A survey on adverse incidents in legal psychology studies: Reflections on ethics review

Ethics committees (ECs) regulate research activities to maintain research participants' autonomy and to protect them from harm and injury. No research to date attempted to establish how much risk is involved in social‐science research. Using a survey approach, we set out to estimate the risk of being involved in an incident for research participants in legal psychology and assessed researchers' views of ECs. Fifty‐nine of 188 respondents (31%) stated that they had experienced one or more incidents with a participant. The estimated risk of being involved in an incident was one to three per 10,000 participants, which according to biomedical standards defines a rare risk. Although some researchers were satisfied with their EC, the general tenor was one of discontent due to conservative decision‐making, lacking expertise, and overstepping demands. Whether ECs succeed in protecting participants from loss of autonomy, harm and injury are unknown but are open to empirical research.     

Peaceful waters: Community action in sustainable scarce resource management in a rural Zimbabwean setting

I explored community collation approaches to sustainable water management by a rural Zimbabwean community for social justice and equity with inclusivity. Informants were a convenience sample of 27 community dwellers; including villagers (n = 20), community leaders (n = 2), and policy makers (n = 5). They responded to semi-structured interviews regarding their engagement in community action for sustainable water resource management. Thematic analysis of the data yielded themes to suggest diversity in stakeholder interest, the importance of collective community participation, and attending to group cohesion processes. Regular community dwellers appeared to value local oversight and control of the water resource management; while policy makers were more invested in water resource management institution building than the mundane water resource management issues. Sustainable water resource management in rural settings is likely with identifying and bridging any gaps between local user interests and institutional policy interests.     

Deliberative Discourse Idealized and Realized: Accountable Talk in the Classroom and in Civic Life

Classroom discussion practices that can lead to reasoned participation by all students are presented and described by the authors. Their research emphasizes the careful orchestration of talk and tasks in academic learning. Parallels are drawn to the philosophical work on deliberative discourse and the fundamental goal of equipping all students to participate in academically productive talk. These practices, termed Accountable Talk^SM, emphasize the forms and norms of discourse that support and promote equity and access to rigorous academic learning. They have been shown to result in academic achievement for diverse populations of students. The authors outline Accountable Talk as encompassing three broad dimensions: one, accountability to the learning community, in which participants listen to and build their contributions in response to those of others; two, accountability to accepted standards of reasoning, talk that emphasizes logical connections and the drawing of reasonable conclusions; and, three, accountability to knowledge, talk that is based explicitly on facts, written texts, or other public information. With more than fifteen years research into Accountable Talk applications across a wide range of classrooms and grade levels, the authors detail the challenges and limitations of contexts in which discourse norms are not shared by all members of the classroom community.

The Effect of Interpersonal Trust And Participativeness on Union Member Commitment

Unionized employees have their commitment courted by both their employer and union. They can form a commitment to both, or only one, or neither. It is difficult to predict which commitment might form. It is hypothesized that interpersonal trust and participation attitudes will explain the levels of union commitment formed by union officials. Multiple regression equations and a structural equation model were used to test these hypotheses. Interpersonal trust had a positive yet non-significant effect on union commitment. Participation attitudes had a significant, negative effect on union commitment, opposite that of the hypothesized relationship. The hypotheses are only partially supported.     

Threat as a Motivator of Political Activism: A Field Experiment

The research reported here examined the effects of two potential motivators of political activism—policy change threat and policy change opportunity—in a field experiment. Different versions of a letter were sent by a political lobbying organization to potential contributors. One version highlighted threats of undesirable policy changes, another version highlighted opportunities for desirable policy changes, and the third version did neither. Policy change threat increased the number of financial contributions made to the interest group, but policy change opportunity did not. Policy change opportunity increased the number of signed postcards returned to be sent to President Clinton, but policy change threat did not. These findings highlight the impact of interest group recruitment strategies on citizen responsiveness and demonstrate the need to account for sources of motivation in order to more fully understand when, why, and how citizens choose to become politically active.     

Do developmental differences in mental toughness exist between specialized and invested Australian footballers?

Using a cross-sectional design, the primary purpose of the present study was to examine developmental differences in mental toughness between specialized and invested Australian footballers. A secondary purpose was to examine the psychometric properties of the Australian football Mental Toughness Inventory (AfMTI; Gucciardi, Gordon, & Dimmock, 2009a) with a sample of youth footballers. Participants were 350 footballers aged between 13 and 18 (M = 15.88; SD = 1.71); 144 (M_age = 14.06; SD = .89) and 206 (M_age = 17.02; SD = 1.06) footballers from the specialized and investment developmental stages, respectively. A confirmatory factor analysis of the AfMTI using AMOS did not reveal support for its psychometric structure; however, a revised version received support. A MANOVA revealed the presence of a significant difference between the two developmental groups, and follow-up ANOVA’s indicated that the desire success and sport awareness subscales contributed to multivariate effect. It appears that developmental differences should be considered in future theorizing on the development of mental toughness.     

小学生课堂参与的类型研究

综合运用课堂观察、访谈和问卷调查法,本研究以263名小学1～6年级学生为被试,考察了小学生课堂参与的类型及其发展特点。结果表明:1)根据学生课堂参与的性质、参与的程度可以将小学生划分为三类,即消极参与型、主动参与型和被动参与型;2)从总体分布上看,小学生课堂参与的类型是比较多样化的,相比较而言,被动参与型的人数最多,主动参与型次之,消极参与型最少;3)在学习成绩和自我概念方面,主动参与型学生的发展要优于被动参与型和消极参与型学生。     

Marcel's Testimony in Existential Psychotherapy with Couples and Families

In recent years a number of family therapists and teachers of family therapy have questioned the direction of the family therapy movement into relationship-distant and procedurally based treatment orientations. The purpose of this article is to outline Gabriel Marcel's concept of testimony and to show how this concept can be utilized to facilitate an increased emphasis upon the treatment relationship during marital and family psychotherapy.     

Miscarriage,Religious Participation,and Mental Health

Approximately 15–20 percent of pregnancies result in miscarriage, yet pregnancy loss remains a socially taboo topic and one that has received limited attention in the literature. Utilizing nationally representative longitudinal data from the NLSY97, this study examines the influence of miscarriage on mental health and whether this relationship is moderated by religious participation. Results from this study suggest that miscarriage is associated with lower mental health among women who also experience a live birth. Results also suggest that religious participation moderates the relationship between miscarriage and mental health; religion is more likely to lead to increases in mental health among women who experience a miscarriage than among women who do not experience a miscarriage. Overall, evidence suggests that religion may be an important coping mechanism for women who deal with pregnancy loss.