Reintegrative Shaming Theory, moral emotions and bullying

This article investigates the usefulness of Reintegrative Shaming Theory (RST) in explaining the bullying of siblings in families and peers in schools. Questionnaires were completed by 182 children aged 11-12 years in ten primary schools in Nicosia, Cyprus, about sibling and peer bullying. A vignette-based methodology was used to investigate children's expectations of the type of shaming their parents would offer in response to their possible wrong doing. Children were also asked questions about the emotions they would have felt (i.e. shame, remorse, guilt or anger) if they were in the position of the child in the vignette. The level of bonding toward each parent was also examined. In agreement with the theory, a path analysis showed that mother bonding influenced children's expectations of the type of shaming offered by parents. Disintegrative shaming (i.e. shaming offered in a stigmatizing or rejecting way) had a direct effect on the way children managed their shame. Shame management directly influenced sibling and peer bullying. Father bonding had no direct or indirect effects in the model. Against the theory, reintegrative shaming (i.e. shaming offered in the context of approving the wrongdoer while rejecting the wrongdoing) did not have a direct effect on shame management. Beyond the postulates of RST, mother bonding-a plausible indicator of family functioning-had a direct effect on sibling and peer bullying. Mother bonding had a stronger effect for boys than for girls. It is concluded that RST is useful in explaining the link between family factors and bullying, and that RST has cross-cultural applicability.     

Multiple trajectories of physical aggression among adolescent boys and girls

Latent growth mixture modeling was used to identify discrete patterns of physical aggression from Grades 7 to 11 among a sample of 1,877 youth. Four trajectory classes adequately explained the development of physical aggression in both boys and girls: Low/No Aggression; Persistent High Aggression; Desisting Aggression, characterized by decreasing risk throughout adolescence; and Adolescent Aggression, characterized by low early risk that increases until Grade 9, levels out, and then declines in late adolescence. Girls were less likely than boys were to be in any trajectory besides the Low/No Aggression trajectory. Parental supervision, deviant peer association, academic orientation, impulsivity, and emotional distress at Grade 7 were all strongly associated with trajectory class membership. These associations did not differ by gender. These findings strongly suggest that the processes involved in the development of physical aggression in adolescence operate similarly in boys and girls.     

Effects of social isolation and environmental enrichment on atherosclerosis in ApoE-/- mice

Social support and a stimulating environment have been suggested to reduce stress reactions and cardiovascular risk. The aim of this study was to assess the role of environmental enrichment and social interaction for development of atherosclerosis in atherosclerosis prone mice. Male ApoE-/- mice were divided into four groups and followed during 20 weeks: (i) enriched environment (E, n=12), (ii) deprived environment (ED, n=12), (iii) enriched environment with exercise (E-Ex, n=12) and (iv) socially deprived by individual housing (SD, n=10). Plasma lipid and cytokine concentrations were measured. Atherosclerosis was quantified in cross-sections of innominate artery and en face in thoracic aorta. Plaque area was significantly increased in SD mice in the innominate artery (P<0.05 vs. all other groups), but not in the thoracic aorta. Plasma lipids were increased in SD mice (P<0.001 vs. all for total cholesterol, P<0.05 vs. E and P<0.01 vs. ED for triglycerides). Plasma concentration of granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) was decreased in SD mice compared to E mice (P<0.05). Thus, social isolation increased atherosclerosis and plasma lipids in ApoE-/- mice. Reduction in plasma G-CSF levels may hamper endothelial regeneration in the atherosclerotic process. While environmental enrichment did not affect atherosclerosis, social isolation accelerated atherosclerosis.     

