Less is more: Online consumer ratings' format affects purchase intentions and processing

Online customer ratings of products and services are commonplace in e‐commerce; however, the format in which these ratings are presented to consumers can vary. Although not anticipated by classical models of decision making, latter models such as prospect theory and feelings‐as‐information theory suggest that the presentation format of online customer ratings could affect subsequent consumer decision making. In the present research, 3 empirical studies test whether online customer ratings' formats differentially affect consumer purchase intentions. The results offer support for feeling‐as‐information theory and suggest that online ratings presented in a mean (vs. distribution) format result in higher purchase intentions as a result of increased processing fluency. Implications for the presentation of online consumer ratings in e‐commerce, based on these findings, are addressed.     

Longitudinal Effects of Latino Parent Cultural Stress,Depressive Symptoms,and Family Functioning on Youth Emotional Well‐Being and Health Risk Behaviors

U.S. Latino parents can face cultural stressors in the form of acculturative stress, perceived discrimination, and a negative context of reception. It stands to reason that these cultural stressors may negatively impact Latino youth's emotional well‐being and health risk behaviors by increasing parents' depressive symptoms and compromising the overall functioning of the family. To test this possibility, we analyzed data from a six‐wave longitudinal study with 302 recently immigrated (<5 years in the United States) Latino parents (74% mothers, M_age = 41.09 years) and their adolescent children (47% female, M_age = 14.51 years). Results of a cross‐lagged analysis indicated that parent cultural stress predicted greater parent depressive symptoms (and not vice versa). Both parent cultural stress and depressive symptoms, in turn, predicted lower parent‐reported family functioning, which mediated the links from parent cultural stress and depressive symptoms to youth alcohol and cigarette use. Parent cultural stress also predicted lower youth‐reported family functioning, which mediated the link from parent cultural stress to youth self‐esteem. Finally, mediation analyses indicated that parent cultural stress predicted youth alcohol use by a way of parent depressive symptoms and parent‐reported family functioning. Our findings point to parent depressive symptoms and family functioning as key mediators in the links from parent cultural stress to youth emotional well‐being and health risk behaviors. We discuss implications for research and preventive interventions.     

Discrimination,Internalized Homonegativity,and Attitudes Toward Children of Same‐Sex Parents: Can Secure Attachment Buffer Against Stigma Internalization?

With increasing numbers of same‐sex couples raising children in the United States, discriminatory attitudes toward children of same‐sex parents (ACSSP) are of increasing concern. As with other forms of stigma and discrimination, lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals are at risk for internalizing these societal attitudes, which can negatively affect parenting‐related decisions and behaviors and the mental and physical health of their children. Secure attachment is characterized by positive views of the self as loveable and worthy of care that are understood to develop in early relationships with caregivers. Secure attachment has been associated with positive mental and physical health, including among LGB individuals and couples. This study aimed to test the potential buffering role of secure attachment against stigma internalization by examining associations among secure attachment, discrimination, internalized homonegativity (IH), and ACSSP in an online survey study of 209 U.S. adults in same‐sex relationships. Bootstrap analyses supported our hypothesized moderated mediation model, with secure attachment being a buffer. Greater discrimination was indirectly associated with more negative ACSSP through greater IH for individuals with mean or lower levels, but not for individuals with higher than average levels of secure attachment, specifically because among those with higher levels of secure attachment, discrimination was not associated with IH. These findings build on and extend past research, with important implications for future research and clinical work with LGB individuals, same‐sex couples, and their families, including potential implementation of interventions targeting attachment security.     

A Longitudinal Study of Parental Depressive Symptoms and Coparenting in the First 18 Months

Although the negative impact of postpartum depression on parenting behaviors has been well established—albeit separately—for mothers and fathers, the respective and joint impact of both parents' mood on family‐group interactive behaviors, such as coparenting support and conflict behaviors between the parents, have not yet been investigated. The aim of this study was to examine the association between parental depressive symptoms and coparenting behaviors in a low‐risk sample of families with infants, exploring reciprocity between the variables, as well as gender differences between mothers and fathers regarding these links. At 3 (T1), 9 (T2), and 18 months postpartum (T3), we assessed both parents' depressive symptoms with a self‐report questionnaire and observed coparenting support and conflict during triadic mother–father–child interactions. The results revealed that higher maternal depressive symptoms at T1 were associated with lower support at T1 and T2. Conflict at T3 was associated with higher maternal depressive symptoms at T3 and, more surprisingly, with less depressive symptoms in mothers at T2 and fathers at T3. Cross‐lagged associations suggested that parental depressive symptoms were more likely to influence coparenting than the reverse. Moreover, maternal depressive symptoms were more likely to be linked to coparenting behaviors than were paternal depressive symptoms. These results confirm that parental—mostly maternal—depressive symptoms, even of mild intensity, may jeopardize the development of healthy family‐level relations, which previous research has shown to be crucial for child development.     

Differentiating Between Attachment Styles and Behaviors and their Association with Marital Quality

The purpose of this study was to distinguish between the influence of attachment styles and behaviors on marital quality for couples. Data were gathered from 680 couples in a married relationship. Results showed attachment style and behaviors predicted marital quality for both men and women, with higher levels of attachment related to greater quality. Attachment behaviors predicted more of the variance in quality than did styles. Specific implications regarding how therapists may wish to foster behaviors that promote attachment security in marriages are discussed.     

