Global liberalization on homosexuality: Explaining the African gap

We are trapped in two divergent worlds when it comes to global views on homosexuality. There is the liberal world epitomized by Spain and other nations, where homosexuality is increasingly accepted; gays and lesbians are claiming their human rights; and laws are changing to codify that transformation. The second is the extremely anti-gay world symbolized by Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia, where attitudes are favorable to criminalization. This research explains the “African Gap” in attitudes toward homosexuality in a comparative analysis of six African nations and Argentina and Canada, South and North America's most liberal nations on gay rights. Using Pew's 2015 Spring Global Attitudes Survey data, we find that the major variables have essentially similar effects on opinion in any context. Africa's distinction is explained by its comparatively higher levels of factors such as religion, morality dogma, and low socioeconomic status that generally retard support for homosexuality, at the same time of lower levels of factors such as education, urbanization, and personal liberty that increase gay support. Africa's extreme anti-gay outlook is mutable. Two social forces will facilitate this softening: expansion of liberalizing agents such as education and urbanization, and repositioning away from “traditionalism” toward modernism emphasizing individualism, civil rights, and personal liberties.     

Research newsnotes

The authors describe the curricular changes made as part of a 20-year commitment by Smith College School for Social Work (SCSSW), a graduate school with a clinical social work specialization, to become an antiracism institution. Unaware of precedents, faculty, administration, and students needed to develop structures and processes to confront inherent institutional racism at the SCSSW. In addition to multiple administrative actions, every aspect of the curriculum was reevaluated, leading to changes in courses offered and everything about them, from syllabi to pedagogy, as well as how faculty are trained and supported. The authors found that explicit and implicit curriculum must work together in intentional and synchronous ways. Critical intention across design, implementation, evaluation, accountability, and openness to process is emphasized here. They conclude that an antiracism commitment requires continuous engagement, connection, challenge, learning, and teaching and a curriculum that is fluid, flexible, proactive, and responsive.     

Supportive Housing for Addicted,Incarcerated Homeless Adults

ABSTRACT

Homeless populations often suffer from mental illness, substance abuse, and criminality. Interventions, such as supportive housing, can have positive impacts, although benefits can be limited. This study examined outcomes for clients (N = 102) of a new supportive housing intervention. Use of formal treatment, jail contact, and community stability were compared pre- and post-housing. Jail bookings and residential substance abuse treatment significantly declined post-housing, while clients improved in income level, access to food, and housing stability. Results from official justice and treatment system data suggest that supportive housing can lead to significant changes. Future research is necessary to understand the relationship between client characteristics and outcomes.     

Web-Enhanced Preservice Training for Prospective Resource Parents: A Randomized Trial of Effectiveness and User Satisfaction

ABSTRACT

Traditionally, prospective resource parents must attend all preservice training in person. Although live sessions are necessary for screening applicants, instructional portions of training could be enhanced by Web-based sessions. This pilot study compares the effectiveness of online and classroom versions of one session from a widely used preservice training program. Ninety-two individuals enrolled in the program in two states were randomly assigned to a treatment group that viewed an online version of the class on child abuse and neglect or to a comparison group that took the same class in person. Written questionnaires were completed before and after the class. Significant group differences on knowledge of child maltreatment and empathy toward birth parents plus high user satisfaction were hypothesized. Analysis of covariance results showed the online training was more effective than the live training at increasing knowledge. Multivariate analysis of covariance findings on empathy were not significant but trended toward greater empathy for the online group. Feedback indicated high satisfaction with the online course. The finding that online instruction is more effective than live instruction has positive implications for practice, because Web-based training offers advantages like standardizing instruction, cutting agency and trainee costs, and providing greater flexibility.     

Let Me Go: The Influences of Crawling Experience and Temperament on the Development of Anger Expression

Infants’ emerging ability to move independently by crawling is associated with changes in multiple domains, including an increase in expressions of anger in situations that block infants’ goals, but it is unknown whether increased anger is specifically because of experience with being able to move autonomously or simply related to age. To examine the influence of locomotion on developmental change in anger, infants’ (N = 20) anger expressions during an arm restraint procedure were observed longitudinally at a precrawling baseline assessment and 2 and 6 weeks after the onset of crawling. Infant age at each crawling stage was unrelated to the frequency of anger expressed in response to arm restraint. At 6 weeks postcrawling onset, infants whose mothers rated them as temperamentally higher in distress to limitations, compared with those rated lower, showed a greater increase in the frequency of anger expressed during the arm restraint relative to earlier assessments and took longer to reduce the frequency of anger expressed when no longer restrained. Findings suggest that experience with autonomous crawling has an effect on anger expression, independent of age, and that a temperamental tendency to become distressed by limitations may exacerbate the effect of crawling on anger expression.     

