Exploring Divergent Patterns in Racial Identity Profiles Between Caribbean Black American and African American Adolescents: The Links to Perceived Discrimination and Psychological Concerns

Using cluster analyses, this study explored the relations among racial identity, perceived discrimination, and psychological concerns among 189 Caribbean Black American and African American adolescents. Findings showed that for all participants, less mature racial identity profiles were significantly related to perceived discrimination and psychological concerns. However, nuances in racial identity profiles between Caribbean Black American and African American participants suggest subtle ethnic group differences in racial identity development. Implications for practitioners and research are discussed. Usando análisis cluster, este estudio exploró las relaciones entre identidad racial, discriminación percibida y preocupaciones psicológicas en 189 adolescentes afroamericanos y americanos negros caribeños. Los hallazgos mostraron que, para todos los participantes, los perfiles de identidad racial menos maduros estaban significativamente relacionados con una discriminación percibida y preocupaciones psicológicas. Sin embargo, los matices de los perfiles de identidad racial entre los participantes afroamericanos y americanos negros caribeños sugieren unas diferencias sutiles entre ambos grupos étnicos en el desarrollo de la identidad racial. Se discuten las implicaciones para practicantes e investigadores.     

Eye‐tracking Social Preferences

We hypothesize that if people are motivated by a particular social preference, then choosing in accordance with this preference will lead to an identifiable pattern of eye movements. We track eye movements while subjects make choices in simple three‐person distribution experiments. We characterize each choice in terms of three different types of social preferences: efficiency, maxi‐min, and envy. For the characterization, we use either the choice data or the eye movement data. The evidence indicates that distributional choices are broadly consistent with the choice rule implied by eye movements. In other words, what subjects appear to be interested in when you look at their choices corresponds to what they appear to be interested in when you look at their eye movements. This correspondence lends credibility to the behavioral relevance of social preferences models. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of the crisis on the Orthodox Church of Greece: a moment of challenge and opportunity?

This article explores the impact of the economic crisis on the Orthodox Church of Greece (OCG). The first three parts of the article set the current stage by offering a short overview of the crisis and the response of the OCG through its charitable social welfare activities. The fourth part looks at church–state relations in Greece, covering more particularly its financial aspects. The fifth and final part discusses how the economic crisis has affected the OCG itself, including its own finances and governance, and sustainability and mission in the long term. Although the OCG provides social assistance to the Greek population during the economic crisis, it also finds itself very much affected by the same crisis. The economic crisis has forced the OCG to reduce its operating costs while at the same time continue its extensive social work. The crisis has also prompted public debates and questions about the finances of the OCG. This situation may gradually force either the Greek state or the OCG, or perhaps both, to rethink their relationship in the future.     

Social capital and religious and civic participation in Riga,Latvia: findings from the 2014 social survey

The article discusses the link between religious and civic participation in Riga based on the data obtained from a social survey in 2014. Religious and civic participation is a prerequisite for building social capital within a local community. Four types of relationships between civic and religious engagement have been identified: (1) individuals with no religious or civic activity; (2) religiously active individuals with no civic activity; (3) individuals involved in civic activities but who are religiously inactive; and (4) individuals involved in both religious and civic activities. Although the survey data indicate a weak correlation between civic and religious activities, religiously active individuals are more likely to be involved in civic activities.     

Sibling Death and Adult Maladjustment Indices: A Brief Report

While symptoms of grief pose the most immediate psychological concern in the aftermath of sibling death, emerging research suggests that distal correlates may include strained interpersonal relations and externalized forms of psychological distress. College students with a history of Sibling Loss (n = 36), Parental Loss (n = 32), or No Loss (n = 367) were compared on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2). Sibling Loss was associated with higher Psychopathic Deviate (Pd; d = .62) and Hypomania (d = .42) scores. The relative risk (RR = 2.96) of a Pd elevation (T > 65) was higher after sibling death.     

