Media and community anxieties about men's interactions with children

Partially as a response to community concerns related to sexual abuse, men's interactions with other people's children have become highly regulated. This paper documents media deliberations regarding the maintenance of barriers to men's interactions with children. Attention is given to news coverage of an incidence where a man was asked to shift seats on an aircraft due to an airline policy prohibiting men from sitting next to unaccompanied children. Media framing of controversy surrounding this incidence occurred across television, radio and newspaper reports and letters to the editor and talkback radio calls. Coverage reveals tensions between negative constructions of pedophiles and positive constructions of family men. The analysis highlights dilemmas within popular knowledge regarding children's safety and discrimination against men. Implications of media framing of such issues are explored through the experiences of 12 men participating in ongoing research into bloke culture in New Zealand. Seven of these men raised the airline case to invoke tensions they face when interacting with children. Of particular note are the ways in which men use media items as shared reference points for making sense of their own situations. The research strategy of analysing media items identified by research participants enables us to demonstrate the legacy of media and community deliberations in the accounts and relational practices of men. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Young People and Volunteerism: A Model of Sustained Volunteerism During the Transition to Adulthood

A model of sustained volunteerism in young people is proposed. The longitudinal study addresses the questions “Why do young people decide to continue to volunteer over an extended period of time?” There were 158 volunteers (82 female and 76 male). The volunteers completed measures of motivation to volunteer, integration, and satisfaction with the organization, merged effects due to voluntary service, social support, identity, and intention to volunteer on a first (Time 1) and a second research wave (Time 2). Results show that both dispositional and organizational variables are important in determining long-term volunteerism in young people and confirmed that role identity is the best predictor of intention to volunteer.     

Social identity, status characteristics and social networks: Predictors of advice seeking in a manufacturing facility

In the sociological tradition, status characteristics and patterns of interpersonal relations within a social network are considered important in explaining organizational behaviour (e.g. influence, cooperation). In the social identity tradition, perceptions of shared psychological group membership and group prototypicality are considered important in explaining many of the same organizational behaviours. The present paper explores core variables within each of these perspectives as predictors of advice seeking among supervisors in a manufacturing facility. Dyadic measures of group assignment are found to better predict advice seeking than measures taken at the individual level. Identification with work groups predicted advice seeking from those perceived to be in the same group, and also from structural equivalents. Implications for theory and further research are discussed.     

The many faces of stereotype threat: Group- and self-threat

Contending with negative intellectual stereotypes has been shown to depress the academic performance of targets of the stereotypes [Steele, C. M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist, 52, 613-629]. The present paper examines whether women’s mathematics performance is differentially affected by the concern of confirming that a negative stereotype is true of the self (self-threat), than by the concern of confirming that the stereotype is true of their gender (group-threat). In two studies we independently manipulated these different threats for women taking a mathematics test. Gender identification moderated the effect of group-threats on test performance; only women highly identified with their gender underperformed. The performance of less gender-identified women was unaffected by group-threats. In contrast, gender identification did not moderate the effect of self-threats—both high- and low-identified women underperformed. The results of these studies suggest that women’s math performance is differentially affected by the source of the threat.     

Getting rid of the bad ones: The relationship between group identification, deviant derogation, and identity maintenance

Two studies investigated the impact of the presentation of an undesirable group member on group stereotype judgments among participants with varying degrees of ingroup identification. In Study 1 (N = 67), identification was associated with stereotype change following presentation of an undesirable, but not a desirable, ingroup member. This relationship was mediated by evaluations of the undesirable ingroup member: the stronger the identification, the more negative the evaluation, and the greater the shift towards a more positive ingroup stereotype. In Study 2 (N = 180), identification was positively associated with ingroup stereotype ratings following presentation of an undesirable ingroup member but was negatively associated with outgroup ratings following presentation of an undesirable outgroup member. As in Study 1, the association between ingroup identification and ingroup stereotype ratings was mediated by evaluations of the undesirable ingroup member. Results are discussed in relation to the black sheep effect and identity maintenance strategies.     