An Examination of the Communication Styles Associated with Psychopathy and Their Influence on Observer Impressions

Psychopathic individuals are characterized as “intra-species predators”—callous, impulsive, aggressive, and proficient at interpersonal manipulation. For example, despite their high risk for re-offending, psychopathic offenders often receive early release on parole. While reputed to be social chameleons, research suggests that even naive observers can accurately infer high levels of psychopathic traits in others with very brief exposures to behavior, but accuracy degrades with extended observation. We utilized a lens model approach to examine the communication styles (emotional facial expressions, body language, and verbal content) of offenders varying in levels of psychopathic traits using “thin slice” video clips of psychological assessment interviews and to reveal which cues observers use to inform their evaluations of psychopathy. Psychopathic traits were associated with more (a) Duchenne smiles, (b) negative (angry) emotional language, and (c) hand gestures (illustrators). Further, psychopathy was associated with a marked behavioral incongruence; when individuals scoring high in psychopathic traits engaged in Duchenne smiles they were also more likely to use angry language. Naïve observers relied on each of these valid behavioral signals to quickly and accurately detect psychopathic traits. These findings provide insight into psychopathic communication styles, opportunities for improving the detection of psychopathic personality traits, and may provide an avenue for understanding successful psychopathic manipulation.     

Trauma and health risk behaviors in people with severe mental illness

The current study tests the association between a composite measure of unsafe sex and sharing syringes for drug use with six of the more common lifetime traumatic/stressful events in 421 community mental health clients with severe mental illness (SMI) while controlling for psychiatric symptoms and related problems. A small but significant proportion of respondents said they had injected drugs with a shared needle in their lifetime (30, 7.2%), and a much larger proportion of respondents had engaged in unprotected sex (165, 39.2%). Unprotected sex and needle sharing were significantly correlated (Spearman’s rho = .20, p < .01). Frequency of lifetime traumatic events that occurred at least once was reported by one third to three quarters of clients depending on type of trauma. Regression analysis revealed that substance abuse and lifetime homelessness were significantly correlated with health risk behaviors. Practitioners need to be continuously vigilant to comorbid substance use and the housing needs of people with SMI. Limitations of the study include its cross-sectional design.     

Sinking,swimming and sailing: experiences of job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion in child welfare employees

The authors conducted a mixed‐method study after a previous study of child welfare employees revealed a subgroup exhibiting surprisingly high levels of both emotional exhaustion (EE) and job satisfaction (JS). This subgroup included direct service workers, supervisors and managers. As these findings appeared to conflict with previous studies, we re‐reviewed the literature and undertook the current study to account for the co‐existence of EE and JS. We explored and compared this subgroup with two others: workers who found their work satisfying without experiencing high levels of EE and those whose high levels of EE were associated with low JS. Using a survey that included several standardized measures with 226 employees and semi‐structured interviews with a criteria‐based subsample of 25, we explored the role that personality, career expectations, coping styles, stage of life, education, gender and social networks play in outcomes for individual employees. Analyses of quantitative and qualitative data yielded a profile for each subgroup, offering insights into the subjective experiences of workers within individual, social and organizational contexts. These findings have implications for recruitment, training and support of child welfare workers.     

Achievement in a Relational Context: Preferences and Influences in Female Adolescents

Friends' influence on achievement‐related choices in female adolescents was investigated using the Thematic Apperception Test (H. Murray, 1943), in the context of self‐in‐relation theory (J. V. Jordon, A. G. Kaplan, J. B. Miller, I. P. Stiver, & J. L. Surrey, 1991). Two hypotheses were tested: (1) Achievement‐related stimuli will elicit stories with more unfavorable and conflicted outcomes than will affiliation stimuli; (2) Thematic representation of achievement will be more homogeneous in more highly cohesive peer groups. A multivariate analysis of variance with repeated measures yielded significant results for Hypothesis 1. Thematic analysis of stories supported Hypothesis 2, showing peer group influence on achievement strivings in female adolescents.