Resensitizing Men: A Male Perspective

Most of us accept that men are conditioned to behave as though they are always dominant, achieving, tough, and unsentimental and that, as a consequence, they erect elaborate defenses against feelings or thoughts that threaten to negate this self-concept. As therapists we often experience how difficult it is to move men off the cognitive level and info more effective places where they can experience their self-division and alienation. This article encourages counselors to appreciate the threats involved for men in becoming more intimate with themselves. In addition, it suggests some ways to facilitate this process, and pinpoints specific concerns and thoughts that male clients may have as they become more deeply involved in therapy.     

A MULTIPLE LEVEL INVESTIGATION OF PERSONNEL RATINGS

A multiple levels of analysis approach was used to assess whether job performance and skill importance ratings were based on individual differences, incumbent/supervisor dyadic agreement, group membership, or functional department. Data were collected as part of a managerial training needs analysis conducted at a large gold and silver mining organization. Participants included 140 incumbent managers and their immediate supervisors, who were embedded in 140 incumbent/supervisor dyads, 39 managerial work groups, and eight departments of the organization. Results from Within and Between Analysis (WABA) suggested that (a) incumbent ratings of both performance and skill importance were characterized by individual differences, (b) supervisory ratings of both performance and skill importance were primarily characterized by between-groups (supervisors) differences, (c) matched incumbent-supervisory performance ratings displayed individual differences, and (d) matched incumbent-supervisory importance ratings displayed dyadic agreement (i.e., between-dyads differences). Practical implications of these results for interpreting these and other types of personnel-related data are discussed.     

Identity Processes and Environmental Threat: the Effects of Nationalism and Local Identity upon Perception of Beach Pollution

This study examines the importance of local and national identity processes in predicting the perception of a threat to the local environment: pollution of British beaches defined in terms of European Union (EU) regulations concerning cleanliness. Place identity and social identity theories would predict that English people would exhibit positive discrimination when evaluating both their local and national beaches and would allow ingroup preferences to influence their estimates of beach pollution. The study involved administering questionnaires to 347 English students drawn from secondary schools in six seaside resorts (three with ‘polluted’ beaches, and three with ‘unpolluted’ beaches according to the EU criteria). It was hypothesized that degree of both local and national identification would predict variance in perceived levels of pollution independently of either the EU categorization or the physical evidence of pollution available. On the whole, results confirmed this main hypothesis: subjects who were more attached to their town or their nation tended to perceive their local and national beaches as less polluted. Traditional predictors of environmental evaluation (such as socio-demographic variables, environmental concern, use of the environment) did not play an important role in predicting beach pollution perception. Denial of physical assessments of pollution was interpreted as a strategy used to cope with the threat to place identity posed by the labelling of local beaches by a powerful outgroup (the EU).