The sense of entitlement in romantic relationships: ethnic and religious aspects

One’s sense of entitlement is activated and influences one’s interactions and attitudes in a wide range of contexts, but it rather seems especially relevant in the context of the romantic relationship, as this particular type of relationship serves as a unique meeting point between needs, wishes, and expectations. While a number of studies have indicated that both exaggerated and restricted forms of sense of entitlement in couple relationships seem to be maladaptive and put people at risk for emotional problems, the core question of the current study dealt with the possible contribution of ethnic and religious aspects. As expected, ethnicity was shown to be a predictor of relational entitlement. Israeli Arabs were higher on inflated and restricted senses of entitlement than Israeli Jews were. Findings also indicated that among the Jewish sector, young religious Jews were higher on restricted sense of entitlement and lower on assertive sense of entitlement than were young secular Jews. Findings were discussed in terms of the unique situation of the Arab minority in Israel as well as the role of religious values in shaping the sense of relational entitlement in couple relationships.     

When women can’t do math: The interplay of self-construal, group identification, and stereotypic performance standards

The present research examined the interplay of self-construal (independent vs. interdependent), gender group identification, and performance standards (positive vs. negative) on women’s math performance. Female participants were given a subtle self-prime prior to completing a math test under conditions where either a positive or negative group-based performance standard was rendered accessible. We report an interactive effect of self-construal, gender identification, and performance standard such that a negative (compared to a positive) standard decreased performance under interdependent self-prime (“we”) conditions, whereas the reverse pattern emerged under independent self-prime (“I”) conditions. Importantly, we observed this interplay of performance standards and self-construal only in individuals who self-identify with their gender group whereas performance outcomes of low identifiers were not affected by the experimental manipulations.     

Model structure adequacy analysis: selecting models on the basis of their ability to answer scientific questions

Models carry the meaning of science. This puts a tremendous burden on the process of model selection. In general practice, models are selected on the basis of their relative goodness of fit to data penalized by model complexity. However, this may not be the most effective approach for selecting models to answer a specific scientific question because model fit is sensitive to all aspects of a model, not just those relevant to the question. Model Structural Adequacy analysis is proposed as a means to select models based on their ability to answer specific scientific questions given the current understanding of the relevant aspects of the real world.     

The Role of Native-Language Phonology in the Auditory Word Identification and Visual Word Recognition of Russian–English Bilinguals

Does native language phonology influence visual word processing in a second language? This question was investigated in two experiments with two groups of Russian-English bilinguals, differing in their English experience, and a monolingual English control group. Experiment 1 tested visual word recognition following semantic categorization of words containing four phonological vowel contrasts (\({/{{\rm i}}/-/{{\rm u}}/, /{{\rm I}}/-/\wedge/, /{{\rm i}}/-/{{\rm I}}/, /{{\varepsilon}}/-/\ae/}\)). Experiment 2 assessed auditory identification accuracy of words containing these four contrasts. Both bilingual groups demonstrated reduced accuracy in auditory identification of two English vowel contrasts absent in their native phonology (\(/{{\rm i}}/-/{{\rm I}}/, /{\varepsilon}/-/\ae/\)). For late- bilinguals, auditory identification difficulty was accompanied by poor visual word recognition for one difficult contrast (/i/-/I/). Bilinguals’ visual word recognition moderately correlated with their auditory identification of difficult contrasts. These results indicate that native language phonology can play a role in visual processing of second language words. However, this effect may be considerably constrained by orthographic systems of specific languages.     

A NEW READING OF THE ORIGINS OF OBJECT-RELATIONS THEORY

The author presents a reading of Freud's 'Mourning and melancholia' in which he examines not only the ideas Freud was introducing, but, as important, the way he was thinking/writing in this watershed paper. The author demonstrates how Freud made use of his exploration of the unconscious work of mourning and of melancholia to propose and explore some of the major tenets of a revised model of the mind (which later would be termed 'object-relations theory'). The principal tenets of the revised model presented in this 1917 paper include: (1) the idea that the unconscious is organised to a significant degree around stable internal object relations between paired split-off parts of the ego; (2) the notion that psychic pain may be defended against by means of the replacement of an external object relationship by an unconscious, fantasied internal object relationship; (3) the idea that pathological bonds of love mixed with hate are among the strongest ties that bind internal objects to one another in a state of mutual captivity; (4) the notion that the psychopathology of internal object relations often involves the use of omnipotent thinking to a degree that cuts off the dialogue between the unconscious internal object world and the world of actual experience with real external objects; and (5) the idea that ambivalence in relations between unconscious internal objects involves not only the conflict of love and hate, but also the conflict between the wish to continue to be alive in one's object relationships and the wish to be at one with one's dead internal objects.     

