Engaging Australian Aboriginal youth in mental health services

It is currently estimated that up to 40% of Aboriginal youth (aged 13–17) will experience some form of mental health problem within their lifetime. Of greater concern is the evidence that indicates that Aboriginal youth fail to access mental health services commensurate with this need. This is due, in part, to the characteristically monocultural nature of service delivery of existing services. This paper overviews a model that has been developed specifically for the engagement of Aboriginal youth (aged 13–17 years) in mental health settings. Importantly, a mix of urban (N = 43) and rural (N = 68) Aboriginal youth were represented within the sample to determine its efficacy across different language and tribal groups. The model proved to be effective in engaging 97% of Aboriginal youth (n = 108), with only a small number not effectively engaged (n = 3). The model provides a foundation for the further development of evidence‐based models of best practice that have so far provided to be elusive within this complex field.     

Personal and general belief in a just world as judgement norms

Research on the belief in a just world (BJW) has focused on its intra-individual functions (e.g., psychological well-being) and its inter-individual consequences (e.g., derogation of victims). Recent theorizing, however, has indicated that the BJW may also have more societal functions and consequences, serving as a legitimizing device of the status quo. The studies in the current paper focus on this latter view and are based on Alves and Correia's ( 2008 ) research which found that the expression of high personal and general belief in a just world is injunctively normative. Two experimental studies aimed at ascertaining three issues: (1) the dimension(s) of social value (social utility and/or social desirability) on which the BJW normativity anchors; (2) whether the expression of moderate BJW is also injunctively normative; and (3) whether the injunctive normativity of the BJW is related to perceptions of truth. Results indicate that moderate and high personal and general BJW are normative. Yet, whereas the normativity of personal BJW anchors both on social utility and social desirability, that of general BJW anchors only on social utility. We discuss personal and general BJW as judgement norms, whose normativity may not be personally acknowledged (in the case of general BJW) and does not necessarily derive from being perceived as true, but from the fact that such norms carry social value at least in individualistic societies.     

Race and sex in a lifetime

Abstract: The Jungian analysts who participated in the writing of this paper 1 explicitly or implicitly address issues of social and political stasis, retrogression and change via their particular usages of the concept of the transcendent function. Singer proposes that the transcendent function is a term that is usually applied to individuals in whom symbolic material appears that suggests the reconciling of opposites, leading to psycho‐spiritual growth. He also looks at the notion of the transcendent function as it can appear in a similar way in the collective psyche. In addition, he gives attention to the opposite phenomenon—what might be called the descendent function—as it appears in the collective psyche and its leadership, wherein symbolic material can create the division of groups of people into opposites, mobilizing destructive rather than transformative experience. Meador states that Jung designated the mediating process of assimilating unconscious images and ideas into consciousness as the transcendent function. Just as this synthesizing process can produce insight in the individual, it can also be applied to changes in collective society. Embedded collective assumptions tend to shift when opposites collide, as they did, for example, in the turmoils of the 1960s. Her contribution focuses on the recent revolution in racial and sexual attitudes as the product of a collective struggle between certain ingrained social mores from the past and conflicting new points of view. Samuels’ conclusion is that the concept of the transcendent function has little value with respect to political problems. His contribution focuses on: (i) The limitations of using ideas (such as the transcendent function) derived from analysis with individuals in furtherance of an understanding of social and political phenomena. (ii) The specific problem of a lack of credible psycho‐political models for social progress and regress—he argues that the transcendent function is not useful in this regard. (iii) The question of political aggression, violence and conflict in society is explored from the standpoint of the transcendent function so as to investigate its possible role in the management of political conflict. Samuels severely criticizes what he terms ‘triangulation’ and ‘hyper‐reflection’ on the part of analysts who engage with political debates and issues. (iv) Leadership is examined from the standpoint of the transcendent function which, again, does not seem pertinent. Rather, new discoveries in family psychology about the role of the father have greater possibilities as a basis for new thinking about leadership.     