Shifting shadows: shaping dynamics in the cultural unconscious

Jung has suggested that wars, social upheavals and religions are 'but the superficial symptoms of a secret psychic attitude unknown even to the individual himself, and transmitted by no historian ...' (Jung 1964, para. 315; emphasis author's). With a focus on South Africa and some dream material, I explore this idea with particular emphasis on the cultural unconscious and the emerging theory of cultural complexes. Different cultures demand the repression of different aspects of the self and have different ways of actualizing a moral code. These repressions are part of what make up a dynamic and shifting cultural complex which inevitably plays a part in historical change. In turn, historical change plays its part in shifting these dynamics. In the analytic setting via the transference and countertransference, we are familiar with what is being repressed in relation to shadow dynamics, complexes and obsolete defences. Such dynamics relate to themes of boundary, identity and otherness which, in turn, reach back to early infantile strivings as well as forward in the service of unfolding. Central to this dynamic is the absorption of cultural attitudes--including that which must be repressed, allowed in or defended against. Major political shifts--historical change--inevitably affect cultural dynamics, 'secret psychic attitude(s)' and shifting shadows.     

The self in cyberspace

Abstract: Jung's concept of the Self is compared with current theories of identity formation in post‐modern society concerning the question: is the self constituted through experience and cultural influences—as it is argued by current theories in the social sciences—or is it already preformed inside the person, as Jung argues? The impact of communication media on the formation of identity in today's societies is discussed with a focus on internet communication and virtual realities. The resulting types of identities are conceptualized as polycentric which has surprising parallels to Jung's idea of the Self. The epistemology of constructivism and parallels in Jung's thought are demonstrated. Jung's work in this respect often appears contradictory in itself but this can be dealt with by a postmodern approach which accepts a plurality of truths.     

Intragroup dissonance: Responses to ingroup violation of personal values

The present research draws on cognitive dissonance theory [Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press] and social identity theory [Tajfel, H. (Ed.). (1978). Differentiation between social groups. London: Academic Press] to examine how group members respond to discrepancies between their personal values and the behavior of an ingroup. In two experiments we manipulated whether participants’ ingroup violated a personal value (providing basic healthcare in Experiment 1 and self-reliance in Experiment 2) and measured participants’ emotional responses and strategies for reducing discomfort. As expected, individuals experienced psychological discomfort (but not negative self-directed emotion), when an ingroup, but not when an outgroup, violated a personal value, and this discomfort mediated participants’ disidentification with their group (Experiment 1) and value-adherence activism (Experiment 2).     

Quine on Quantification and Existence

Quine's justly famous paper "On What There Is" introduced a criterion of ontological commitment which has been almost universally accepted by analytic philosophers ever since.In this paper I try to unpack some of the substantive and controversial philosophical commitments that are presupposed by this criterion.The aim is not to show that the criterion is incorrect,but merely that it is not as obvious as it is taken to be by many,and that we might have reasons to explore alternative ways of thinking about ontological commitments.     

民族文化认同与大学生职业成熟度的关系及其心理机制

为考察大学生民族文化认同与职业成熟度的关系及其内在心理机制,本研究采用多民族青少年文化认同问卷、大学生生涯自我效能感量表和大学生职业成熟度量表对4292名在校大学生进行测查,结果发现：（1）大学生的主流文化认同、民族文化认同、生涯自我效能感和职业成熟度之间具有明显的正相关;（2）主流文化认同--生涯自我效能感在民族文化认同与职业成熟度之间起链式中介作用;（3）生涯自我效能感中介民族文化认同与职业成熟度的关系在男生样本中不显著而在女生样本中显著;主流文化认同、生涯自我效能感分别单独中介民族文化认同与职业成熟度的关系在汉族大学生样本中为部分中介,而在少数民族大学生样本中为完全中介。