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Paternal incarceration (PI) is recognised as a severely stigmatising event that undermines social connections leaving affected children isolated and vulnerable. However, few studies have explored social group membership as a potential mediator of positive outcomes. This paper analysed data from two national contexts, Scotland and the United States, to examine the potential for social group membership in childhood to mediate the association between PI and child behavioural and emotional outcomes. Study 1 reported on cross‐sectional data from the Growing Up in Scotland dataset of children aged 12 years. Study 2 used longitudinal data from the Fragile Families cohort study (USA) of children aged 9 years and then 15 years. Children and parents completed measures of PI, children's group membership, as well as positive functioning. In Study 1, a mediated indirect effect of PI on prosocial behaviour via children's group membership was observed. In Study 2, children's reported social group membership mediated the effect of PI on positive adolescent functioning longitudinally. Whilst experiences of PI at age 9 were linked with lower group membership at age 15, group membership was associated with higher levels of positive adolescent functioning. This has implications for the support families receive when a parent is incarcerated to avoid children serving sentences for 'the sins of their fathers'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All close relationships come with the risk of experiencing betrayal. Despite its relevance for interpersonal relationships, the literature lacks updated knowledge about the types of betrayals people are more likely to experience and their differential consequences. This paper's aim is twofold: first, to replicate and update past findings from the 1990s to 2000s regarding the typology of betrayal narratives; and second, to provide a novel test of the role of causal attributions for response to the betrayal. It presents a quantitative analysis of more than 900 betrayal narratives from British, French and Swiss respondents (students and community participants). Participants freely reported a past episode of betrayal (betrayal narrative). Results revealed that unfaithfulness from a romantic partner was the most commonly reported instance of betrayal (17%), but there were also frequent occurrences of disappointing one's hopes and expectations, lying, revealing secrets, manipulating and taking advantage, gossiping and slandering, cutting ties unexpectedly, and failing to offer assistance during time of need. Most cases involved a close friend (27%) or romantic partner (30%); while others involved family members and people in the workplace. The most common behavioural responses were to confront or cut ties with the betrayer. Forgiveness seemed possible, especially for cases that had triggered less anger. Revenge was rarely reported overall, except in cases that had triggered more anger. Finally, causal attributions (to intrinsic vs. group‐based characteristics of the betrayer, to the situation and to the victim themselves) were related to different response to the betrayal and more specifically to forgiveness. These results contribute to developing a better typology of betrayal in interpersonal relationships. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bandura's self-efficacy (SE) theory claims that if people believe that they can control the outcome of their behaviour, then they can. SE theory positions the self as the centre and originator of change, beginning with control over belief systems, which determine levels of performance. This conception depoliticizes social mechanisms of control, internalizing them within individual cognitive processes. We argue that SE theory emanates from culturally-positioned and ideologically informed functional trends in US psychology, which perpetuates a blaming-the-victim approach to social problems. Through an examination of the way gender and disability are manipulated in SE research, we show that efficacy is socially construed, and is actually about control over and access to power and the ideological, institutional, and social resources that provide the foundation for taking certain actions. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing interest in issues of residential mobility and place attachment in a globalised world, research within Environmental and Community psychology has tended to overlook the ways that interpersonal relations, and wider socio‐political and economic structural factors inform place attachment formation amongst residentially mobile individuals. We address this gap drawing on the Human Geography concept of 'Linked Lives' (Coulter et al., Progress in Human Geography, 2016, 40(3), 352–374), to conceive the relocation decisions of residentially mobile individuals, and their place (non)attachment to the current residence place, as deeply intertwined with formative place experiences, interpersonal relations, and the structural contexts within which people live (Coulter et al., Progress in Human Geography, 2016, 40(3), 352–374). With the aim of deepening understanding of the co‐evolution of residential mobility and place attachment, this paper presents narrative case studies of residents living in a town in Southwest England, with each resident indicating a different variety of people–place relations to their current residence place. Findings indicate that moving intentions and consequent residential place attachment result from complex interactions over time between (a) formative place experiences and settlement identities, leading to preferred types of residence place; (b) interpersonal relations with significant others including family and community members that vary according to life stage events; and (c) structural forces, comprising cultural, economic, and political factors shaping people's lives. Future research could examine