problem-solving dyadic interactions: (1) same-sex, and (2) mixed-sex. Trained observers coded the interactions for simultaneous, moment-to-moment gaze and talk behavior of both interactants. MANOVA results for three dyad types (male/male, female/female, and male/female) measured on 10 dyad gaze/talk variables showed that F/F dyads exhibited more mutual gaze/mutual talk and mutual gaze/mutual silence than either M/M or M/F dyads. F/F dyads exhibited less one gazes/same talks and mutual avert/one talks than either M/M or M/F dyads. No differences were found between M/M and M/F dyads on any variable. Analyses of individual change scores from same-sex to mixed-sex dyads indicated that the women in the M/F dyads converged to the male behavior in that dyad condition, whereas the men remained unchanged. The results are discussed in terms of speech accommodation theory.     

Comparison of Alcohol and Other Drug Use Trends Between a Prohibitionist University and National Data Sets

This article provides information on a decade of trends and prevalence of substance use at a Midwestern prohibitionist university. Trends were based on three data collection times, 1995, 2000, and 2005. This information was compared with results of a number of national surveys to identify trends in the data. Total averages for the prohibitionist sample were 42.6% for alcohol use; 18.2% for binge drinking; 35.4% for tobacco use; and 34.1% for marijuana use. With the exception of binge drinking, which remained stable, the gap between substance use rates for the prohibitionist university and the results of national surveys have widened slightly.