The Impact of Cancer on Psychological and Social Outcomes

Cancer is now the biggest cause of mortality worldwide. Although the debilitating physical symptoms of cancer have long been known, the psychological and social impacts of cancer have become the subject of examination only relatively recently. The psychological outcomes that have been examined are primarily negative emotional variables, e.g., anxiety, but emerging research has focused on positive emotional variables, e.g., post‐traumatic growth, or cognitive outcomes. In this article, we provide a synthesis of reviews that have addressed the psychosocial impact of cancer. The framework for this synthesis is provided by a conceptualisation in which the presence of cancer impacts on psychosocial outcomes either directly or via mediating variables, including physical symptoms and treatment, and that this effect may be moderated by several variables, some characteristic of the person with cancer (demographic or personality‐related variables) and some characteristic of their environment (social support and medical variables). We also briefly examine the impact of cancer on the broader family unit following cancer diagnosis, treatment, survivorship and bereavement. We conclude that the heterogeneity of the cancer experience highlights the need for theoretically driven research and consistency in measurement approaches to determine mechanisms by which cancer exerts influence on psychosocial outcomes. This would allow development and delivery of targeted psychological interventions and a clearer delineation of the roles of the various parties, including clinical psychologists, family members and policymakers.     

How bad can a good enough parent be?

Almost everyone accepts that parents must provide a good enough upbringing in order to retain custodial rights over children, but little has been said about how that level should be set. In this paper, I examine ways of specifying a good enough upbringing. I argue that the two dominant ways of setting this level, the Best Interests and Abuse and Neglect Views, are mistaken. I defend the Dual Comparative View, which holds that an upbringing is good enough when shortfalls from the best alternative upbringing in terms of the child's interests are no more significant than the parents' interest.     

Training Melanoma Detection in Photographs Using the Perceptual Expertise Training Approach

Although a deadly form of skin cancer, melanoma is treatable if detected early. However, current rule‐based training practices in melanoma detection are not effective. We assessed an innovative technique to train melanoma detection using the perceptual expertise principles. Participants in the training group were trained to categorize melanoma and benign lesions to 95% accuracy. Participants in the control group received no training. Prior to testing all participants reviewed the ABCDE rules. Training was evaluated by the pre and post tests using the Melanoma Detection Test where participants categorized images of melanoma and benign lesions. As compared to the control group, the training group showed significant improvement in melanoma detection and became less liberal (i.e., bias toward categorizing a lesion as melanoma), and both improvements maintained a week after the training. These findings indicate that perceptual expertise training is a promising approach to train melanoma detection.Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Leaders and followers behaving badly: A meta-analytic examination of curvilinear relationships between destructive leadership and followers’ workplace behaviors

We draw from social psychological and resource-based theories to meta-analytically examine curvilinear relationships between destructive leadership and followers’ workplace behaviors (i.e., job performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, and workplace deviance). Overall, our meta-analytic results demonstrate that relationships between destructive leadership and followers’ workplace behaviors are essentially linear. The limited evidence of curvilinear relationships we did find supports the application of social psychological theories when examining high levels of destructive leadership. Overall, this study's meta-analytic regression, relative weight, and semipartial correlation results have important implications for how to interpret the conclusions drawn from prior destructive leadership research, how to conduct future studies that examine destructive leadership, and practitioners’ attempts to limit the effects of destructive leadership on followers’ workplace behaviors.     

I’ll just watch: Do the pro-social effects of coordination really generalize to non-actors?

ABSTRACT

Moving in time together has been shown to cultivate pro-social effects in co-actors, such as cooperation and helping. But less is known about who these effects apply to – whether they are restricted only to co-actors, or whether they generalize to those not involved in the coordination. One difference between past work finding generalized vs. restricted effects is whether these “outsiders” were present for the coordination or not. The present study explores whether the pro-social effects of coordination are seen towards observers as well as co-actors, and whether the absence or presence of observers during the coordination is a determining factor. Results show that greater cooperation following coordination is only seen amongst co- actors, regardless of whether the observers were present during the task or not. Findings are discussed in the context of the literature and alternative explanations for research showing generalized effects are suggested.     

Campus conspiracies: security and intelligence engagement with universities from Kent State to counter-terrorism

ABSTRACT

Security and intelligence agency concerns with universities range from the commissioning and protection of security-sensitive research, the ongoing recruitment of staff and students for covert security and intelligence work, as well as prominent counter-terrorist concerns. This is an ethically charged terrain of moral ambiguity which raises issues not only of academic freedom and freedom of speech but a less explored, cross-disciplinary complex of intelligence-led interactions from protection of campus property and personnel to ideological battles at the heart of the Academy itself. Current-day counterterrorism on campus agendas is, then, only an intensified aspect of an historical but ongoing and likely future interface between universities and security and intelligence agencies. Drawing on exemplars from the Kent State University shootings on 4 May 1970 at the height of the Vietnam War to the present era of globalised counter-terrorism, the article uses securitisation theory to conceptualise the historical, contemporary and future parameters of university engagements with the security and intelligence agencies as ‘Incidental’, ‘Incendiary’, and ‘Inevitable’.     

Comparing Zoos and the Media as Conservation Educators

ABSTRACT

Resident non-participation is a major contemporary issue for the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (Udvar-Hazy Center), a recently opened companion facility to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall. The current study investigates the motivations and characteristics of local non-visitors. Residents from three surrounding counties comprised the study population and, as part of the larger study, responded to statements pertaining to reasons for non-visitation to the Udvar-Hazy Center, derived and modified for a museum context from the leisure constraints literature. Analysis of non-visitors, about one-half of the sample, resulted in the identification of relatively homogenous minimally-constrained, awareness-constrained, time-constrained, and access-constrained clusters. Managerial implications of these findings are considered.