Stories to tell,stories to sell: resisting textualization

A reflexive argument for reverse cultural studies in discussing problems in fieldwork, academic access and research accountability is developed. This paper reflexively analyses tensions and contradictions set in motion by the writing of articles on observer-observed relations within both San Bushmen communities themselves and between myself and development and other agencies working in one of these areas. Questions addressed relate to ownership of information, the relationship between the local/particular and the national/policy, and on how to ensure campfire dissemination/involvement of, and popular access to, the written product by a-literate and non-English-speaking communities.     

Using alcohol to sell cigarettes to young adults: a content analysis of cigarette advertisements

OBJECTIVE: Advertising influences the health-related behaviors of college-aged individuals. Cigarette manufacturers aggressively market to young adults and may exploit their affinity for alcohol when creating advertisements designed to increase cigarettes' appeal. Internal tobacco industry documents reveal that cigarette manufacturers understood the popularity of alcohol among young adults and sought to produce pertinent marketing strategies. METHODS: The authors conducted a content analysis of cigarette and alcohol advertisements in young adult-oriented magazines to investigate portrayed associations between cigarettes and alcohol. RESULTS: The content analysis revealed that 32 of 114 cigarette advertisements referenced alcohol and that those advertisements were more likely than others to portray active smoking. Conversely, 0 of 317 alcohol advertisements referenced cigarettes, and alcohol advertisements were only slightly more likely than cigarette advertisements to feature alcohol-related settings. CONCLUSIONS: Such advertising may detrimentally affect smoking patterns of college students. An understanding of these strategies can benefit on-campus tobacco control efforts.     

Relational ethnography

All matters related to ethnography flow from a decision that originates at the very beginning of the research process—the selection of the basic object of analysis—and yet fieldworkers pay scant attention to this crucial task. As a result, most take as their starting point bounded entities delimited by location or social classification and in so doing restrict the kinds of arguments available to them. This article presents the alternative of relational ethnography. Relational ethnography involves studying fields rather than places, boundaries rather than bounded groups, processes rather than processed people, and cultural conflict rather than group culture. While this approach comes with its own set of challenges, it offers an ethnographic method that works with the relational and processual nature of social reality.     

Mother Bear: A Relational Approach to Child Therapy

This paper explores the role and importance of the relationship in the treatment of a young foster child. Because of parental neglect and loss, the child related in an inauthentic manner in order to engage her parents. Her manner of relating arose from old patterns, which were defensive adaptations to traumatic situations. The authors employ a relational theory of the self to conceptualize the processes from an intrapsychic and interpersonal perspective. The paper emphasizes that all the interactions between child and therapist, both in and out of the traditional therapy office, converged into a multidimensional authentic relationship. The authors define this relationship experience as the life space and believe that the establishment of the life space contributed to progress in the therapy.     

Creating Relational Ties in Talk: The Collaborative Construction of Relational Jealousy

This study furthers recent investigations into emotional talk between close relational partners by exploring the collaborative construction of one particular type of emotional experience: relational jealousy. Conversation analytic methods were used to investigate a data base comprised of 44 half-hour conversations between male friends, female friends, cross-sex friends, and romantic partners. It was found that both romantic partners and friends constructed relational jealousy as a powerful “negative” emotional experience and, when constructed in this fashion, the content of the construction concerned the negative influence this experience can have on both relational partners and their relationship. The structure of negative constructions of this emotion often included use of the past tense, qualifiers, and normalization strategies to address the face and relationship concerns created by claiming for oneself or attributing to one's partner such an experience. It was also found that partners who shared a romantic attachment sometimes constructed relational jealousy as a “positive” experience and the structure and content of these positive constructions differs markedly from the negative ones. Finally, relational jealousy was found to be a useful resource in romantic partners’ construction of their unique relational bond and in their negotiation of the rights, obligations, and rules entailed by that particular type of relationship.     

Relational Anxiety and Sexting

Individuals in pursuit of, or currently in, a romantic relationship typically communicate via technology, extending to sexting with one another. Sexting is commonly understood as the sending and receiving of sexually suggestive or sexually explicit photos, video, or text via cell phone or other technologies. The characteristics that fuel whether one engages in sexting are not well understood. In this study, 459 unmarried, heterosexual undergraduate students (female = 328; male = 131), aged 18 to 25 years, from three universities completed an online questionnaire about their behaviors with technology and romantic relationships. In general, low attachment avoidance and high fear of negative evaluation from the dating partner predicted sending a sexually suggestive photo or video, sending a photo or video in one’s underwear or lingerie, and sending a sexually suggestive text. High fear of negative evaluation predicted sending a nude photo or video as well as sending a text message propositioning sex. Low attachment avoidance, greater fear of negative evaluation, and greater social distress when dating were associated with sexting behaviors.     