Divergent Interpersonal Paths to Well‐Being for Insecurely Attached Emerging Adults

This study explored attachment, social support, and well‐being among 237 emerging adults. The model predicted that social support would (a) mediate the relationship between attachment anxiety and well‐being and (b) moderate the relationship between attachment avoidance and well‐being. All hypotheses were supported. Implications for counselors are discussed.     

Testing the Bivalent Fear of Evaluation Model of Social Anxiety: The Relationship between Fear of Positive Evaluation,Social Anxiety,and Perfectionism

The Bivalent Fear of Evaluation (BFOE) model of social anxiety proposes that fear of negative evaluation (FNE) and fear of positive evaluation (FPE) play distinct roles in social anxiety. Research is however lacking in terms of how FPE is related to perfectionism and how these constructs interact to predict social anxiety. Participants were 382 individuals from the general community and included an oversampling of individuals with social anxiety. Measures of FPE, FNE, perfectionism, and social anxiety were administered. Results were mostly consistent with the predictions made by the BFOE model and showed that accounting for confounding variables, FPE correlated negatively with high standards but positively with maladaptive perfectionism. FNE was also positively correlated with maladaptive perfectionism, but there was no significant relationship between FNE and high standards. Also consistent with BFOE model, both FNE and FPE significantly moderated the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and social anxiety with the relationship strengthened at high levels of FPE and FNE. These findings provide additional support for the BFOE model and implications are discussed.     

Empowering and legitimizing the fundamental attribution error: Power and legitimization exacerbate the translation of role‐constrained behaviors into ability differences

Our daily interactions are influenced by the social roles we endorse. People however underestimate these role constraints in their everyday explanation relying on individual dispositions to make sense of behaviors. Two studies investigated whether this bias is exacerbated when role structure is legitimated and when power matches the advantages conferred by the social roles of a quiz game. Legitimacy as well as power increased the tendency for both advantaged (questioner) and disadvantaged (answerer) actors (Study 1) as well as naïve observers of the quiz game (Study 2) to attribute to ability the behaviors elicited by social roles. These results extend previous findings. People are more prone to explain constrained behaviors by differences in ability when role structure is legitimated and when power asymmetry matches role structure. Legitimacy and power may then play an important role in the translation of role constraints into inferences about ability.     

Religious identification and interreligious contact in Indonesia and the Philippines: Testing the mediating roles of perceived group threat and social dominance orientation and the moderating role of context

This study integrates three theoretical perspectives provided by social identity theory, realistic group conflict theory, and social dominance theory to examine the relationship between religious identification and interreligious contact. It relies on a unique dataset collected among Christian and Muslim students in ethnically and religiously diverse regions of Indonesia and the Philippines, where social cleavages occur along religious lines. Religious identification directly predicts a higher quality of interreligious contact, whereas it indirectly predicts a lower quantity and quality of contact, mediated by higher perception of group threat, and a higher quality of contact, mediated by lower social dominance orientation. Furthermore, these direct and indirect relationships are moderated by religious group membership and relative group size. We conclude that religious identification functions as a ‘double‐edged sword’ predicting both higher quality and lower quantity and quality of interreligious contact through various pathways and with a varying strength depending on intergroup context.     

From marginal to mainstream: The role of perceived social norms in the rise of a far‐right movement

The present research intends to shed light on the processes enabling political minorities to transition into normatively acceptable groups, by investigating how a previously marginalised far‐right movement (the French National Front) is progressively becoming mainstream. Drawing on the social representations approach, we argue that perceived social norms play a pivotal role in this process. Using a longitudinal and experimental design, the study (N = 233) was implemented in the ecological context of the 2012 French presidential election at a Parisian university campus, a traditional anti‐far‐right bastion. We tested whether the electoral campaign altered the perceptions of social norms, whether the perceived social norms were easily malleable in this specific context and, most important, whether they influenced people's willingness to speak out in public against the far‐right movement. The findings support affirmative answers to all three questions. We conclude that, in periods of collective uncertainty, changing perceptions of social norms might play an important role in the weakening of public opposition to far‐right movements. This, in turn, helps to explain the recent transition to mainstream recognition of a number of previously marginalised political movements in Europe and around the globe.