Prejudice and peace: Is the Swedish youth neutral in its attitudes?

Two hundred and sixty Swedish students attending grade 9 were given a semantic differential to measure their attitudes towards four countries, Sweden, West Germany, USA, and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union received significantly more unfavourable ratings on nearly all variables than the other countries, which received mainly favourable or neutral ones. Most interesting, the Soviet Union is rated as "enemy", whilst the other countries are rated as "friends". Implications for peace education are discussed.     

Sex Biases in Subject Selection: A Survey of Articles Published in American Medical Journals

This study discusses the results of a survey of 1,800 articles published in American medical journals from 1985--1996. The study finds 9% of these articles reported research that uses only male subjects to examine medical conditions that affect both sexes; the ratio of research on female to male conditions among these articles was greater than 5:1; but 76.5% of the articles reported research that includes both male and female subjects. The study also discusses evidence that sex biases against women (and men) are decreasing. This study also offers some possible psychological, institutional, medical, and economic explanations of the sex biases in medical research published in American journals, and discusses some policy implications of sex biases in medical research. The study concludes by urging others to conduct more empirical research on sex biases in medical research.     

Embodied Knowledge and Making Sense of Prenatal Diagnosis

Open-ended, qualitative interviews with women to whom amniocentesis was offered were analyzed to understand how women made sense of these tests. We found that women, whether tested or not, negotiated with biomedical information. They transformed it through identifiable processes, then wove it with their own instincts and beliefs and with their personal experiences, thereby creating embodied knowledge on which their decisions were based. Women who were and were not tested may have differed from each other when categorized on the basis of a final, binary choice, but they were more alike than unalike in reaching this point. The apparent importance of embodied knowledge suggests the critical role of the listening activities of the genetic counselor and of awareness of the validity and importance of women's complementary ways of knowing and doing in understanding the uses and meanings of prenatal genetic testing.     

Psychotherapy Process Measure Research and the Evaluation of Psychotherapy Orientation: A Narrative Analysis

This article discusses the need for a systematic method that enables researchers to evaluate integrative therapy approaches using a range of therapy process measures. The Narrative System Process Coding (NPCS; Angus, Hardtke, & Levitt, 1996) is proposed as such a method, and is applied with the Experiencing Scale (Klein, Mathieu, Gendlin, & Keisler, 1970) and the Levels of Client Perceptual Processing (LCPP; Toukmanian, 1986) to three brief good outcome integrative therapy modalities to illustrate this need. The study found higher Experiencing Scale scores to be most strongly related to an experiential approach to therapy and to the NPCS internal narrative processes. Higher LCPP scores were most strongly related to the NPCS reflexive narrative process and to a perceptual-processing approach. The discussion initiates a discourse on the importance of explicating process measures' origins when comparing different therapy approaches in order to allow for the meaningful consolidation of process research findings.     

Empirical research on the identification of singular,multiple and subordinate argumentation

To examine to what degree argumentation skills are mastered by pupils who attend the vocational, general and academic streams in Dutch secondary education various subtests were constructed. The theoretical study of argumentation as exposed by Van Eemeren and Grootendorst was the basis for this test construction. In this article tests for the identification of singular, multiple and subordinate argumentation are described. Also an account is given of a pretest of these three subtests.     

‘We’ve shared a lifetime with one another’: using reflective visual/verbal journals to develop graduate student relationships

The success of graduate students relies on factors beyond mere cognitive ability, with fostering peer and professional relationships as definitive influences on achievement. Research shows that positive faculty/student relationships are a significant factor in the success of graduate students and that art-making is an effective way to encourage the reflective thinking needed to nurture these relationships. In this article, we examine the relationship between arts informed pedagogy, specifically the use of a visual/verbal journal, and the formation of graduate relationships. The majority of the students in this collaborative inquiry entered their doctoral program at the same time the research class began and all engaged in an artfully imagined introduction to qualitative research course.     

Humanism after posthumanism: or qualitative psychology after the “posts”

Almost 25 years ago, psychologist and qualitative methodologist Steinar Kvale conjectured that psychology might become obsolete or redundant in a postmodern age due to the modernist legacies of this science. This, of course, has not materialized, but the question of redundancy reemerges today in new philosophical guises related to the rise of posthumanist philosophy and what has come to be known as postqualitative research. In this article, I aim to (1) introduce the posthuman and postqualitative critique of conventional qualitative research with an eye to its relevance for psychology, (2) introduce a distinction between ontological and advocacy issues concerning the post qualitative critique in order to (3) propose the idea that qualitative psychologists can accept much of the ontological theorizing developed by posthuman and postqualitative scholars, and yet advocate a humanist agenda for both scientific and ethical reasons. Historically, this was attempted by pragmatists such as James and Dewey. In short, the goal of the article is to sketch the contours of a qualitative psychology after the postqualitative critique, amounting to a form of humanism after posthumanism.     

Portraits of Well-Being: Photography as a Mental Health Support for Women With HIV

Many women living with HIV/AIDS (WL-HIV/AIDS) experience significant mental distress. Although creative arts strategies are well positioned to help support women by inspiring creativity and meaning-making, few arts programs have been implemented and evaluated with this population. The authors conducted a photography project with 30 WL-HIV/AIDS from three United States cities. Participants took pictures to capture their lives with HIV/AIDS and described their photos and stories in group and individual sessions. Using thematic analysis, the authors identified that the project supported women’s mental health in four ways by facilitating empowerment and helping women to express themselves, address their mental health with new tools like photography, and process past traumas. Photography projects may help WL-HIV/AIDS understand and manage their mental health.     

Practicing Community Psychology Through Mixed Methods Participatory Research Designs

Community psychologists address social inequalities and problems by employing ecological principles, multiple methodologies, and participatory approaches to empower individuals, organizations, and communities to organize action and systems change. This article aims to contribute to mixed methods literature by presenting three models of mixed methods participatory research across a variety of geographic and sociocultural contexts. The models outline participatory processes and points of qualitative and quantitative data integration. Challenges related to the interplay between participatory approaches and mixed methods studies as well as implications on social science research are discussed.