Assessing Readiness for Advancing Women Scientists Using the Transtheoretical Model

The under-representation of women in science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines is of wide interest. In this article we report on the development of new Transtheoretical Model-based measures to assess readiness to take action to advance women scientists. Reliable measures of Stage of Change, Decisional balance, and Self-efficacy were developed with a sample of science faculty from a northeastern university. Theoretical relationships among the constructs were validated and offer support for extending the Transtheoretical Model to this area. These measures are being used as part of a campus-wide initiative to examine the advancement of women scientists before and after a series of interventions.     

Evaluating a Contextual Model of Responses to Relational Uncertainty Increasing Events

This study formulates and tests a contextual model of communication about events that increase relational uncertainty within courtship (N = 278 participants). Intimacy is examined as a feature of the distal context, and appraisals and emotions are investigated as features of the proximal context. As expected, intimacy coincided with positively‐valenced behaviors (Hypothesis 1). Appraisals also explained variance in behaviors (Hypothesis 2), especially attentional activity, relevance, obstacle, power, and legitimacy (Research Question 1). With some exceptions, emotions predicted behaviors beyond the effects of appraisals (Hypothesis 3, Research Question 2). Emotions partially mediated the association between appraisals and behaviors (Hypothesis 4), but intimacy, appraisals, and emotions were all unique predictors of behaviors (Hypothesis 5), and intimacy did not moderate the effects of appraisals or emotions on behaviors (Research Question 3). Although the pattern of covariation was consistent across the self‐reported and hypothetical events, the self‐reported events generated more negatively‐valenced appraisals, emotions, and behaviors than the hypothetical events (Research Question 4). The discussion examines how knowledge can accumulate by assimilating features of the distal and proximal contexts.     

Relational Uncertainty and Message Production Within Courtship: Features of Date Request Messages

This paper theorizes about how relational uncertainty may predict features of date request messages within courtship. It reports a study in which 248 individuals role‐played leaving a date request voice mail message for their partner. Relational uncertainty was negatively associated with the fluency (H1), affiliativeness (H2), relationship focus (H3), explicitness (H4), and perceived effectiveness (H5) of messages. Also as expected, relational uncertainty was negatively associated with people’s perceptions of the effectiveness of their messages after covarying the judgments of independent observers (H6). Relational uncertainty continued to predict features of messages when length of romantic interest was covaried (RQ1). The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the results for understanding the link between relational uncertainty and message production.     

Making the grade: a pilot investigation of an e-intervention to increase mental health literacy and help-seeking intentions among international university students

ABSTRACT

International students may have less understanding and awareness of mental health issues and appear unlikely to seek help. The purpose of the current study was to construct and evaluate a brief online educational intervention designed to increase mental health literacy (MHL) and help-seeking among international tertiary students studying in Australia. The intervention was tested among 45 international tertiary students (undergraduate and postgraduate), who were randomly allocated to control and intervention conditions. The intervention led to significant improvements in help-seeking attitudes, particularly in stigmatising attitudes. No significant effects were found for MHL or help-seeking intentions. A brief educational intervention can improve help-seeking attitudes among international tertiary students. Future research may focus on establishing optimal intervention dosage.     

Correlates of Postassault Self-Defense/Assertiveness Training Participation for Sexual Assault Survivors

Past research has shown that self-defense/assertiveness training may have positive implications for sexual assault survivors. However, little is known about the correlates of self-defense/assertiveness training participation for sexually victimized women. In this study we examined the assault characteristics and experiences that relate to women's enrollment in postassault training using data from 1,623 female college sexual assault survivors. It appears that more violent attacks may lead survivors to enroll in postassault training, especially when their resistance was less effective. Postassault training participants were marginally more likely to have told someone about their assault, experienced less supportive reactions from others, exhibited marginally less current anxiety, and reported more postassault suicidal ideation than nonparticipants. These survivors may enroll in training to exercise control over future assaults occurring and as a way of healing from sexual assault. Suggestions for future research and the development of self-defense training programs for sexual assault survivors are presented.     

