Counterfactuals,the National Economy,and Voting Choice

Previous research has shown that counterfactual thinking (“if only…”) is related to event explanation, blame assignment, and future decisions. Using data from a large-scale electoral panel survey (ITANES), we investigated the association between pre-election counterfactual thoughts on the national economy and subsequent voting choice. Results revealed that voters focused counterfactuals on the government and other political or economic actors but also, and more frequently, on unspecified or reified actors. Whereas counterfactuals focused on the government were associated with voting for the challenger, counterfactuals focused on political or economic actors or on reified actors were associated with voting for the incumbent. These associations were even stronger when counterfactuals had a subtractive (“if only X had not…”) rather than an additive (“if only X had…”) structure. The inclusion of the targets of the counterfactuals added significantly to the predictive value of a model of voting choice based on voters’ evaluation of the national economy.     

Women in the National Guard: Experiences with children during deployment

More women of the National Guard and Reserves have deployed to combat zones overseas than ever before. Upon reintegration, these soldiers often face a number of stressors related to their combat zone experiences and readjustment to civilian life. One of these stressors is the reintegration with family, partners, and children. This qualitative study involved interviews with 30 women from the National Guard regarding their reintegration experiences with their children. Four categories were revealed from the data: (a) Concerns for Children’s Well-being, (b) Sense of Loss (c) Reintegration: Personal Challenges, and (d) Reintegration: Children’s Reactions. Implications for clinical work with returning soldiers and further research are discussed.     

Differentiation of Self,Mate Selection,and Marital Adjustment: Validity of Postulates of Bowen Theory in a Spanish Sample

This research investigates relationships between differentiation of self, mate selection, and marital adjustment in a Spanish sample of 118 heterosexual couples (N = 236). In line with Bowen theory, greater differentiation of self and greater similarity in partners' differentiation of self levels each predicted greater marital adjustment. Contrary to theory, gender differences were observed on the S-DSI, with males showing higher total differentiation scores than females, and hypothesized links between differentiation of self and mate selection were not observed. Implications for therapy and suggestions for future research with the S-DSI are discussed.     

Personal construct assessment of sport teams

This paper is intended to show the usefulness of a personal construct approach to assessment in sports psychology. A repertory grid design to assess managers of sports teams is presented. The method provides useful information about the commonalty between the group and the manager's view and also allows an evaluation of the changes produced as a result of manager's interventions. Research carried out in a Spanish football team is presented and some results are discussed from the perspective of selected information to be conveyed to the manager in order to develop his sociality in construing the players.     

An effectiveness trial of a new enhanced dissonance eating disorder prevention program among female college students

Objective

Efficacy trials indicate that a dissonance-based prevention program in which female high school and college students with body image concerns critique the thin-ideal reduced risk factors, eating disorder symptoms, and future eating disorder onset, but weaker effects emerged from an effectiveness trial wherein high school clinicians recruited students and delivered the program under real-world conditions. The present effectiveness trial tested whether a new enhanced dissonance version of this program produced larger effects when college clinicians recruited students and delivered the intervention using improved procedures to select, train, and supervise clinicians.

Method

Young women recruited from seven universities across the US (N = 408, M age = 21.6, SD = 5.64) were randomized to the dissonance intervention or an educational brochure control condition.

Results

Dissonance participants showed significantly greater decreases in risk factors (thin-ideal internalization, body dissatisfaction, dieting, negative affect) and eating disorder symptoms versus controls at posttest and 1-year follow-up, resulting in medium average effect size (d = .60). Dissonance participants also reported significant improvements in psychosocial functioning, but not reduced health care utilization or unhealthy weight gain.

Conclusions

This novel multisite effectiveness trial with college clinicians found that the enhanced dissonance version of this program and the improved facilitator selection/training procedures produced average effects that were 83% larger than effects observed in the high school effectiveness trial.     

