Predicting Immigrants' Attitudes Toward Multiculturalism Using a Measure of Its Perceived Benefits

We examined the predictors of attitudes toward multiculturalism in a sample of Asian and African immigrants. Multiculturalism was measured in terms of its perceived benefits as realized through Canadian government policy. As well as replicating past findings, two hypotheses derived from social identity theory are supported: Canadian identity and acculturation into Canadian society were significant predictors of attitudes toward multiculturalism. Counter to previous research findings, perceived discrimination was a negative predictor of these attitudes. The distinction between predicting support for attitudes toward multiculturalism measured as an ideology versus attitudes toward multiculturalism measured in terms of its perceived benefits is discussed.     

Letter to the editor

Sandor Ferenczi: Reconsidering Active Interventions by Martin Stanton (Northvale, NJ: Aronson, 1991, xv + 226 pp.)

The Legacy of Sandor Ferenczi, edited by Lewis Aron and Adrienne Harris (Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press, 1993, xxiii + 294 pp.)

The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sandor Ferenczi, Vol. 1, 1908–1914, edited by Eva Brabant, Ernst Falzeder, and Patrizia Giampieri‐Deutch under the supervision of André Haynal; translated by Peter T. Hoffer (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1993, xxxv + 584 pp.)     

Film review

Lucy, 21 months, in foster care for 19 days(Film series and guide-book, Young Children in Brief Separation obtainable from Concord Films Council, Nacton, Ipswich, Suffolk, U.K.).     

Psychoimmunology and aids: Psychological distress and herpes simplex virus in human immunodeficiency virus infected individuals

Abstract

No studies investigating the relationship of herpesviruses and psychological distress in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection are available in the literature. Antibody titers for Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Barr (EBV) and Herpes Simplex virus (HSV) were assessed from sera drawn at the lime of psychological testing for one hundred HIV seropositive subjects. Increased psychological distress was correlated with increased titers of antibody to HSV, but not to CMV or EBV. Psychological distress may play a role in the devastating HSV infections experienced by immune deficient individuals. A stress mediated reactivation/potentiation hypothesis is discussed, where distress reactivates latent HSV which in turn potentiates HIV replication. These results may have implications for treatment of individuals co-infected with HIV and HSV.     

Income and support during transition from a military to civilian career

This study examined experienced military members (N= 136, average age 51 years) transitioning to a 2nd occupation, specifically K–12 teaching, and revealed correlations between the length of their transition to both perceived support and income. Perceived support from family and friends had a small, positive correlation with transition time (r= .31), while income had a small, negative correlation with transition time (r=?.28). The Career Transitions Inventory ( Heppner, 1991 ), the Satisfaction with Life Scale ( Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985 ), demographic questions, and open‐ended questions were used. Implications for career counselors working with transitioning military members are discussed, along with future implications for research and practice.     

Seven Paths of the Hero in Lord of the Rings: The Path of Tragic Failure

Gollum's path might be seen as the modern equivalent of the Greek tragic hero: Though fated to fail personally, he yet serves greater needs. Driven by greed and avarice, Gollum loses his identity and is reduced to little more than desire for his “Precious” ring. Yet, even in failure, even while committing evil, Gollum plays an indispensable part in the Quest. Subdued, almost won over by Frodo's kindness, he leads Frodo and Sam to Mount Doom. There, in Frodo's moment of weakness, it is necessary for Gollum to bite off Frodo's finger in order for Frodo's destiny to be fulfilled. We each have a Gollum within us: Who has never experienced greed and avarice? We each have to treat the Gollum inside with the same kindness displayed by Frodo, the same firmness displayed by Sam.     

Using Message Framing to Promote Social Support in Depression: When Misery Makes Better Company

A depressed person may have particular difficulty obtaining social support unless, as previous research indicates, members of the person’s support network believe that their interactions with the depressed person will be rewarding. Continuing this line of research, two studies investigated how message framing influences perceptions of providing social support to someone diagnosed with depression. In Study 1, participants first evaluated a website created by the research team, which emphasized either the rewards of volunteering to help individuals suffering from depression (gain-framed) or the drawbacks of not volunteering (loss-framed). One week later, participants read a vignette about a friend suffering from depression. Participants initially exposed to the gain-framed website indicated that the friend was in greater need of help, and they expressed stronger intentions to help and maintain supportive contact with the friend. The first phase of Study 2 was identical to the first phase of Study 1. However, a week after evaluating the framed website, participants interacted via instant messaging with a confederate posing as a prospective undergraduate student, who disclosed during the conversation that she had been diagnosed with depression. Participants initially exposed to the gain-framed website indicated greater comfort interacting with the prospective student and greater willingness to engage in follow-up interactions with the student (e.g., exchange emails, talk on the phone) compared to participants initially exposed to the loss-framed website. The implications of these findings for increasing the provision of social support to individuals with depression are discussed.     

Group-based interpersonal psychotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder: theoretical and clinical aspects

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition that engenders both symptomatic distress and severe disruption in interpersonal and social functioning. Most of the empirical research on treatment has emphasized interventions that aim to alleviate the symptoms of PTSD, despite the persisting impairments in social, occupational, and interpersonal functioning. In clinical practice, achieving relief from symptoms such as irritability or phobic avoidance is a worthwhile goal, yet significant distress and disability derived from disruptions to interpersonal attachments, social networks, and confiding intimate relationships persist. Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) has been shown to be efficacious in research settings for depression and eating disorders, in both group and individual formats. Recent pilot data also suggests the potential usefulness of IPT in anxiety disorders. The aim of this paper is to provide a rationale for the use of group-based IPT as an intervention for PTSD as part of a management package, arguing from theoretical and clinical viewpoints. The integration of IPT therapeutic processes with the therapeutic group process is discussed, and a detailed case discussion is presented as an illustration.     

Item-specific processing reduces false memories

We examined the effect of item-specific and relational encoding instructions on false recognition in two experiments in which the DRM paradigm was used (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Type of encoding (item-specific or relational) was manipulated between subjects in Experiment 1 and within subjects in Experiment 2. Decision-based explanations (e.g., the distinctiveness heuristic) predict reductions in false recognition in between-subjects designs, but not in within-subjects designs, because they are conceptualized as global shifts in decision criteria. Memory-based explanations predict reductions in false recognition in both designs, resulting from enhanced recollection of item-specific details. False recognition was reduced following item-specific encoding instructions in both experiments, favoring a memory-based explanation. These results suggest that providing unique cues for the retrieval of individual studied items results in enhanced discrimination between those studied items and critical lures. Conversely, enhancing the similarity of studied items results in poor discrimination among items within a particular list theme. These results are discussed in terms of the item-specific/ relational framework (Hunt & McDaniel, 1993).     

The dynamics of infant visual foraging

Human infants actively forage for visual information from the moment of birth onward. Although we know a great deal about how stimulus characteristics influence looking behavior in the first few postnatal weeks, we know much less about the intrinsic dynamics of the behavior. Here we show that a simple stochastic dynamical system acts quantitatively like 4-week-old infants on a range of measures if there is hysteresis in the transitions between looking and looking away in the model system. The success of this simple three-parameter model suggests that visual foraging in the first few weeks after birth may be influenced more by noise and hysteresis in underlying neural mechanisms than by how infants process visual information after a look begins.