Examining awareness of privilege among midwestern college students: An analysis of race/ethnicity,gender, and religion

Dominant group members often are not aware of the privileges they benefit from due to their dominant group membership. Yet individuals are members of multiple groups and may simultaneously occupy multiple categories of dominance and marginality, raising the question of how different group memberships work in concert to facilitate or inhibit awareness of multiple forms of privilege. Examining awareness of privilege is important as awareness may be linked to action to dismantle systems of privilege that maintain oppression and inequality. Grounded in intersectional scholarship, in this study we examined how occupying intersecting categories of race/ethnicity, gender, and religion corresponded to an awareness of White, male, and Christian privilege. In a sample of 2321 Midwestern college students, we demonstrated that students from marginalized groups broadly reported greater awareness of all forms of privilege than students from dominant groups, and the difference between marginalized and dominant groups was most pronounced when the specific group category (e.g., gender) aligned with the type of privilege (e.g., male privilege). We also tested interactions among race/ethnicity, gender, and religion, only finding an interaction between race/ethnicity and religion for awareness of White and male privilege. These findings helped to clarify that multiple group memberships tended to contribute to awareness as multiple main effects rather than as multiplicative. Finally, we examined mean differences among the eight intersected groups to explore similarities and differences among groups in awareness of all types of privilege. Taken together, these findings quantitatively demonstrate the ways in which group memberships work together to contribute to awareness of multiple forms of privilege. We discuss study limitations and implications for community psychology research and practice.     

Envisioning motherhood: Mental-state language in caregiving narratives across the perinatal period

Nancy Suchman's work highlighted the fundamental role of maternal mentalization in maternal addiction, mental health, and caregiving challenges. In this study, we aimed to examine the role of mental-state language (MSL) as a measure of mentalization in prenatal and postnatal narratives and their sentiment in a sample of 91 primarily White mothers from the western United States, followed from the second trimester of pregnancy, through the third trimester, to 4 months postpartum. Specifically, we investigated the use of affective and cognitive MSL in prenatal narratives when mothers visualized caring for their baby and postnatal narratives when mothers compared their prenatal visualization to the current caregiving reality. Results indicated moderate consistency in MSL between the second and third trimesters, but prenatal and postnatal MSL was not significantly correlated. Across all time points, higher use of MSL was related to more positive sentiment, indicating an association between mentalization and positive caregiving representations across the perinatal period. Women used more affective than cognitive MSL in prenatal imagination of caregiving, but this pattern was reversed in their postpartum reflection. Implications on assessing parental mentalization prenatally and considering the relative dominance of affective and cognitive mentalizing are discussed while considering study limitations.     

RESCUE AND RECOVERY AS A THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE,AND A KEY TO MORALITY IN EXTRATERRESTRIAL SPECIES

New theological understanding can emerge with the advancement of scientific knowledge and the use of new concepts, or older concepts in new ways. Here, the authors present a proposal to extend the concept of “rescue and recovery” found in the United Nations Law of the High Seas, off-world and within a broader purview of other intelligent and self-aware species that humans may someday encounter. The notion of a morality that extends to off-world species is not new, but in this analysis, rescue and recovery become an imperative when any intelligent and self-aware species is in harm's way. Rescue and recovery encompass a necessary action component except perhaps in those cases where rescuers are in danger. The authors explore three biblical examples of rescue and recovery to derive a fundamental meaning of the concept.     

Correspondence between resident- and staff-report on the QABF: Do justice-involved youth agree with residential staff?

Residents in juvenile residential treatment facilities (JRTFs) often display various emotional, behavioral, and educational needs. Researchers have recently developed behavioral interventions to increase residents' appropriate behavior such as cooperation with facility staff instructions, accepting feedback from facility staff, and tolerating unpleasant events. However, there is not a generally accepted tool for assessing the operant function of residents' problem behavior in JRTFs. For various logistical reasons, indirect functional assessments may be more appropriate in a JRTF than manipulating either antecedent or consequent events. This study obtained scores on the Questions About Behavior Function (QABF) assessment for 17 residents from two dormitory staff members for each resident. To increase the number of respondents, each resident completed a QABF for their own behavior. Results revealed moderate to high correspondence (i.e., agreement) for highest and lowest potential operant function of problem behavior between combinations of JRTF staff and residents. These preliminary findings suggest additional research with the QABF in JRTFs is warranted.     