“民族认同，国家认同”与青少年自尊的关系

自尊被普遍认为是青少年的发展中的一个重要因素,已有研究发现它与心理幸福感呈显著的正相关,并与沮丧和绝望呈显著的负相关。就是由于自尊的心理上的重要性,所以有大量的研究来探讨它的影响因素。大多数对自尊的研究主要关注的是个体的能力和人际问的经历来作为自尊主要成分。尽管自尊的个人资源明显是很重要的,但是这样的关注忽略了自尊的群体成员方面的影响。本文就是探讨群体认同,尤其是考察民族认同和更广层面的国家认同.对少数民族青少年自尊的预测。     

The development of a measure of enculturation for Native American youth

Enculturation is the process by which individuals learn about and identify with their ethnic minority culture. It is distinguished from acculturation which refers to the process by which an ethnic minority individual is assimilated into the majority culture. Three studies with Native American youths are reported that describe the development of a measure of enculturation for Native American youths. Development of a measure of enculturation provides a foundation upon which to build a body of literature that focuses on strengths in a youth's life rather than on deficits. Results of the first study (n=120), a confirmatory factor analysis, indicated that cultural affinity, Native American identity, and family involvement in traditional activities adequately represent the construct of enculturation. The study also provides some convergent validity for this interpretation. The second study examines factor invariance for enculturation among youths with data from over 2 years (n=69). The factor structure was similar across time. The third study replicates the factor structure and validity analyses with a new sample (n=42). Usefulness of the measure for assessing protective factors and stressing ethnicity over simple assessment of race categories is discussed. We would like to thank the Tribe that participated in this study and especially the youth and their parents who agreed to participate. We would also like to thank the Tribal staff youth workers who helped us on many aspects of the study. This research was supported by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, Grant No. 1 H86 SPO1835-01A1 to the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa/Chippewa Indians. Benjamin Walter and Kathleen Washienko were research assistants on the project during data collection at Time 1. Sandra Dyer was the Director for the project upon which this study is based at the time of data collection.     

Effects of combining disparate groups in the analysis of ethnic differences: Variations among asian american mental health service consumers in level of community functioning

The Asian American population comprises historically, socially, and culturally diverse ethnic groups. Given this diversity, investigators caution that combining disparate ethnic groups together may lead to erroneous conclusions. Whether by choice or necessity, however, mental health studies still typically consider Asian Americans as a single ethnic category rather than as separate ethnic groups. Few investigations have addressed the consequences of this practice. This paper examines the implications of conceptualizing Asian Americans as an ethnic category versus ethnic groups, in an investigation of the community functioning status of clients in publicly funded mental health programs in King County, Washington. When treated as a single ethnic category in a multivariate linear regression model, Asian Americans are found to have a lower level of functioning difficulty than their white counterparts. However, when treated as separate ethnic groups (e.g., Vietnamese, Japanese), only one of five Asian ethnic groups has a significantly lower level of difficulty. In a separate analysis of the Asian American subsample, groups are found to differ significantly from one another with respect to functional status. Several factors, including refugee status, account for this difference.     

Why don't they stay at home? Prejudices against ethnic minorities in Italy

This study was conducted in Bologna, Italy, to analyse attitudes concerning ethnic minorities and emotions experienced in intergroup relations. Stereotypes of North African immigrants were investigated as a function of 'geographical' proximity with black people (living in the neighbourhood of black immigrants versus living in districts without immigrants) and origin (natives of Bologna versus residents who moved from Southern Italy to Bologna). It was predicted that the most positive stereotypes would be found among natives of Bologna living in the same neighbourhoods as North Africans, while the most negative prejudices would occur among the South Italians who do not live in the same districts as black people. Results indicate that neighbourhood has a central importance but effects of respondents' origins are more mixed.     

Equivalent models in covariance structure analysis

Defining equivalent models as those that reproduce the same set of covariance matrices, necessary and sufficient conditions are stated for the local equivalence of two expanded identified modelsM ₁ andM ₂ when fitting the more restricted modelM ₀. Assuming several regularity conditions, the rank deficiency of the Jacobian matrix, composed of derivatives of the covariance elements with respect to the union of the free parameters ofM ₁ andM ₂ (which characterizes modelM ₁₂), is a necessary and sufficient condition for the local equivalence ofM ₁ andM ₂. This condition is satisfied, in practice, when the analysis dealing with the fitting ofM ₀, predicts that the decreases in the chi-square goodness-of-fit statistic for the fitting ofM ₁ orM ₂, orM ₁₂ are all equal for any set of sample data, except on differences due to rounding errors.This research was supported by the Foundation of Social-Cultural Sciences which is subsidized by the Dutch Scientific Organization (N.W.O.) under project number 500-278-003. The author wishes to thank Anne Boomsma, Ivo Molenaar, Albert Satorra, and Tom Snijders for their stimulating and crucial comments during the research, and the Editor, Paul Bekker, Henk Broer, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.