The word ‘pseudoscience’ is a marker of changing worries about science and being a scientist. It played an important role in the philosophical debate on demarcating science from other activities, and was used in popular writings to distance science from cranky theories with scientific pretensions. These uses consolidated a comforting unity in science, a communal space from which pseudoscience is excluded, and the user's right to belong is asserted. The urgency of this process dwindled when attempts to find a formal (...) demarcation petered out, and the growth of social constructionism denied science any special access to truth. The reaction to this led to the science wars, which ushered in a new anxiety in the use of ‘pseudoscience’, especially from the least secure branches. But recent writings on the disunity of science reveal how the sense of support drawn from it may be based on an illusion, creating a disunity of pseudoscience as well as of science. (shrink)

Recent research indicates that social networking site addiction is positively associated with materialism. However, little attention has been paid to the potential mechanisms in this relationship. This study tested the mediating role of depression and the moderating role of need to belong in the relationships between SNS addiction and adolescents’ materialism. This research model was tested among 733 adolescents in China. The findings indicated that both SNS addiction and NTB were positively related to adolescents’ materialism. Mediation analyses showed that (...) depression mediated the association between SNS addiction and adolescents’ materialism. Moderated mediation indicated that the effect of SNS addiction on materialism and the effect of SNS addiction on depression were exacerbated by NTB. This study can advance our understanding of how SNS could contribute to adolescents’ materialism in this digital society. (shrink)

BackgroundStudies and meta-analyses found individual, meso and micro-social factors that are associated with individual well-being, as well as a positive socio-emotional climate or collective well-being.AimThis article simultaneously studies and examines these factors of well-being.MethodWell-Being is measured as a dependent variable at the individual and collective level, as well as the predictors, in three cross-sectional and one longitudinal studies. Education and social intervention workers from Chile, Spain and Uruguay participate; a subsample of educators from the south central Chile and (...) from Chile, Uruguay and Spain ; workers from organizations in Latin America and Southern Europe, military cadets from Argentina ; and teams from Spanish companies.ResultsIndividual and collective well-being indicators were related, suggesting that the emotional climate as a context improves personal well-being. Individual factors, psychosocial factors were positively associated with personal well-being in education and social intervention context. Organizational dynamic or transformational culture is directly and indirectly associated with individual well-being through previously described psychosocial factors. Group processes such as internal communication and safe participation, task orientation or climate of excellence as well as leadership style that reinforces participation and belonging, were positively associated with collective well-being in labor and military context and predict team work socio-emotional climate in a longitudinal study- but were unrelated to individual well-being. Transformational leadership plays a mediating role between functional factors and social-emotional climate in work teams. Organizational role autonomy, functional organizational leadership, integration and resources were associated with collective well-being in organizations. Organizational leadership moderates the relationship between task orientation and collective well-being in military context.ConclusionIndividual and microsocial factors influence personal well-being. Meso level factors favorable to well-being through processes which reinforce social belonging, influence directly collective well-being and indirectly personal well-being. Leadership that reinforces participation and belonging play a central role for emotional climate. Stress and emotional climate playing an important pivotal role for psychological well-being. (shrink)

The benefits of belonging for academic performance and persistence have been examined primarily in terms of subjective perceptions of social belonging, but feeling ability belonging, or fit with one’s peers intellectually, is likely also important for academic success. This may particularly be the case in male-dominated fields, where inherent genius and natural talent are viewed as prerequisites for success. We tested the hypothesis that social and ability belonging each explain intentions to persist in physical (...) science, technology, engineering, and math (pSTEM). We further explore whether women experience lower social and ability belonging than men on average in pSTEM, and whether belonging more strongly relates to intentions to persist for women. At three time points throughout a semester, we assessed undergraduate pSTEM majors enrolled in a foundational calculus or physics course. Women reported lower pSTEM ability belonging and self-efficacy than men, but higher identification with pSTEM. End of semester social belonging, ability belonging, and identification predicted intentions to persist in pSTEM, with a stronger relationship between social belonging and intentions to persist in pSTEM for women than men. These findings held after controlling for prior and current academic performance, as well as two conventional psychological predictors of academic success. (shrink)

Research has shown that experiences of discrimination cause harm to the health and well-being of people. In terms of the identity of members of a group, a positive evaluation of that group might involve devaluing the out-group as a way of raising the endo-group, causing discrimination toward the out-group. In the Chilean context, the Mapuche people have historically suffered discrimination and violations of their rights. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between Collective Identity, perceived experiences of (...) discrimination, psychological well-being and distress in the inhabitants of the Mapuche conflict zone according to their sense of belonging to their ethnic group. This descriptive, correlative, and cross-sectional study involved 200 participants, including 94 men, and 106 women, between the ages of 18 and 83 years old, who had lived for at least 1 year in communities in the Araucanía Region. The sample was stratified according their sense of ethnic identity, including 30% Mapuche, 33.5% Caucasian, and 36.5% Mestizo. The results show that participants with a sense of Mapuche ethnicity experienced more instances of discrimination, had a greater sense of collective identity, and that they also supported the Mapuche social movement and its methods. Based on evidence that well-being is directly related to collective identity, the study undertook a regression analysis of emotional distress and the psychological well-being of participants. The interaction between experiences of discrimination and collective identity has a significant influence. Collective identity and experiences of discrimination in themselves as well as the interaction between them, predict psychological well-being. The results suggest that the importance of the Mapuche group’s identity phenomena are related to a broad socio-historical context that leads them to identify themselves as a collective in conditions of inequality. This relationship between well-being and collective identity could be explained by their sense of cultural belonging, which can be a factor in protecting mental health. (shrink)

Prompting this book is the paradox of belonging. What pushes the author to write are art's questions. Rather than take the route of writing, artists in academia could opt for the studio, teaching students, and occasionally indulge in conferences and symposia. However, beyond such rituals, writing art's questions remains akin to art's acts of belonging. In these lessons of belonging this is done through art's paradox. Belonging is a matter of art because art belongs to the (...) aporia that writes it. (shrink)

Renegotiations of identities in a 21st century world and a resurgence of older loyalties are calling into question our shared sense of belonging and place. This results in the predicament of how and where to feel at home.

This short piece introduces the Special Issue, giving both a general sense of the terms `belonging' and `performativity', and discussing key related concepts that unite the articles of the issue: difference and their differences; the politics of visuality; embodiment; and the idea of routes. The predominant themes as they appear in the different articles are discussed under these headings.

