The World at 7:00: Comparing the Experience of Situations Across 20 Countries

The purpose of this research is to quantitatively compare everyday situational experience around the world. Local collaborators recruited 5,447 members of college communities in 20 countries, who provided data via a Web site in 14 languages. Using the 89 items of the Riverside Situational Q‐sort (RSQ), participants described the situation they experienced the previous evening at 7:00 p.m. Correlations among the average situational profiles of each country ranged from r = .73 to r = .95; the typical situation was described as largely pleasant. Most similar were the United States/Canada; least similar were South Korea/Denmark. Japan had the most homogenous situational experience; South Korea, the least. The 15 RSQ items varying the most across countries described relatively negative aspects of situational experience; the 15 least varying items were more positive. Further analyses correlated RSQ items with national scores on six value dimensions, the Big Five traits, economic output, and population. Individualism, Neuroticism, Openness, and Gross Domestic Product yielded more significant correlations than expected by chance. Psychological research traditionally has paid more attention to the assessment of persons than of situations, a discrepancy that extends to cross‐cultural psychology. The present study demonstrates how cultures vary in situational experience in psychologically meaningful ways.     

Immigrant Mothers of Color,Pastoral Theology,and the Law

The idealization of motherhood is based on a white, heterosexual, middle-class, and married woman. This has caused problems for most women, especially for women of color. I examine these problems and how the law should address the expectations that are associated with the status of motherhood. I also introduce the current conversation on caretaking among feminist legal theorists. I focus on Martha Fineman’s arguments on the public nature of caretaking work, which includes public assistance to women who care for children as well as dismantling the institution of marriage. I argue that a feminist pastoral and legal theoretical analysis also needs to engage in a patri-kyriarchal analysis that examines issues of citizenship for immigrant women of color.     

A Review of: “Pamela J. Burry's Living with “The Gloria Films”: A daughter's memory.”

Abstract

This article examines alternatives for using language and discourse in clinical practice. The goal is to deconstruct deficit language and move toward a competency based psychological service. Deficit and pathology, the native tongue of psychotherapy, tend to initiate permanent stigmatizing patterns of social interaction which further marginalizes clients. This article deconstructs the taken‐for‐granted assumptions and discourses that underpin deficit‐based practice. Through the process of rediscoursing and re‐inventing therapeutic languages, therapists can reverse the self‐sustaining feedback loop initiated by deficit focus. These changes transport possibilities and personal agency into postmodern practice.     

Managing Sequential Task Portfolios in the Face of Temporal Atypicality and Task Complexity

The authors use a portfolio of sequential tasks to investigate how accurately study participants stick to assigned deadlines when they need to transition from one task to another. Atypical deadlines, task complexity, and individual differences all affect transition error size, error correction, and task performance. In Experiment 1 (N?=?108), larger task transition errors were related negatively to task performance and were associated with atypical deadlines (e.g., 4:53 or 4:57), complex tasks, and individuals lower in the general hurry characteristic. In Experiment 2 (N?=?95), individuals facing atypical deadlines or lower in need for cognition were less likely to correct transition errors (i.e., getting back to the original schedule), which negatively affected performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Self‐Interests and Beliefs: Predictors of Mothers’ Views of Child Care1

Mothers (N= 270) completed questions related to child care for their children who were between 2 and 6 years of age. They completed a 9‐page questionnaire that included scales used to assess their attachment to their careers, financial need to work, and gender‐role beliefs as predictors of their ratings of the effects of child care on 4 criterion measures. Findings supported the hypothesized model that a mother's needs and her self‐interests and beliefs would influence her ratings of the benefits and costs of child care, her anxiety in leaving her child in child care, and her views of the effects of child care on her child. It is suggested that future research should avoid biases that might arise from participant or observer self‐interest and seek more objective approaches to the examination of the impact of child care on children.     

Shifts and constancies in Rorschach responses as a function of culture and language

This study examined the relationship between Korean and American cultures and languages on Rorschach responses. The Rorschach Inkblot Test was individually administered to 20 Korean monolinguals, 20 American monolinguals, 20 Korean bilingual immigrants, and 10 American bilingual missionaries returned from Korea. The bilingual subjects took the test in Korean and in English. The results showed some shifts as well as some constancies in Rorschach responses as a function of culture. The results on the effect of language on Rorschach responses were less clear.     

The cultural mosaic: a metatheory for understanding the complexity of culture

Workforce population trends have increased the numbers and kinds of culturally diverse people who work together. Researchers in organizational behavior have often examined culture through values; however, cultural values can be based on collections of people other than traditional nation states. A cultural mosaic is presented as a framework to identify demographic, geographic, and associative features underlying culture. An individual's unique collage of multiple cultural identities yields a complex picture of the cultural influences on that person. Developments in chaos and complexity theories are proposed as a theoretical base for study on the complexity of culture at the individual level. Additional developments in network theory serve as a theoretical base for cultural research at the group level. The cultural mosaic is described as a complex system with localized structures, linking cultural tiles in ordered and chaotic ways. Research propositions examining multiple cultural identities at individual and group levels are discussed.