The promise of qualitative inquiry for positive psychology: Diversifying methods

Abstract

This article offers a corrective for positive psychology, viewing qualitative methods as a paradigm of equal value to quantitative methods for psychologists interested in better understanding human strengths. Gergen, Josselson, and Freeman’s framework for qualitative psychology in general, along with other qualitative theory, will be utilized as a basis for application to positive psychology in particular. Qualitative inquiry’s potential for enriching positive psychology will be described, noting several qualitative research approaches. Then, the role of qualitative psychology in promoting the flourishing of positive psychology will be examined, discussing implications for theoretical advancements, building community, and enhancing psychology through interdisciplinarity. Finally, the possibility for qualitative methods in positive psychology to build relationships between academia and society will be explored; in particular, the nature of this collaboration, and the communication of positive psychology to the public will be noted. The conclusion notes how such potentials may be realized given current realities.     

校园氛围与青少年的自杀意念/企图：自尊的中介作用

尽管相当一部分青少年自杀发生于学校背景中,但目前较少有研究考察校园氛围是否会影响以及怎样影响青少年的自杀意念/企图。本研究旨在检验校园氛围的不同方面(教师支持、同学支持、自主机会)与青少年自杀意念/企图的关系,以及自尊在其中的中介作用。采用分层整群抽样的方法,选取广东省10所学校2758名初中生作为被试,匿名填写家庭功能问卷、社区问题问卷、校园氛围问卷、Rosenberg自尊量表、自杀意念与企图问卷。回归分析表明:(1)在控制了性别、年龄、社会经济地位、家庭功能和社区问题后,教师支持和同学支持均能显著负向预测自杀意念/企图,自主机会对自杀意念/企图的预测作用不显著;(2)自尊在教师支持和同学支持与自杀意念/企图之间起着中介作用。因此,实践工作中应重视教师支持和同学支持对青少年自尊的塑造作用,进而减少自杀意念/企图。     

ALTRUISM IN SUICIDE TERROR ORGANIZATIONS

In recent years, much has been learned about the strategic and organizational contexts of suicide attacks. However, motivations of the agents who commit them remain difficult to explain. In part this is because standard models of social learning as well as Durkheimian notions of sacrificial behavior are inadequate in the face of the actions of human bombers. In addition, the importance of organizational structures and practices in reinforcing commitment on the part of suicide recruits is an under-explored factor in many analyses. This essay examines the potential applicability of evolutionary models of altruism to the understanding of commitment to suicide on the part of terrorist organizational recruits. Three evolutionary models of sacrificial behavior in nonhuman species and many categories of human behavior are explored cross-organizationally: reciprocity, inclusive fitness theory, and induced altruism. Reciprocal altruism is unlikely to be a major motivator in suicide attacks because the costs exhibited by attackers are too high to be adequately compensated. However, the role of evolved self-deception in perceptions of personal death, and thus of rewards in the afterlife, is potentially illuminating. Inclusive fitness theory can help explain the motivations of attackers because rewards to kin often are offered by organizations to suicide recruits. However, suicide bombers also often act out of revenge for the loss of or injury to relatives, and inclusive fitness theory generally, as well as more specific theoretical models of retaliatory aggression, may not adequately account for the bombers' actions. Predictions from induced altruism theory appear to be well supported because suicide terror organizations tend to be tightly structured around practices intended to maintain and reinforce commitment though the manipulation of kinship-recognition cues.     

Challenges of Evaluating Multilevel Interventions

This article uses the Comprehensive Mixed-Methods Participatory Evaluation (CMMPE; Nastasi and Hitchcock Transforming school mental health services: Population-based approaches to promoting the competency and wellness of children, Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press with National Association of School Psychologists 2008; Nastasi et al. School-based mental health services: creating comprehensive and culturally specific programs. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association 2004) model as a framework for addressing the multiplicity of evaluation decisions and complex nature of questions related to program success in multilevel interventions. CMMPE defines program success in terms of acceptability, integrity, social or cultural validity, outcomes (impact), sustainability and institutionalization, thus broadening the traditional notions of program outcomes. The authors use CMMPE and an example of a community-based multilevel sexual risk prevention program with multiple outcomes to discuss challenges of evaluating multilevel interventions. The sexual risk program exemplifies what Schensul and Tricket (this issue) characterize as multilevel intervention–multilevel evaluation (M–M), with both intervention and evaluation at community, health practitioner, and patient levels. The illustration provides the context for considering several challenges related to M–M designs: feasibility of randomized controlled trials within community-based multilevel intervention; acceptability and social or cultural validity of evaluation procedures; implementer, recipient, and contextual variations in program success; interactions among levels of the intervention; unanticipated changes or conditions; multiple indicators of program success; engaging multiple stakeholders in a participatory process; and evaluating sustainability and institutionalization. The complexity of multilevel intervention and evaluation designs challenges traditional notions of evaluation research and experimental designs. Overcoming these challenges is critical to effective translation of research to practice in psychology and related disciplines.     

