Responsive Listening in Long-Married Couples: A Psycholinguistic Perspective

Positive and responsive listening behavior benefits marital satisfaction, but previous reports have examined emotionally positive behavior confounded with responsive behavior, and focused primarily on younger marriages. Psycholinguistic views of listening suggest that responsive listening is distinct from emotionally positive listening. The former may change with an aging relationship, while the latter is unlikely to do so. Long-married couples share extensive common ground about recurrent conflicts, reducing the need for some listening behaviors. We observed 79 younger and older married couples, happily and unhappily married, discussing conflicts. We coded listening behaviors indicative of attention and comprehension (responsiveness) as well as those expressing emotions. We expected that older married couples would display lower frequencies of responsive listening behaviors than middle-aged couples. Results provide conditional support for this hypothesis. Implications for research on marital communication and aging are discussed.     

“We're Not Old!”: Older Women's Negotiation of Aging and Oldness

This article is based on participant observation research at a seniors' center in central Canada in which the writer sought to acquire an understanding of how older adults define, interpret, and negotiate their realities and identities. Through activity and group membership, the center members — the majority of whom are single, older women between the ages of 50 and 90 — seek to distance themselves from the category of “old” and the accompanying ageist stereotypes. Striving to establish and preserve their precarious membership in the “not old”, center members struggle to reconcile their belief and experience of older adulthood as a time of activity, health, and happiness with their ever-present fear of declining health and the realities of widowhood and the loss of youthful attractiveness.     

Why Do the Privileged Resort to Oppression? A Look at Some Intragroup Factors

This article shows that (intergroup) oppression can be strategically motivated by (intragroup) processes. It is often assumed that high-status groups oppress when their social position is declining (relative deprivation). Counterintuitively, research shows that oppression also occurs when their position is improving (gratification): a curvilinear relationship referred to as "the v-curve effect." We test the hypothesis that this relationship is due to intragroup processes within the high-status group: individuals respond strategically to elite norms. Two experiments manipulated participants' future prospects: to join the nation's elite in future (relative gratification), social stasis, or status decline (relative deprivation, Study 2). Elite norms toward immigrants (positive, negative) were manipulated independently. The curvilinear relationship was only found when norms were negative. In other words, those who anticipate joining the elite tailor their actions to the norms of their prospective in-group.     

Rewards and Costs in Adolescent Other-sex Friendships: Comparisons to Same-sex Friendships and Romantic Relationships

This study used a social exchange framework to examine the features of non-romantic other-sex (OS) friendships compared with same-sex (SS) friendships and romantic relationships. High school seniors (N  =  141) completed open-ended interviews about the benefits and costs of having OS friendships, SS friendships, and romantic relationships in general. As expected, perspective taking, learning about the other sex, and meeting the other sex were seen as rewards of OS friendships more often than for SS friendships and romantic relationships. Confusion about the nature of the relationship was seen as a cost of OS friendships more often than of SS friendships and romantic relationships. Intimacy, support, and companionship were mentioned less often as rewards of OS friendships than romantic relationships. Adolescents also completed questionnaires about their own specific relationships of each type. Their OS friendships were perceived as less supportive than their other two relationships; OS friendships were also seen as having fewer negative interactions than romantic relationships. Our findings expand the application of social exchange theory and lend empirical support to prior speculations about OS friendships and their importance in adolescents' social worlds.     

An Observational Investigation of Poker Style and the Five-Factor Personality Model

Little empirical investigation has been made of the relationship between personality and gambling play style. In an observation of on-table poker behavior, this study classified 44 players competing in an amateur league (43 male; mean age 32) according to two main dimensions of play style; tight or loose and aggressive or passive. Superstitious beliefs towards the game were additionally measured. The NEO-PI-R questionnaire (Costa and McCrae, Revised NEO personality inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO-five factor inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual, 1992) was used to measure personality according to the five-factor model. Results showed players with superstitious beliefs to be significantly higher in neuroticism and lower in conscientiousness and than those with no superstitious beliefs. Results approaching significance showed players adopting an aggressive style to be higher in extraversion than passive players and superstitious players to be lower in extraversion than non-superstitious players. Analysis of play style according to age of player revealed a significantly higher mean age among loose compared to tight players. Implications of results concerning validity of these style classifications and potential development in future work are discussed.     