A systematic review of relationship sacrifices from 2002 to 2021: Moving toward inclusivity

We conducted a systematic review of research on relational sacrifices in romantic relationships from 2002 to 2021 [N = 115 studies] to answer three questions: Q1: Whose voices and vantage points are represented in the research?; Q2: What types of questions are valued?; Q3: What are the reflections and connections about relational sacrifices that were learned during the review? To address Q1, we coded sample demographics of study participants on geographical location, race/ethnicity, education/income/SES, gender (i.e., gender differences explored and beyond gender binaries), sexual orientation, age, and disability, using a coding system of 1 (exclusion/absence) to 5 (focus on context-relevant experiences for underrepresented samples). Results for Q1 showed that the most frequent codes were 1 (exclusion/absence) for information about the samples' disability status, education/income/SES, and both codes for gender (i.e., gender differences explored and beyond gender binaries); when demographic information was reported, the most frequent codes were 2 (compensatory addition) for age, sexual orientation, geographical location, and race/ethnicity. To address Q2, we coded for aspects of the study designs and conceptual dimensions of sacrifice. Results for Q2 showed that a majority of the studies in our review used quantitative and close-ended measures emphasizing behavioral frequency of sacrifice. For Q3, we include our own reflections and connections about relational sacrifices, questioning research methods, and challenging assumptions drawn from existing research to move toward a more inclusive science.     

Anticipation across modalities in children and adults: Relating anticipatory alpha rhythm lateralization,reaction time,and executive function

The development of the ability to anticipate—as manifested by preparatory actions and neural activation related to the expectation of an upcoming stimulus—may play a key role in the ontogeny of cognitive skills more broadly. This preregistered study examined anticipatory brain potentials and behavioral responses (reaction time; RT) to anticipated target stimuli in relation to individual differences in the ability to use goals to direct action (as indexed by measures of executive function; EF). A cross-sectional investigation was conducted in 40 adults (aged 18–25 years) and 40 children (aged 6–8 years) to examine the association of changes in the amplitude of modality-specific alpha-range rhythms in the electroencephalogram (EEG) during anticipation of lateralized visual, tactile, or auditory stimuli with inter- and intraindividual variation in RT and EF. Children and adults exhibited contralateral anticipatory reductions in the mu rhythm and the visual alpha rhythm for tactile and visual anticipation, respectively, indicating modality and spatially specific attention allocation. Variability in within-subject anticipatory alpha lateralization (the difference between contralateral and ipsilateral alpha power) was related to single-trial RT. This relation was more prominent in adults than in children, and was not apparent for auditory stimuli. Multilevel models indicated that interindividual differences in anticipatory mu rhythm lateralization contributed to the significant association with variability in EF, but this was not the case for visual or auditory alpha rhythms. Exploratory microstate analyses were undertaken to cluster global field power (GFP) into a distribution-free temporal analysis examining developmental differences across samples and in relation to RT and EF. Anticipation is suggested as a developmental bridge construct connecting neuroscience, behavior, and cognition, with anticipatory EEG oscillations being discussed as quantifiable and potentially malleable indicators of stimulus prediction.     

Social factors influence solo and rat dyads exploration of an unfamiliar open field

Animal Cognition - Exploring new and unfamiliar environments is critical for survival, providing information on food, shelter, mates, and sources of danger. The open field paradigm is commonly used...     

Mental health symptoms,well-being and experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic: A mixed-methods practice-based study

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated abrupt and substantial changes in daily life, and public health strategies intended to protect physical health can negatively affect mental health and well-being, especially for individuals with pre-existing mental health challenges. For this study, we surveyed a sample of clients (N = 94) in the summer of 2020 from a community mental health clinic in the northeast United States. A mixed-methods, concurrent triangulation design was used to (a) identify client subgroups on indicators of mental health (i.e. anxious and depressive symptoms) and emotional, psychological, and social well-being using latent profile analysis (LPA), and (b) within these subgroups, examine qualitative, thematic patterns in self-described challenges, benefits and learning related to the pandemic. The LPA revealed five distinct subgroups with various levels of symptoms and well-being, including Stagnant (moderate symptoms/moderate well-being), Languishing (high symptoms/low well-being), Flourishing (low symptoms, high well-being), Fortitudinous (high symptoms, moderate well-being) and Mobilized (moderate symptoms, high well-being). These divergent subgroups support the need to conceptualise mental health symptoms apart from well-being and assess for heterogeneous constellations of such constructs among psychotherapy clients. Thematic analysis offered additional insight into pandemic experiences within each subgroup, including attention to psychological, emotional, behavioural/lifestyle, relational, physical and ecological/contextual dimensions of self-experience, as well as the ways clients had adjusted to the pandemic's circumstances. Findings support nuanced conceptualisations of positive mental health and offer insight into coping and adaptation during this public health crisis.     

Susceptibility to prosocial and antisocial influence in adolescence following mindfulness training

Mindfulness training programmes have shown to encourage prosocial behaviours and reduce antisocial tendencies in adolescents. However, less is known about whether training affects susceptibility to prosocial and antisocial influence. The current study investigated the effect of mindfulness training (compared with an active control) on self-reported prosocial and antisocial tendencies and susceptibility to prosocial and antisocial influence. 465 adolescents aged 11–16 years were randomly allocated to one of two training programmes. Pre- and post-training, participants completed a social influence task. Self-reported likelihood of engaging in prosocial and antisocial behaviours did not change post-training, and regardless of training group, participants showed a higher propensity for prosocial influence than for antisocial influence. Finally, participants were less influenced by antisocial ratings following both training programmes.