A Longitudinal Investigation of Depression,Hopelessness, Social Support,and Major and Minor Life Events and Their Relation to Suicidal Ideation in Adolescents

The longitudinal relationship of psychological and social-environmental factors with adolescent suicidal ideation over a 1-year-period was examined in a sample of 374 high school students. Students were assessed twice over a 1-year period with measures of depression, hopelessness, major negative life events, daily hassles, social support, and suicidal ideation. At the initial assessment, daily hassles and negative life events for males and social support and depression for females were significant factors related to suicidal ideation levels 1 year later. Changes in depression and hopelessness were significantly related to changes in suicidal ideation over the 1 year interval for males and females. Differences found between males and females in the relationship of psychological and social-environmental variables with suicidal ideation supports the need to examine gender specific relationships when conducting research on suicidal behavior in adolescents.     

Understanding choice utterances

When individuals offer choices, they intend them to be mandatory (requiring action) or permissive (not requiring action), and they intend them to be open (allowing the choice of both options) or closed (not allowing the choice of both options). In two studies subjects were presented with sets of syntactically equivalent disjunctive sentences with varying content designed to represent four patterns of permitted choice. The research indicates that individuals distinguish four distinct uses of “or” in deontic contexts, and that individuals more often judge choices as mandatory than permissive. The research also compared responses to questions about choice giver intent and receiver choice. The data indicate that when judging intent, individuals are inclined to understand some choices to be permissive. However, when judging what action they might take as choice receiver, subjects tend to regard action to be mandatory. It appears that although people have some facility in assessing a permission giver's intent, they often apply a more restrictive rule to themselves than is required by the choice giver.     

Experiential Research

ABSTRACT: This paper reports a research project that has focused on the inner experience of suicidal depression and its relationship to the social milieu. Adopting a suicidal identity, a clinical anthropologist lived in a psychiatric hospital, and then, along with a clinical psychologist, in several posthospital care facilities for periods from two weeks to a month in each setting. The evidence indicates the researchers were able to establish identities closely resembling those of genuinely suicidal persons. Their experiential accounts along with their observations of the social settings in which they lived provide the core material for analysis. Additional data from hospital records and posttreatment meetings with staff members and fellow patients supplemented the researchers' observations. Data are presented on social situational variables that support and/or undermine feelings of self-worth, the social presentation of a suicidal self, and introspective accounts of suicidal “world views” and styles of thinking. Suggestions are made for suicide prevention in institutional settings on the basis of life-supporting relationships and appropriately designed social-structural features.     

WHO CARES? THE EFFECT OF GENDER AND CONTEXT ON THE SELF AND MORAL REASONING

Theorists suggest that gender differences in moral reasoning are due to differences in the self-concept, with women feeling connected to others and using a care approach, whereas men feel separate from others and adopt a justice approach. Using a self-categorization analysis, the current research suggests that the nature of the self–other relationship, rather than gender, predicts moral reasoning. Study 1 found moral reasoning to be dependent upon the social distance between the self and others, with a care-based approach more likely when interacting with a friend than a stranger. Study 2 suggests that when individuals see others as ingroup members they are more likely to utilize care-based moral reasoning than when others are seen as outgroup members. Further, traditional gender differences in moral reasoning were found only when gender was made salient. These studies suggest that both the self and moral reasoning are better conceptualized as fluid and context dependent.     

Why Can’t You Just Pick One? The Stigmatization of Non-binary/Genderqueer People by Cis and Trans Men and Women: An Empirical Test of Norm-Centered Stigma Theory

Non-binary and genderqueer identities often resonate with people whose genders are outside the man-woman dichotomy, fluid, androgynous, and/or variant. Yet the gender binary system remains the unwavering norm, often placing non-binary and genderqueer people on the margins of social acceptability, and surprisingly little research has investigated those who stigmatize non-binary/genderqueer people. The current study utilizes Worthen’s (2020) Norm-Centered Stigma Theory (NCST) and nationally representative data collected from U.S. online panelists (n?=?3009: 1419 cis men, 1461 cis women, 74 trans women, 55 trans men) to investigate how norms (cisnormativity) and gender identity axes of social power (man/woman, cis/trans, and intersecting cis/trans-man/woman identities) relate to the stigmatization of non-binary/genderqueer people. Overall findings indicate that (a) cisnormativity is integral to understanding non-binary/genderqueer stigma, (b) the stigmatizer’s gender identity axes of social power are essential to explore as related to both cisnormativity and non-binary/genderqueer stigma, and (c) cisgender women are significantly different from others when it comes to both cisnormativity and non-binary/genderqueer stigma. Overall, the results underscore the significance of focusing on the unique complexities involved in the stigmatization of non-binary/genderqueer people and work toward dismantling such negativities.