This book explores the concept of school belonging in adolescents from a socio-ecological perspective, acknowledging that young people are uniquely connected to a broad network of groups and systems within a school system. Using a socio-ecological framework, it positions belonging as an essential aspect of psychological functioning for which schools offer unique opportunities to improve. It also offers insights into the factors that influence school belonging at the student level during adolescence in educational settings. Taking a socio-ecological (...) perspective and drawing from innovative research methods, the book encourages researchers interested in school leadership to foster students' sense of belonging by developing their qualities and by changing school systems and processes. (shrink)

Our story is changing. The Universe has given our species everything we need to actualize our potential. Evolution is knocking at our doors. The connected life is here. We are being fed this minute with the very nutrients that can assure that we live the lives that fulfill us and that serve the greater whole. Our natural inheritance, combined with the pattern that connects us with the rest of Life, calls us to be fully ourselves. This has always been the (...) case, but now it is becoming more evident. Our lives are Life's life. The details unfold within. David "Lucky" Goff, Ph.D., M.F.T., served as adjunct faculty at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, where he employed large group processes to promote community and personal development. David also assists organizations, including therapeutic and spiritual communities, in their quests to create and sustain genuine community. His research into the "psychological sense of community" is the first to examine and describe the conditions that facilitate collective consciousness. In 2003 David had a brain aneurism. As a result of his stroke and the onset of a rare brain syndrome, he nearly died and ended up permanently disabled. This experience had a transformational effect on David, which made him "Lucky" and cued him into how radically connected all things are. This broader awareness now informs his approach toward what it means to be human. He maintains a psychotherapy practice specializing in psycho-spiritual development. He also writes extensively about a psychology of interdependence, community, elders, and the conditions that lead to a social and ecological sense of connection. (shrink)

Using her everyday research approach, in the tradition of the pedagogistas of Reggio Emilia, author Lisa Burman observed several special classrooms and identified some common threads: engagement, agency, identity, and belonging, which together combine to create what she terms a culture of agency. The term agency is widely used, but often misunderstood as "giving children choice." Agency is far more than this, and the most powerful learning happens when personal agency is connected to community agency: we are only as (...) strong as each other. (shrink)

Only recently research in social psychology has started to systematically investigate intergroup attitudes among members of stigmatized minority groups. In particular, the study of the way people with mental health problems perceive the social groups around them is so far very scarce. In this work, we focused on people with schizophrenia, analyzing their attitudes toward another stigmatized group, namely Black individuals. In Study 1, the attitudes toward White and Black people were assessed in a sample of respondents (...) with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and in a sample of non-clinical individuals. Results showed the presence of less negative attitudes toward the minority outgroup among the clinical sample. In Study 2, we aimed at investigating what members belonging to the majority group believe about the attitudes toward Black people held by individuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. In general, results suggested a general awareness in lay persons that people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, as compared to people with no history of mental disorders, hold reduced negative attitudes toward Black individuals. Overall, these results may help to enrich our knowledge about social cognition among members of stigmatized groups in general and, more specifically, among individuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. (shrink)

Belonging uncertainty, defined as the general concern about the quality of one’s social relationships in an academic setting, has been found to be an important determinant of academic achievement and persistence. However, to date, only little research investigated the sources of belonging uncertainty. To address this research gap, we examined three potential sources of belonging uncertainty in a sample of undergraduate computer science students in Germany (N= 449) and focused on (a) perceived affective and academic exclusion (...) by fellow students, (b) domain-specific academic self-efficacy beliefs, and (c) perception of one’s individual performance potential compared to that of fellow students in the field. Perceived affective and academic exclusion by fellow students and domain-specific academic self-efficacy beliefs were significant predictors of female students’ uncertainty about belonging in computer science. The perception of one’s individual performance potential in comparison to that of fellow students, however, was a relevant predictor of both male and female students’ belonging uncertainty in computer science. Our findings imply an expanded view of the theoretical concept of belonging uncertainty that goes beyond mere concerns of social connectedness. (shrink)

What kind of reality is legal reality, how is it created, and what are its a priori foundations? These are the central questions asked by the early phenomenologists who took interest in social ontology and law. While Reinach represents the well-known “realist” approach to phenomenology of law, Felix Kaufmann and Fritz Schreier belonged to the “positivist” “Vienna School of Jurisprudence,” combining Hans Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law with Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology—and thereby challenging Reinach’s views on how legal reality and (...) the legal a priori were to be conceived. This paper addresses the controversy between these positivist and realist approaches to phenomenology of law, with the goal of introducing the lesser known theories of Kaufmann and Schreier. The special focus on their critique of Reinach’s outline should give us an overview of their positions vis-à-vis the basic and a priori elements of which legal reality consists and the role that phenomenology plays in analyzing them. There is one general tendency to be noted: While the phenomenological legal positivists see the root of legal reality in an act of interpretation according to a “normative scheme of interpretation,” Reinach locates the roots of legal reality in social interaction and argues for the existence of entities independent of any interpretation. (shrink)

In the current century, geographic and psychological separations from familial and cultural connections have become endemic. The various fields of social sciences have made belonging vis à vis existential alienation a focal issue with an emphasis on the need for localized belonging. This article argues that there is an innate predisposition within the self that must connect to another, a ?re-membering??a compelling humanistic need to connect and become a member, yet again, of a greater collective. It is (...) suggested herein that this predisposition stems from the need to reclaim our anthropocosmic connection of being embedded in the world beyond, as opposed to an anthrocentric view that instigates an entity-in-isolation mentality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 43-49 [Access article in PDF] Double Religious Belonging:Aspects and Questions Catherine Cornille College of Holy Cross at Worcester, Massachusetts The idea of double or multiple religious belonging seems to have become an integral feature of the religious culture of our times. It is no longer surprising to hear people refer to themselves as partly or fully Christian and Buddhist, and the hybridizing of (...) Jewish and Buddhist religious identities has even led to a new terminology (Jubu). While this phenomenon has been part of Asian religious cultures for centuries, it is relatively new to the West, where a combination of political and religious forces have shaped religious identities around comparatively rigid and exclusive boundaries. With the gradual dissolution of traditional geographical and spiritual monopolies by particular religions, the religious field has become wide open and religious belonging increasingly a matter of choice and degree. The phenomenon of multiple religious belonging may be found in any combination of any number of religions. There are the Jews for Jesus; Christians who have become deeply involved in Muslim (mostly Sufi) religious practices; and Hindus who also consider themselves partly Christian or—more often—vice versa. But by far the most common phenomenon in the West is that of Christians or Jews who also profess to be Buddhist, hence the importance of discussing this phenomenon in this meeting on Buddhist-Christian dialogue.In this paper, I wish to outline the different contexts in which double or multiple religious belonging seems to manifest itself so as to reflect on the possibilities and limits of the very concept or category. While different religions may have various ways of defining or circumscribing the issue of religious identity and generally allow for different degrees of belonging, I will discuss the possibility of double religious belonging on the basis of a strong—and for most religions, ideal—understanding of religious belonging. Double Religious Belonging and New Age One of the contexts in which the phenomenon of double or multiple religious belonging may seem to present itself most readily is that of the late modern or postmodern form of religiosity called "New Age." Whereas New Age religion is essentially elusive, one of the most prominent scholars of New Age, Wouter Hanegraaf, defines it as a "popular Western culture criticism expressed in terms of a secularized [End Page 43] esotericism" and refers to general characteristics such as this-worldliness, holism, evolutionism, psychologizing of religion and spiritualizing of psychology, and, of course, the belief in the advent of a New Age. 1 In addition to these characteristics, one of the most noted features of New Age religiosity is its openness toward all religious traditions and the freedom with which it combines beliefs and practices from mainly the Asian religions, the mystical strands of the monotheistic traditions, and various forms of Shamanism. This has led to the image of New Age as a form of religious bricolage or a religion of the supermarket. Often underlying New Age religiosity is the belief that all religions derive from or meet in the same ultimate religious experience, and that one may thus belong to all religions at the same time.While New Age religion may therefore be regarded as a form of multiple religious belonging, it might be more appropriate to speak here of a complete absence of religious belonging. As scholars of religion such as Joachim Wach have pointed out, religious belonging is taken to involve a "total response of the total being (feeling, will and intellect) to Ultimate Reality." 2 It involves abandonment to a transcendent reality mediated through the concrete symbols and rituals of a particular religion. Surrender is thus not to the ultimate as such, but through—and in the end—to the teachings and practices embedded in a concrete religious tradition. Religious belonging in this strong sense of the term implies the acceptance, on faith, of a particular truth revealed and transmitted outside of the immediate experience of the individual and expressed in a particular body of teachings and practices. It also generally has a certain social dimension in which individuals celebrate... (shrink)

