Researching self-help/mutual aid groups and organizations: Many roads, one journey

Self-help and mutual help groups are defined and the status of the literature described and reviewed. Self-help groups are different from peer and nonprofessional services under the supervision of professionals. Controlled studies of mutual help groups may be neither possible nor desirable as the method of choice by which to understand the phenomena of interest. Other approaches to research, including worldly evaluations, and ways of construing self-help organizations, that is, as normative communities and political action organizations rather than as psychological treatments, are discussed, and suggestions for future research are presented.     

Anticipating Alternative National and Regional Futures in Energy Efficiency

Thirty-five stakeholder representatives and six observers from thirty organizations, interested in anticipating the adoption of energy efficiency for the Pacific Northwest, identified and described one hundred and seventy-eight national and regional trends extending to the year 2015 impacting energy efficiency, and proposed more than ninety actions for addressing these trends at the regional level. The representatives were engaged in a collaborative action planning workshop that was facilitated with the CogniScope methodology founded in the systems sciences. Convergence was achieved on eight highly influential actions as the highest priority.     

Relationality in Kohut's psychology of the self

In this essay, I will posit that Kohut's psychology of the self portrays relationality and that its relationality can be categorized into the explicit aspects. I will also put forth the six aspects of relationality contained in Kohut's psychology of the self as relational, dynamic, wholistic, unilateral, mutual, and doxological and they can be summarized as following: (1) Relational: Narcissism is not self-love but is a particular kind of object relationship; (2) Dynamic: The most central self is dynamic or agentic and not defined in substantival attributes; (3) Wholistic: The whole of the self is important; (4) Unilateral: In order for one's self to develop, one is in need of and at the receptive end of another's empathy; (5) Mutual: Others’ empathy is needed in maintaining the health of the developed selves; and (6) Doxological: Joy and thanksgiving are natural expression of developed selves.     

Strategic Thinking on Advancing Socialism with Chinese Characteristics on All Fronts in the New Era—Studying the Spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China

The Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is an action plan for the CPC to rally and lead the people to uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics on the new journey of the new era. It gives a rational answer to the philosophical question of “Where is socialism with Chinese characteristics headed on the new journey of the new era” that underlies in the development course of this country, and contains strategic thinking that is forward-looking, big-picture, and pioneering. From a strategic perspective, the Report to the 20th National Congress points out a scientific path for China’s future development, clarifies phased tasks, and defines specific strategic choices, reflecting the forwardlooking strategic vision of planning the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Based on the viewpoint of holistic, developing, and universal connection, it aims to achieve the unity between local and overall interests in strategic deployment, the unity between the present and the future in strategic objectives, and the unity between domestic and international development in strategic vision. It highlights the principles of scientific socialism as upholding the guidance of Marxism, the overall leadership of the CPC, and the people’s decisive role in history, pioneering a new frontier in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times.     

Effects of school-based interventions on motivation towards physical activity in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis

IntroductionAssuming that motivation is the key to initiate and sustain beneficial health behaviors, the aim of this systematic review was to analyze the effects of school-based physical activity interventions on a variety of motivational outcomes towards PA in school-aged children and adolescents.MethodsA comprehensive literature search was carried out in six electronic databases to identify randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental trials examining the effects of PA interventions implemented during the regular school day, e.g., during physical education lessons or lunch breaks. Primary outcomes of interest were students' motivation, basic psychological needs, goal orientation, enjoyment, and motivational teaching climate in physical education. Meta-analyses were conducted for these outcomes using Comprehensive Meta-analysis software. Secondarily, intervention effects on students' PA behaviors were examined and the findings summarized narratively. Methodological quality of studies was evaluated using the Cochrane Collaboration's tool for assessing risk of bias for randomized trials; certainty of evidence on outcome level was evaluated using the GRADE approach.ResultsIn total, 57 studies carried out between 2001 and 2018 were included in this review. Sixteen individual meta-analyses were performed and revealed significant pooled effects for the outcomes enjoyment (g = 0.310), perceived autonomy (g = 0.152), identified regulation (g = 0.378), intrinsic motivation (g = 0.419), self-determination index (g = 0.672), task/mastery climate (g = 0.254), ego/performance climate (g = −0.438), autonomy supportive climate (g = 0.262), task goal orientation (g = 1.370), ego goal orientation (g = −0.188). The narrative data synthesis indicated an increase in students' PA behavior. The overall risk of bias was high across all studies and certainty of evidence of meta-analyzed outcomes ranged from very low to moderate. Moderate certainty of evidence was found for ego/performance climate and ego goal orientation. Conclusions: Meta-analyses suggest that school-based PA interventions may be effective in increasing a variety of motivational outcomes. However, the certainty of evidence was limited in the majority of outcomes. Further research is needed to identify effective intervention strategies that increase students’ motivation towards PA.     