Manifestations of Relationship Conceptualizations in Conversation

A question fundamental to the study of interpersonal communication in close relationships is how the characteristics people associate with their relationships are evident in their conversation. We begin by explicating 3 key aspects of relationship conceptualizations: reliance on relational knowledge, interdependence, and mutual commitment. Then we advance hypotheses linking those relationship conceptualizations with features of people's content and relational messages. We report the results of a study in which 120 dating couples engaged in videotaped conversations. Findings offered modest support for our predictions regarding reliance on relational knowledge; results were less consistent with our hypotheses involving interdependence and mutual commitment. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for understanding how perceptions of relationships are apparent in conversation.     

The Sleep Paralysis Nightmare,Wrathful Deities,and the Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious

The sleep paralysis nightmare has been reported from antiquity to modernity across manifold cultures. Many people who experience nocturnal assaults by dark entities, demons, hags, or incubi during sleep paralysis ascribe them to evil spirits with varying degrees of malevolence. The majority report the episodes as terrifying, mysterious, and uncanny. Known in the neurocognitive literature as “isolated sleep paralysis” or “sleep paralysis with hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations,” the phenomenon is fascinating to researchers across disciplines because it occurs when we are both asleep and awake, presenting fundamental questions on the subject of conscious experiences in sleep.

This article considers the nightmare of sleep paralysis to be an archetypal psychic process akin to Jung’s night sea journey and having correspondence to the wrathful deities presented in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. With a Jungian perspective directed at artwork created by a person who has experienced sleep paralysis, archetypal imagery emerges and reveals elements missing from conscious view. Utilizing the interpretive frameworks of Jungian-oriented depth psychology and Tibetan Buddhist psychology, this universally experienced nightmare of terror can also be undergone as a dream of transformation with potential for psychological and spiritual growth.

Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung turned to the stories and images of religion and mythology to explore psychic life, in general, and the religious function of the psyche, in particular. For Jung, both myths and what Jung termed “big dreams” are expressions of psychic content emerging from the collective unconscious, which includes the entire spiritual inheritance of humankind’s evolution. Because dreams contain images that are not created with conscious intent, they provide self-portraits of the psychic life process and can be utilized for their objective insights into the psyche’s teleological directedness. Jung’s psychological theories drew on a vast number of sources, including shamanism, art, religion, alchemy, parapsychology, and Eastern philosophy. Notably, Tibetan Buddhist cosmology strongly influenced his thought (Jung, 1935/1989a Jung, C. G. (1989a). Psychological commentary on “the Tibetan book of the dead.” In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C.G. Jung (R.F.C. Hull, Trans.; Vol. 11, pp. 509–526). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1935, revised 1953) [Google Scholar]).

Whereas Jungian psychology is rooted, albeit loosely, in the philosophies of empiricism that presuppose a subject–object duality, Tibetan Buddhist philosophy emphasizes the empty and illusory nature of the separate self, whether in waking life or nightly dreams. Nevertheless, although all phenomena are empty of inherent existence, they are, at the same time, pure manifestations of Buddha mind. In this philosophical system, the world of dream occupies an interesting paradox. On the one hand, dreams are considered to be unreal and deceptive, yet they are also a magical art to be mastered by the seeker, and their meanings are deemed of highest importance (Wallace, 2012 Wallace, B. A. (2012). Dreaming yourself awake: Lucid dreaming and Tibetan dream yoga for insight and transformation. Boston, MA: Shambhala. [Google Scholar]; Young, 1999 Young, S. (1999). Dreaming in the lotus: Buddhist dream narrative, imagery and practice. Boston, MA: Wisdom. [Google Scholar]).

Drawing on the dreams and subsequent paintings of one person, this article investigates the sleep paralysis nightmare—a phenomenon that has been recognized universally across time in folklore and myths, as well as by contemporary science—through the lens of both Tibetan Buddhism and Jungian-oriented depth psychology. With its emphasis on image and symbol, Jungian-oriented depth psychology is especially well suited to dialogue with art in the exploration of psyche. Both expressive product (image) and experience (meaning) are essential in this process. Jung (1946/1972 Jung, C. G. (1972). On the nature of the psyche. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.; Vol. 8, pp. 159–234). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1946) [Google Scholar]) stated, “Image and meaning are identical; and as the first takes shape, so the latter becomes clear” (p. 204, par. 402).