Racial identity beliefs and academic achievement: does being black hold students back?

The examination of a student’s racial identity beliefs along with the extent to which being Black is a central part of his or her self-concept provides a novel, insightful approach to understanding the relationship between racial identity and academic achievement (Chavous et al., 2003,). Using Sellers et al. (1998a) Multi-dimensional Model of Black Identity (MMBI) as a framework, this study investigated racial centrality, public regard and private regard beliefs in relation to the grade point average of African–American high-school students. A total of 289 African–American students from a large urban district participated in this study. Cluster analyses conducted on the three subscales of the MMBI on separate samples of 9th and 12th grade students replicated three of four racial identity profile groups previously identified by Chavous et al. (2003). Additionally, among both 9th and 12th grade students, Alienated students achieved significantly higher grade point averages than did Idealized students.     

Sleep of Reason: critical reflections on performance arts-based research as psycho-social commentary in expressive arts therapy praxis

This arts-based case study is a critical reflection on how performance art can be used as psycho-social commentary. It is an attempt to amplify arts-based inquiry using critical understandings of diverse and inclusive meaning making in expressive arts praxis and psychology. It examines the use of performance art in the expressive arts to understand psycho-social proximity to and complicity in dehumanization and structural racism. This arts-based research exists in the intersections of culture, race, the arts, and social commentary with the goals of learning how it facilitates awareness of psycho-social justice and how current uncritical expressive arts and psychology praxis and practitioners can perpetuate structural racism and racial trauma. It asserts performance art can be utilized as a catalyst for psycho-social transformation in creative ways.     

Being white,being Jungian: implications of Jung’s encounter with the ‘non-European’ other1

This personal account charts the changing relationship to a Jungian identity arising from the interrelated processes of understanding the roots of the colonial and racial ideologies that underpin Jung’s thinking, and a developing awareness of what it means to be a white person in a system of racism that maintains white supremacy. This is illustrated with reference to the image of a black man appearing in the dream of the white author and with use of post-Jungian thinking to critique the notion of an objective, non-racial psyche.     

When the bullied peer is native-born vs. immigrant: A mixed-method study with a sample of native-born and immigrant adolescents

An increasing number of immigrant students attend Italian schools, with the possibility of being involved in bullying episodes. A few studies have investigated this phenomenon, providing some evidence that immigrant students may face an increased risk of being bullied compared to native-born students. The present study adopted a mixed-method design, which may better detect the dynamics of bullying towards immigrant peers. Participants were 692 native-born and immigrant students (20.5% with immigrant background; 54.8% females) who filled in self-report measures about their bullying experiences, popularity, acceptance of diversity at school, and prejudice. Thirty-five pupils (54% with immigrant background) were also interviewed. Two hypothetical bullying scenarios were presented: one depicting a native-born victim and one depicting an immigrant victim. After each scenario, adolescents were encouraged to reason about the motives for bullying. Quantitative data showed that general bullying was associated with perceived popularity status among peers, while racial bullying was associated with prejudice but not peer status. The relevance of anti-immigrant prejudices in driving racial bullying emerged also from adolescents’ interviews. The qualitative data indicated that among the reasons for bullying, adolescents mentioned a desire for dominance and popularity, in particular when the victim was non-immigrant. Findings suggest that, in addition to individual and peer group-related risk factors, prejudice also needs to be addressed in anti-bullying interventions aimed to counteract racial bullying.     

Racial Colorblindness and Confidence in and Likelihood of Action to Address Prejudice

In this study, we examined the association between racial colorblindness and inaction to address prejudice. Conceptualized as a type of legitimizing ideology that maintains societal inequality, we hypothesized that colorblindness would be associated with less confidence in and lower likelihood of engaging in action to address prejudice. Our study examined the role of affective variables in explaining the link between colorblindness and inaction, as well as explored potential racial group differences. We used multigroup structural equation modeling analysis to test for measurement and structural invariance of our hypothesized model across White, Asian American, and Underrepresented racial minority (i.e., African American, Latinx American, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Native American, and Multiracial students from Underrepresented groups) college students. In Study 1 (n = 1,125), we found that greater colorblindness was indirectly associated with less confidence in action through affective variables (e.g., intergroup empathy, and positive and negative emotions during intergroup interactions). In Study 2 (n = 1,356), we found that greater colorblindness was indirectly related to less likelihood of action through intergroup empathy. In both studies, we demonstrated measurement and structural invariance across racial groups, indicating that our hypothesized model functioned similarly across White, Underrepresented, and Asian American students. Our findings have implications for future research and practice to challenge colorblindness and to promote engagement in actions to reduce prejudice.     

