“I Was Always This Way…”: Rhetorics of Continuity in Narratives of Conversion

This article is concerned with identifying, comparing, and accounting for the principal rhetorical conventions within Pagan practitioners’ narratives of conversion. Applying key insights from studies on narrative identity and drawing on 15 months of fieldwork and 25 in‐depth interviews with Pagan practitioners, I first outline formal similarities in the content of participants’ narratives, arguing that these narrative conventions together constitute an ideal typical conversion narrative: what I call the rhetoric of continuity. This narrative form depicts the process of conversion as a rediscovery or uncovering of a temporally continuous and essentialized Pagan self. I suggest that while all conversions involve both change and continuity, adherents of different faith traditions vary in the degree to which they stress self‐transformation and/or self‐continuity. I then argue that the rhetoric of continuity reflects and reinforces practitioners’: (1) perspective on the locus and nature of the authentic self; (2) claims to legitimacy and social acceptance; and (3) understanding of the nature of religious truth.     

Decision‐Making Styles,Career Decision Self‐Efficacy,and Career Adaptability Among High School Students

We investigated the relationships between decision‐making styles, career decision self‐efficacy, and career adaptability among high school students. We also sought to determine whether gender moderates the relationships among these three constructs. A total of 216 Serbian final‐year high school students responded to career adaptability and decision‐making measures. Results of structural equation modeling showed that career decision self‐efficacy mediates a positive relationship between the rational and intuitive styles and a negative relationship between the dependent style and career adaptability. The rational style only had a direct effect on career adaptability. Gender moderated one path—a regression weight of self‐efficacy on career adaptability. For male students, self‐efficacy was not a significant predictor of career adaptability. The results suggest that career counselors might approach students differently depending on students' gender and that the role of gender in career decision‐making and adaptability processes should be investigated further.     

Care and community revalued during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A feminist couple perspective

The COVID‐19 pandemic led us to understand and revalue care ethics within our daily lives and communities based on the feminist theory of care ethics. This article is a personal reflection of an academic couple living in Japan as we reflect on our experiences and the challenges encountered in caring for ourselves and our community. We discuss the ideas of care theory mainly: caring‐about and caring‐for, interchangeably in our discussion across the three‐stage categories: Home — A Commonplace; Care Ethics in Community; and Care Ethics for Self. Through these personal narratives, we strive to recognize the struggles of living through the pandemic in a virtually connected world that often disconnects us from self. We foster the idea of embracing care ethics as a starting point at an individual level.     

A Theory of Disagreement in Repeated Games With Bargaining

This paper proposes a new approach to equilibrium selection in repeated games with transfers, supposing that in each period the players bargain over how to play. Although the bargaining phase is cheap talk (following a generalized alternating‐offer protocol), sharp predictions arise from three axioms. Two axioms allow the players to meaningfully discuss whether to deviate from their plan; the third embodies a “theory of disagreement”—that play under disagreement should not vary with the manner in which bargaining broke down. Equilibria that satisfy these axioms exist for all discount factors and are simple to construct; all equilibria generate the same welfare. Optimal play under agreement generally requires suboptimal play under disagreement. Whether patient players attain efficiency depends on both the stage game and the bargaining protocol. The theory extends naturally to games with imperfect public monitoring and heterogeneous discount factors, and yields new insights into classic relational contracting questions.     

Changing Urban Spaces: Mobile Phones on Trains

Abstract

Mobility is changing the ways people routinely behave in public places. Since the appearance of digital mobile phone networks, mobile phones have become part of suburban and urban landscapes globally. Both the use of public transport and mobile telecommunications are integral for daily life and self‐presentation in most large cities such as London and Tokyo. Public places and spaces are being transformed into hybrid geographies through the introduction of new spatial infrastructure. In this paper, we present our analysis of the responses of our survey sample of commuters concerning their use of mobile phones on trains.     

Psychosis,Psychiatry, and Escape: A Social Work Academic's Retrospective Self-Narrative

This is a self-narrative account written retrospectively by a UK-based social work academic reflecting on the direct experience of being a psychiatric inpatient. A contextualization is established for the experience of psychosis and the psychiatric response. Psychosis is justified as a rational response that challenges the otherness often adopted toward users of mental health services. The psychiatric system is found to be restrictive and disempowering, posing a barrier to recovery. Personal narrative experience is analyzed considering the strengths of psychiatric care, which are contrasted against informal support mechanisms. Informal support proves to be beneficial as opposed to coercive psychiatric hospital care.     

Exploring the Relations Among the Nature of the Abuse,Perceived Parental Support,and Child's Self-Concept and Trauma Symptoms Among Sexually Abused Children

ABSTRACT

This study examined two resiliency factors: self-concept and perceived parental support, in conjunction with abuse factors that impact psychological functioning. Data were collected on 61 sexually abused children prior to treatment. Findings indicate that a child's self-concept was associated with all the trauma symptoms except sexual concerns and did account for a significant amount of variance in relation to trauma symptomatology. Parental support was only associated with the Dissociation and was not found to account for variance in relation to trauma symptoms. Factors specific to the sexual abuse found that when a child endured a lengthy abuse period, their self-concept was more negative.     

Is an Independent Self a Requisite for Asian Immigrants' Psychological Well-Being in the U.S.? The Case of Korean Americans

Summary

This study examined the effect of both independent and interdependent self-construals on Asian immigrants' psychological well-being in the U.S., using a community sample of adult Koreans. Given that society rewards certain behaviors and attitudes that are consistent with the valued social norms, an independent view of self that matches the expectation of American society was hypothesized to promote Korean immigrants' psychological well-being. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that Korean immigrants with a highly independent self-construal expressed significantly less depressive symptoms and significantly more life satisfaction than those with a less independent self-construal. Furthermore, as was also expected, an interdependent view of self that is valued in many Asian cultures did not hinder Korean immigrants' psychological well-being, controlling for the correlates of these immigrants' mental health and self-construals. The results underscore the importance of self-conceptions in cross-cultural adaptation, and suggest the need of future research focusing on the potential benefits of both types of self-construal for Asian immigrants in the U.S.     

西尔维亚·普拉斯人格面具与真自我冲突分析

随着环境需要与自我需要的不同,西尔维亚.普拉斯不断地变换自己的人格面具:从幼年时期的"乖女儿"人格面具,到青年时期的"笑容可掬"人格面具,直到为人妻、为人母的"幸福主妇"和"贤妻良母"的人格面具。普拉斯每个时期的人格面具都与其真自我之间存在矛盾与冲突,致使普拉斯的一生陷入忧郁、痛苦、绝望之中,最后她撕下自己的人格面具,践行"死亡是一门艺术",灵魂终于获得了新生。