The Self as Public Property: Made in Israel

This article examines the connection between state order and self‐understandings in everyday life through a case study of the “Boarding School for Gifted Disadvantaged” in Israel. It includes content analysis of governmental protocols that documented the establishment of the boarding school (governmental constitution of a new self‐concept) and interviews with sixty of its graduates (self‐understandings in everyday life). The findings reveal how the new cultural order invented a new selfhood, “gifted disadvantaged,” previously unknown in Israel. This category is based on structural distinctions between being “naturally” gifted versus the governmental constitution of gifted status. Interviews with graduates indicate that they experience selfhood as a philanthropic gift bestowed on them by the state of Israel and voice their gratitude toward the state. The concluding discussion suggests that the graduates experience their selfhood as “public property.” The self, perceived as having been constructed from outside, is in a continuous dialectic between the presence and the absence of certain personal qualities.     

“Backstage Autonomy”: Religious-Zionist State Widows in Second Marriages Manage Competing Expectations

ABSTRACT

The article examines the coping mechanisms of state widows belonging to Israel’s Religious-Zionist sector, whose husbands died at an early age either during military service or in terrorist attacks. While the national bereaved community’s collective unconscious expects the widows to dedicate their lives to institutionalized commemoration of their dead husband, Jewish tradition expects them to remarry to rehabilitate their family and children. The widows who were studied seemed to manage the competing expectations successfully: they remarried and maintained a happy family life while entrusting commemoration to the bereaved parents, who are still part of their extended family. The findings point to successful manipulation of the patriarchy of both communities to which they belong, achieving individualization that offers freedom in the private sphere—what we call “Backstage Autonomy”—while perpetuating hegemony on the public level on the Front Stage.     

A Re-Conceptualization of the Working Alliance in Cross-Cultural Practice with Non-Western Clients: Integrating Relational Perspectives and Multicultural Theories

This article will addresses a gap in the literature regarding the working alliance in cross-cultural treatment. The paper draws on references from current relational theories and multicultural conceptual and empirical sources to re-conceptualize the definition of the working alliance to include cross-cultural dynamics between Asian clients and European-American therapists as a case in point. The paper includes an overview of the working alliance, and a proposal for the inclusion of specific relational domains that this author has found to be important for the definition of the working alliance. These domains are empathy, mutuality, the dynamics of power and authority, the use of self, and the process of communication. A case vignette is included to illustrate these discrete domains. The paper opens new directions for clinical practice and research in the area of the working alliance in cross-cultural counseling.     

A note on altruism and caregiving in the family: do prices matter?

Exchanges of work for money and altruism are two alternative explanations for bequests, transfers from children to older parents, and in-family caregiving. Such exchanges may also occur in couples living together and are therefore a major theme in economic analyses of marriage. This note emphasizes two ways that the literature on altruism and inter-generational monetary transfers and the economic literature on marriage can enrich each other: the concept of price for in-family caregiving can be expanded along the lines of the analysis of Work-In-Household and market analyses of marriage can pay more attention to altruism as an alternative explanation for observed behaviors such as labor supply or consumption.     

Analyzing Religiosity within an Economic Framework: The Case of Spanish Catholics

Using a sample of Spanish Catholics, we examined the level of religiosity (measured by beliefs, prayer and church attendance) and the relationship between religiosity and various socio-economic variables. An Ordered Logit estimation of religiosity equations showed that: women are more religious than men; religious activity increases with age; there is a (marginally) significant positive relationship between schooling and religiosity; religiosity is positively related to exposure to religious activity during childhood; and male religious activity is positively affected by marital status (being married to a Catholic wife) and by the number of children at home. The results also demonstrate the importance of the "salvation motive" for the two genders and the presence of the "professional utilitarian motive" in male religious behavior.     

Dimensions of Cross Cultural Treatment with Late Adolescent College Students

This paper addresses the need to develop culturally sensitive services on university campuses with a student population that is rapidly becoming more culturally diverse. It explores the different psychological paradigms of Western and non-Western cultures, the adolescent developmental process within diverse cultural constructs and the notion of self cross-culturally. Clinical practice implications in cross-cultural treatment are investigated. These include the therapist's self-disclosure, resistance and countertransference issues, verbal and non-verbal communication in the therapeutic relationship, and the dynamics of power and authority. Two short vignettes illustrate some of these clinical issues and emphasize the value of the therapist's knowledge and awareness of cultural differences as well as the importance of their willingness to modify more traditional clinical practices to fit diverse cultural paradigms.     

Explorations of the effect of experience on preferences for a health-care service

The standard assumption in economic theory is that preferences do not change as a result of experience with the commodity/service/event. Behavioral scientists have challenged this assumption, claiming that preferences constantly do change as experience is accumulated. This paper tests the effect of experience with a health-care service on preferences for maternity-ward attributes. In order to explore the effect of experience on preferences, the research sample was decomposed into three sub-samples: women pregnant with their first child (no experience); women after one delivery (single experience); and women after more than one delivery (multiple experiences). The preference patterns of the three sub-groups were estimated and compared. A Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) was employed for establishing the relative importance of five attributes. Socio-economic background variables were also considered. The basic findings are that preferences change significantly as a result of experience with the health event; that the effect of experience is attribute-specific; that the extent of past experience (number of deliveries) is irrelevant; and that the effect of experience differs by socio-economic status.