Accounting for Racism Against Maori in Aotearoa/New Zealand: A Discourse Analytic Study of the Views of Maori Adults

Previous discursive studies on the construction, reproduction and justification of racism have focussed on the accounts of perpetrators to the exclusion of the targets of racist talk. The current study redresses this imbalance by exploring the talk of targets of racism in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. Interviews were conducted with 24 participants, 19 Māori and five Pākehā partners. Our social constructionist discourse analysis identifies four primary discourses that participants drew on to account for racism, two of which resonated strongly with the literature and two which spotlighted new areas of interest. A discourse of ignorance functioned to allow participants to account for racism by highlighting Pākehā ignorance of Māori people and culture, and of racism itself. The second discourse implicated the media for emphasising negative Māori news, avoiding positive Māori achievements and promoting negative stereotypes. A third discourse constructed Pākehā as possessing an innate sense of superiority which contributed to racism, and fourthly, institutionalised racism was used by participants to construct a colonial society which continued to marginalise Māori. Finally we consider the implications of these findings with respect to existing literature, some implications around the intersectionality and relationship between these discourses, and the importance of potential gains in understanding made possible through the study of targets' perspectives. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Academic Characteristics of Early Adolescents with Higher Levels of Life Satisfaction

Research related to students’ global life satisfaction and their academic and behavioral functioning has yielded varying findings. Some researchers have suggested the possibility that very high levels of life satisfaction may yield decrements in productivity (Oishi et al. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 346–360 2007). Middle school students (N?=?917) were surveyed regarding their global life satisfaction, school engagement, and academic performance. We evaluated whether the associations were best characterized linearly or non-linearly (i.e., quadratic) to clarify the associations between life satisfaction and the various academic performance variables. Differing from the findings of Oishi et al., our findings failed to reveal support for the hypothesis of a negative quadratic relation between life satisfaction and most of the academic or student engagement outcomes we examined. To the contrary, statistically significant, positive linear relations were observed between life satisfaction and GPA, math standardized test scores as well as cognitive, emotional and behavioral engagement. A linear relation was not observed between life satisfaction and English Language Arts standardized test scores. Consistent with previous research, these findings provide further support that higher levels of life satisfaction are related to higher levels of student engagement and academic performance in early adolescents. Furthermore, the results are consistent with efforts to expand education reforms to incorporate goals related to increasing students’ well-being as well as their academic success.     

Family–oriented treatment for people with alcohol problems in Ireland: a comparison of the effectiveness of residential and community–based programmes

Using a naturalistic design involving consecutive referrals self–selected for family–oriented treatment, forty–two participants from a residential programme and twenty–five participants from a community–based programme were assessed on a range of alcohol–use and psychosocial measures before treatment. A proportion of these cases were assessed after treatment and at six months'follow–up. At six months' follow–up 79 per cent of both the residential and community groups were either abstinent or drinking moderately. However, more members of the residential group (75 per cent) were abstinent at follow–up compared with the community group (36 per cent). In contrast, more members of the community group were moderate drinkers (43 per cent) at follow–up compared with the residential group (4 per cent). At six months' follow–up, compared with the community group, more members of the residential group showed a clinically significant reduction in recent negative consequences of drinking and psychological adjustment problems. Both groups made significant mean gains on indices of alcohol abuse and psychosocial adjustment but there were important intergroup differences. The residential group showed a greater mean reduction in recent negative consequences from drinking but the community group showed a greater mean reduction in the percentage of days' heavy drinking.     

Mechanisms that underlie coordination in children with developmental coordination disorder

The authors examined potential mechanisms underlying motor coordination in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Because children with DCD experience difficulty processing visual, auditory, and vibrotactile information, the authors explored patterns of choice reaction time (RT) in young (6-7 years) and older (9-10 years) children with and without DCD by using a compatibility-incompatibility paradigm and different sensory modalities. Young children responded more slowly than older children to visual, auditory, and vibrotactile stimuli. Children with DCD took longer than typical children to process visual and vibrotactile stimuli under more complex stimulus-response mappings. Young children with DCD responded more slowly than typical children to visual and vibrotactile information under incompatible conditions. Children with DCD responded faster than unaffected children to auditory stimuli. The results suggest that there is a developmental nature in the processing of visual and auditory input and imply that the vibrotactile sensory modality may be key to the motor coordination difficulties of children with DCD.     

The development of metamemory monitoring during retrieval: the case of memory strength and memory absence

This research examined the development of the ability to monitor memory strength and memory absence at retrieval. In two experiments, 7-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and adults enacted and imagined enacting a series of bizarre and common actions. Two weeks later, they completed a memory test in which they were asked to determine whether each action had been enacted, had been imagined, or was novel and to provide a confidence judgment for each response. Results showed that participants across age groups successfully monitored differences in strength between memories for enacted actions and memories for imagined actions. However, compared with 10-year-olds and adults, 7-year-olds exhibited deficits in monitoring of differences in memory strength among imagined actions as well as deficits in monitoring memory absence. Results underscore metamemory developments that have important implications for memory accuracy.     

