Emotional,motivational and attitudinal consequences of autonomous prosocial behaviour

When do prosocial actors experience positive versus negative psychological outcomes from helping others? In four studies and an internal meta-analysis, we tested the hypothesis that autonomy shapes the psychological consequences of helping others. In Study 1, prosocial behaviour was associated with a robust pattern of negative well-being outcomes (i.e., depression, anxiety, stress) for individuals low but not high in autonomy. In Studies 2–4, relative to reflecting on a neutral interpersonal experience, reflecting on an autonomous helping experience increased sadness and happiness, strengthened intentions to help in the future and raised support for social welfare. By contrast, reflecting on a controlled helping experience increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions, but did not affect attitudes or behavioural intentions. Collectively, the findings indicate that autonomy (or lack thereof) shapes the emotional, motivational and attitudinal consequences of helping behaviour.     

Examining the help-seeking intentions of Chinese individuals in the United States

The underutilization of mental health services by Chinese individuals in the United States is concerning. In this study, we examined Chinese individuals’ help-seeking intentions utilizing the theory of planned behavior. Two hundred fifty-one participants were recruited for this study. The results revealed that help-seeking attitudes (β = 0.28, p < 0.001), perceived behavioral control (β = 0.21, p < 0.001), and subjective norms (β = 0.13, p < 0.001) were found to be significant predictors of help-seeking intentions. The implications of the results are discussed.     

中国古代生育心理思想研究

从生育动机、生育目的、生育意愿和新生人口心理素质的遗传等问题探讨了中国古代生育心理思想．揭示出古代社会居于主导地位的生育动机、生育目的和相互对立的生育意愿;分析了它们对今天人口控制的影响;概括并评价了古代关于新生人口的心理素质遗传性的理论。     

社会排斥类型对求助行为意愿的影响

从心理需求威胁的视角切入,探讨不同类型的社会排斥对求助行为意愿的影响及其作用机理。两个实验研究的结果表明,相较于被忽略,被拒绝会促使人们在后续困境中产生更高的求助行为意愿。该效应产生的心理机制在于被拒绝会威胁归属需求,被忽略会威胁控制需求,而求助行为本身能够满足人们的归属需求,但同时会降低控制感,因此归属需求和控制需求在社会排斥类型对求助行为意愿的影响中均起着显著的中介作用。     

Accueil des réfugiés en France : le point de vue des Français d’origine maghrébine et des Français « natifs »

Studies on attitudes towards refugees in France have only focused on “native” French people. Extending the study beyond the majority group is important, given the multicultural composition of contemporary Western societies. To this end, 144 “native” French and 109 Maghrebi-French were surveyed. We first tested the model whereby the link between national identification and prosocial intentions towards refugees is mediated by the threat perception, with the group of origin as a moderating variable. This model only applies to “native” French. We then took a closer look at the precursors of prosocial intentions among Maghrebi-French (national identity misrecognition , individualistic/collectivistic orientation). Identity misrecognition correlates positively with prosocial intentions. When controlling for other variables, collectivism is the factor that best predicts the expression of these intentions. Overall, our study showed that depending on the group of origin (“natives” vs. Maghrebi-French), we react differently to refugees. However, even if the feeling of identity misrecognition among Maghrebi-French seems to be associated with the expression of prosocial intentions, the extent of its negative consequences should not be overlooked.     

Commentary on the Future of Community Psychology: Perspective of a Research Community Psychologist

Community psychology is commented upon from the perspective of a community psychologist who was trained in the Community Psychology Program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her background and training are reviewed. A brief survey of research on homelessness as a frame for community psychology research is presented. Concluding remarks are provided on the future of research in community psychology.     

Taking a Stand: The Next 50 Years of Community Psychology

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of community psychology, the author looks backwards in community psychology literature and to each side in other allied disciplines to suggest three fundamental issues that are in need of critical reflection and re‐evaluation as we move toward the next 50 plus years of our field. These fundamental issues are: Defining community psychology, Doing community psychology, and Perfecting community psychology.     

Networks of prospective thoughts: The organisational role of emotion and its impact on well-being

Recent research has shown that many prospective thoughts are organised in networks of related events, but the relational dimensions that contribute to the formation of such networks are not fully understood. Here, we investigated the organisational role of emotion by using cues of different valence for eliciting event networks. We found that manipulating the emotional valence of cues influenced the characteristics of events within networks, and that members of a network were more similar to each other on affective components than they were to members of other networks. Furthermore, a substantial proportion of events within networks were part of thematic clusters and cluster membership significantly modulated the impact of represented events on current well-being, in part through an intensification of the emotion felt when thinking about these events. These findings demonstrate that emotion contributes to the organisation of future thoughts in networks that can affect people's well-being.     

Stay calm! Regulating emotional responses by implementation intentions: Assessing the impact on physiological and subjective arousal

Implementation intention (IMP) has recently been highlighted as an effective emotion regulatory strategy. Most studies examining the effectiveness of IMPs to regulate emotion have relied on self-report measures of emotional change. In two studies we employed electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate (HR) in addition to arousal ratings (AR) to assess the impact of an IMP on emotional responses. In Study 1, 60 participants viewed neutral and two types of negative pictures (weapon vs. non-weapon) under the IMP “If I see a weapon, then I will stay calm and relaxed!” or no self-regulatory instructions (Control). In Study 2, additionally to the Control and IMP conditions, participants completed the picture rating task either under goal intention (GI) to stay calm and relaxed or warning instructions highlighting that some pictures contain weapons. In both studies, participants showed lower EDA, reduced HR deceleration and lower AR to the weapon pictures compared to the non-weapon pictures. In Study 2, the IMP was associated with lower EDA compared to the GI condition for the weapon pictures, but not compared to the weapon pictures in the Warning condition. ARs were lower for IMP compared to GI and Warning conditions for the weapon pictures.     

Overgeneral past and future thinking in dysphoria: the role of emotional cues and cueing methodology

Overgeneral memory, where individuals exhibit difficulties in retrieving specific episodes from autobiographical memory, has been consistently linked with emotional disorders. However, the majority of this literature has relied upon a single methodology, in which participants respond to emotional cue words with explicit instructions to retrieve/simulate specific events. Through the use of sentence completion tasks the current studies explored whether overgenerality represents a habitual pattern of thinking that extends to how individuals naturally consider their personal past and future life story. In both studies, when compared with controls, dysphoric individuals evidenced overgeneral thinking style with respect to their personal past. However, overgeneral future thinking was only evident when the sentence stems included emotional words. These findings highlight the importance of investigating the overgenerality phenomenon using a variety of cueing techniques and results are discussed with reference to the previous literature exploring overgenerality and cognitive models of depression.