In contemporary society, identities—culture; race; ethnicity; gender; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender —are at the heart of discourses of belonging and related collectivist constructions of meaning. As distinct social markers, they clearly demarcate the society in ways that also have political implications. The discussion of identity politics below takes a nominally genealogical approach beginning with modern philosophy’s individualistic account. It then decenters this narrative and posits that the field has been ill-equipped to grapple with the power of (...) identity as a source of belonging, a moral critique, and as a site of political conflict. Education is the primary context of the discussion, which is framed as the quest for cultural and social pluralism. Although the term identity has roots in Western philosophy and more recently in psychology, identity politics is a highly contested expression in education, political theory and in philosophy. Bernstein :47–74, 2005) traced its origin as a formal term to 1979, where social science scholars coined the phrase as a label for a type of activism. Its initial iteration pertained to persons with disabilities who challenged prevailing societal perceptions. Over the next two decades, scholars broadened its use to mean a category of collective action that included violent ethnic conflict and activist nationalism. Below, the discussion of the term begins with its semantic and philosophical provenance and explores its discursive engagement with the ever modifying meanings of gender, race or ethnicity and sexual orientation in society and education. It is association with these categories as forms of joint group membership that ipso facto gives rise to political activism to advance beliefs, bring about change or to promote a given worldview. (shrink)

In the context of coronavirus pandemic, the face-recognition-based access control system has been intensively adopted to protect students’ and teachers’ health and safety in school. However, the impact of FACS, as a new technology, on students’ attitude toward accepting FACS has remained unknown from the psychological halo effect. Drawn on “halo effect” theory where psychological effects affect the sense of social identity and belonging, the present study explored college students’ sense of school identity and belonging in using (...) FACS during COVID-19 based on the technology acceptance model. Data collected from 391 college students was analyzed using SEM to verify the relationship among perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, intention to use, school identity, and school belonging. The results show that PU and PEU can positively predict IU, and consequentially can positively predict school identity and school belonging. Our study expands the application of halo effect theory to study FACS acceptance based on TAM, and provides strong evidence to support the effect of school FACS during the pandemic. The findings of this study also suggest that FACS acceptance can enhance students’ sense of school identity and belonging. (shrink)

According to a widely accepted constraint on the content of intentions, here called the exclusivity constraint, one cannot intend to perform another agent’s action, even if one might be able to intend that she performs it. For example, while one can intend that one’s guest leaves before midnight, one cannot intend to perform her act of leaving. However, Deborah Tollefsen’s (2005) account of joint activity requires participants to have intentions-in-action (in John Searle’s (1983) sense) that violate this constraint. I argue (...) that the exclusivity constraint should not be accepted as an unconditional constraint on the contents of intentions-in-action: one may intend to perform a basic action that belongs both to oneself and to another agent. Based on the phenomenology of tool use, I first argue that intentions-in-action of one’s basic actions may be technologically extended, meaning that their contents are not restricted to concern the agent’s bodily movements. In analogy with this, I then argue that the phenomenology of some skillful joint activities supports the idea that one’s basic intentions-in-action may be socially extended, in violation of the widely accepted exclusivity constraint. Tollefsen’s account is specifically constructed to account for the joint activities of infants and toddlers who lack the capacity to think of others as planning agents and grasp their plan-like intentions (a capacity required by Michael Bratman’s (1992, 1993, 2009a, b) influential account of joint activity). At the end of the paper, I raise some doubts regarding the extent to which infants and toddlers have socially extended intentions-in-action. (shrink)

Coherence plays an important role in psychology. In this article, I suggest that coherence takes two main forms in humans’ cognitive system. The first belong to ‘system 1’. It relies on the degree of coherence between different representations to regulate them, without coherence being represented. By contrast other mechanisms, belonging to system 2, allow humans to represent the degree of coherence between different representations and to draw inferences from it. It is suggested that the mechanisms of explicit coherence (...) evaluation have social functions. They are used as means of epistemic vigilance—to evaluate what other people tell us. They can also be turned inwards to examine the coherence of our own beliefs. Their function is then to minimize the chances that we are perceived as being incoherent. Evidence from different domains of psychology is briefly reviewed in support of these hypotheses. (shrink)

The aim of this research was to describe the dependence between the need for and sense of belonging and symptoms of depression vs. one’s capacity to cope effectively. Using path analysis of our data, we found direct patterns, in which both depression symptoms and life satisfaction depend to a considerable degree on the sense of belonging. The belonging need influences, in a direct way, the coping focused on the search for social support. Undertaking active techniques of (...) coping, including confrontation with a stressful situation and its negative controlling impact, depends on having a high level of the sense of belonging. In contrast, individuals who cope by means of taking psychoactive drugs show the symptoms of depression. (shrink)