The Amazing Diversity of Thought: A Qualitative Study on How Human Resource Practitioners Perceive Selection Procedures

Purpose  

In the field of personnel selection, a great deal of evidence shows a gap between what scientists think practitioners should do and which procedures practitioners actually use. To build a basis for an intensified dialog between practitioners and researchers, there is a need for better knowledge about how practitioners think about selection procedures.     

Sex differences in association of race performance, skin-fold thicknesses, and training variables for recreational half-marathon runners

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between selected skin-fold thicknesses and training variables with a half-marathon race time, for both male and female recreational runners, using bi- and multivariate analysis. In 52 men, two skin-fold thicknesses (abdominal and calf) were significantly and positively correlated with race time; whereas in 15 women, five (pectoral, mid-axilla, subscapular, abdominal, and suprailiac) showed positive and significant relations with total race time. In men, the mean weekly running distance, minimum distance run per week, maximum distance run per week, mean weekly hours of running, number of running training sessions per week, and mean speed of the training sessions were significantly and negatively related to total race time, but not in women. Interaction analyses suggested that race time was more strongly associated with anthropometry in women than men. Race time for the women was independently associated with the sum of eight skin-folds; but for the men, only the mean speed during training sessions was independently associated. Skin-fold thicknesses and training variables in these groups were differently related to race time according to their sex.     

The Religious Racial Integration of African Americans into Diverse Churches

Recent scholarship asserts that members of racial groups can transcend their ethnic differences, but other research asserts that ethnoracial identities must be reinforced in order to participate in multiracial churches. Analysis of field notes and interview data from a large, black‐white Protestant congregation shows that while the core membership of African Americans come specifically for its ethnic and racial diversity, they also look for markers that affirm a distinctive African‐American experience. Ethnic reinforcement attracts highly race‐conscious participants who eventually move toward processes of ethnic transcendence and congregational integration. The value for researchers is that distinguishing ethnically transcendent and ethnically reinforcing processes encourages the discovery of subtle, racially specific, and continually reinforced affinities that would otherwise remain hidden in seemingly ethnically transcendent settings.     

The Idiot's Dreams: Rêverie in Child Psychotherapy

When exploring the frontier of the "border" cases, that is treating severely damaged patients, either by organic pathologies or by severe physical traumas or even by catastrophic emotional events, the classical technique is often forsaken to pioneer new trails, and we may utilize intersubjective actions. Some of these actions may occur very directly and suddenly, only later revealing their meaning in the après coup; others, on the contrary, may be the result of a not always easy or painless choice; in either case, these actions can have a great therapeutic meaning. I ventured to follow one such trail, together with the child I am going to speak of in this paper: the little "idiot" (as he used to name himself). He was suffering from an extremely severe phonologic disorder, which allowed him to utter only inarticulate noises; yet, a rich and deep internal world peeped out in the sessions, a world imprisoned but not completely annihilated by mutism. For many months, I have been trying to lend my voice to this world, by agreeing to narrate "my own" dreams within the play that was taking place in the sessions: in other words, I have tried to make use of my rêverie and capacity of identification in order to express the awful anxieties connected with the child's impossibility to communicate and to be understood: that is, with his huge loneliness. This work of "translation" did not take place with interpretation dresses, but as a repeated narration of dreams and nightmares, apparently mine yet, actually, deeply belonging to him. In this way a first step has been taken towards the raise of trust and hope of being understood, an indispensable requirement for him to finally get-after many years of work-to express himself and to make himself understood.     

Affinity, Identity, and Transcendence: The Experience of Religious Racial Integration in Diverse Congregations

How do members of disparate ethnic and racial heritages come to identify and achieve stable affiliation with multiracial congregations? This article specifies an approach to understanding member experiences of corporate belonging in diverse congregations using ethnic identity theory. Synthesizing ethnographic data drawn from two extensive case studies, the article provides a heuristic model for understanding the process by which members of disparate ethnic and racial heritages come to identify and achieve stable affiliation with multiethnic/multiracial congregations. Three “moments” (affinity with the congregation, identity reorientation, and ethnic transcendence) represent key phases in the lived religious experience of members as they co‐construct common bonds of spiritual kinship. Cautions and suggestions are provided for future research.