Calming an aggressor through spontaneous post‐conflict triadic contacts: Appeasement in Macaca tonkeana

Peaceful third‐party interventions usually occur after an aggressive encounter and can be directed toward the victim or the aggressor. Macaca tonkeana, a cercopithecine species characterized by high levels of tolerance, frequently engage in consolatory contacts, which both calm the victim and reduce the probability of further attacks against him/her. Other post‐conflict affiliative interventions such as reconciliation and quadratic affiliation are also common in this species. However, little attention has been given to contacts directed toward the aggressor. Here, we explore the role of bystander affiliative interventions toward the aggressor in influencing the affective state of the aggressor and the consequences of triadic interventions at group level. We found that triadic post‐conflict affiliation occurred independently from the intensity of the conflict and that it was more frequent in absence of the conciliatory contact between the opponents (reconciliation). Bystanders showed a higher amount of post‐conflict affiliation toward low ranking aggressors. Post‐conflict triadic affiliation functioned as a tension reduction mechanism by lowering the arousal of the aggressor, which less frequently engaged in renewed aggression. All these findings suggest that post‐conflict triadic contacts in Tonkean macaques can be considered as a strategic mechanism to calm the aggressor and reduce the risk of retaliatory aggression.

     

Letting Go: Conceptualizing Intervention De‐implementation in Public Health and Social Service Settings

The discontinuation of interventions that should be stopped, or de‐implementation, has emerged as a novel line of inquiry within dissemination and implementation science. As this area grows in human services research, like public health and social work, theory is needed to help guide scientific endeavors. Given the infancy of de‐implementation, this conceptual narrative provides a definition and criteria for determining if an intervention should be de‐implemented. We identify three criteria for identifying interventions appropriate for de‐implementation: (a) interventions that are not effective or harmful, (b) interventions that are not the most effective or efficient to provide, and (c) interventions that are no longer necessary. Detailed, well‐documented examples illustrate each of the criteria. We describe de‐implementation frameworks, but also demonstrate how other existing implementation frameworks might be applied to de‐implementation research as a supplement. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of de‐implementation in the context of other stages of implementation, like sustainability and adoption; next steps for de‐implementation research, especially identifying interventions appropriate for de‐implementation in a systematic manner; and highlight special ethical considerations to advance the field of de‐implementation research.     

The Role of Maternal Acceptance in the Relation Between Community Violence Exposure and Child Functioning

Children in the United States are exposed to considerable community violence that has been linked to child functioning. However, not all those exposed, experience negative outcomes. Recent research has focused on factors that “buffer” or protect children from negative consequences of violence exposure. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the potential buffering or moderating role of maternal acceptance in the relationship between community violence exposure and internalizing and externalizing problems. Subjects were 268 urban African American first graders. Community violence exposure was significantly related to symptoms of post-traumatic stress, but did not correlate with either internalizing or externalizing problems for all children, after control for demographics, maternal mental health, and general life stress. However, children's perceptions of maternal acceptance moderated the relationship between violence exposure and internalizing and externalizing problems which included being withdrawn, anxious-depressed, and demonstrating delinquent behavior. Children with the lowest levels of self-reported maternal acceptance were most impacted by community violence. In this sample of urban first graders, low levels of maternal acceptance placed children at greater risk for adverse outcomes associated with community violence exposure compared to moderate and high levels of maternal acceptance.     

Assigning Grammatical Gender During Word Production

The present study was designed to examine the processes by which grammatical gender is assigned during word production. French words varied in strength of sublexical cues, based on whether the word ending was typical for one gender rather than neutral about gender, and lexical cues, derived from the associated definite article being uninformative about gender for words beginning with a vowel, but informative for words beginning with a consonant. In Experiment 1, when native French speakers classified the gender of mentally evoked names of pictures, no effects of these cues were obtained. Experiment 2 used an improved methodology, with participants classifying the gender of words translated from English. English-speaking learners of French were influenced strongly by lexical and sublexical cues, while French speakers showed a weaker influence. However, for both speaker groups, words whose gender was classified slowly during recognition were also classified slowly during production, and error rates were similarly correlated across tasks. The conclusion was that gender is not equally available for all words once the associated “lemma” is accessed. Current models of language production may have to incorporate mechanisms allowing differential speed of access to gender information depending on a word’s formal properties.     

Toward a critical relational theory of gender

This article analyzes and critiques the construct of gender as a psychoanalytic and cultural category. Without succumbing to a nonpsychoanalytic notion of androgyny, the argument developed here challenges the assumption that an internally consistent gender identity is possible or even desirable. Beginning with the idea that, from an analytic perspective, the construct of “identity”; is problematic and implausible, because it denotes and privileges a unified psychic world, the author develops a deconstructionist critique of our dominant gender‐identity paradigm. It is argued that gender coherence, consistency, conformity, and identity are culturally mandated normative ideals that psychoanalysis has absorbed uncritically. These ideals, moreover, are said to create a universal pathogenic situation, insofar as the attempt to conform to their dictates requires the activation of a false‐self system.

An alternative, “decentered”; gender paradigm is then proposed, which conceives of gender as a “necessary fiction”; that is used for magical ends in the psyche, the family, and the culture. From this perspective, gender identity is seen as a problem as well as a solution, a defensive inhibition as well as an accomplishment. It is suggested that as a goal for analytic treatment, the ability to tolerate the ambiguity and instability of gender categories is more appropriate than the goal of “achieving”; a single, pure, sex‐appropriate view of oneself.     

Attachment Security,Personality, and Adjustment of Elementary School Children

Children's development is assumed to be closely related to their attachment security and their personality. The authors’ aim was to examine the joint contribution of attachment security and personality traits to children's adjustment by examining diverse children's outcomes (emotional symptoms, social functioning, and behavioral problems) and using various perspectives (children, parents, and teachers). The sample comprised 247 8–12-year-old children from low socioeconomic status neighborhoods. Personality and attachment contribute to the different domains of adjustment. In cases of moderation, attachment security moderates the implications of personality traits on children's adjustment. The findings highlight the contribution of positive personality tendencies in playing down the difficulties of insecurely attached children.     

Hailing Zenobia: Anti‐Judaism,trinitarianism, and John Henry Newman

John Henry Newman's early nineteenth‐century monograph The Arians of the Fourth Century iterates and intensifies the anti‐Jewish rhetoric already conveyed by the Nicene trinitarian theology inaugurated by Athanasius of Alexandria in the fourth century. Invoking philosopher Judith Butler's analysis of the performative power of ‘hate speech’ not only to injure, but also to interpellate subjects who may be heard to ‘talk back’, the present article seeks to surface the subversive potentialities contained not only within Newman's text (read in its immediate historical context), but also within trinitarian discourse more generally. Zenobia, third‐century ruler of Palmyra, reviled by Newman as both a ‘Judaizer’ and an ancestor of ‘Arianism’ (i.e. anti‐trinitarian theology), serves in this article (as in Newman's text) as the privileged figure for an interpellated subject, at once ‘Jewish’ and ‘feminine’ (thus seductively ‘oriental'), that may be heard to give voice to the ‘insurrectionary’ counter‐speech harbored within the very discourse of Christian orthodoxy that seeks to suppress it.