The Citizenship Project Part II: Impact of a Citizenship Intervention on Clinical and Community Outcomes for Persons with Mental Illness and Criminal Justice Involvement

This study assessed the effectiveness of an intervention based on a theoretical framework of citizenship on reducing psychiatric symptoms, alcohol use, and drug use, and increasing quality of life for persons with serious mental illness (SMI) and criminal justice involvement. One-hundred fourteen adults with SMI and a history of criminal justice involvement participated in a 2 × 3 longitudinal randomized controlled trial of a four-month citizenship intervention versus usual services. Linear mixed model analyses were used to assess the intervention’s impact on quality of life, symptoms, and substance use. After controlling for baseline covariates, participants in the experimental condition reported significantly increased quality of life, greater satisfaction with and amount of activity, higher satisfaction with work, and reduced alcohol and drug use over time. However, individuals in the experimental condition also reported increased anxiety/depression and agitation at 6 months (but not 12 months) and significantly increased negative symptoms at 12 months. Findings suggest that community-oriented, citizenship interventions for persons with SMI and criminal justice histories may facilitate improved clinical and community outcomes in some domains, but some negative clinical findings suggest the need for post-intervention support for intervention participants. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Social identity and prosocial and antisocial behavior in youth sport

ObjectivesTo examine (a) the effects of social identity on prosocial and antisocial behavior toward teammates and opponents, and (b) whether any effects of social identity on prosocial and antisocial behavior were mediated by cohesion.DesignProspective, observational.MethodsMale and female youth–sport participants (N = 329; M_age = 15.88 years) completed questionnaires at the beginning, middle and end of the season assessing three dimensions of social identity (cognitive centrality, ingroup ties, ingroup affect), cohesion (task, social) and prosocial and antisocial behavior toward teammates and opponents.ResultsWith the exception of cognitive centrality (which was therefore not analyzed further), all measures of study variables proved reliable. Structural equation modeling indicated the following: Ingroup affect had a positive effect on prosocial teammate behavior, Task cohesion mediated a positive effect of ingroup ties on prosocial teammate behavior and a negative effect of ingroup ties and ingroup affect on antisocial behavior toward teammates and opponents. Social cohesion mediated a positive effect of ingroup ties on antisocial behavior toward teammates and opponents. Prosocial opponent behavior was not predicted by any dimension of social identity.ConclusionThe findings highlight that social identity may play a salient role in regulating prosocial and antisocial behavior in youth sport, and changes in cohesion may partially explain these effects.     

内群偏私：自我锚定还是社会认同？

以往关于内群偏私的研究大多采用社会认同理论（social identityt heory）做解释。近期,自我锚定（self-anchoring principle）原理被证实可用于解释内群偏私的原因。基于中国人及美国人在内群偏私的目的、方法上的不同,我们采用最小群体范式,验证这两种理论在中国大学生上的适用性。410名大学生（其中前测94名）在互联网上完成以认知能力评估为名的实验,实验控制反馈类型,要求参与者对自身、内群及外群在不同维度上评分。实验证明内群偏私存在;分化理论成立;采用演绎策略时,个体评价与内群评价的差异显著小于个体采用归纳策略时两者的差异,符合社会认同理论的假设。     

Emphasizing appearance versus health outcomes in exercise: The influence of the instructor and participants’ reasons for exercise

The objectifying nature of exercise environments may prevent women from reaping psychological benefits of exercise. The present experiment manipulated self-objectification through an exercise class taught by an instructor who emphasized exercise as either a means of acquiring appearance or health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to test for interactions between the class emphasis and participants’ reasons for exercise (i.e., appearance, health) predicting participants’ state self-objectification, state social physique anxiety, exercise class enjoyment, and future intentions of returning to a similar exercise class. Results, obtained via pre- and post-exercise questionnaires, revealed a significant interaction between class emphasis and health reasons for exercise predicting state self-objectification. Participants with lower health reasons for exercise reported greater state self-objectification in the appearance-focused class compared to those with higher health reasons for exercise. Adopting stronger health reasons for exercise may buffer exercise participants from the more objectifying aspects of the group exercise environment.     

A social host in the machine? The case of group attention

I argue that akin to mind-body dualism, social-mental dualism is open to critique. That is, mental processes can be inherently social, with sociality ‘baked into’ the architecture of the cognitive mechanism. As a case in point, I introduce the reader to the cognitive mechanism of group attention. In particular, I focus on the differences between group attention and ideomotor imitation in terms of their (a) compliance to the social-mental dichotomy, and (b) contributions to building common knowledge—a prerequisite for human communication and collective action. Finally, I suggest possible implications of group attention scholarship for other social memory phenomena such as social contagion, socially shared memory-induced forgetting, and the saying-is-believing effect.     

