Stressors Experienced by Women Within Marine Corps Families: A Qualitative Study of Discourse Within an Online Forum

The social constructionist perspective frames this exploration of the socioemotional and relational aspects of stress experienced by significant others of active duty Marines. Interpretive methods were applied to data from an online forum for Marine Corps wives, fiancées, and girlfriends. Open coding revealed six stressors: (a) stuck in a state of flux, (b) going through changes, (c) relational uncertainty, (d) loneliness, (e) alienation, and (f) anxiety related to deployment. Axial coding revealed three properties underlying these stressors: (a) issues of control and helplessness, (b) concerns over privileging individual or relational goals, and (c) the matter of locus of blame.     

Identity in Action: Predictors of Feminist Self-Identification and Collective Action

The present study sought to explore how women's life experiences influenced their beliefs, and how those beliefs in turn influenced feminist self-identification. Additionally, we sought to determine whether feminist self-identification led to increased collective action on behalf of women. Female participants (N?=?282) from two US college campuses and online listservs completed an online survey assessing feminist self-identification, collective action, and life experiences. Conservative, liberal, and radical beliefs were assessed as were evaluations of feminists. A structural equation model was used to explore these relationships; life experiences were found to influence women's beliefs, which in turn influenced feminist self-identification, which influenced collective action. We found that life experiences may serve as a catalyst for both feminist self-identification and collective action.     

Auditory event perception: The source—perception loop for posture in human gait

There is a small but growing literature on the perception of natural acoustic events, but few attempts have been made to investigate complex sounds not systematically controlled within a laboratory setting. The present study investigates listeners’ ability to make judgments about the posture (upright—stooped) of the walker who generated acoustic stimuli contrasted on each trial. We use a comprehensive three-stage approach to event perception, in which we develop a solid understanding of the source event and its sound properties, as well as the relationships between these two event stages. Developing this understanding helps both to identify the limitations of common statistical procedures and to develop effective new procedures for investigating not only the two information stages above, but also the decision strategies employed by listeners in making source judgments from sound. The result is a comprehensive, ultimately logical, but not necessarily expected picture of both the source—sound—perception loop and the utility of alternative research tools.     

Emotions,Cognition, Affect: On Jerry Neu's A Tear is an Intellectual Thing

Jerome Neu has been one of the most prominent voices in the philosophy of emotions for more than twenty years, that is, before the field was even a field. His Emotions, Thought, and Therapy (1977) was one of its most original and ground-breaking books. Neu is an uncompromising defender of what has been called the cognitive theory of emotions (as am I). But the ambiguity, controversy, and confusions own by the notion of a cognitive theory of emotion is what I would like to focus on here. In so doing I will indicate some of the way sin which my own theory has developed.     

Envy and Generosity Between Co-Therapists

This paper explores the dynamics of envy and generosity between co-therapists. Generally speaking, co-therapists can be drawn into the same social comparisons (overt and covert), competitiveness, and envy as their group members. The list of valued resources can include the group's affection, appreciation, and recognition, or, more generally, one's status, popularity, creativity, sensitivity, understanding, or parental functioning. The group in turn, will sometimes tend to divide the therapists into the good one and the bad one in order to serve its own developmental needs. This process can increase the tension between the therapists, and feed their envy. I present an argument for processing those feelings and assert that awareness of co-therapist envy can promote the expression of generosity and enhance the capacity of group members for similar experiences. Clinical material will be presented to demonstrate how this works.     

Motivation in later life: personal projects and well-being

"Personal projects," as defined by B. R. Little (1983), were elicited from 600 community residents aged 70+, representing a broad range of health and illness. Factor analysis revealed 6 types of personal projects: activities of daily living, active recreation, other-oriented activities, intellectual activities, home planning, and spiritual moral activities. Background factors and health were shown to affect the number and type of projects reported. Most indices of personal projects were associated with positive affect and valuation of life. Only 1 was associated with depression. This confirms the differential association of personal projects to positive but not negative affect. Personal projects are seen as part of an open motivational system in which social position, cognitive ability, health, and positive mental health are mutually interacting members.