Religion,sexuality, and (in)equality in the lives of older lesbian,gay, and bisexual people in the United Kingdom

This article explores how older lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people in the United Kingdom engage with religion in later life. Drawing on research with older persons who are LGB and with activists, it explores religious spaces as sites of both inclusion and exclusion, historically and in the present day. Particular consideration is given to the equality implications, in the form of parity of participation, including in the context of religious-based social care provision for older people. Future research implications are addressed.     

风险敏感理论:需要驱动风险决策

风险敏感理论由研究动物觅食行为发展而来,提出有机体在有需要的状况下会出现从风险规避到风险寻求的行为,是风险决策领域内的一种生物学理论。目前风险敏感理论所做出的预测在动物和人类身上都获得了大量实证研究的支持,表明该理论可以解释很多领域中的风险决策。因此有必要对这一理论做一个系统的论述,包括对其理论来源和数学模型的发展演变进行梳理;从参照点等不同的角度分析该理论与其他决策理论的区别;并且,风险敏感理论也为经济不平等和权力等外部因素下的风险转移提供了解释,对已有研究做出了独特的贡献。     

Inequality-Adjusted Happiness in Nations Egalitarianism and Utilitarianism Married in a New Index of Societal Performance

According to the utilitarian creed, the quality of a society should be judged using the degree of happiness of its members, the best society being the one that provides the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Following the egalitarian principle, the quality of a society should rather be judged by the disparity in happiness among citizens, a society being better if differences in happiness are smaller. Performance on these standards can be measured using cross-national surveys, where degree of happiness is measured using the mean response to a question about happiness and disparity expressed as the standard deviation. In this paper we marry these measures together in an index of ‘Inequality-Adjusted Happiness’ (IAH) that gives equal weight to either criterion. It is a linear combination of the mean happiness value and the standard deviation and it is expressed as a number on a 0–100 scale. We applied this index to 90 nations for the 1990s and observed large and systematic differences, IAH being higher in rich, free and well-governed countries. We also considered the trend over time for 14 rich countries and found that IAH has increased over the last 30 years.     

Lower class people suffered more (but perceived fewer risk disadvantages) during the COVID-19 pandemic

Does COVID-19 affect people of all classes equally? In the current research, we focus on the social issue of risk inequality during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a nationwide survey conducted in China (N = 1,137), we predicted and found that compared to higher-class individuals, lower-class participants reported a stronger decline in self-rated health as well as economic well-being due to the COVID-19 outbreak. At the same time, we examined participants' beliefs regarding the distribution of risks. The results demonstrated that although lower-class individuals were facing higher risks, they expressed lesser belief in such a risk inequality than their higher-class counterparts. This tendency was partly mediated by their stronger endorsement of system-justifying beliefs. The findings provide novel evidence of the misperception of risk inequality among the disadvantaged in the context of COVID-19. Implications for science and policy are discussed.     

The psychological benefit of future vividness in goal persistence: An illustrative case of the class of 2020 before & during COVID-19

Graduating during COVID-19, the Class of 2020 had difficulty pursuing their future goals. This research examined the likelihood of academic and career goal change early in the pandemic, disparities in persistence by socioeconomic status (SES), and how psychological resources mitigated goal change during the early stages of the pandemic. This 4-year study surveyed students in the Class of 2020 eight times from their first week in college (Fall 2016) to their last semester before graduation (Spring 2020; N = 115; 20% below middle SES, 80% middle SES or above). Even in the first weeks of COVID-19, a quarter of students changed goals. Lower SES students were less likely to persist in their post-graduation plans. Nevertheless, students who entered college with a vivid image of their future were more likely to have secured a graduate school or job prospect prior to COVID-19, and, in turn, were less likely to change goals.     

A 32-society investigation of the influence of perceived economic inequality on social class stereotyping

There is a growing body of work suggesting that social class stereotypes are amplified when people perceive higher levels of economic inequality—that is, the wealthy are perceived as more competent and assertive and the poor as more incompetent and unassertive. The present study tested this prediction in 32 societies and also examines the role of wealth-based categorization in explaining this relationship. We found that people who perceived higher economic inequality were indeed more likely to consider wealth as a meaningful basis for categorization. Unexpectedly, however, higher levels of perceived inequality were associated with perceiving the wealthy as less competent and assertive and the poor as more competent and assertive. Unpacking this further, exploratory analyses showed that the observed tendency to stereotype the wealthy negatively only emerged in societies with lower social mobility and democracy and higher corruption. This points to the importance of understanding how socio-structural features that co-occur with economic inequality may shape perceptions of the wealthy and the poor.     

A Typology of Ideological Attitudes Towards Social Solidarity and Social Control

Research on ideological attitudes has identified two main dimensions that refer to two fundamental features of group organization: social solidarity and social control. In response to prior research that has studied their relationship mainly from a correlational perspective, this paper introduces a social reality model based on psychological functionality of ideological attitudes. Social position variables (education, income and material vulnerability) and insecurity variables (fear of crime and distrust) are used to predict the interplay between ideological attitudes towards social solidarity and social control. Using K‐means cluster analysis, a typology with four patterns of support for solidarity and control (‘socials’, ‘repressives’, ‘minimalists’ and ‘social‐repressives’) was created, on the basis of representative survey data for the UK, France and Germany (N = 7034). Results from logistic regression analyses show that the proposed social reality model explains membership in typology categories, with similar results across the three countries. Overall, the model underscores the social origins of ideological attitudes as functional responses to perceived social reality. The paper illustrates how the social psychological study of ideological attitudes may be enriched by a typological approach that examines patterns of attitudes rather than single dimensions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Political and clinical developments in analytical psychology, 1972‐2014: subjectivity,equality and diversity—inside and outside the consulting room

Utilizing Jung's idea of theory as a ‘personal confession’, the author charts his own development as a theorist, establishing links between his personal history and his ideas. Such links include his relationship with both parents, his sexuality, his cultural heritage, and his fascination with Tricksters and with Hermes. There follows a substantial critical interrogation of what the author discerns as the two main lines of clinical theorizing in contemporary analytical psychotherapy: interpretation of transference‐countertransference, and the relational approach. His conclusion is that neither is superior to the other and neither is in fact adequate as a basis for clinical work. The focus then shifts to explore a range of political and social aspects of the clinical project of analytical psychology: economic inequality, diversity within the professional field, and Jung's controversial ideas about Jews and Africans. The author calls for an apology from the ‘Jungian community’ for remarks about Africans analogous to the apology already issued for remarks about Jews. The paper is dedicated to the author's friend Fred Plaut (1913‐2009).