Research on social exclusion suggests an increased attention of excluded persons to subtle social cues. In one study (N= 32), published inPsychological Science,Bernstein et al. (2008)provided evidence for this idea by showing that participants in the social exclusion condition were better in correctly categorizing a target person’s smile as real or fake. Although highly cited, this finding has never been directly replicated. The present study aimed to fill that gap. 201 participants (79.1% female) were randomly assigned to (...) a social exclusion, social inclusion or control condition. Next, participants watched 20 videos of smiling persons and rated whether they show a real or a fake smile. In line with the original study, results showed that participants in the exclusion condition performed better than in the control condition. However, the performance did not differ between the exclusion and inclusion condition—although the pattern was in the predicted direction. In sum, the findings of our study increase rather than decrease confidence in the validity of the investigated idea, but results point to a substantially smaller effect. (shrink)

have decided to write this paper for the late Professor Ioannis Kornarakis mainly for two reasons: (1) Professor Kornarakis was the first to attempt an interdisciplinary preoccupation between the branch of Patristics and Modern Psychology; (2) Because he worked on this interdisciplinary perspective with innovation and creativity. For Professor Kornarakis’s work what is worth to be mentioned, above all, is that it was a struggle and an effort towards an unusual project: that of seeing the writings of the Church (...) Fathers and of Scriptures in ways which could be relevant to modern human problematism so that a fruitful understanding to be attained, as to what we can do with them on a personal, interpersonal and social level. Though Professor Kornarakis did not use the empirical method in his scientific research - observation-hypothesis-experiment-support, or refutation, of ideas tested-replication of the study conducted, etc. - he came across very important insights as to the human condition, that even today can elicit discussions as to the salience of his endeavours for modern pastoral psychologists.In this theoretical paper, what I am doing is to refer to Professor Kornarakis’s work historically and systematically. Historically, in terms of the development of it, since its inception, in the theological literature; systematically, in terms of the presentation of it in relation to the main ideas this was based upon. The historical preoccupation with Kornarakis’s work is being exhausted in the realm of an interview I conducted of him, when I was collecting information relevant to what he wrote, discussed and envisaged as to the association between Patristics and Psychology. The systematic preoccupation with Kornarakis’s work refers to the content and context his works were conceptualized and composed.Through both these perspectives -the historical and the systematic- Kornarakis’s work is actually put in the framework it belongs to, which is that of the theoretical foundations needed for the construction of a mode of thought in the pastoral understanding of the writings of the Fathers, and those of the Bible, in relation to what modern psychology studies in detail. Kornarakis’s work can be exhausted in terms of its chronological framework; however, it can also appear inexhaustible as to the kind of contingencies one can find in it, which are both situation-driven and hermeneutically-specific. Situationdriven, for they refer to events the modern man is bothered by; hermeneutically-specific, for they refer to issues, the exegesis of which can help the modern man’s condition to be improved. (shrink)

John Paley has rightly observed that, while spirituality is widely discussed in the nursing literature, the discussions are uncritical and unproblematic. In an effort ‘to reconfigure the spirituality‐in‐nursing debate, and to position it where it belongs: in the literature on health psychology and social psychology, and not in a disciplinary cul‐de‐sac labelled “unfathomable mystery” ’, Paley has proposed an alternative, reductionist approach to spirituality. In this paper, I identify two critiques developed by Paley: one political, the other (...) ‘logical’. Paley's political critique claims the concept of ‘spirituality’ has been appropriated by nursing theorists as part of an attempt to accrue professional power and jurisdiction over occupational territory. I suggest that Paley's analysis masks his own exclusivist, secularizing jurisdictional claim made at the expense of spirituality. Paley's so‐called ‘logical’ critique is motivated by an intention to ‘determine what the “spirituality” terrain looks like from the naturalistic point of view’. However, noting a number of inconsistencies, I challenge his ‘logical move’ as a naïve attack on a straw man. In place of Paley's reductionism, I propose my own alternative alternative and argue (after Foucault) that ‘spirituality’ is a discourse, a non‐reductionist attempt, in a post‐religious society, to speak about the human condition open to the unknown. I conclude with a definition and a description of empirically congruent spirituality. (shrink)

The paper reconsiders social scientific naturalism, the view that despite obvious differences in their subject matter, the social sciences belong to the same species of cognitive inquiry as the natural sciences. Among other limits, the paper explores social scientific naturalism only with respect to economics. The social sciences are not homogeneous, and although many of the things I shall say apply to psychology, political science, sociology, and anthropology as well as to economics, I do not (...) have the space to consider the many varieties of social inquiries. After a historical introduction in Section 5.1, Sections 5.2 and 5.3 clarify what is being asked when one raises the question of whether economics is relevantly similar to the natural sciences and why the question is worth asking. Section 5.4 then considers arguments to the effect that the subject matter of economics – namely human beings and their behavior – cannot be the subject of scientific inquiry. Sections 5.5 and 5.6 focus on an important peculiarity of economics and the other social sciences, namely, that it employs concepts that are continuous with those of daily life. This fact turns out to have considerable ramifications. Section 5.7 concludes. (shrink)

Background and ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to draw the attention toward the implications of COVID-19 and the related restrictions imposed worldwide especially in Pakistan. The primary objective was to highlight the levels of psychological distress, anxiety, family violence, suicidality, and well-being due to COVID-19 and the secondary objective was to associate it to social demographic factors.Materials and MethodsIt is designed as a cross-sectional study by employing an online questionnaire in the English language and obtaining responses using a (...) snowball sampling technique. We used three validated measures including Kessler Psychological Distress Scale, Generalized Anxiety Disorder index and World Health Organization Well-Being Index.ResultsA sample of 420 participants was recruited from across Pakistan, with most participants were females, students and belonging to Punjab. Nearly one-fourth of the participants scored above the minimum value set for moderate or high psychological distress. There was a higher prevalence of distress among females and resident of province Punjab. The majority of individuals reported that they were living with their family and more than half were neutral regarding their satisfaction with their living conditions. 40.5% believed that the lockdown has had a negative impact on their mental health. 31.4% have reported that they themselves have experienced abuse from a family member. 48.6% scored high on the GAD-7 scale and low wellbeing score was found among 80.2%. Students were found to be more vulnerable to mental illness and anxiety.ConclusionWith the lockdown restrictions, psychosocial distress has become prevalent in Pakistan. (shrink)

It's easy and reflexive to view our online presence as fake, to see the internet as a space we enter when we aren't living our real, offline lives. Yet so much of who we are and what we do now happens online, making it hard to know which parts of our lives are real. IRL, Chris Stedman's personal and searing exploration of authenticity in the digital age, shines a light on how age-old notions of realness--who we are and where we (...) fit in the world--can be freshly understood in our increasingly online lives. Stedman offers a different way of seeing the supposed split between our online and offline selves: the internet and social media are new tools for understanding and expressing ourselves, and the not-always-graceful ways we use these tools can reveal new insights into far older human behaviors and desires. IRL invites us to consider how we use the internet to fulfill the essential human need to feel real--a need many of us once met in institutions, but now seek to do on our own, online--as well as the ways we edit or curate ourselves for digital audiences. The digital search for meaning and belonging presents challenges, Stedman suggests, but also myriad opportunities to become more fully human. In the end, he makes a bold case for embracing realness in all of its uncertainty, online and off, even when it feels risky. -- from jacket. (shrink)

