Working with Bangladeshi young women

The author describes once-weekly psychoanalytically informed work in a child mental health setting with young Bangladeshi women making the transition to adulthood. She argues that the prevalent notion of 'culture conflict' used to account for patterns of emotional disturbance and self-harm in these young women is reductionist and represents a denial of severe family dysfunction and individual psychic pain. She shows how, despite cultural differences, psychoanalytically informed thinking can provide a basis for understanding these young women's experience and facilitate their emotional growth. However, faced with complex unconscious processes, the worker has to remain alert to her countertransference in order not to be drawn into an unhelpful collusion or denial of reality. Organizational defences may also operate to protect staff and their institutions from awareness of such high levels of emotional distress, which therefore remain hidden. The author is grateful to the two young women who consented to publication in the hope that it might help others. Details have been changed to protect their anonymity.     

Blurring the Dichotomy of Good and Evil: The Idiosyncratic Helping Strategies Associated with Unmitigated‐Agentic and Unmitigated‐Communal Personalities

We theorized that unmitigated‐agentic personality constructs (UAPs)—prioritizing 'getting ahead’ over 'getting along’—and unmitigated‐communal personality constructs (UCPs)—prioritizing getting along over getting ahead—are associated with distinct affect‐regulatory helping strategies. In Study 1 (N = 179), UAPs, on average, related to greater negative‐affect versus positive‐affect induction helping tactics. In two experiments, UAPs, on average, related to a greater likelihood of selecting anger‐inducing versus love‐inducing or sadness‐inducing songs to help a target overcome a breakup (Study 2; N = 313) and greater selection of anger‐inducing and hubris‐inducing messages versus authentic‐pride‐inducing and love‐inducing messages to help a teammate struggling in a game (Study 3; N = 246). UCPs manifested the opposite patterns. Generally, these associations corresponded with helping‐strategy utility beliefs and were robust to moderators of helping target (self or other; Study 2) or altruistic versus selfish motives (Study 3). Study 4 (N = 205) provided some evidence of ecological validity in contexts of recalled everyday helping. Associations between personality constructs and relative helping strategies were about moderate in size (rs ~ .20) across these four studies. Findings suggest that UAPs are associated with helping strategies believed to promote ‘contemptuous’ self‐enhancement relative to ‘innocuous’ self‐enhancement and self‐transcendence, and vice versa for UCPs. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Why employee psychopathy leads to counterproductive workplace behaviours : an analysis of the underlying mechanisms

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine possible explanatory mechanisms linking employee secondary psychopathy to counterproductive workplace behaviour (CWB). Based on the emotion-centred model of voluntary work behaviour we argue that secondary psychopathy is characterized by unfavourable cognitive appraisal tendencies, which in turn positively relate to negative affectivity. We further assume that this cognitive-affective process enhances CWB. We also include primary psychopathy into our research model to test if the presumed mechanism applies to both psychopathy dimensions. We collected daily-survey data from 470 employees (1670 days) and analysed these data using multilevel structured equation modelling. We found strong support for the hypothesized serial mediation model, indicating that secondary psychopathy triggers dysfunctional cognitive-affective tendencies and consequently increases the likelihood of CWB. The proposed model did not hold up for primary psychopathy. Our study outlines the presence of distorted cognition-affective patterns in employee secondary psychopathy only. These patterns seem to play a key role in explaining the link between employee secondary psychopathy and deviant workplace behaviour. Based on this procedural knowledge relevant implications for theory and practice are provided.     

From religious emotions to affects: historical and theoretical reflections on injury to feeling,self and religion

ABSTRACT

Images of angry Muslims have become a common sight in repeated controversies problematising the compatibility of Islam and freedom of speech. To explain such outrage, it is often put forward that Muslims reacted to the disrespect and violation of their ‘religious feelings’. In this paper, we challenge the trope of hurt religious feelings in the explanation of unrest. Referring to the writings of Schleiermacher, James and Taylor, the discussion traces how religion and feeling have become inextricably intertwined, located within the individual self and institutionalised as a dominant interpretation of religion. We introduce affect as a conceptual alternative to such understandings, which allows us to analyse the emphasis on Muslim emotionality as a relationship between Muslim and secular bodies, hence no longer reduced to the interiority of Muslim subjects. We will illustrate the potential of an affect-based approach discussing Muslim feelings’ vital role in the construction of European democracies.     

Parentification and mental health symptoms: mediator effects of perceived unfairness and differentiation of self

Existing research indicates that parentification can result in positive and negative outcomes for individuals; however, little is known about the mechanisms that account for the variability. This study tested a theoretical model of the relation between parentification tasks and mental health symptoms, with perceived unfairness and differentiation of self (DoS) as mediators. The results supported the proposed model in a sample of 783 college students. A significant total indirect effect existed between the latent construct of parentification and that of mental health symptoms. Significant specific indirect effects were observed between parentification and mental health symptoms with perceived unfairness as a mediator; between parentification and DoS with perceived unfairness as a mediator and between perceived unfairness and mental health symptoms mediated by DoS. Implications for clinical work with adult clients who have experienced parentification in their family of origin are addressed.     

The fading affect bias shows positive outcomes at the general but not the individual level of analysis in the context of social media

Unpleasant affect fades faster than pleasant affect (e.g., Walker, Vogl, & Thompson, 1997); this effect is referred to as the Fading Affect Bias (FAB; Walker, Skowronski, Gibbons, Vogl, & Thompson, 2003a). Research shows that the FAB is consistently related to positive/healthy outcomes at a general but not at a specific level of analysis based on event types and individual differences (e.g., Gibbons et al., 2013). Based on the positive outcomes for FAB and negative outcomes for social media (Bolton et al., 2013; Huang, 2010), the current study examined FAB in the context of social media events along with related individual differences. General positive outcomes were shown in the form of robust FAB effects across social media and non-social media events, a larger FAB for non-social media events than for social media events, negative correlations of FAB with depression, anxiety, and stress as well as a positive correlation of FAB with self-esteem. However, the lack of a negative correlation between FAB and anxiety for social media events in a 3-way interaction did not show positive outcomes at a specific level of analysis. Rehearsal ratings mediated the 3-way interaction. Implications are discussed.