African Dreamers and Healers

The author spent five summers in South Africa, doing a cross-cultural study of the indigenous healers among the Zulus in Natal Province, near Durban. She compared the indigenous healers, the isangomas, with a second and seemingly evolving group of healers in the Zulu culture, called prophets. The prophets are connected with a powerful, breakaway Christian movement in South Africa and other parts of Africa that is known as the African Independent Churches or AIC. In this article she shares the conclusions of her research and her comparison of the ways the Zulu healers interpret and value dreams and how Jungian analysts might interpret similar dreams. She sought to identify and understand how the Zulu god-image might be in flux as the Zulu culture is changing in response to other cultures, in particular, the more powerful Western European culture with its advanced technology. Relying on Edward Edinger's conceptualization of the consequences of the destruction of the god-image, she concludes that, in this case, instead of the “cup being broken,” it could be that the “cup is changing its shape.”     

Manipulating Morality: Third‐Party Intentions Alter Moral Judgments by Changing Causal Reasoning

The present studies investigate how the intentions of third parties influence judgments of moral responsibility for other agents who commit immoral acts. Using cases in which an agent acts under some situational constraint brought about by a third party, we ask whether the agent is blamed less for the immoral act when the third party intended for that act to occur. Study 1 demonstrates that third‐party intentions do influence judgments of blame. Study 2 finds that third‐party intentions only influence moral judgments when the agent's actions precisely match the third party's intention. Study 3 shows that this effect arises from changes in participants' causal perception that the third party was controlling the agent. Studies 4 and 5, respectively, show that the effect cannot be explained by changes in the distribution of blame or perceived differences in situational constraint faced by the agent.     

Counselors Within the Chronic Care Model: Supporting Weight Management

The Chronic Care Model developed for the multidisciplinary management of chronic diseases provides a blueprint for the integrated role of mental health counselors supporting clients with obesity seeking weight management treatment. Counselors can support clients and the team of health care professionals treating obesity within each of the 6 components of the model: (a) health care organization, (b) delivery‐system design, (c) clinical information systems, (d) decision support, (e) client self‐management support, and (f) community resources.     

Expansion of Genetic Services Utilizing a General Genetic Counseling Clinic

We established a general genetic counseling clinic (GCC) to help reduce long wait times for new patient appointments and to enhance services for a subset of patients. Genetic counselors, who are licensed in Tennessee, were the primary providers and MD geneticists served as medical advisors. This article describes the clinic referral sources, reasons for referral and patient dispositions following their GCC visit(s). We obtained patients by triaging referrals made to our medical genetics division. Over 24 months, our GCC provided timely visits for 321 patients, allowing the MD geneticists to focus on patients needing a clinical exam and/or complex medical management. Following their GCC visit(s), over 80 % of patients did not need additional appointments with an MD geneticist. The GCC allowed the genetic counselor to spend more time with patients than is possible in our traditional medical genetics clinic. Patient satisfaction surveys (n?=?30) were very positive overall concerning the care provided. Added benefits for the genetic counselors were increased professional responsibility, autonomy and visibility as health care providers. We conclude that genetic counselors are accepted as health care providers by patients and referring providers for a subset of clinical genetics cases. A GCC can expand genetic services, complement more traditional genetic clinic models and utilize the strengths of the genetic counselor health care provider.     

Characteristics and Effects of the Co-parenting Alliance between Incarcerated Parents and Child Caregivers

We examined co-parenting alliance based on information provided by 57 incarcerated parents and their corresponding child caregivers who took part in the Messages Project, in which incarcerated parents video recorded greetings to children that were then mailed home. We assessed perceptions of co-parenting alliance, measured by the Parenting Alliance Measure, and levels of child contact from both parents and caregivers. We also observed expressions of positive and negative attitudes that prisoners expressed regarding the home caregiver during the video recording. Incarcerated parents reported more frequent phone contact with children and more frequent letter-writing to children than did home caregivers. Incarcerated parents likewise reported higher levels of co-parenting alliance with the home caregiver in comparison to the assessment of co-parenting alliance reported by the home caregiver. Among children observing the video recorded message, a more positive co-parenting alliance between their parent and home caregiver was associated with increased positive mood. More frequent displays of negative attitudes toward caregivers during the recordings were associated with more negative mood indicators among children. Results suggest the importance of a strong co-parenting alliance between incarcerated parents and home caregivers, but imply that incarcerated parents may have a more optimistic view of their connection home than is the case for collaborating caregivers.     