This book investigates the phenomenon of perspectival flexibility in its different facets and with particular attention to social experience. Our experience of other individuals goes hand in hand with the awareness that they have a unique perspective on the experienced objects and situations. The same object can be seen from different points of view; an event can awaken different emotional reactions in different individuals; and the positions we take can be mediated in part by our belonging to (...) class='Hi'>social or cultural groups. All of these occurrences are grasped by the metaphor of perspective and perspectival flexibility. The original essays in this volume employ approaches from philosophy, particularly phenomenology, and from psychopathology to show how perspectival flexibility is grounded in the interplay of perception and imagination, and develop on this basis a fruitful reassessment of social experience. The chapters are divided into five sections: imagination and the as-if, imagination and its disturbances in psychopathology, imagination and the experience of others, the sociality of imagination, and the aesthetic, ethical, and socio-political grounds of perspectival flexibility. This book is an essential resource for researchers in philosophy and psychology working on social cognition, the epistemological and conceptual problems of other minds, and imagination and the experience of fiction. (shrink)

This paper addresses the role of social emotional competence in the emotional and behavioral problems and learning outcomes of preschool children based on their parents’ and teachers’ evaluations. In this study, we compared the perceptions of teachers and parents when evaluating the same child using the multi-informant assessment. First, the associations and differences between both the informant evaluations were investigated. Second, the correlation of the social emotional competence and emotional, and behavioral difficulties among preschool children was analyzed, separately (...) addressing their parents’ and teachers’ evaluations. Third, the role of the preschool children’s social emotional competence in their emotional and behavioral problems, and learning outcomes was investigated building the regression and mediation models. The sample consisted of 507 preschool children and their parents and teachers. Both informants completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and Social Skills Improvement System Social-Emotional Learning Brief Scales, and teachers reported on each child’s learning outcomes. When comparing both informants’ evaluations, positive associations were found between teacher and parental evaluations of prosocial behavior and emotional, and behavioral difficulties of preschool children, as well as self-management. Parents evaluated their children higher than teachers in conduct problems, hyperactivity, prosocial behavior, and total difficulty, while teachers evaluated children higher than parents in social emotional competence. According to teachers, the social emotional competence of preschool children was negatively correlated to all difficulty scales, and positively related to the prosocial behavior scale. The demographic variables, as well as parental socioeconomic status and children’s belonging to a vulnerable group were not found to be significantly associated with the preschool children’s learning outcomes. However, social emotional competence remains a significant variable in teacher-rated learning outcomes of preschool children even if sociodemographic variables are controlled. Our findings indicate that a higher level of social emotional competence and lower levels of social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties are related to a higher preschoolers’ academic learning in their teachers’ evaluation. This suggests the importance of early facilitation of social emotional competence as a key factor for academic success and more positive behavioral outcomes. (shrink)

This paper offers an alternative theoretical consideration of ethnic identification in psychology. Mainstream social psychological theories are largely positivist and individualistic. New possibilities of theoretical understanding open up as the relational and symbolic nature of ethnicity enters psychological inquiry. This paper takes culture and self as two conceptual domains of social identification, following a meta-theoretical position of cultural psychology. The central focus is the cultural development of the person in social context of a given culture, (...) specifically their ethnic identification, to which end, it looks at several processual aspects. First, ethnic culture is approached as a guiding principle and practice in everyday understanding and experience of one?s own ethnicity. Second, ethnic identification is considered a social and personal act of meaning making, which happens in a given social context, through practical activity and the discursive positioning of a person. Third, since rather than considered a conscious aspect of belonging, ethnicity is assumed and taken for granted, ruptures are considered as destabilizing events that create an opportunity for ethnic meaning reinterpretation and developmental transition. In the meaning making process, symbolic resources are conceived of as primary self-configuring tools, which are also culture-configuring. Ethnic meaning making is theorized as a central social-psychological process through which ethnic culture and a person as an ethnic subject emerge in historical perspective. Finally, the uniqueness of a singular person in the shared ethnic culture is conceptualized based on symbolic distancing from the immediate social context, through the model of knitting personal and socio-historical semiotic threads. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the sociality of emotional experience in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. Specifically, I describe four key mechanisms through which an individual's sociocultural context shapes her emotional experience on Nietzsche's view—emotional contagion as habitual affective mimicry, the production of emotions' felt character through the assimilation of dominant social beliefs and norms, affective interpretation à la Christopher Fowles, and the imposition of dominant notions of emotional appropriateness—fleshing out a dimension of Nietzsche's thought which is largely taken (...) for granted but remains undertreated. After detailing these mechanisms, I argue that attending to the sociality of emotional experience in Nietzsche's thought is crucial not only for understanding key elements of his moral psychology (including certain of his reflections on freedom and self‐transformation), but also for understanding his interpretation of nihilism as a psychological‐affective phenomenon produced by the society to which one belongs. On Nietzsche's view, attending to the sociality of emotion helps individuals recognize the way in which the sociocultural contexts they inhabit might undermine their flourishing—and also helps them envision the conditions (especially sociocultural conditions) requisite for healthier, more empowering emotional lives. (shrink)

The perception of the relationship between humans and nature is important for promoting not only pro-environmental behaviors but also psychological well-being. The present research explored how people’s self-construal would moderate the relationship between the need to belong, the desire for social acceptance and connectedness and perceived nature relatedness. Two studies using community samples with diverse demographic characteristics in two different cultures obtained consistent findings. The results showed that independent self-construal, which emphasizes separateness from others in the social contexts, (...) moderated the relationship between the need to belong and nature relatedness. Specifically, the need to belong was negatively associated with nature relatedness among people with a stronger independent self-construal, while this pattern was not significant among those with a weaker independent self-construal. No evidence for the moderating role of interdependent self-construal was found in the two studies. These findings highlighted the importance of non-nature experience in understanding people’s perception of human–nature relationships. (shrink)

