Cultures of Denial: Avoiding Knowledge of State Violations of Human Rights in Argentina and the United States

Why and how do individuals distance themselves from information about their government's participation in torture and other human rights violations? Such citizen (non)response implicitly legitimates and thus facilitates the continuation of abusive state actions. Drawing on a model of socially organized denial, we explore how sociocultural contexts and practices mediate individuals’ avoidance, justification, normalization, silencing, and outright denial of human rights abuses in two sites: Argentina during the last military dictatorship (1976–1983) and the United States during the “war on terror” post September 11, 2001. The study is based on 40 in‐depth interviews with members of diverse civic, religious, community, and political organizations in both countries (20 in each site). Comparing the political circumstances of a dictatorship and an electoral democracy, the analysis shows the roles of patriotic and national security ideologies and practices of silence and talk as organizers of cultures of denial.     

Toward an Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Youth,Sexualization, and Health

The commentaries in this issue of the Journal of Sex Research by Vanwesenbeeck and Else-Quest and Hyde on “Bad Girls Rule” are connected to two larger conversations concerning (a) the intersections of sexuality, objectification, culture, health, and power; and (b) academics as public scholars. Vanwesenbeeck makes the case for considering both the risks and the rights associated with sexualization. Else-Quest and Hyde argue for the need to use a developmental lens when discussing girlhood and sexuality. This response recognizes the need for a developmental approach; elaborates on previous critiques about over-reliance on epidemiological terms in the American Psychological Association task force report on the sexualization of girls; and rearticulates the value of placing feminist, cross-disciplinary, and cross-national scholarship at the center, rather than the margins, of this dialogue. Were such a dialogue to occur, evidence of cultural and personal variations of childhood and youth should be considered along with evidence of human personality development. Although scholars in psychology have been leaders in public scholarship on sexualization and girlhood, it is an ethical and intellectual obligation for scholars from other disciplines (e.g., public health, women's studies, sociology, cultural studies, and epidemiology) to also contribute to this conversation.     

“People Want to Protect Themselves a Little Bit”: Emotions,Denial, and Social Movement Nonparticipation*

Emotions can be a source of information and an impetus for social action, but the desire to avoid unpleasant emotions and the need for emotion management can also prevent social movement participation. Ethnographic and interview data from a rural Norwegian community describes how people avoided thinking about climate change in part because doing so raised fears of ontological security, emotions of helplessness and guilt, and was a threat to individual and collective senses of identity. In contrast to existing studies that focus on the public's lack of information or concern about global warming as the basis for the lack of public response, my work describes the way in which holding information at a distance was an active strategy performed by individuals as part of emotion management. Following Evitar Zerubavel, I describe this process of collective avoiding as the social organization of denial. Emotions played a key role in denial, providing much of the reason why people preferred to avoid information. Emotion management was also a central aspect of the process of denial, which in this community was carried out through the use of a cultural stock of social narratives that were invoked to achieve “perspectival selectivity” and “selective interpretation.”     

Continuity of social choice functions with restricted coalition algebras

Social choice functions are studied with an infinite population framework that includes algebras over the set of individuals. It is shown that continuous social choice functions are either dictatorial or manipulable. Weak anonymity is shown to be incompatible with continuity and neutrality. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Logic, Game Theory and Social Choice 4, Caen 2005, and at the First Spain Italy Netherlands Meeting on Game Theory, Maastricht 2005.     

My Story: Blogs by Four Military Teens,by Sherman,M. D., & Sherman,D. M.

Abstract

GROUP WORK WITH POPULATIONS AT RISK. SECOND EDITION. Reviewed by Geoffrey L. Greif and Paul H. Ephross (Eds.) New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, 480 pp. reviewed by Barbara Muskat

TRANSFORMING THE LEGACY: COUPLE THERAPY WITH SURVIVORS OF CHILDHOOD TRAUMA. Reviewed by Kathryn Basham and Dennis Miehls. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, 368 pp. reviewed by Rachel Birnbaum     

Motivation for research participation among people bereaved by suicide

Few studies directly address vulnerable populations' motivation for participating in research. Often motives are expressed spontaneously and typically given post-interview. This article investigates motivation for research participation among informants who have been bereaved by suicide. Informants were specifically asked for their motivation either prior to, or directly after the interview. Four categories of motivations were identified: (1) Helping Others, (2) Venting, (3) Insight, and (4) Just Because. Sixty percent of informants gave more than one motivation. The majority was altruistically motivated; they hoped that by taking part they could play a role in helping to prevent suicide, improving services for the bereaved or moving research forward. Close family members were more likely to be motivated by a desire to help others than more distant family members. Findings are discussed in the context of suicide-related bereavements. Information about research participation as beneficial to others should be given parallel to that of possible strain.     

Characteristics of social smoking among college students

Social smoking is a newly identified phenomenon in the young adult population that is poorly understood. We investigated differences in social smoking (smoking most commonly while partying or socializing) and other smoking within a convenience sample of college smokers (n = 351) from a large midwestern university. Results revealed that 70% of 351 current (past 30-day) smokers reported social smoking. No significant difference was found in motivation to quit between smoking groups. However, a significant difference was found between groups in confidence to quit, the number of days smoked, and the number of cigarettes smoked on those days. More social smokers than expected did not perceive themselves as smokers. Logistic regression analysis revealed that lower physical and psychological dependence and higher social support scores predicted social smoking.     

Promising practices in understanding and treating child neglect

Child neglect is the most common type of child maltreatment in the United States. However, services provided to families who neglect often fail to address and treat the primary concerns associated with child neglect. The information provided in this paper identifies the primary problems contributing to child neglect, and some promising practices in child welfare casework that address these problems and show positive outcomes for the children and families who experience child neglect. Knowledge pertaining to assessment skills, treatment abilities, and model programmes is provided.