Prejudice and self-esteem: A transactional model

This paper reviews three theoretical models of how prejudice affects the self-esteem of its targets. The stimulus-response model assumes that prejudice has a direct, negative effect on self-esteem. The stimulus-perception-response model recognises that perceptions of prejudice may not directly mirror experiences with prejudice, but predicts that the subjective perception of being a target of prejudice has a direct, negative effect on self-esteem. Both of these models are found to be inadequate. We propose a third, transactional model, which assumes that individuals do not respond in uniform way to being the target of prejudice. Rather, this model contends that self-esteem and emotional responses to prejudice are determined by cognitive appraisals of prejudicial events and coping strategies used in response to these events; these processes, in turn, are shaped by personal, situational, and structural factors. Experiments are presented showing that self-esteem in response to perceived prejudice is moderated by presence or absence of threats to personal identity, clarity of prejudices cues in the situation, ingroup identification, dispositional optimism, endorsement of legitimising ideologies, and group status. We argue that a transactional model of responses to prejudice emphasises sources of resistance as well as vulnerability among targets of prejudice.     

Effect of Training on Sensory Room and Cart Usage

In this study, the authors assess the effectiveness of education on the consistency of use of sensory rooms within a large mental health facility. Eleven staff and thirty-six clients received additional multimodal education in sensory strategies, the use of the sensory rooms on their assigned units, and the link between the rooms and clients' personal crisis intervention plans. Staff knowledge and room usage rates were analyzed pre- and post-training. The authors found statistically significant increases in staff knowledge post-training and increases in the use of the sensory rooms by study participants. The results support the effectiveness of training which uses hands-on, population-specific strategies.     

The Influence of Masked Stimuli on Response Selection: Evidence from a Semantic Categorization Task

Unconscious visual stimuli can be processed by human observers and influence their behaviour. A striking example is a phenomenon known as “free-choice priming,” where masked “prime” stimuli—of which participants are unaware—modulate which of two response alternatives they are likely to choose. Recent efforts to uncover the mechanisms underlying this intriguing effect have revealed that free-choice priming can emerge even in the absence of automatized stimulus-response (S-R) associations between masked primes and specific motor responses, indicating that free choices can be influenced by a masked prime’s meaning (Ocampo, 2015). It remains unknown, however, whether masked primes bias response selections because they are implicitly classified according to task instructions, or because spreading activation occurs within the prime's semantic network. To adjudicate between these two possibilities, participants in the present experiment categorised targets as either animals or people and selected which of two response alternatives they wanted to make following presentation of a free-choice target. Crucially, while implicit classifications could proceed during processing of both animal and person masked primes, only animal primes could trigger spreading activation within their semantic network. This manipulation modulated free-choice priming; only masked animal primes influenced response selections to free-choice targets. This result indicates that an automatic spreading activation mechanism might underlie a masked prime’s ability to influence free-choice responses.     

'Hearts on their sleeves': the use of systemic biofeedback in school settings

This article describes how a biofeedback device is used to 'externalize' internal physiological states. Heart rate monitors, emitting audible signals when a specific threshold is reached, are fitted to children and members of the family. This can help all those present to make connections between problematic behaviours and internal states of emotional/physical arousal. Devices may be worn for up to twenty-four hours and computer graph printouts of fluctuating heart rates can assist in contextualizing problematic interactions, particularly if other family members are also fitted with heart rate monitors. In this way biofeedback becomes 'systemic' as people are alerted to the interconnectedness of each others' states. Participants are not only helped to identify stressors leading to heightened states of emotional arousal and resulting 'out-of-control' behaviours, but also to find ways of employing (self-)calming strategies. This article outlines the application of systemic biofeedback in school settings with children at risk of exclusion. With the help of these biofeedback devices pupils begin to manage themselves in situations which would previously have resulted in stressed, angry or violent behaviours.     