Some of the human needs are more important than others in order to be inevitable. One of these needs which cannot be avoided is the need for belonging to any authority. Whatever the name, religion, nation, homeland, flag etc. all these concepts are the reflections of the sense of belonging that comes with human existence. This article will discuss how Kuwaiti novelist Saud Alsanousi reflects the crisis of a child who is born from a secret relationship with a (...) Filipino woman's son who came to Kuwait as a housekeeper in Kuwait. When he returned to Kuwait, where he carried his passport and felt himself unfamiliar in the Philippines because of his physical structure and the Arabs, he was again excluded by his relatives because of his Filipino mother. The novel tries to draw attention to the socio-economic problems of workers coming from South East Asia to the Gulf countries, especially from the character of Jose, who has a nauseous mood due to the uncertainty between Philippine-Kuwait and Christian-Muslim affiliations. The introduction of foreign workers who constitute more than half of the population in the Gulf countries will be reviewed. Afterwards, a short summary of the novel will be given and the main theme of the lack of disability will be analyzed. Summary: In 1973, Syria and Egypt started a air strike against Israel in order to recover their lost territory in the previous wars and their reputation in the international area. Some Western countries -especially the United States- have shown all kinds of military aid to Israel in the face of this attack. Thanks to these aids the Syrian and Egyptian armies have not achieved their intended goals. This attitude of Western countries to Israel has attracted the reaction of other Gulf countries -especially the Saudi administration- which has a large amount of oil reserves. Gulf countries -which have not gotten a strong military option- tried to use the oil in their hands for the first time as a political trump card. These oil-exporting countries have reduced oil production in response. As a result, the economies of Western countries which were industrialized and dependent on oil have been negatively affected by this decision. In contrast, Gulf States have gained a sudden and massive fortune due to oil prices rising three or four times. The Gulf States, which have led this wealth to development in many areas like education, health, urbanism, etc. The need for qualified staff in these fields was supplied by other Arab countries such as Egypt, Syria, and Sudan. However, as the years passed oil prices decreased and so oil revenues decreased. This reduction led the Gulf States -which have only oil-based economies- to look for cheaper labor. While the foreign employment provided from the Arab countries previously later this need has begun to supply from far East Asian countries which are economically very weak. Vast number of employees emigrated to the Gulf countries to work in the labor service sector with very low wages especially from the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Malaysia. This segment -which has employed with very low wages- has been subjected to injustice and discrimination. The injustices faced by the Far East Asian foreign labor force deprived of social rights have been the subject of many painful stories over time. The modern novel -which aims to reflect the life and the human being with all its details- has reflected the stories of the victims of that employers. Saq al-Bamboo (Bamboo Bar) is one of these novels which has published by Kuwaiti writer Saud Alsanousi in 2012. Within a short time after the publication of the work the novel was interested in the Arab world and in 2013 he was awarded the International Arabic Novelist Prize. The novel is consisting of five chapters and each chapter is divided into three sections 1,2,3... The author conveys the crisis of unetnicity from Jose’s chracter who was born from a Filipino mother and a Kuwaiti father. A translator named Ibrahim Selâm -which is a translation of the souvenirs and diaries belonging to Jose from the Philippine language to Arabic is intended to increase the realism of the work. Josephine -who came to Kuwait to work from the Philippines- was settled in 1985 in one of the country's most reputable families. The old woman who owns the house has a son named Rasheed. Rasheed was interested in Josephine who worked as a servant in their house and he married her with a secret marriage. Because the marriage of a Kuwaiti man and a foreign woman who was working as a housekeeper in Kuwait is accepted as a great shame that will cast a shadow on the dignity and honor of the family the marriage which was concealed by the couple inside and outside of the house, which could only come together with privacy has appeared after months. Rasheed -who was expelled from the house with Josephine- has temporarily found another house. Rasheed and his wife, who thought that his mother's attitude would change as their children were born have disappointed. Rasheed after realizing that his mother would never be satisfied, finally lost his ability to resist this crisis and sent his wife back to. With this development the problem of-identity crisis of Jose’s chracter is dealt with in a multi-faceted way. Jose, who left his age with his mother from Kuwait, had suffered from familial negativities that had passed through Kuwait years later in his twenties, and “familial negativities through his return to Kuwait and depressions caused by the sense of belonging. In an interesting coincidence when he met Gassân, one of the closest friends of Jose’s father in the Philippines, he returned to his dream Paradise ’Kuwait”. The journey from Jesus who has known as “Arabo to “Jesus” started with great hope because he was born from a Kuwaiti father in his own near the Philippines and likened to Arabs alike. But perhaps more of the crisis in the Philippines is waiting for him in Kuwait. Because his father was killed during the years when the Iraqi army occupied Kuwait. Although his father's mother welcomed Jose at first, exclusionary attitude towards foreigners in Kuwait caused her to take a negative attitude towards here grandson. The work is a continuation of the tradition of novels of criticism of the Arab society that has been going on for almost a century. The fact that novel was able to make deep psychological analyzes with his comprehensible language and simple style without being ambiguous and to keep the tension alive by leaving the problems at the end of the episodes and thus to provide immersion in this way reinforced the fictional soundness of the work. The novel also presents fictional material within the Arab society for the researchers in the field of religion psychology and sociology of religion, in order to show how a non-Muslim feels amoung the Muslim society. (shrink)

Background We need to preserve the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic in caring for the mental health of clinicians, of shared experiences, interdependence, team cohesion and vulnerability, among others. We need reform in the way that clinicians are cared for, and a resistance to the idea of a post-pandemic ‘return to normal’. Main text To build connected and optimally functioning clinical teams, we need to create an inclusive culture in which difficult conversations and caring are the expectation. If we are (...) to be better at solving problems and better at serving our patients, we should be vigilant about creating a psychologically safe medical culture in which colleagues feel safe, seen, heard, and respected. Conclusion Going forward, each of us, regardless of seniority, needs to take responsibility for this culture change. We need to create and participate in weekly collegial peer support sessions that feel nurturing and safe, that allow us to reveal parts of ourselves, to be vulnerable with each other in a way that reduces loneliness, and encourages and maintains social connections and a sense of belonging within clinical teams, improves clinician well-being and reduces the risk of burnout. “Care is a practice of informed responsive actions on behalf of the one cared for and authentically aimed toward their growth and flourishing.” Care Ethics in the Age of Precarity; Maurice Hamington and Michael Flower. (shrink)

In this contribution, we draw on findings from a non-formal, community music project to elaborate on the relationship between the concept ofeudaimonia, as defined by Seligman, the interactive dimensions of collective free improvisation, and the concept of collaborative creativity. The project revolves around The Ostend Street Orkestra (TOSO), a music ensemble within which homeless adults and individuals with a psychiatric or alcohol/drug related background engage in collective musical improvisation. Between 2017 and 2019 data was collected through open interviews and video (...) recordings of rehearsals and performances. Participant data was analyzed through inductive analysis based on the principles of grounded theory. One interesting finding was the discrepancy in the participant interviews between social relationships indicative of a negative affect about social group interaction versus strong feelings of group coherence and belonging. Video recordings of performances and rehearsals showed clear enjoyment and pleasure while playing music. Alongside verbal reflection through one-on-one interviews video recordings and analysis of moment-to moment observations should be used, in order to capture the complexity of community music projects with homeless people. The initial open coding was aligned with the five elements of the PERMA model. Overall, we observed more focus on Relationship (sense of belonging), Engagement (flow in rehearsals and performances) and Meaning (belonging to something greater than yourself) and less on Positive Emotion and Accomplishment (goal setting). (shrink)