Individualism,collectivism, and Chinese adolescents' aggression: intracultural variations

This study examined the relations between cultural values (i.e., individualism and collectivism) and aggression among 460 (234 girls) Chinese adolescents. Conflict level and social status insecurity were examined as potential explaining mechanisms for these relations. The results showed that adolescents' endorsement of collectivism was negatively related to their use of overt and relational aggression as reported by teachers and peers, whereas positive associations were found between the endorsement of individualism and adolescent aggression. Adolescents' conflict level and social status insecurity accounted for a significant part of these associations. Findings of this study demonstrate the importance of examining intracultural variations of cultural values in relation to adolescent aggression as well as the process variables in explaining the relations. Aggr. Behav. 36:187–194, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Social group norms,school norms,and children's aggressive intentions

This study examined whether the effect of social group norms on 7‐ and 10‐year‐old children's aggression can be moderated or extinguished by contrary school norms. Children (n=384) participated in a simulation in which they were assigned membership in a social group for a drawing competition against an outgroup. Participants learnt that their group had a norm of inclusion, exclusion, or exclusion‐plus‐relational aggression, toward non‐group members, and that the school either had a norm of inclusion, or no such norm. Findings indicated that group norms influenced the participants' direct and indirect aggressive intentions, but that the school norm moderated the group norm effect, with the school's norm effect tending to be greater for indirect vs. direct aggression, males vs. females, and younger vs. older participants. Discussion focused on how school norms can be developed, endorsed, and presented so that they have their most lasting effect on children. Aggr. Behav. 36:195–204, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Connectionism and Self: James,Mead, and the Stream of Enculturated Consciousness

William James conceptualized I, the self as subject as a stream of consciousness. When this conception is augmented with George Herbert Mead's view of self as a radically socialized and enculturated process, a result is the James-Mead model of dynamic self as a stream of enculturated consciousness. In this paper, we argue that connectionism is best suited to theorize this challenging notion. Based on the view that a connectionist model should describe psychological processes that carry out psychological functions grounded in a biological living system, we propose the I-SELF (Imitative and Sequence Learning Functional) model, which is designed to capture the temporal dynamics of a stream of consciousness whose content can be acquired via symbolically mediated social interaction with others in society. We identify four implications of the James-Mead model of dynamic self (embodiment, narrative and self, individual and collective self, and culture and self), and report computer simulations to show the utility of I-SELF in conceptualizing the dynamic self-processes in the contemporary social psychological literature. Theoretical and metatheoretical implications of the connectionist approach to self are discussed.     

The Effects of Artist Adoration and Perceived Risk of Getting Caught on Attitude and Intention to Pirate Music in the United States and Taiwan

Piracy is the greatest threat facing the global music industry today. This study explores the effects of artist adoration and the perceived risk of being caught on the attitude and intention to engage in pirating a digital song among college students. The moderating effect of cultural environment factor is also examined. Experiments using between-group factorial designs were conducted in the United States and Taiwan. The results show that perceived risk of getting caught and cultural environment are important factors that can significantly affect the attitude and intention toward downloading unauthorized music. In addition, a two-way (Perceived Risk × Culture) and a three-way interaction in the model are also observed.     

Developing Praxis: Mobilising Critical Race Theory in Community Cultural Development

Race remains a significant issue in the lives of many people in Australia. For example, Indigenous Australians lives continue to be marked by social and economic disadvantage and everyday experiences of exclusion. Within this context, the Community Arts Network Western Australia promote social change and the empowerment of Indigenous groups through community cultural development. With an emphasis on community strengths and resources, community arts practice is employed to create, promote, and improve opportunities for participation, network development and empowerment. In this article, we explore these projects from a community psychology orientation, which is committed to developing opportunities for inclusion and also exposing the workings of power in everyday settings. Although there have been many positive outcomes that have resulted from the different activities with communities, there have also been significant barriers to transformative practice, in particular, issues of racialisation and continuing colonisation. We discuss our efforts aimed at understanding racism, which have included engaging with critical race theory and whiteness studies within the context of Indigenous and non‐Indigenous partnerships for change. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.