Students' Attitudes to the Inclusion of People with Disabilities in the Community

This study measures and compares the attitudes of students studying different subjects to the inclusion of people with mental retardation and mental illness in the community. The Community Living Attitude Scale (comprising the four subscales of Empowerment, Exclusion, Sheltering, and Similarity) was administered to a random sample of 149 Israeli college freshmen and women (social work: n = 43: law: n = 24; natural science: n = 42; and social science: n = 40). Overall, the students endorse Empowerment and perceive the Similarity of persons with disabilities to themselves more than they agree with the Exclusion attitude of segregating persons with disabilities from community life. Social work students showed more positive inclusion attitudes to people with disabilities than other students. Students were more likely to endorse Exclusion for people with mental illness than for people with mental retardation.     

Aggression and conduct disorder in former Soviet Union immigrant adolescents: The role of parenting style and ego identity

The study examined aggression, guilt feelings and conduct disorder (CD) in adolescent immigrants from the Former Soviet Union. One hundred and nineteen adolescents, including sixty six immigrants and fifty native Israelis from four residential schools, completed questionnaires assessing level of aggression, sense of guilt, ego identity, and parenting style. Objective assessments of CD were obtained from instructors at the residential schools, using the CBCL. Results indicate that diffused ego identity is the strongest predictor of aggression, guilt, and CD. A lack of positive parenting moderates the link between diffused ego identity and aggression and CD, while positive parenting promotes a sense of guilt, especially in the immigrant group. These results warrant cultural identity-sensitive interventions.     

Human foibles or systemic failure—Lay perceptions of the 2008–2009 financial crisis

We examined lay perceptions of the recent financial and economic crisis through 1707 questionnaires, administered via internet, to a varied group of volunteers in a range of countries: France, the US, Russia, Germany, Israel, and sub-Saharan Africa. Respondents graded the contribution of a large number of possible factors to the crisis, and answered several complementary questions. We were able to identify two major conceptions, one seeing the economy as comprised of individuals, with failings of moral or cognitive character, and the other seeing the economy as a complex system, endowed with some resilience, functioning in cycles. Support for the former view was stronger than for the latter. Several demographic variables were found to affect these perspectives significantly, including SES, economic training, religious beliefs, and the extent to which the respondent was personally affected by the crisis.