An Expectancy/Value Perspective on the Demotivating Effects of Prejudice

This study examined whether expecting prejudice is demotivating. Women were led to believe they were being evaluated for a co‐manager position. They were randomly assigned to receive information that the evaluator held negative attitudes toward women or that he did not. We hypothesized that compared to women led to believe that the evaluator was unprejudiced, women led to believe the evaluator was prejudiced would: (a) have lower expectations for being chosen as co‐manager; (b) place less value on being chosen as co‐manager; and (c) be less motivated to perform a task that would influence selection as co‐manager. We predicted that the effect of prejudice on motivation would be mediated by expectations and valuing of success. Results were consistent with predictions.     

Bringing the Social into Genetics: The Psychosocial Genetics Risk Assessment and Management Framework (PG-RAM)

As increasing numbers of people are identified at risk for multi-factorial diseases, questions of how to assess, communicate and manage genetic risk will be critical from health services and policy perspectives. However, there is currently no evidence-based genetic risk assessment and management framework to assist policy makers, clinicians and other stakeholders. A comprehensive psychosocial framework for risk assessment and management has been developed in the context of security hazards or threats. In an adaptation of that model, we present the Psychosocial Genetics Risk Assessment and Management framework (PG-RAM). It offers principles to enhance the integration of evidence-based best practices into genetics health services, as well as to identify issues, knowledge and gaps. The framework identifies the core elements of the situation, effects, population and interventions, all spanning several phases of genetic disorders. The framework provides an excellent starting point for knowledge syntheses in the context of genetic risk and could serve as the conceptual basis for practical tool development to guide healthcare professionals and decision makers in preparing for and responding to the psychosocial aspects of genetic risk.     

Marriage, Parenting, and the Emergence of Early Self-Regulation in the Family System

The early years of toddlerhood mark the emergence of self-regulation and the child's ability to comply with parental requests. The current study examined young children's compliance and noncompliance in a family context by observing mothers, fathers, and two children in a family clean-up paradigm. Marital conflict and mutual responsiveness in the parent-child relationship were used as predictors of children's early self-regulation in an effort to explore risk and protective factors within the family. Several interactions between mother and father behavior as well as between marital conflict and parenting revealed how father-infant attachment moderates the effects of mother-infant attachment on children's compliance and how a close father-child relationship can protect children from the risks associated with high levels of marital conflict. Results indicate that future research on children's early self-regulation needs to be more systemic and move beyond the traditional mother-child dyadic context.     

Evaluation of the psychometric properties of the developmental coordination disorder questionnaire for parents (DCD-Q): results from a community based study of school-aged children

In this study, we examine several key psychometric properties (reliability, construct validity, concurrent validity) of the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCD-Q) using a large, school-based sample of children (n=523) and their parents. Children completed the Children's Self-perceptions of Adequacy in and Predilection toward Physical Activity (CSAPPA) and parents completed the DCD-Q. The internal reliability of the DCD-Q was high for both the full scale and the subscales. Confirmatory factor analysis established that the scale was multifactorial, but the fit of the hypothesized factor structure was poor. Finally, moderate correlations were observed between the CSAPPA and the DCD-Q, with the strongest correlation found between the "perceived adequacy" subscale of the CSAPPA and "control during movement" subscale of the DCD-Q. Implications for screening and further research are discussed in relation to both instruments.     

“Communities isn't just about trees and shops”: students from two South African universities engage in dialogue about ‘community’ and ‘community work’

The question of what constitutes ‘a community’ or even ‘the community’ takes on an extra salience in a divided society such as South Africa where the entire environment remains imprinted with the legacy of enforced segregation along racial lines. Higher education institutions need to prepare emerging health and social service students for the world of practice in a context of diversity, continuing segregation and marked inequality. As one step to helping students deal with working in a divided society, academic departments from two different South African universities have been involved in a collaborative teaching and research project. Fourth year psychology and social work students from the two universities took part in a collaborative, practical course which formed part of their curricula. In this course, students were given the opportunity to engage with the notion of ‘community’ and ‘community work’ with each other. The students came from diverse racial, class and political backgrounds, and by engaging with one another as they did, had the opportunity to ‘visit’ worlds they have rarely had access to. While this course was able to achieve a broadening awareness among students from different backgrounds about the notion of community, it will take both more engagement with courses of this kind, and a continuing history of change in South Africa, for students to feel more comfortable in transcending both physical and psychological boundaries. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.