Ethical Considerations for Psychologists Taking a Public Stance on Controversial Issues: The Balance Between Personal and Professional Life

Previous literature has documented the general issues psychologists often face while balancing their personal and professional lives. The struggle stems from attempting to satisfy the need to maintain a life outside of work while having the professional obligation to follow the American Psychological Association’s (APA’s) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (Ethics Code) to prevent their personal lives from interfering with their professional roles and relationships. The present article analyzes the subject of psychologists taking a public position on controversial public issues. Although the APA Ethics Code does not restrict how psychologists conduct themselves during their personal time, taking a public stance on a controversial issue could potentially strain professional relationships and inadvertently reflect negatively on the profession. The present article examines ethical issues that (a) should be taken into account before psychologists take a public position on a controversial issue and (b) are in conflict with APA’s Ethics Code or current research.     

A case study on human development and security: Madagascar's mining sector and conservation-induced displacement of populations

This case study introduces the QIT Madagascar Minerals (QMM) SA mining project at Fort-Dauphin, Madagascar, as a development project that has produced issues concerning justice. Although QMM appears to be a model company with a project that is seen as a success story, its consequent displacement of populations has been problematic in many respects, as have been the social effects that arise due to migration to the area by others who are attracted by the project. We suggest that the root of many of these problems is that the people to be displaced have played an insignificant role in forming the project itself: consultation has instead been centred on corporate, government and environmental NGO concerns and interests. Compensation for losses has been inadequate. As non-mining land has been set aside as an offset for the purpose of conservation, traditional livelihoods have been curtailed. A narrow and Western conception of natural conservation that forbids access by the people has ensued for lands that have been reserved for natural conservation purposes. We conclude that, in this case, an NGO-related policy of ‘neo-liberal conservation’ that is wedded to non-consultative development project design has denied displaced populations a fair share of project benefits and reduced their security.     

Meet Your Neighbours. Authoritarians Engage in Intergroup Contact When They have the Opportunity

Research indicates that authoritarians tend to avoid intergroup contact. This study tested the hypothesis that living in a neighbourhood with a higher proportion of Asian peoples increases the likelihood of contact with them for the majority (New Zealand Europeans), and that this effect should increase intergroup contact for authoritarians. Multi‐level Random Coefficient Modelling of data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (N = 3903) indicated that New Zealand Europeans high in authoritarianism in neighbourhoods with a high proportion of Asian peoples have more contact with Asian friends, relative to authoritarians in less ethnically diverse areas. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changes in disengagement coping mediate changes in affect following mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy in a non‐clinical sample

Past research has shown that mindfulness‐based interventions increase positive affect in non‐clinical populations. However, the mechanisms underlying this increase are poorly understood. On the basis of previous empirical and theoretical accounts, we hypothesized that a decreased use of disengagement coping strategies in daily life would explain the benefits of a mindfulness‐based intervention in terms of increased positive affect. We analysed the data of 75 healthy adult participants (58 women; 17 men) of different ages (M = 49 years old; SD = 13; age range 19–81) who had been randomly allocated to 8‐week Mindfulness‐Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) or to a waitlist control group. The results confirmed our hypothesis: Participants in the MBCT group showed significant improvements in positive affect compared to the control group, with decreased use of disengagement coping styles mediating these improvements. The implications of this study are discussed.     

Rural breast cancer patients,coping and depressive symptoms: A prospective comparison study

Many studies have revealed that individual differences in coping responses to the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer are associated with psychological adjustment. The vast majority of these studies, however, focus exclusively on urban breast cancer survivors despite that rural breast cancer survivors are likely to have distinct experiences both in general and in relation to breast cancer. The current study quantitatively examined the coping strategies employed by both rural and urban breast cancer patients while they were undergoing radiation therapy. Further, the influence of these coping behaviours on concurrent as well as subsequent depressive symptoms (3 and 6 months later) was examined. The results revealed that the rurality of breast cancer patients was unrelated to the ways in which they coped, but did influence the relationships between some coping responses and depressive symptoms. Specifically, active coping and positive reinterpretation were negatively related to depressive symptoms for more rural breast cancer patients, but not their relatively urban counterparts. Similarly, behavioural disengagement was more strongly related to depressive symptoms for more rural patients. Possible reasons for this pattern of results and implications are discussed.     

Rethinking the Asymmetry

According to the Asymmetry, we’ve strong moral reason to prevent miserable lives from coming into existence, but no moral reason to bring happy lives into existence. This procreative asymmetry is often thought to be part of commonsense morality, however theoretically puzzling it might prove to be. I argue that this is a mistake. The Asymmetry is merely prima facie intuitive, and loses its appeal on further reflection. Mature commonsense morality recognizes no fundamental procreative asymmetry. It may recognize some superficially similar theses, but we will see that they derive from more familiar principles, and are compatible with there being moral reason to bring happy lives into existence.     

颜色偏好的性别差异研究进展

颜色偏好是人在心理上所喜爱或偏好的颜色,性别是影响颜色偏好的重要因素之一。本文区分一般人群和特殊人群,结合不同的心理发展阶段,评述对抽象颜色和具体物色的偏好的性别差异研究进展,具体比较了打猎者-采摘者理论、视锥-对立对比成分理论、性别图式理论以及生态效价理论等,并且讨论分析了以往研究者在内容和理论解释等方面存在的不足。未来研究者应采用多元化的方法,深入探索颜色偏好性别差异的机制,期望整合得到解释力更强的理论观点。