The world’s elderly population is growing, and in Chile they represent 16.2% of the total population. In Chile, old age is marked by retirement, with a dramatic decrease in income that brings precariousness. Older adults are economically, socially, and psychologically vulnerable populations. This condition increases their likelihood of disengaging from their usual social environment, facilitating their isolation, sadness, and discomfort. From the perspective of social identity, well-being can be explained by two principles: social groups’ importance for health (...) and people’s psychological identification with those groups. This study analyzes the relationships between belonging to the neighborhood and extra-neighborhood groups and neighborhood social identification with WB. Urban or rural location and gender are measured, and the sample is 1,475 older Chilean adults of both sexes. The results show that the majority are not members of social groups, and the remaining 48% are members of one or two groups or organizations. Only 4.47% belong to three groups or organizations. Those who belong to groups obtain higher scores, emotional–mental WB, and positive emotions than older adults who do not belong to any organization. Urban and rural older adults have the same level of WB. Membership in close social organizations or distant ones causes different WB associations. Membership in neighborhood councils reduces gender differences in self-assessment of health. This result supports the idea that participation in heterogeneous groups with a shared sense of belonging to the neighborhood is associated with higher WB and lower perceived loneliness. Social identification with the neighborhood, rather than belonging to the group, had the most widespread impact on WB and health indicators. The variable social identification with the neighborhood was consistently associated with indicators of hedonic WB. (shrink)

ObjectiveA form of pathological social withdrawal which is also called hikikomori has been proved its existence in China. But the prevalence and characteristics of hikikomori in China remain unknown. Past studies had investigated the hikikomori phenomenon in three cities of China. The purpose of this study is to discover the prevalence of hikikomori in a convenient online sample in China as well as the difference in demographic characteristics and other possible traits between hikikomori sufferers and the general population.MethodsA total (...) of 1,066 youths in China completed the online questionnaire, which consisted of questions about demographics, the 25-item Hikikomori Questionnaire, the Internet Addiction Test, the Loneliness Scale, and the General Health Questionnaire. SPSS is used to evaluate the data.ResultsOf the 1,066 youths, 980 were identified as belonging to group A, 46 to group B, and 40 to group C. The hikikomori group accounted for 8.1%. The present data suggest that residence and loneliness are related to the occurrence of hikikomori. HQ-25 score of the hikikomori group was significantly higher than the comparison group. The UCLA score showed that those in the hikikomori group felt lonelier than those in the comparison. The regression model predicted hikikomori risk, the Hosmer-Lemeshow test value is 7.114 and P = 0.524 > 0.05.ConclusionThe grouping criterion in our present study is reasonable and such a grouping criterion can screen out potential populations of hikikomori. When people develop into hikikomori sufferers in the present, their social withdrawal behaviors and feeling of loneliness are both much more severe than in the past. The possible relationships between hikikomori and loneliness reflect the need to give the youths more social support, to help them connect with society. (shrink)

Quality is usually considered to be an attribute of an object, its degree of excellence or, more subjectively, fitness for use. Stemming from this point of view, the goal of most ranking systems is to find efficient ways of discovering, or rather uncovering, the quality of specific products or services. However, from a social psychological perspective it seems that the notion of quality belongs predominantly to the realm of social relationships. We argue that quality exists mainly between the (...) users of an object, not within the object itself, and its functions are predominantly social, i.e. promoting interactions, creating a shared reality, or building social relationships. Quality is constructed in social interactions and used as a token therein. In the present paper we outline the social functions of quality, and discuss the implications of this perspective for designing more useful recommendation systems. (shrink)

This paper focuses on doctoral research which explored relationships and interpersonal learning through group dramatherapy and creative interviewing with adolescents in special education. A constructivist grounded theory study, positioning adolescents with intellectual/developmental disabilities as experts of their own relational experiences, revealed a tendency to “copy others.” The final grounded theory presented “copying” as a tool which participants consciously employed “to play with,” “learn from,” and “join in with” others. Commonly experiencing social ostracism, participants reflected awareness of their tendency to (...) “copy others” being underpinned by a need to belong. Belonging was therefore expressed as the ultimate therapeutic experience participants wished to have. Participant responses which link dramatic imitation to a self-identified tendency “to copy,” are discussed with regard to how imitation provides an accessible point of dramatic entry from which adolescents in special education begin to explore new ways of being and inter-relating. Recommendations for how dramatherapists might centralize imitative aspects of the dramatic process to achieve therapeutic intent when working alongside adolescents in special education are discussed with specific focus on creating a space of belonging.Note on type: Participant quotes extracted from the data are included throughout this article. In order to highlight participant’s contributions quotes are italicized and presented within speech marks. (shrink)

This study employed the Duquesne method of phenomenology to explore eight participants' experiences of not belonging. These experiences began with a discomforting sense of difference that then developed into self-conscious, wary behavior. This experience was followed by attempts at interpersonal transformation whose success led to an episodic view of not belonging and whose failure led to a more dramatic, personalized, isolating, and permanent view of not belonging. Such a view was also accompanied by a profound transformation in (...) how the participants experienced themselves, others, and their social environments. Among the most interesting findings in this research were the descriptions of isolated belonging—a pattern of relating involving many interpersonally distant relationships—and consistent, generalized not belonging—an experience where not belonging is the primary mode of interpersonal relation. (shrink)

Recently, novel lines of research have developed to study the influence of identity processes in sport-related behaviours. Yet, whereas emotions in sport are the result of a complex psychosocial process, little attention has been paid to examining the mechanisms that underlie how group membership influences athletes’ emotional experiences. The present narrative review aims at complementing the comprehensive review produced by Rees et al. (2015) on social identity in sport by reporting specific work on identity-based emotions in sport. To that (...) end, we firstly overview the different terminology currently used in the field of emotions in groups to clarify the distinct nature of emotions that result from an individual’s social identity. Secondly, we discuss key concepts of social identity to better understand the mechanisms underlying identity-based emotions. Thirdly, we address existing knowledge on identity-based emotions in sport. We close the present narrative review by suggesting future research perspectives based on existing meta-theories of social identity. Evidence from the social psychology literature is discussed alongside existing works from the sport literature to propose a crucial theoretical approach to better understand emotions in sport. (shrink)

The article is an attempt at the reverse engineering of conceptual architecture and logic of David Bloor's Strong Programme (SP) in the sociology of scientific knowledge via explicating key resources and interpretative techniques for constructing it. To do this I show how problematic is a conventional interpretation of the SP as a radicalization of Kuhn's theory of science and as a sociologization of epistemology. This problematization allows me to put anew three questions concerning the SP. In what sense it is (...) post-positivist? In what sense it is sociological? Does it belong to social epistemology? To answer these questions I set myself four tasks. First, Bloor’s theoretical position concerning the Kuhn-Popper debate is located. Second, I point to and present Mary Hesse’s network model of science (NM) as a crucial theoretical source for the early SP. Third, I analyze in detail how Bloor interpreted and appropriated NM. Finally, I show what theoretical and methodological effects this interpretation had for the SP as presented in 1976. The general layout of the conceptual architecture of SP is modeled on the Hesse’s NM. It combines the principle of correspondence and that of coherence and sees the language of science as a network of predicates and laws segmented by contingent and empirical boundaries and not a priori logical divisions between theory and observation. But Bloor creatively interprets and appropriates NM by the double move of generalization and specification. Whereas Hesse’s NM refers to the functioning of scientific language, in Bloor’s hands, it comes to describe human learning in general inscribed in psychological processes (perception and thinking). As a result, SP is based on a form of psychological empiricism that sees science as a two-storied building. The first floor (perception) ensures correspondence and the second one (thinking) provide conditions of coherence. SP of 1976 is a specific model for the sociological segmentation of the second floor. (shrink)

