Is an e-mental health programme a viable way to reach affected others of disordered gamblers? A feasibility study focusing on access and retention

Although affected family members (AFMs) of disordered gamblers suffer from highly stressful living conditions and are in need of specialized help, access to and knowledge of professional support is limited. To improve this situation, an e-mental health programme called EfA with one information module and five consecutive training modules was developed. The study investigated (1) promotion of and referral to EfA, (2) duration of visits and conversion rate, and (3) participants’ characteristics and retention in EfA. In 9 months, 6357 visits were counted. Most visitors arrived at the website via direct access. Those using search terms most commonly used phrases that were used in promotional materials. Per month, 16.1 new potential participants registered. The final sample consisted of 126 participants, most of them female, with high daily Internet usage and low use of prior professional support or self-help. More than one-third finished all modules. This is the first time that data on an e-mental health programme for this clientele was collected in Germany. Findings imply the importance of promoting such a programme in order to reach a clientele that has not had prior help and also show that it is a viable way to reach AFMs.     

Help me Obi-Wan: the influence of facial dominance on perceptions of helpfulness

We all occasionally need the help of others whom we do not know well. In four studies, we studied the influence of the facial appearance of both the potential helper and the help seeker on such a decision. In three studies (1a-1c), across different help domains, participants rated a person with submissive facial appearance as more likely to help. This was mediated via the perception of the submissive person as caring and helpful. The notion that submissive individuals will be perceived as more likely to help when a dominant person asks was only supported in the context of financial help. The preference for a submissive potential helper was also found when participant had to choose a helper for themselves (Study 2). (120 words)     

Exposure to Parent and Peer Alcohol Use and the Risk of Drinking Onset and Escalation Among Adolescents

Although the rate of alcohol use among adolescents has declined, it remains their drug of choice. Parent and peer alcohol use are powerful risk factors for youth alcohol use. However, questions remain about how these factors influence underage drinking. The present study investigates the relationship between exposure to parent or peer alcohol use and two stages of adolescent drinking—onset and escalation—overall and at five age points during adolescence. Participants were 9348 adolescents in Waves I (WI) and II (WII) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, whose parents completed interviews at WI, and who identified themselves as either non-drinkers or experimental drinkers at WI. Reports of WII alcohol use were used to measure onset among WI non-drinkers and escalation among WI experimenters. Risk ratios were calculated to assess the overall impact of exposure to parent or peer alcohol use on onset and escalation, and at five age points (i.e., ≤?13, 14, 15, 16, and ≥?17). Findings show that exposure to either parent or friend alcohol use increased the risk of onset and escalation. Age-based analyses reveal a more nuanced relationship, showing variability in the nature and strength of influence by stage of drinking and by age. This study highlights the relevance of both parent and peer modeling on youth drinking throughout adolescence. Implications in advancing prevention and treatment include parental education about the impact of their own behaviors and the importance of monitoring teens’ friendships.     

Leadership and Effectiveness in the Context of Gender: The Role of Leaders' Verbal Behaviour*

This field study focuses on verbal consideration, which is a leadership behaviour that expresses esteem for the follower and her or his work, knowledge and opinion. It was assumed that the relationship between verbal consideration and various outcomes is moderated by the leader's gender. One‐hundred‐and‐forty leaders and 455 of their direct followers were surveyed in a one‐wave questionnaire study in Germany. Male and female leaders showed the same degree of verbal consideration as rated by their followers. Verbal consideration is related to three out of four outcome variables for both sexes. One unexpected moderating effect of leaders' gender was found: followers of male leaders displaying verbal consideration report less ‘irritation’ (a state of exhaustion considered a threat to good task fulfilment). One explanation may be that male leaders get ‘extra credit’ for showing verbal consideration as it may be thought to entail special effort, whereas for female leaders it may be seen as normal and routine. This assumption should be examined in further studies in order to get more information about the different mechanisms by which female and male leaders reach the same quality of outcomes.     

An analysis of the encoding and decoding of spontaneous and posed smiles: The use of facial electromyography

Twenty subjects judged 80 video segments containing brief episodes of smiling behavior for expression intensity and happiness of the stimulus person. The video records were produced under instructions to (a) pose, (b) experience a happy feeling or (c) to both experience and show a happy feeling. An analysis of the integrated facial electromyogram (EMG), recorded over four muscle regions (zygomaticus major, depressor anguli oris, corrugator supercilii, andmasseter), showed that judgments of happiness and of intensity of expression could be predicted in a multiple regression analysis (multipleR = .64 for perceived happiness and .79 for perceived expression intensity). The perception of happiness was affected by EMG activity in regions other thanzygomaticus major. The use of parameters other than the mean of the integrated EMG, namely variance, skewness, kurtosis and properties of the amplitude distributions across time, provided accurate classification of the elicitation conditions (pose happiness versus experience happiness) in a discriminant analysis. For the discrimination of posed and felt smiles variables describing aspects of facial activity in the temporal domain were more useful than any of the other measures. It is suggested that facial EMG can be a useful tool in the analysis of both the encoding and decoding of expressive behavior. The results indicate the advantage of using multiple-site EMG recordings as well as of using amplitude and temporal characteristics of the facial EMG measures.The research was supported in part by funds associated with the John Sloan Dickey Third Century Professorship (Kleck) and in part by grant BNS-8507600 from the National Science Foundation (Lanzetta). Ursula Hess and Arvid Kappas were supported by stipends from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service).     