Colorblind and multicultural diversity strategies create identity management pressure

Colorblind and multicultural diversity strategies may create identity management pressure, leading minorities to assert or distance from their racial identity. In two experiments (N = 307, 279), Asian and Asian American participants in the United States completed racial identification measures, contemplated employment at a company expressing a multicultural, colorblind, or control strategy, and completed measures assessing ingroup similarity and comfort in the company. In the colorblind condition, participants who were strongly identified with their racial ingroup downplayed similarity to the ingroup and expressed less comfort relative to multicultural and control conditions. Participants who were weakly identified reported more similarity (but inconsistently) and more comfort in the colorblind relative to multicultural and control conditions. Thus, diversity strategies convey different meanings to strongly and weakly identified Asian individuals, with the former responding to colorblindness with identity distancing and the latter with identity assertion. Multiculturalism does not alter the typical pattern expected, with strongly identified asserting their identity more than weakly identified.     

A Psychoanalytic View of Racial Myths in a Nazi Propaganda Film: Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew)

This paper describes the emotional appeal of propaganda utilizing concepts from psychoanalysis, small group psychology, and psychohistory. The film propagandist attempts to exploit irrational emotional responses to visual scenes and commentary to change attitudes, values, and behavior in a mass setting. A link between shared unconscious fantasies and myth is offered as an explanatory concept to explain propaganda's wide emotional appeal. The German Nazi anti-Semitic film, Der Ewige Jude, serves as the case example of the exploitation of such fantasies in a mass setting for a political end.     

Equally Shared Parenting

Conventional images of motherhood and fatherhood, social interactions, and gender-based job pressures push couples toward unequal parenting. Equally sharing parents resist those pressures, and construct equality through everyday negotiations and ongoing decisions about family and work. They do not believe that mothers are more responsible for children, or more suited to care for them, than fathers. They avoid gender-based decisions about jobs that reinforce a gender-based division of labor at home. Qualitative research is necessary to unravel the complex interactions between work and family arrangements, and to show how economic, social, and ideological factors constrain family arrangements, but are also transformed in their creation.     

Help-Seeking Comfort and Receiving Social Support: The Role of Ethnicity and Context of Need

Examined help-seeking comfort and receiving social support among Latinos, African Americans, and European Americans across two contexts: in a communitywide emergency (Hurricane Andrew) and 2 years later in a nonemergency situation. In general, help-seeking comfort was a strong predictor of received support. Notwithstanding many similarities between the groups, the effects of ethnicity differed according to the context. In emergency, all groups reported similarly high levels of help-seeking comfort and received support. In nonemergency, help-seeking comfort declined for blacks and whites but not for Latinos. Although all ethnic groups reported receiving less social support in nonemergency, the decline in received support across contexts was most dramatic for Latinos. Situational, cultural, and differential resource loss explanations are offered to account for the findings.     

Sleep disturbances and depression are bidirectionally associated among college student athletes across COVID-19 pandemic exposure classes

College athletes may be vulnerable to sleep disturbances and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of large shifts in social and athletic obligations. In a national sample of college athletes, we examined the associations between sleep disturbances and depression across two timepoints, using COVID-19 exposure as a moderator. Data were collected from 2098 NCAA Division I, II, and III college athletes during two timepoints, from April 10 to May 23, and from August 4 to September 15, 2020. First, a latent class analysis was conducted with five indicators of levels of COVID-19 exposure to determine different exposure profiles. Second, to examine the directionality of associations between sleep disturbance and depression, a cross-lagged panel model was added to the latent class membership structural equation model; this allowed for testing of moderation by COVID exposure class membership. Four highly homogeneous, well-separated classes of COVID-19 exposure were enumerated: Low Exposure (57%); Quarantine Only (21%); High Other, Low Self Exposure (14%); and High Exposure (8%). COVID-19 exposure class membership did not significantly moderate associations between sleep disturbances and depression. However, student athletes significantly differed in T2 depression by their COVID-19 exposure class membership. Depression and sleep disturbances were positively correlated at both timepoints (r_T1 = 0.39; r_T2 = 0.30). Additionally, cross-lagged associations were found such that T2 depression was associated with T1 sleep disturbances (β = 0.14) and vice versa (β = 0.11). These cross-lagged associations were not significantly affected by athletes’ level of COVID-19 exposure during the beginning of the pandemic.