Zombie multiculturalism meets liberative difference: searching for a new discourse of diversity

This paper grapples with an unresolved tension – twenty-first century Britain is indelibly multicultural and yet diversity is increasingly depicted as a threat to social cohesion. A society characterised by superdiverse cities where some suggest that ‘multiculturalism has failed’. On the basis of an analysis of three dominant theoretical and ideological discourses – community cohesion, multiculturalism and interculturalism – it will be argued that there is an urgent need to forge a new understanding of diversity that can counter the zombie discourse that characterises current debates about diversity in Britain. Difference will be framed as a potential source of mutual liberation, not a problem seeking a solution. It will be argued that a critical engagement with political theology can help us to fashion a new discourse of diversity that is characterised by a hermeneutics of liberative difference, which can help to defeat the zombies sucking the life out of diverse Britain.     

Testing contesting theory: Conceptual metaphors and prosocial behavior

ObjectivesThis investigation was conducted to determine whether contesting orientations add predictive utility for prosocial behavior, both in and out of sports, beyond other variables related to the component processes of moral action.DesignCross-sectional.MethodsIntercollegiate US athletes (n = 2380; 56.4% male), from both individual and team sports, completed measures of contesting orientation, three moral variables (moral attentiveness, moral identity, integrity), three sport-specific variables (athletic identity, goal orientation, and fear of failure), and three outcome variables (sportspersonship, academic honesty, and prosocial helping). Data was analyzed using both correlational and regression analyses.ResultsRegression analyses demonstrated that contesting orientations were the best predictors of sportspersonship, but were insignificant predictors of nonsport forms of prosocial behavior.ConclusionsConsistent with contesting theory, contesting orientation are salient and potent predictors of sportspersonship, but do not predict behavior outside of contest situations.     

Community Identity Increases Urban Residents' In‐group Emergency Helping Intention

The current study examined how time pressure and community identity affected urban residents' in‐group emergency helping intention with a sample of 88 Chinese urban residents from a common community. Firstly, we instructed participants to fill out the Community Identity Scale. Following this, we set a hypothesized scenario, in which they met a fainted person in community when they left the community either in a hurry or not, to measure helping intention. It was found that time pressure had little impact on urban residents' in‐group helping intention, whereas community identity increased in‐group helping intention. Moreover, emotional identity but not functional identity positively predicted in‐group helping intention. These findings and their implications for community psychology were discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emotion suppression in multiple social contexts and its effects on psychosocial functioning: An investigation with Chinese samples

The present study examines the psychosocial consequences of emotion suppression and the moderating effect of social context in the link between emotion suppression and psychosocial functioning with two samples of Chinese undergraduate students. Suppression of happiness and sadness in five social contexts (with family members, close friends, classmates, teachers and strangers) and psychosocial functioning were investigated. The results indicate that the general level of happiness suppression negatively predicted individuals' psychosocial functioning, while sadness suppression was positively associated with psychosocial functioning. The moderating effect of social context was significant in the association between happiness suppression and psychosocial functioning, while its moderating effect was not significant for sadness. Moreover, the context differentiation (CD) of happiness suppression positively predicted psychosocial functioning, while the effect of CD of sadness suppression was not significant. The results of the present study extend the existing literature by suggesting the importance of taking social context and the specific type of emotion into account when examining the psychosocial adaptation of emotion suppression. New findings were also added to understand the effects of emotion suppression on psychosocial functioning for Chinese people. In the Chinese cultural context, which emphasizes regulating one's behaviours based on situational requirements, low levels of happiness suppression and high levels of sadness suppression appeared to be a psychosocially adaptive emotional display pattern.     

Interacting effects of age and time of day on verbal fluency performance and intraindividual variability

We explored the effects of age and time of day (TOD) on verbal fluency ability with respect to performance level and intraindividual variability (IIV). Verbal fluency, which involves complex cognitive operations, was examined in 20 older (mean age = 72.8 years) and 20 younger (mean age = 24.2 years) adults with test start time alternating between morning and evening across four days. Older adults generated more words in the morning and younger adults more in the evening, corresponding with self-report peak TOD. Age by TOD interactions were also observed across fluency tasks on the number of switches among subcategory exemplars during word generation and on the IIV observed in switching behavior. Older adults exhibited greater variability in switching in the evening than in the morning, whereas younger adults showed the opposite pattern. These findings demonstrate that processes involving energization (initiating and sustaining) and attentional control may be particularly sensitive to age differences in TOD influences on cognition.     

Exploring the relationships between maternal and child metacognitions and child anxiety

Research has shown that anxiety may be transmitted through verbal information pathways, for example, when parents share their anxious cognitions with their child. Less is known about the influence of parental metacognitions, that is, beliefs regarding thoughts, on child anxiety. We explored the relations between metacognitions in mothers and their children and anxiety in the children. Our study included 111 non‐clinical children aged 8 to 12 years and their mothers. Children rated their metacognitions, worry and anxiety, and mothers rated their metacognitions. Results indicated agreement between maternal and child metacognitions. Maternal metacognitions were positively associated with children's anxiety symptoms and worry, and this relation was mediated by the children's metacognitions. Our results warrant further examination of the role of parental metacognitions in child anxiety.     

Keeping fathers in mind

This paper focuses on keeping fathers in mind – in the mind of the mother and the mind of the therapist – as a symbol and as an actual person so that he can become a healthy presence in the mind of the child. Through its myths and laws, mainstream Indian culture constantly reinforces the idea that the child belongs first to the man who places ownership over a womb. This paper will focus on the importance of the father as a parent and not only as a sexual partner or keeper of the mother. It will illustrate that the actual presence of the father qualitatively enhances the child’s capacities and that the father’s absence or disengagement deeply and painfully affect a young boy. Through an account of some clinical work with young boys at a community-based psychotherapy clinic, the paper aims to illustrate the need of the boy for a good enough father, the reluctance of fathers to be involved in the parenting of their children, and the role of the mother in drawing in the father to be actively paternal.     

Precursors of social emotional functioning among full-term and preterm infants at 12 months: Early infant withdrawal behavior and symptoms of maternal depression

This study forms part of a longitudinal investigation of early infant social withdrawal, maternal symptoms of depression and later child social emotional functioning. The sample consisted of a group of full-term infants (N = 238) and their mothers, and a group of moderately premature infants (N = 64) and their mothers. At 3 months, the infants were observed with the Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB) and the mothers completed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). At 12 months, the mothers filled out questionnaires about the infants’ social emotional functioning (Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment and the Ages and Stages Questionnaire-Social Emotional). At 3 months, as we have previously shown, the premature infants had exhibited more withdrawal behavior and their mothers reported elevated maternal depressive symptoms as compared with the full-born group. At 12 months the mothers of the premature infants reported more child internalizing behavior. These data suggest that infant withdrawal behavior as well as maternal depressive mood may serve as sensitive indices of early risk status. Further, the results suggest that early maternal depressive symptoms are a salient predictor of later child social emotional functioning. However, neither early infant withdrawal behavior, nor gestational age, did significantly predict social emotional outcome at 12 months. It should be noted that the differences in strength of the relations between ADBB and EPDS, respectively, to the outcome at 12 months was modest. An implication of the study is that clinicians should be aware of the complex interplay between early infant withdrawal and signs of maternal postpartum depression in planning ports of entry for early intervention.