This volume presents research that integrates decision making and creativity within the social contexts in which these processes occur. The volume is an essential addition to and expansion of recent approaches to decision making. Such approaches attempt to incorporate more of the psychological and socio-cultural context in which human decision making takes place. The authors come from different disciplines and also belong to a broad spectrum of research traditions. They present innovative chapters dealing with both theoretical and empirical aspects (...) of decision making in different personal and organizational contexts. All chapters are written from the perspective that human decision making is inherently social and more or less creative. The volume addresses fundamental questions about the nature of human decision making as it occurs in different social contexts. Thereby, it becomes essential reading for researchers in decision making and for advanced students in psychology, management science, informatics, and related disciplines. (shrink)

Humans have developed the capacity to approve or disapprove of the behavior of their children and of unrelated individuals. The ability to approve or disapprove transformed social learning into a system of cumulative cultural inheritance, because it increased the reliability of cultural transmission. Moreover, people can transmit their behavioral experiences (regarding what can and cannot be done) to their offspring, thereby avoiding the costs of a laborious, and sometimes dangerous, evaluation of different cultural alternatives. Our thesis is that, during (...) ontogeny, the evaluative communication (approval/disapproval) between parents and offspring is substituted by other evaluative communications among peers, like individuals of the same generation. Each person belongs to a reference social group with individuals that interact more intensively. Humans have developed psychological mechanisms that enable cultural transmission by being receptive to parental advice as well as their reference social group. The selective pressure that promoted these new evaluative interactions arose to facilitate the establishment of efficient cooperative relationships. In short, the social control of behavior is essential to understand human cultural transmission. (shrink)

Moral development, achievement goal, and athletic identity are considered psychological constructs sharing specific cognitive, social, motivational, and behavioral traits. The purpose of the present article is to investigate the relation among moral orientations, athletic identity, and social goal orientations. In addition, the impact of age, gender, type of sport, sport division, and school performance on moral orientation has also been investigated. One hundred forty athletes of artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, and acrobatic gymnastics (n?=?29 boys, n?=?111 girls), aged 8 (...) to 17, participated in the research. They belonged to IV, III, II, and I sport divisions. The participants filled in three questionnaires: Moral Orientation Students in Physical Education Questionnaire, Athletic Identity Measurement Scale, and Social Goal Orientation Questionnaire. The results established that moral orientation is related to the athletic identity and achievement social goal constructs, as well as the fact that they affect school performance. (shrink)

The hypothesis that music is well suited to facilitate social bonding is highly consistent with social psychological research on the need to belong. We explore how music is uniquely placed to increase feelings of connections to large collectives by increasing collective effervescence, providing narratives, reminding one of others, and providing social surrogates.

Concerning race and its intertwinements with gender, sexual orientation, class, accents, or ability there is a scarcity of social psychological research in Europe. With an intersectional approach studying racism in Europe it is possible to detect specific experiences of discrimination. The prevalent understanding of European racism is connected to migration from the former colonies to the European metropoles and the post-Second-World-War immigration of ‘guest workers.’ Thus, the focus of this research is on work-related discrimination. Against the background of a (...) short historical review, we present the results of the few existing studies on intersectional discrimination within the labor market in Europe and discuss their implications. The pattern of findings is more complex than the assumption that individuals belonging to two or more marginalized social categories are always the most discriminated ones. Gender, sexual orientation, and origin rather interact with the specific job context. These interactions determine whether minority individuals are discriminated against or even preferred over individuals belonging to the majority group. We argue that considering the stereotype content model and social-identity theory helps to structure the sometimes contradictory results of intersectionality research. Therefore, the review presents new perspectives on racism in Europe based on current research, develops hypotheses on the interplay of intersecting identities, and identifies four novel research questions based on racist attributions considering situational variables: These are the role of concrete job contexts in explaining discrimination, the influence of different stereotypes regarding marginalized groups, the explanatory value of sexual orientation as well as class or socioeconomic-status and age in terms of some patterns of results. (shrink)

The message of the present article is, first, that, besides and below the strictly linguistic aspects of communication through language, of which speakers are in principle fully aware, a great deal of knowledge not carried in virtue of the system of the language in question but rather transmitted by the form of the intended message, is imparted to listeners or readers, without either being in the least aware of this happening. For example, listeners quickly register the social status, regional (...) origin or emotional attitude of speakers and they react to those kinds of ‘paralinguistic’ information, mostly totally unawares. When speaker and listener have a positive attitude with regard to each other, the reaction consists, among other things, in mutual alignment or accommodation of pronunciation features, lexical selections and style of speaking. When the mutual attitude is negative, the opposite happens: speakers accentuate their differences. Then, when this happens not between individual interlocutors but between groups of speakers, such accommodation or divergence phenomena may lead to language change. The main theoretical question raised, but not answered, in this article is how and at what point forms of behaviour, including linguistic behaviour, achieve the status of being ‘standard’ or ‘accepted’ in any given community and what it means to say that they are ‘standard’ or ‘accepted’. It is argued that frequency of occurrence is not the main explanatory factor, and that a causal explanation is to be sought rather in the, often unconscious, attitudes of individuals, in particular their desire or need to be integrated members of a community or social group, thus ensuring their safety and asserting their group identity. The question thus belongs to the province of social psychology. Qualms about analyses of this kind being ‘unscientific’ dissipate when it is realized that consciousness phenomena are part of the real world and must therefore be considered to be valid objects of scientific theory formation. Like so many other ill-understood elements in scientific theories, consciousness, though itself unexplained, can be given a place in causal chains of events. (shrink)

Relevant research shows teachers’ “psychological power” plays a more essential role in promoting their professional development compared with the powers provided by various external factors, and it is therefore held that exploring college English teachers’ individual psychological power is of great significance. To this end, this study investigated college English teachers’ psychological empowerment via the development and validation of CETPE’s scale. Based on our literature review on psychological empowerment and analysis of teachers professional development’s status quo, we made a working (...) definition of CETPE as a system involving perception of their occupation, sense of competence, experiencing of autonomy, judgment of their impact and understanding of their status. In our study, firstly the literature review and the interview with 17 college English teachers were adopted to conceptualize the dimensions of CETPE, and an exploratory factor analysis of data was conducted from 227 college English teachers and then the subsequent confirmatory factor analysis of data collected from another sample of 1030 generated 15 items belonging to five factors. The findings reveal that CETPE is systematically composed of teachers’ positive perception and experience of work meaningfulness, teaching autonomy, occupational competence, professional impact and social status. This study provides a new path for teachers’ professional development via strengthening their intrinsic driving force and thus helps improve the college English teaching effects. (shrink)