Coping flexibility and eudaimonic well‐being in university students

Despite the growing interest in the relationship between coping strategies and eudaimonic well‐being, few studies have examined this issue from the perspective of coping flexibility. Therefore, the present study aimed to: (1) identify approach coping profiles in the university context and (2) analyze the differences between these profiles in terms of eudaimonic well‐being. A prospective ex post facto design was used and 1,402 university students were selected through convenience sampling. Data were collected using validated self‐reported instruments. A latent profile analysis was conducted to identify the participants’ coping profiles. The relationship between profiles and eudaimonic well‐being was determined using a multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA ), with gender, age, and university degree as covariates. Six student profiles were identified based on the degree to which they combined positive reappraisal, support seeking, and planning strategies. The profiles that involved the use of these three strategies to a greater extent experienced more eudaimonic well‐being, and vice versa. To analyze the impact of coping on eudaimonic well‐being, it is necessary to consider students’ ability to combine different approach coping strategies.     

Optimizing Exposure Therapy for Pathological Health Anxiety: Considerations From the Inhibitory Learning Approach

Exposure therapy has demonstrated its efficacy in the treatment of pathological health anxiety—however, psychotherapy research reveals that many patients do not show a clinically significant change. Therefore, improvements are necessary to optimize psychotherapy for pathological health anxiety. Most treatment rationales refer to habituation during exposure as the central mechanism of change. However, there is evidence that extinction learning is mediated by inhibitory learning processes. Targeting these processes may help to improve treatment outcomes in pathological health anxiety. The aim of this review was to adapt, from the inhibitory learning approach and empirical findings, the most promising strategies for the exposure-based treatment of pathological health anxiety. The exposure-optimizing strategies adapted are expectancy violation, combination, variability in contexts and stimuli, affect labeling, and removal of safety signals. A case example illustrates how to implement these methods for patients with pathological health anxiety.     

Role strain among South African seminarians in the Anglican Church: toward a typology of congregational support

This phenomenological study explored student value perceptions of religious participation among nontraditional South African distance learners who persisted in theological distance education. Four basic types of churches emerged including the Equipping Church, the Empowering Church, the Engaging Church, and the Endangering Church. However, in examining religious coping strategies among South African distance learners, it was discovered that the four women interviewed experienced a deep sense of loneliness in their calling and had to rely almost exclusively on resources outside their local church. These Black South African women’s sense of being called alone is both inconsistent with the theoretical framework of role theory and the theological framework of the Anglican Church as expressed by the official Prayer Book.     

A critical analysis of recent work on empowerment: implications for gender

A flurry of publications on empowerment by institutions such as the World Bank that emerged from about 2000–2005 was followed by critiques and then a seeming lull in the popularity of and work on empowerment. However, the concept has reappeared recently in what I take to be an important new development that highlights the relational feature of empowerment. In this paper, I begin with the capabilities approach as delineated by Amartya Sen and, specifically, his application of it to gender. This shapes the background against which I highlight how recent work on empowerment by Jay Drydyk, the World Development Report 2012, Gender Equality and Development, and Patti Petesch utilizes but also departs from Sen. I then argue that insights from this recent research can be developed further through a feminist relational framework. With its focus on relationships, relational theory can better capture possibilities for empowering women in and through an analysis of the relationships they are in.     

When attractiveness demands longer looks: The effects of situation and gender

We investigated how aesthetics guides our exploration of the environment. We embedded attractive and nonattractive faces into complex, real-world scenes and measured eye movements during scene viewing. We examined whether attractive faces would elicit longer looks, which would suggest that the aesthetic response orients people toward the rewarding and pleasing aspects of the environment. Experiment 1 showed that mean fixation, mean first fixation, and total fixation durations were longer to attractive faces, and fixations were longest to female faces and by female perceivers. In Experiment 2, we examined whether these effects of attractiveness are sensitive to situational factors. When perceivers were subjected to a threat or social approach manipulation prior to viewing the scenes, we confirmed specific hypotheses concerning the two manipulations. In accordance with the hypothesis that males have higher aggression potential than females, there were no differences in fixation durations between attractive and nonattractive male faces in the threat condition. On the other hand, in the social approach condition, both female and male attractive faces received longer looks. These results suggest that the aesthetic response orients people not only to the pleasing aspects of their environment, but also to those features that are adaptively relevant.     