Lifecourse Social Conditions and Racial and Ethnic Patterns of Cognitive Aging

A lifecourse perspective is key for understanding and interpreting racial and ethnic patterns in neuropsychological test performance. In this article, we discuss contextual factors that shape the environmental conditions encountered by racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, in particular African-Americans. These conditions include geographic segregation at the level of regions, metropolitan areas, and neighborhoods; intra- and inter-national migration patterns; socioeconomic position, including financial resources, and occupational and educational opportunities; discrimination; and group resources. Each of these exposures sets in course a cascade of individual mediators that ultimately manifest in neuropsychological outcomes. The physiological and behavioral consequences of these pathways likely accumulate across the lifecourse. We focus on cognitive aging, although the processes discussed here begin in infancy and likely influence cognitive outcomes throughout life from childhood into old age. A lifecourse framework can help inform clinical encounters, neuropsychological research, and surveillance regarding the population prevalence of cognitive impairments.     

The effects of rumination and negative cognitive styles on depression: a mediation analysis

Research on cognitive models of depression has identified negative cognitive styles and rumination as risk factors for depression. The present study examined the hypothesis that rumination mediates the effect of negative cognitive styles on depression. Specifically, we evaluated the differential effects of two aspects of rumination, characterized by brooding and reflection, on the relationship between negative cognitive styles and level of depressive symptoms. A total of 115 college students and 38 patients suffering from depressive disorders completed a battery of questionnaires measuring levels of depressive symptoms, brooding, reflection, and negative cognitive styles. The results support the notion that there exist two distinct dimensions of rumination and that, of the two, it is brooding and not reflection that mediates the relationship between negative cognitive styles and depression and contributes to its negative outcomes.     

Variations on an old theme: maternity for women with a very successful professional career

In this study, relationships of middle-class women from Rio de Janeiro with their family and work are presented. A series of events during the 20th century have changed woman's identity, previously centered on the roles of mother and wife, so that, there are now other options for women. Carioca girls are currently educated to compete, seek greater professional growth, and value their independence. However, some social discourses still reinforce women's former role the in the family. The notion that the mother-child unit is basic, universal, and, psychologically, the most appropriate, both for the child's healthy development and the mother's wholeness, is still firmly rooted. Motherhood is therefore one of the most complex and problematic matters for modern Carioca woman. Fifteen women with successful professional careers, residents of the city of Rio de Janeiro, varying in age from 30 to 40, and with children from 6 months to 3 years of age, were interviewed. The interviews had an invisible structure, were recorded and transcribed. The discourse of the resultant texts was analyzed, using the categories I established. In this project, I focus on the results of the analysis of the category "View of Maternity" of the interviewed women.     

Age-of-acquisition and subjective frequency estimates for all generally known monosyllabic French words and their relation with other psycholinguistic variables

Ratings for age of acquisition (AoA) and subjective frequency were collected for the 1,493 monosyllabic French words that were most known to French students. AoA ratings were collected by asking participants to estimate in years the age at which they learned each word. Subjective frequency ratings were collected on a 7-point scale, ranging from never encountered to encountered several times daily. The results were analyzed to address the relationship between AoA and subjective frequency ratings with other psycholinguistic variables (objective frequency, imageability, number of letters, and number of orthographic neighbors). The results showed high reliability ratings with other databases. Supplementary materials for this study may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society’s Archive of Norms, Stimuli, and Data, www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Emotional prejudice,essentialism, and nationalism The 2002 Tajfel lecture

In explaining differences between groups, people ascribe the human essence to their ingroup and consider outgroups as less human. This phenomenon, called infra‐humanization, occurs outside people's awareness. Because secondary emotions (e.g. love, hope, contempt, resentment) are considered uniquely human emotions, people not only attribute more secondary emotions to their ingroup than to outgroups, but are reluctant to associate these emotions with outgroups. Moreover, people behave less cooperatively (in terms of altruism, imitation, and approach) with an outgroup member who expresses himself through secondary emotions. Infra‐humanization occurs for high and low status groups, even in the absence of conflict between groups. It does not occur when the outgroup target is adequately individualized, by a complete name or through perspective taking, for instance. The differential familiarity with the ingroup and the outgroup cannot explain infra‐humanization. Yet, preliminary results show that subjective essentialism and ingroup identification may mediate the effects of infra‐humanization. A connection is made between nationalism and infra‐humanization. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.