Jung's views on causes and treatments of schizophrenia in light of current trends in cognitive neuroscience and psychotherapy research II: Psychological research and treatment

Jung was the first to emphasize the importance of psychological factors in the aetiology and treatment of schizophrenia. Despite this, and other seminal contributions, his work on schizophrenia is almost completely ignored or forgotten today. This paper, a follow‐up to one on Jung's theories of aetiology and symptom formation in schizophrenia (Journal of Analytical Psychology, 59, 1) reviews Jung's views on psychological approaches to research on, and treatment of, the disorder. Five themes are covered: 1) experimental psychopathology; 2) attentional disturbance; 3) psychological treatment; 4) the relationship between the environment (including the psychiatric hospital) and symptom expression; and 5) heterogeneity and the schizophrenia spectrum. Review of these areas reveal that Jung's ideas about the kind of research that can elucidate psychological mechanisms in schizophrenia, and the importance of psychotherapy for people with this condition, are very much in line with contemporary paradigms. Moreover, further exploration of several points of convergence could lead to advances in both of these fields, as well as within analytical psychology.     

Validación argentina de la Escala de Orientación a la Dominancia Social

The Social Dominance Theory explains individuals’ desire to establish and maintain social hierarchies by subordination of certain groups upon others. The Social Dominance Orientation Scale was constructed so as to evaluate individual differences in this construct. Originally, the first version of the scales had a unidimensional structure; however, subsequent research studies have reported the existence of a two-factor structure: Opposition to Equality and Dominance group. The main objective of this paper is that of adapting and validating the Social Dominance Orientation Scale, in order to analyze its dimensionality and thus verifydifferences in accordance with the gender of participants. To this end, we collected a non-probabilistic sample of college students from Buenos Aires (N = 1201), with different gender and age. According to the results, the two correlated factor model fit to databetter than the unidimensional approach did, and presents adequate levels of reliability (.74 < α < .85). Besides, we provide of convergent validity with right-wing authoritarianism and with the gender of participants.     

Les dispositifs groupaux à l’hôpital et en EHPAD durant la crise de la Covid-19. Quelles demandes,quelles offres,quels apports ?

IntroductionThe COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated the demand for group arrangements dedicated to healthcare professionals and more widely hospital and medicosocial staff.ObjectiveThis article attempts to shed light on the issues at stake in the opening of group settings, between supply and demand, as well as their main organizational and psychological contributions and limitations, through the synthesis of multiple feedbacks from group arrangements carried out by clinical psychologists and researchers during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodSix female researcher-clinicians met to discuss their experiences in setting up group care facilities. The analysis of the feedback used the concepts of work psychodynamics and group psychoanalysis, making it possible to bring out the organizational and psychological characteristics of group arrangements dedicated to professionals in the healthcare sector.ResultsOur results show that the group arrangement, by allowing the sharing of experiences, helps the mutual recognition between professionals, and thus new identifications in order to avoid the fragmentation of work collectives. The most central point seems to be the capacity of group arrangements to deal with the aggressiveness and anger felt when facing the powerlessness to act in crisis situations. The limits of these groups concern their difficulty in allowing individual rather than collective words to be expressed, and the risk of being the site of a repetition of the trauma for the professionals who sometimes attack or flee from these mechanisms, for fear of what they might bring back to the surface.ConclusionSeveral points of vigilance and recommendations from the experiences reported in this article are explained, in order to enlighten and guide future group facilitators when offering group arrangements built with and for professionals in the healthcare field.     

Exploring the acceptance of connected and automated vehicles: Focus group discussions with experts and non-experts in transport

The successful deployment of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) will largely depend on public opinion. Expectations and concerns are essential components driving the speed of market uptake and final adoption of these technologies. We have studied user expectations and concerns, as well as their provenance, by conducting a series of Focus Group (FG) discussions with transport area experts and non-expert participants, in Italy, Germany, and Spain. Together with user acceptance, potential advantages and disadvantages that CAVs may bring at a societal level were explored. Results show that benefits like increased safety and accessibility and improved travel experience for both driver and passengers could support CAVs’ deployment. Nevertheless, a variety of concerns were raised during the discussions, related to privacy, responsibility in case of an accident, and increase in maintenance and repair costs. These aspects could significantly hamper or delay CAVs acceptability and need to be carefully considered by stakeholders. The reported insights from the FG discussions and the fact that some participants noted positive changes of their initial idea of CAVs due to their participation in the discussion, exemplify the importance of citizen engagement activities to address mobility challenges.