The Crafting of Jobs and Individual Differences

This paper examines the concept of spontaneous, unsupervised changes in jobs (job crafting), in general, and the relationship of the qualities and magnitude of the changes to the individual characteristics of: cognitive ability, self-image, perceived control, and readiness to change. This study adds to what is known about individuals at work, in any level of an organization, who knowingly make unsupervised changes in their jobs. This study adds to the research base of what is called job crafting as examined in the seminal work of Wrzesniewski and Dutton (Acad Manag Rev 26(2):179–201, 2001). In this study of 107 outside salespersons we find that more than 75% report engaging in job crafting in various forms. Positive, significant correlations are found between episodes of work modification and the variables of self-image, perceived control, and readiness to change.     

Predictors of fatigue over 1 year among people with rheumatoid arthritis

Fatigue is a systemic feeling of exhaustion that is a common symptom of many chronic illnesses, including the autoimmune inflammatory disease rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We examined predictors of levels of fatigue among people with RA using Leventhal's Common-Sense Model (CSM), which states that cognitive representations of an illness spur (or halt) people's efforts to cope and thereby influence outcomes of the illness. Our use of the CSM was designed in the light of evidence in the literature specific to fatigue in RA. Current fatigue was reported on a 100 mm visual analogue scale (with anchors "No fatigue" and "Unbearable fatigue") by 114 people (73.7% women) with RA at baseline and 1 year later. Baseline employment status, pain, impact of disability, sleep disruption frequency, depressed mood, perceptions of consequences, arthritis self-efficacy and attempts to cope by praying/hoping were also self-reported. Duration of RA and a haematological measure of systemic inflammation (erythrocyte sedimentation rate; ESR) were obtained from hospital records. Unexpectedly, RA duration did not predict fatigue after 1 year, although lower baseline inflammation did (controlling for baseline fatigue and other disease impact variables). This may be due to sampling flares of RA at baseline. Baseline perceptions that RA has severe consequences and is uncontrollable also predicted greater fatigue after 1 year but this relationship was not mediated by praying/hoping. Targeted psychological care to modify perceptions of severe consequences may therefore improve later fatigue for people with RA even when the condition is longstanding, but the mechanisms of any benefit require further investigation.     

The role of working memory in decoding emotions

Decoding facial expressions of emotion is an important aspect of social communication that is often impaired following psychiatric or neurological illness. However, little is known of the cognitive components involved in perceiving emotional expressions. Three dual task studies explored the role of verbal working memory in decoding emotions. Concurrent working memory load substantially interfered with choosing which emotional label described a facial expression (Experiment 1). A key factor in the magnitude of interference was the number of emotion labels from which to choose (Experiment 2). In contrast the ability to decide that two faces represented the same emotion in a discrimination task was relatively unaffected by concurrent working memory load (Experiment 3). Different methods of assessing emotion perception make substantially different demands on working memory. Implications for clinical disorders which affect both working memory and emotion perception are considered.     

‘It's gotten a bit old,charity’: Young adults in New Zealand talk about poverty,charitable giving and aid appeals

An extensive body of literature exists on the phenomena of poverty, charitable giving and the effectiveness of aid appeals. To date psychological research has predominantly focused on individualistic models to explain people's understandings of poverty and their charitable giving practices. Based upon a social constructionist epistemology, this study investigates how understandings of aid appeals, poverty and charitable giving are discursively produced and constructed in relation to one another through an analysis of New Zealand young adults' talk about these issues. Data were collected from three focus group discussions among pre‐existing friendship groups comprising three male and nine female students aged between 18 and 25. A brief video clip of aid appeals was used to stimulate discussion on poverty and charitable giving. Analysis of these discussions revealed three discursive themes relating to the aid appeals: local versus international need, emotional arousal and insufficient information. Drawing upon these themes the participants constructed poverty as relative or extreme, and largely explained by educational deficits. They constructed charitable giving as solicited through aid appeals, as compromised through immunity to such appeals, and as diminished through positionings of self‐help and self‐responsibility. These discursive constructions were drawn on by participants to legitimate their own non‐donor position. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An empirical assessment of generational differences in basic human values

This study assessed generational differences in human values as measured by the Schwartz Value Survey. It was proposed that the two most recent generations, Millennials and Generation Xers, would value Self-enhancement and Openness to Change more than the two older generations, Baby Boomers and Matures, while the two older generations would value Self-transcendence and Conservation more. The hypotheses were tested with a combined sample of Canadian knowledge workers and undergraduate business students (N = 1,194). Two hypotheses were largely supported, although an unexpectedly large difference was observed between Millennials and Generation Xers with respect to Openness to Change and Self-enhancement. The findings suggest that generation is a useful variable in examining differences in social values.