Who among European youth are active citizens at the EU level and why?

Abstract

The current generation of European youth is coming of age in the European Union. Compared to the generation of their parents and grandparents, this generation has been afforded new opportunities of travel and employment that transcends the borders of nations. How is this new reality experienced by youth from different European nations and from different social classes? Do younger generations feel more of a connection to their European identity, to their national identity, or to both? Such questions are addressed in the papers of this special issue, which draw data from the EU Horizon 2020 Constructing Active Citizenship with European Youth (CATCH-EyoU) project. Together these studies suggest that to address these questions we need to decompose who the youth are and what the historical context of their experience is. For example, youth from higher socio-economic status families living in post-communist or low wealth nations differ in their loyalties and commitment to the EU, compared to their counterparts. The papers in this special issue reveal important insights as well as gaps in the scholarship concerning youth active citizenship at the European level.     

Mutual exclusivity in autism spectrum disorders: testing the pragmatic hypothesis

While there is ample evidence that children treat words as mutually exclusive, the cognitive basis of this bias is widely debated. We focus on the distinction between pragmatic and lexical constraints accounts. High-functioning children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) offer a unique perspective on this debate, as they acquire substantial vocabularies despite impoverished social-pragmatic skills. We tested children and adolescents with ASD in a paradigm examining mutual exclusivity for words and facts. Words were interpreted contrastively more often than facts. Word performance was associated with vocabulary size; fact performance was associated with social-communication skills. Thus mutual exclusivity does not appear to be driven by pragmatics, suggesting that it is either a lexical constraint or a reflection of domain-general learning processes.     

Mother–infant mutual eye gaze supports emotion regulation in infancy during the Still-Face paradigm

This study was designed to examine the sequential relationship between mother–infant synchrony and infant affect using multilevel modeling during the Still Face paradigm. We also examined self-regulatory behaviors that infants use during the Still-Face paradigm to modulate their affect, particularly during stressors where their mothers are not available to help them co-regulate. There were 84 mother–infant dyads, of healthy full term 4 month old infants. Second-by-second coding of infant self-regulation and infant affect was done, in addition to mother–infant mutual eye gaze. Using multilevel modeling, we found that infant affect became more positive when mutual gaze had occurred the previous second, suggesting that the experience of synchronicity was associated with observable shifts in affect. We also found a positive association between self-regulatory behaviors and increases in positive affect only during the Still-Face episode (episode 2). Our study provides support for the role of mother–infant synchronicity in emotion regulation as well as support for the role of self-regulatory behaviors in emotion regulation that can have important implication for intervention.     

The presence of the past: Identity continuity and group dynamics

Social psychologists are increasingly interested in the temporal dimensions of social life and in identity continuity in particular. Focusing on ethnicity and national identity we discuss the implications of perceived group continuity and collective self-continuity, and their interplay, for group dynamics. Using the social identity perspective and theories of identity motivation, we show, first, that the need for collective self-continuity forms a unique motivational basis for group identification. Second, we demonstrate that people are more likely to derive a sense of collective self-continuity from groups that are seen as relatively stable and immutable over time (i.e., essentialist in-groups). Third, we find that existential threats to group identity strengthen a sense of collective self-continuity, which, in turn, increases in-group defence mechanisms in the form of negative attitudes towards immigrant out-groups and towards social developments that potentially undermine in-group continuity. Fourth, we discuss empirical findings that indicate that group-based nostalgia for the nation is an identity management strategy in response to in-group continuity threats and that nostalgia leads to immigrant out-group exclusion.     

Lay theories and intergroup relations: A social-developmental perspective

Abundant research suggests that the study of lay theories helps to explain intergroup relations. Building on this work as well as “interactionist” theories for understanding social behaviour from developmental and social psychology, we propose an integrative social-developmental perspective examining how lay perceivers' characteristics (e.g., age, race, psychological motivations) interact with the environments in which they are nested to impact lay theory use over time and during life transitions. Using this perspective to guide our investigation of the Protestant work ethic (PWE) and colourblind theory, we show that a single lay theory can have a socially tolerant or intolerant meaning. We review work with US children and adults (Asians, Blacks, Latinos, Whites) as well as research with Colombian children and adults (Mestizos), showing similarities and differences in perceivers' uses of PWE and the colourblind theory. Even when both meanings are prevalent in a given culture, they are not necessarily equally emphasised in all environments or for all people living in those environments, nor are they responded to in the same way by all people. We discuss the implications of these results for theorising on lay theories and offer directions for future work in this area.