Key characteristics of decision making in soccer and their implications

This paper puts forward the position that the cognitivist approach adopted in research on decision making in team sports leads to a disconnection from the actual environment of play. The argument is structured as a narrative review of 60 articles that were analyzed to identify the most recent concepts related to the following topics or combinations thereof: tactics and action in the play; decision making and associated cognitive mechanisms and skills; and the teaching–learning–training process. The results of the review led us to characterize decision making in the team sports context as being (a) “prereflected,” (b) based on evaluation, (c) frugal, and (d) “generated,” as opposed to being a process of choosing from alternatives. In addition to showing clear adjustments to the environment of play, the four characteristics imply that teaching, learning, and training to play should also be designed according to the restrictions imposed by the context and the actual lived experience of the play. We conclude that cognition should not be considered solely responsible for decisions, and thus both theoretical and pedagogical models of player development should take the ecological perspective of decision making into account. As a result, the methodologies employed to develop players from an early age could be elaborated on by taking into account the interaction between cognitive skills and the possibilities emerging in the play.     

权力基础理论:对应生存需要的权力

权力是社会关系和社会活动的核心,对应于生存需要,与人们的生活品质息息相关。采用心理–生态途径,权力基础理论将其界定为个体依据环境限制与供给满足自身需要的能力,并识别出6种基本权力类型,同时阐述了权力动态性如何通过增生性交易导致或加剧社会不平等。该理论试图从人际和群际心理层面探讨权力的起源问题,并将其与一般社会不平等现象建立联系,为权力的社会心理学研究提供了一个崭新的视角。     

Dialogue and Dominance in Couple Therapy for Depression: Exploring Therapists’ Responses in Creating Collaborative Moments

Previous investigations have found specific communication patterns in couples dealing with depression, specifically when depression concurs with conjugal conflicts. The presence of these patterns can reflect couples’ difficulties in engaging in collaborative communication during their sessions, posing a real challenge for therapists. This exploratory study uses a dialogical approach to examine issues of dominance and type of dialogue in two couples who differed in terms of their levels of dyadic adjustment. The therapists’ reactions were explored in order to detect the kinds of responses that were most effective at engendering a collaborative attitude in therapy sessions. The method used to analyze the dialogue was Dialogical Investigations of Happenings of Change (DIHC). Results on dominance indicated that the degree of quantitative and semantic dominance displayed by a different member of the couple in each case was illustrative of their relational dynamics, while in both cases interactional dominance was exercised by the therapists. Results on dialogue revealed that dialogic dialogue might help to coconstruct new shared meanings of depression. The findings indicated that certain responses by therapists as part of the dialogue could be useful in bringing about a reduction in hostility between the members of a couple, provided that the responses are maintained over the course of the session. Some research and clinical implications that emerge from the results are discussed.     

Managing diversity in organizations: An integrative model and agenda for future research

The literature on policies, procedures, and practices of diversity management in organizations is currently fragmented and often contradictory in highlighting what is effective diversity management, and which organizational and societal factors facilitate or hinder its implementation. In order to provide a comprehensive and cohesive view of diversity management in organizations, we develop a multilevel model informed by the social identity approach that explains, on the basis of a work motivation logic, the processes by, and the conditions under which employee dissimilarity within diverse work groups is related to innovation, effectiveness, and well-being. Building on this new model, we then identify those work group factors (e.g., climate for inclusion and supervisory leadership), organizational factors (e.g., diversity management policies and procedures, and top management's diversity beliefs), and societal factors (e.g., legislation, socioeconomic situation, and culture) that are likely to contribute to the effective management of diversity in organizations. In our discussion of the theoretical implications of the proposed model, we offer a set of propositions to serve as a guide for future research. We conclude with a discussion of possible limitations of the model and practical implications for managing diversity in organizations.     

选择文化心理学研究课题之我见？

笔者经由回顾自己如何走上本土理学研究的道路,介绍了本土心理学的由来,本土心理学中的研究进路的选择,以及如何使用本土进路选择研究课题.进而提出应该将社会心理学,本土心理学及文化心理学三者结合起来开展华人心理的研究,为华人心理学在世界心理学界发声和为人民的社会实践提供切实有效的帮助.