School Violence, Depression, and Suicide

The spread of endemic school violence in the United States from urban black, Hispanic, and other minority areas to white suburbia and smaller communities has alarmed the nation. Contrary to common belief, the incidence of school violence has been fairly stable except in the areas of violence against females and gang membership. The culture of violence and easy availability of guns is a major contributing factor. The relationship between school violence, suicidality and psychiatric disorders, specifically depressive disorders, conduct disorder, and alcohol and drug abuse are discussed within the framework of the psychological autopsy of suicide in children and adolescents. There are striking similarities between acts of school violence and suicidality. Specific guidelines are provided regarding clinical assessment of potentially violent youth with emphasis on exploration of attachment behavior in various developmental stages.     

Youth Suicide Intervention Using the Satir Model

Youth suicide is a social issue that needs serious consideration among families, therapists and helping professionals. This article presents an actual case of a youth who completed suicide, and discussion of the hypothetical Satir model treatment of this youth while alive. The Satir model has numerous interventions that have current applications toward dealing with suicidal youth in a humanist and hopeful way, fostering youths' desire to live and to become more positively involved in their lives. In the past, Satir focused on coping stances in communication, and now the coping stances give a deeper understanding into the internal world.     

Research in person‐centred,experiential and humanistic counselling and psychotherapy: Meeting new challenges

As a result of the programme of research into client‐centred therapy led by Carl Rogers, the humanistic therapies could claim, in the 1950s, to possess a comprehensive evidence base. Over the following decades, however, there was a marked decline in the productivity and influence of research into person‐centred and humanistic therapies. The present paper celebrates the publication of three books that mark a resurgence in research into these approaches, and comments on emerging themes and trends.     

The error statistical philosopher as normative naturalist

We argue for a naturalistic account for appraising scientific methods that carries non-trivial normative force. We develop our approach by comparison with Laudan’s (American Philosophical Quarterly 24:19–31, 1987, Philosophy of Science 57:20–33, 1990) “normative naturalism” based on correlating means (various scientific methods) with ends (e.g., reliability). We argue that such a meta-methodology based on means–ends correlations is unreliable and cannot achieve its normative goals. We suggest another approach for meta-methodology based on a conglomeration of tools and strategies (from statistical modeling, experimental design, and related fields) that affords forward looking procedures for learning from error and for controlling error. The resulting “error statistical” appraisal is empirical—methods are appraised by examining their capacities to control error. At the same time, this account is normative, in that the strategies that pass muster are claims about how actually to proceed in given contexts to reach reliable inferences from limited data.     

Parameters, Predictions, and Evidence in Computational Modeling: A Statistical View Informed by ACT-R

Model validation in computational cognitive psychology often relies on methods drawn from the testing of theories in experimental physics. However, applications of these methods to computational models in typical cognitive experiments can hide multiple, plausible sources of variation arising from human participants and from stochastic cognitive theories, encouraging a "model fixed, data variable" paradigm that makes it difficult to interpret model predictions and to account for individual differences. This article proposes a likelihood-based, "data fixed, model variable" paradigm in which models are treated as stochastic processes in experiments with participant-to-participant variation that can be applied to a broad range of mechanistic cognitive architectures. This article discusses the implementation and implications of this view in model validation, with a concrete focus on a simple class of ACT-R models of cognition. This article is not intended as a recipe for broad application of these preliminary, proof-of-concept methods, but as a framework for communication between statisticians searching for interesting problems in the cognitive modeling sphere, and cognitive modelers interested in generalizing from deterministic to stochastic model validation, in the face of random variation in human experimental data.