Parents as Partners: A U.K. Trial of a U.S. Couples‐Based Parenting Intervention For At‐Risk Low‐Income Families

Despite the well‐established links between couple relationship quality and healthy family functioning, and burgeoning evidence from the international intervention field, there is little or no evidence of the efficacy of couples‐based interventions from the United Kingdom (U.K.). This study explored whether the Parents as Partners (PasP) program, a group‐based intervention developed in the United States, brought about the same benefits in the U.K. The evaluation is based on 97 couples with children from communities with high levels of need, recruited to PasP because they are at high risk for parent and child psychopathology. Both mothers and fathers completed self‐report questionnaires assessing parents’ psychological distress, parenting stress, couple relationship quality and conflict, fathers’ involvement in child care and, importantly, children's adjustment. Multilevel modeling analysis comparing parents’ responses pre‐ and postintervention not only showed substantial improvements for both parents on multiple measures of couple relationship quality, but also improvements in parent and child psychopathology. Analyses also indicated most substantial benefits for couples displaying poorest functioning at baseline. The findings provide initial evidence for the successful implementation of PasP, an American‐origin program, in the U.K., and add support for the concept of the couple relationship as a resource by which to strengthen families.     

Bridging worlds: participatory thinking in Jungian context

Introducing the ‘participatory’ paradigm associated with the work of transpersonalists Richard Tarnas and Jorge Ferrer, the author outlines an approach to Jung's archetypal thinking that might offer a more adequate basis in which to ground a non‐reductive approach to practice. In order to demonstrate the relevance of this outlook at the present time, the author begins by examining recent debates concerning the nature of ‘truth’ in the clinical setting. Reflecting on the difficulties analysts face in attempting to maintain professional authority without falling into an implicit authoritarianism, it is argued that any approach to therapy seeking to orient itself towards ‘the unconscious’ must posit the challenges of pluralism as a central concern for practice. With reference to the relationship between analytical psychology and the psychoanalytic mainstream, attention is drawn to the theoretical problems raised by the relational commitment to constructivist epistemologies, and a consequent tendency towards biological reductionism. Turning to the Jungian literature, similar tensions are observed at play in the present state of analytical psychology. Drawing attention to the process‐oriented qualities of Jung's work, it is suggested that the speculative nature of Jung's psychology offers a more adequate basis for contemporary practice than might be assumed.     

Disintegration of the self and the regeneration of ‘psychic skin’ in the treatment of traumatized refugees

This paper presents a tentative understanding of the characteristics of the extreme traumas, elsewhere called ‘complex PTSD’, that some refugees and asylum‐seekers bring into therapy. It suggests that these kinds of traumas suffered during adulthood may involve a disintegration of the self and a loss of ‘psychic skin’. This conceptualization is derived from the treatment of a refugee who survived multiple extreme traumas and with whom efforts were made in therapy to identify a complex methodology making use of supplementary therapeutic tools in addition to individual psychotherapy. The case demonstrates how the disintegration of self implies not only a deep somato‐psychic dissociation, but also a loss of intrapsychic and interpersonal space. In the treatment this was worked through via repetition of the victim‐aggressor dynamics at multiple levels. In the end, the therapeutic context was structured like a set of concentric layers, creating a ‘bandage’ over the patient's wounds whilst his ‘psychic skin’ was able to regenerate. The conditions triggered by extreme traumas in refugees challenge some of the cornerstones of individual psychoanalytic technique, as well as the idea that individual therapy may be thought of as existing in an environmental vacuum.     

The latency complex: the dead hand of anti‐development

It is common knowledge that the same phenomena can be viewed in a variety of ways. This paper considers the implications of a constellation observed in some adult patients who have increasingly reminded the author of some of the children of latency age with whom he has also worked. In the literature these patients may also have been thought about in terms of ‘defences of the self’ (Fordham), patients who are ‘difficult to reach’ (Joseph), ‘psychic retreats’ (Steiner), and those who make ‘attacks on linking’ (Bion). They may equally be considered in terms of schizoid, narcissistic or borderline personalities, or as showing features on the autistic spectrum, such as mindlessness and extreme obsessionality. Writers such as Helene Deutsch with her concept of an ‘as‐if personality’, Winnicott with his ‘false self’, and Rosenfeld, discussing the split‐off parts of the personality in narcissistic patients, have also offered much to think about in their consideration of some of these phenomena. This paper proposes yet another vertex – the author's own imaginative conjecture – that is by no means mutually exclusive of any of these others.     

Psychological implications of a vision disorder

The paper discusses how the condition of crossed‐eyes affects a baby's eye contact with mother and potentially results in the loss of a vital emotional connection with her during the earliest days of life. This loss may contribute to a rupture that arrests emotional development at a deep psychic level. It is suggested that, in the same way as premature separation, the rupture can precipitate a ‘fusional complex’, a defence that develops to protect the infant against psychotic anxieties. The paper proposes that psychological development atrophies in this place and creates a blind spot. These ideas are explored through analytic theory and developmental literature. The dreams of a patient and his art are used to illustrate a 10‐year ‘alchemical’ process of bringing repressed material into consciousness and transformation. Healing the psychological wounds of deficits in early eye contact may be found to bring sight to a blind spot that was created by the nature of the condition itself.