Taking a risk? The mortgage industry and perceptions of disabled people

This paper examines a relatively overlooked force within disability; the appraisal of risk, with a specific focus on disability and housing. In this context the paper explores how risk can operate against disabled people, using a case study of mortgage industry responses to disabled people in the mortgage application process. Given the recent downward shift in the buoyancy of the housing market this is a timely focus. The events in the USA, which led to the sub‐prime market ‘collapse’, and the consequent impact on the UK have meant that lenders have become even more risk averse, withdrawing numerous mortgage products and reducing loan amounts. This has left many people unable to access the owner‐occupier sector, but for disabled people this can be even more difficult. The role of risk in ‘the disabling process’ is therefore of great importance, and is illustrated here through the practice of risk assessment.     

“We been dying,and you got me on a call helping you stay alive”: Black and Latinx youth organizers' experiences of racism in gun violence prevention organizations

This study explored Black and Latinx youth organizers' experiences of racism within national gun violence prevention organizing spaces. Interview data were analyzed from 17 Black and/or Latinx youth (M_age = 20.17, 47% women) across the United States who organized against gun violence. The findings identified three forms of racism that Black and Latinx organizers experienced in national organizations: (1) being tokenized for their racial identities and experiences without having real decision making power; (2) feeling a burden to educate their white peers about the structural causes of gun violence and how to improve organizing spaces for other youth of color; and (3) being silenced in their racially conscious organizing efforts to address the structural causes of gun violence in their communities. This research highlights how Black and Latinx youth gun violence prevention organizers contend both with structural racism in their everyday lives and racism in organizing spaces.     

Readiness for independent living of youth in residential childcare: A comparative study

Transition to adulthood is an accelerated and early process for care leavers that requires intensive preparation, training and support from child welfare services. This study aimed to explore the perceived readiness for independent living of a group of care-experienced young people preparing for leaving care in Spain and to compare it with the perceptions of their peers from the general population. A sample of 508 youth (50% women) aged 14–21 (M = 16.67; SD = 1.72) took part, of whom 279 were care experienced and 229 belonged to the general population in Spain. Participants' independent living skills, personal autonomy, self-efficacy and sociodemographic characteristics were assessed through an online survey using standardized instruments. Care-experienced young people displayed higher levels of life skills and autonomy in self-care, daily living at home and employment domains, but not related to making daily arrangements in their community. However, their educational level and self-efficacy levels were lower than in the comparison group. Work experience stood out as a significant predictor of care-experienced young people's life skills level. These findings support the importance of assessing life skills as an outcome of leaving care preparation services and providing care-experienced young people with real-life experiences to develop their life skills.     

The fragility of therapists and clients as a generative context

This article describes our work at the interface between the legal and the psychosocial in relation to mental health needs arising in families. Working at the legal–psychosocial interface, interventions and treatment strategies are not given in advance but are built with all those involved, including the family and those who may be significant for the family as well as family therapists and judicial practitioners. In addition, psychology students from the UBA (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina) who are engaged for their professional practice in the area of Justice—Working with Families in the Legal Field—observe and actively participate in this process. The work at the legal–psychosocial interface is interdisciplinary and requires a permanent dialogic effort among all practitioners of the different disciplines in order to promote alternatives that generate innovative solutions.     

Relations between social withdrawal subtypes and socio-emotional adjustment among Chinese children and early adolescents

The aim of the present study was to compare the relations between subtypes of social withdrawal and socio-emotional adjustment in Chinese children and early adolescents. Participants included 571 children (M_age = 9.62 years) and 345 adolescents M_age = 12.12 years) in mainland China. Social withdrawal subtypes (i.e., shyness, unsociability, social avoidance) and indices of socio-emotional adjustment were assessed via self-reports, peer nominations, and teacher ratings. Shyness tended to be more strongly associated with emotional maladjustment in early adolescence, whereas unsociability was more strongly associated with socio-emotional difficulties in childhood. For social avoidance, associations with indices of negative adjustment (i.e., social anxiety, emotional symptoms, peer problems) were stronger in childhood, however, associations with indices of positive adjustment (i.e., life satisfaction, well-being) were stronger in early adolescence.