Recruiting Global Travelers: The Role of Global Travel Recruitment Messages and Individual Differences in Perceived Fit,Attraction, and Job Pursuit Intentions

Organizations often require managers to travel globally to fill international roles. Attending to fit with an organization's need for international mobility and global openness during recruiting could increase the proportion of effective global managers in an organization's applicant pool. We use recruitment research and theory to develop and test a conditional process model of the relationship between recruitment messages and job seeker perceived fit, attraction, and job pursuit intentions, depending on job seekers’ global openness and willingness to travel globally. Recruitment messages include information about a job's travel requirements and the global presence of the business. Two studies were undertaken to test our hypotheses. Analyses were conducted with conditional process modeling using nonlinear bootstrapping. Study 1, involving 230 job seekers, found that applicants’ willingness to travel interacted with recruiting messages about a job's global travel requirements to relate to job pursuit intentions through perceived job fit and job attraction. Study 2, involving 260 participants recruited through Mechanical Turk, indicated that global openness interacted with a global recruitment message, and willingness to travel interacted with a travel recruitment message, to relate to job pursuit intentions through job and organizational dimensions of perceived fit and attraction.     

It's better to give than to receive: Psychological need satisfaction mediating links between wasta (favouritism) and individuals' psychological distress

Wasta (i.e. the distribution of favours among family, friends and tribe; favouritism; nepotism) permeates numerous Middle Eastern cultures, representing a method of strengthening social ties and showing loyalty/generosity, but also representing one of the largest sources of corruption in Middle East. The current study investigated links between wasta and psychological distress in a survey of 1088 educators from Saudi Arabia. Drawing from the self‐determination theory (SDT) conceptual framework, Structural Equation Modeling analyses suggested that benefitting from wasta was linked to higher levels of psychological distress and those links were explained in part (i.e. mediated) by lower levels of autonomy, competency and relatedness. In contrast, providing wasta was associated with higher levels of need satisfaction and correspondingly lower levels of distress. Implications are discussed in terms of the SDT, discrimination and helping behaviour literatures.     

Severity of anxiety moderates the association between neural circuits and maternal behaviors in the postpartum period

Neuroimaging research has suggested that activity in the amygdala, center of the socioemotional network, and functional connectivity between the amygdala and cortical regions are associated with caregiving behaviors in postpartum mothers. Anxiety is common in the early postpartum period, with severity ranging from healthy maternal preoccupation to clinical disorder. However, little is known about the influence of anxiety on the neural correlates of early caregiving. We examined these relationships in a community cohort of 75 postpartum women (ages 18–22; predominantly low-SES, minority race) who listened to infant cry sounds while undergoing an fMRI assessment. Maternal self-reported symptoms of anxiety were mostly within the subclinical range. Positive and negative caregiving behaviors during filmed face-to-face mother–infant interactions were coded by independent observers. The results from whole-brain analyses showed that anxiety severity moderated the brain–maternal behavior relationships. Specifically, our results showed that the higher a mother’s anxiety, the stronger the association between positive caregiving (i.e., maternal warmth and involvement) and amygdala–right posterior superior temporal sulcus (amygdala–RpSTS) functional connectivity. These results remained significant when we controlled for symptoms of depression and contextual variables. These findings suggest that functional connectivity between the amygdala and a social perception region (RpSTS) plays a particularly important role for anxious mothers in facilitating their positive parenting. These findings extend our understanding of the specific neural circuits that support positive maternal caregiving in the context of maternal anxiety, and they may help inform the future design of personalized and effective interventions.