Vereinsmanagement in Zeiten der Veränderung

Associations and unions are under high optimisation pressure because of fewer public money and general changes in society. Many try to cope with this hard situation by looking for business management instruments. Quick solutions are however not easy to get. These organisations are for their members, to a high degree, social communities as well as political action communities and economic or services communities. These three different forms of communities constitute subsystems in associations with their own very specific organisatinal logic. If one of those subsystems get out of balance it would affect the two others. Modern management instruments are useless in changes projects handling changes, as long as the managing committee doesn’t initiate broad and extensive internal discussions about the future direction of the association. Project handling changes have only a chance to succeed, if they equally take into consideration all three subsystems.     

Women behaving badly: negative posts on Facebook memorial pages

This study explores negative posts in Facebook pages dedicated to dead subjects. As with places for mourning in offline environments, memorial pages in Facebook appear to exude a sacred character as objects to both celebrate the life of the deceased and grieve their departure with others. Through a two-step content analysis of an initial sample of 600 pages containing the ‘R.I.P.’ acronym in their title, we found, however, a number of posts violating conventional expectations of respect for these mourning spaces. Negative posts in memorial pages take the form of flames (i.e., insults directed at the subject of the page, its administrator, or other visitors), venting (e.g., violent language against the victimizers of the subject of a memorial page), or ‘spam’ (i.e., advertisement and content not related to the subject and purpose of the page). Moreover, while results show that most memorial pages in Facebook are created and maintained by women (even thought the subject in the majority of those pages are young males who died an untimely death), they also reveal that women post the majority of negative posts in those pages as well. In other words, whereas women seem to perpetuate traditional offline roles in connection to mourning and grieving rituals, in the online world, they are also the first ones challenging the socially sanctioned sacral attributes of those practices in social networking sites.     

Selbstreflexivität – Annäherungen an eine zentrale Haltung in Coaching- und Beratungsprozessen

This article explores “self-reflexivity” as a key competence and general attitude in all contexts of coaching and supervision. Three main perspectives are used approaching self-reflexivity: the “where from”, “what for” and “how-to”. Thus starting from etymology the importance of the subject in the practice of coaches and counselors is explored. Based on two models it is shown what kind of interaction between client and coach is beneficial when wanting to activate self-reflexivity. The article is rounded up by a note on self-care—one important aspect of self-reflexivity.     

Die Entwicklung von Organisations- und Teamstrukturen zur Integration von Flüchtlingen: Zwei Fallbeispiele aus der SchweizThe development of organization and team structures in institutions for refugee integration: Two examples from Switzerland

The article is concerned with the organizational and team-related challenges of integration of refugees in Switzerland from the perspective of the actors in organizations who assume this task in their daily work. Based on interviews with employees of the Zürcher Fachorganisation AOZ and the Fachstelle Integration Graubünden the development and functionality of different organizational structures will be discussed and analyzed with regard to their adaptation to structural conditions of the region as well as specific requirements of the arriving refugees. Particular consideration is given to measures of social and professional integration. The two organizations were chosen because the former is well established in Switzerland and has been active in the integration of refugees for more than 30 years and the latter has been particularly successful in assisting refugees to get a placement in the primary labor market. Numerous challenges of newly arriving refugees in Switzerland require different targeted services (language training, cultural integration, psychological support, etc.). In order to meet these requirements coordinated, balanced team structures are required. The results show that the two organizations differ considerably in their structure, distribution of tasks and integration into networks despite almost identical remits.     

Snack time in kindergarten as a cultural practice—Implications for processes of subjectivation

This article explores subjectivation processes in eating situations in Swiss kindergartens. On the basis of a long-term ethnographic study and against the backdrop of the public discourse on healthy food in schools it investigates how norms and rules are being translated, shaped and performed in daily practices of un/doing difference. This ethnomethodological approach is combined with Judith Butlers deconstructionist perspective of analysing local and institutional norms of recognisability. The findings show that eating situations are highly relevant for processes of subjectivation and also bear a high potential for conflicts regarding differing cultural norms around eating.