Generalization of Relational Matching to Sample in Children: A Direct Replication

The ability of preschool age children to perform generalized relational matching to sample tasks with and without an overt mediating stimulus was examined. This experiment was a direct replication of a study by Lowenkron (1984) and examined a behavioral model relevant to complex human behavior that he later came to call joint control. Children were trained to code two-dimensional stimuli with the help of a handheld mediating stimulus. They were later tested for generalization of relational matching to sample with and without the mediating stimulus. Results indicated high levels of generalized matching to sample with the mediating stimulus and lower levels without. Findings also indicated that generalization was somewhat stronger with symmetrical shapes than with asymmetrical. Results are discussed in terms of a radical behavioral interpretation of complex human behavior.     

Dual criteria decisions

The most popular models of decision making use a single criterion to evaluate projects or lotteries. However, decision makers may actually consider multiple criteria when evaluating projects. We consider a dual criteria model from psychology. This model integrates the familiar tradeoffs between risk and utility that economists traditionally assume, allowance for rank-dependent decision weights, and consideration of income thresholds. We examine the issues involved in full maximum likelihood estimation of the model using observed choice data. We propose a general method for integrating the multiple criteria, using the logic of mixture models, which we believe is attractive from a decision-theoretic and statistical perspective. The model is applied to observed choices from a major natural experiment involving intrinsically dynamic choices over highly skewed outcomes. The evidence points to the clear role that income thresholds play in such decision making, but does not rule out a role for tradeoffs between risk and utility or probability weighting.     

Relational Trajectories from Parent and Child to Grandparent and New Parent

This qualitative study follows earlier research of new parents (Dun & Sangster, 2013) to explore grandparents’ understanding of communication with their adult children during the arrival of a new generation. In semistructured interviews, 29 grandparents described positive and negative interactions with a child (or child-in-law). Participants graphed changes in the intergenerational relationship with the first-time parents, from the moment the pregnancy was announced through their interview, when the grandchild was up to two years of age. Inductive analysis showed four trajectories, which we describe in detail using informants’ reports. Highlighting the volatility of the transition from a parent and child to grandparent and new parent, the most common patterns were Turbulent and Dipped, and the results include variants of these two trajectories. We compare grandparents’ retrospectively recalled experiences with the reports of new parents from previous research to facilitate a deeper understanding of intergenerational relationships during a highly unsettled transition.     

Using Relational Theory to Treat Adolescent Girls Victimized by Social Aggression

While much has been written on social aggression in adolescent girls, less has been written on the clinical treatment for victims of such bullying. This paper will look at social aggression in girls from relational and psychodynamic perspectives. Further, the interplay of trauma dynamics which are integral to the social aggression paradigm will be reviewed. Using a clinical example, the author will show how victim/victimizer/bystander roles inherent in trauma dynamics were enacted in the clinical dyad. Enactments were discussed in the treatment process leading to a new and different outcome. Implications for practice with girls who experience social aggression will be discussed.     

How to reach legitimate decisions when the procedure is controversial

Imagine a group that faces a decision problem but does not agree on which decision procedure is appropriate. In that case, can a decision be reached that respects the procedural concerns of the group? There is a sense in which legitimate decisions are possible even if people disagree on which procedure to use. I propose to decide in favour of an option which maximizes the number of persons whose judged-right procedure happens to entail this decision given the profile. This decision rule is based not only on a profile in the standard sense, but in addition on a profile of judged-right procedures. To justify this decision rule, I present a set of simple axioms leading to it as the only solution.     

Relational Perceptions in Mother-Daughter Attachments

ABSTRACT

Two-hundred-twenty-one matched pairs of post-adolescent females (Mean age = 20.2) and their mothers (Mean age = 46.5) participated in a study to examine the relational perceptions of mother-daughter attachments by evaluating their perceptions of reported autonomy, intimacy, conflict, self-esteem and quality of relationship. Results indicated that mothers and daughters differed significantly on one measure of autonomy (Family of Origin Scale) and conflict (Mother-Daughter Conflict Scale). No differences between mothers and daughters were found for measures of attachment, intimacy and self-esteem. Findings suggest close attachments yet differences reflective of individuation.