how structural changes arising from the COVID‐19 pandemic are influencing residential mobilities and attachments to place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the process and outcomes of Voices, a participatory action research project aimed to disrupt divisive ethnic identity narratives among youth living amidst protracted ethnic conflict. The project took place in the Garo Hills region of Northeast India, a site of protracted ethnic conflict. Moving away from crisis-based approaches, this paper explores the conflict transformative potential of participatory action research, specifically its effectiveness in facilitating civic engagement across ethnic lines. The findings indicate that young people's involvement in the project afforded them an opportunity to engage with local community concerns outside of polarized ethnic identity narratives. This involvement facilitated three critical outcomes: engagement in social critique, reconfiguration of a more inclusive researcher identity, and adoption of a language of possibility. Based on these findings, it is argued that opportunities for critical community engagement could interrupt divisive ethnic identity narratives and provide turning points for youth to reimagine inclusive social identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we look at the relationship between European identification and political support for (or opposition to) EU membership. First, we argue that conceptualizing political attitudes towards the EU as a direct product of European identification (a) neglects the distinction between the social reality of Europe and the political reality of the EU and (b) leads to psychological reductionism. We propose that the relationship should instead be conceptualized as mediated by legitimacy perceptions and as moderated by social‐level variables. Second, we look at three spheres of European integration and propose that their perceived legitimacy is appraised through the following principles: (a) normative solidarity for wealth sharing, (b) political authority for sharing political decisions, and (c) collective self‐realization for the sharing of practices. We illustrate the key mediating role of those principles by drawing on data from a survey ran across five European countries. Third, we argue that these meditational relationships are in turn moderated by social, political, and ideological realities and illustrate this point by looking at the case of United Kingdom in the context of the EU membership referendum. We point to an ideological assumption in the U.K. political landscape about the illegitimacy of EU supranational decision making and argue that this contributed to shape both the debate of the referendum campaign and its result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In the midst of an unprecedented refugee crisis and the shortfall of aid organization resources, a shift toward utilizing the capacity for collective resilience in refugee communities could be helpful. This paper explores experiences of psychosocial social support among a community of Syrian urban refugees in Jordan, especially the kind of support that helps them deal with secondary stressors. We were specifically interested in the role of shared social identity as a basis of support and the sources of such shared identity. We conducted an 8‐month ethnography that included observations and semistructured interviews with 13 refugees. We found many examples of support among refugees, on both personal and collective levels. Some of this support was based on sharing the identity of “refugee” that stemmed from a sense of common fate. This is similar to the process identified in the literature on disasters. Psychological membership in the refugee group is stigmatic, but it can also lead to positive outcomes in line with the social cure perspective. However, we also found examples of support that were value‐based or based on pre‐existing interpersonal networks. Implications of the findings for models of group processes in stressful situations and the practical question of refugee support are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community involvement in archaeological digs aims to reconnect people with the history and heritage of where they live. This paper applies social psychological theories to understand how community archaeological projects create opportunities for place-based social identity and positive intergroup relations. Focus groups were conducted across five areas of Greater Manchester (UK) with 24 participants who volunteered for Dig Greater Manchester, a community archaeology initiative. The focus groups aimed to understand how experiences of participating in digs and exploring local heritage modified, strengthened or initiated identification with place and community, thus moving from individual levels to social levels of identity. The findings offer insight as to the ways in which people make sense of their own-and others'-place-based social identities as a result of participating in community archaeological digs . Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the issue of practical knowledge for enabling participation. Participation as a strategy for change is widespread in community, health and human service contexts. Research to date has focused on the mechanisms of beneficiaries' participation (e.g. identity, empowerment, activity, gender, space). However, participation as an engagement strategy is action oriented and requires high levels of interaction between those creating the conditions for participation and those participating. These conditions need to be continuously adjusted and outcomes are often unpredictable. This process of 'working with' is often dealt with as a technical issue and captured in metaphorical language. Less emphasis has been given to the type of knowledge modalities that might be necessary in order to enable participation. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of participation in a youth inclusion programme the paper explores the role of stories as potential indicators of practical knowledge. The paper argues that enabling young people's participation requires intuition and imagination, patience and perseverance, and judgement for acting under uncertainty. It concludes that stories only partially fulfil their potential as indicators of such knowledge modalities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore how adoptive parents manage and order visual information relating to their adoptive child's birth or foster family. More specifically, our task is to make sense of the ways in which the memories that children have of their past families are (re)constructed and managed within the context of present adoptive parental concerns. Life story books have become a dominant way in which narratives of the child's past family are formed. The aim of this book is to provide the child with relevant information, objects, possessions and images of the past and to create a coherent narrative between the past and the present. Parents are encouraged to make use of visual images, consisting mainly of photographs of birth families and foster carers to order the autobiography of the child. To date, there is no research that has examined how the process is experienced by parents and children. In order to examine how parents made use of visual information in particular, we carried out two focus groups with adoptive parents who participated in an adoption agency support group. A social remembering approach informed the questions asked, and a discursive analysis of the data was developed. The main analytical focus in this paper is on how photographs, objects and places serve as active participants in the production of the adoptive children's memory. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the research paper by sociologists Issac Prilleltensky and Geoffrey Nelson concerned with priorities for psychological and social interventions published in the March 1, 2000 issue of the "Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology." The paper by Prilleltensky and Nelson was therefore of great interest to as a potential tool for conceptualizing the work and contributing to understanding within different agencies of the multifactorial nature of children's well-being. Prilleltensky and Nelson write in the first person plural, but it is not clear who "we" are. Are "we" academic or practicing psychologists, policy makers or politicians? Thus, although authors seem to include themselves amongst those who have failed to act on knowledge of the wider influences on emotional health, it is not clear how far the blanket of criticism is spread. Certainly there are academics and practitioners working in community psychology and child health who would argue that they have been working for decades to address issues of child and family wellness through research and writing, political and community action.

ABSTRACT Against the background of riots in communities across London in 2011, this paper examines the implications of negative meta-stereotypes on stigmatized group members' reactions towards members of privileged out-groups within their communities. We hypothesized that concerns over negative opinions that the dominant out-group is expected to hold of the in-group (i.e. meta-stereotypes) would be negatively associated with group members' perceptions of societal fairness and that this relationship would be mediated by members' recall of personal experiences with discrimination. We further hypothesized that views about societal fairness that are challenged in this way would lower an inclination to express discontent with the status quo via normative means while at the same time, increase nonnormative expressions. Results from two surveys (study 1, N = 50; study 2, N = 132) provided support for these hypotheses and are discussed in terms of their meaning for community relations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Existing literature suggests that successful ageing is linked to a sense of community (SOC) that is developed through shared daily practices. For migrant groups, SOC can extend across home and receiving countries. In order to understand the issue of successful ageing in place and multiple SOCs among older Chinese migrants, this paper investigated 32 older Chinese migrants' narratives of developing a SOC in their local and home communities. Findings suggest that a SOC can be viewed as constructed through practices such as neighbouring and supportive interactions within local contexts as well as engagement with the home country via new media. The findings provide insights into everyday practices central to the cultivation of a SOC among the participants whose engagements span the cultural spaces of China and New Zealand. For example, the use of media contributes to the participants' SOCs both in China and New Zealand. As a result, they live in a transnational community that can be understood as an 'imagined' community where the participants engage with significant, although absent, Chinese others. Living between China and New Zealand, between homes and between languages, the participants create identity 'inbetweenness' that is constructed at the intersection of interdependent, compatible and mutually reinforcing communities and spaces. The findings therefore extend conventional understandings of ageing migrant experiences that assume successful ageing and community participation occur in one locale to an understanding of multiple SOCs within the context of transnationalism. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT As the number of older people increases, the need for housing and services grows. A unique project, started in northern Europe, provides a platform for sharing best practices, within appropriate cultural contexts, for supportive local housing for a range of needs. These Integrated Service Areas (ISAs) provide a range of co-located and locally integrated services in small communities. This paper presents preliminary research that points towards greater satisfaction, feelings of security and longer housing independence among those living in ISAs compared with other elders. We argue that ISAs represent a useful example of possible housing arrangement for older people and that similar projects in different cultures could be implemented in order to improve the quality of life and housing for older persons. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT As more couples live together into old age, difficult decisions have to be made about money matters, including the financing of late-life care. This paper analyses in-depth qualitative data from six older heterosexual couples, part of a wider study concerning money management in later life. Research when these cohorts were younger found that the organisation of money management within households was specialised and highly gendered, leading to substantive imbalances of power and access to financial resources, while also being core to the formation and maintenance of gendered role identities and couple identities. We find in this study that if a partner's ability to fulfil a money management role identity is threatened by later-life issues such as poor health and cognitive decline, the other partner may try to protect that aspect of the spouse's role identity, using various covert strategies. This might be done to shore up the spouse's self-esteem in the face of such age-related threats to role identity, to 'keep up appearances' to the outside world or to maintain their identity as a couple at a time of life when there may be multiple difficulties to deal with. These findings have implications for practice and policy in the realm of money and identity management in later life. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Interest in religion within the field of community psychology has steadily emerged within the last three decades. This interest has focused almost exclusively on the social benefits of religion, glossing over the often-contentious nature of religious life and the ways in which religious individuals and institutions can disrupt healthy human and community development. Considering the recent surge of interfaith conflicts and discriminatory practices targeting religious minorities in communities across the United States, it is imperative that community psychologists begin to examine relevant trends in interfaith relations and potential directions for action research and intervention. This paper serves as the beginning point of just such an examination, proposing a multilevel model for addressing the microsystemic, mesosystemic, and macrosystemic levels of interfaith phenomena. More specifically, I present interfaith contact, congregation-based community partnerships, and theological belief systems as particularly relevant to interfaith community research and intervention. Finally, I detail an interfaith organization that embodies these dimensions of interfaith relations and provides a concrete example of how a multilevel action research model may be effectively employed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper considers how our understanding of religious identifications may be enriched through social psychological theorizing on group identity. It reviews a range of work (for example, sociological and social psychological) concerning Islam and Muslim identities and develops the case for viewing religious identities as constructed in and through argument. It then seeks to draw out the implications of such an approach for understanding group relations. Although minority religious identifications are often assumed to undermine social cohesion, the social networks within and between groups can contribute to inter-group harmony. For example, reciprocal relationships characterized by trust and reciprocity can constitute forms of social capital that facilitate civic integration. Yet, how such social networks are used and how relationships are developed depends on group members' understandings of their collective identity. As this is contested, it follows that analyses of intergroup relations must attend to group members' identity-related arguments and the strategic concerns that lie behind them. The utility of this perspective is illustrated briefly with empirical material (arising from interviews conducted with Muslim activists) which hints at the importance of investigating social actors' own theories of social capital and how it can be developed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the relationship between Islam and the secular aspects of society which differentiate Islamic societies from other states. Bound up with this question is the issue of the extent to which Islamists challenge proposals that religion should be 'set aside' when people act as citizens by arguing that Islam embraces the whole of life. Using discourse analysis we examine extracts from media interviews with leaders of the Islamist Hamas movement about Islam and its application within the Gaza strip. The interviewees construct religion as being congruent with existing social practices within Gaza. This allows interviewees to make three claims: that the introduction of Islam will make no difference to existing society, that Islam will be tolerant of existing social practices, and that potentially criticisable political acts should be viewed in civic rather than religious terms. By so doing, the interviewees display sensitivity to potential distinctions between religious and civic practices and attend to inferences that might arise in respect of inter-group relations. Constructions of religion and of civic society can thus be viewed as participants' rather than analysts' concerns and should be examined for their functions within both distal and local contexts. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Everyday conversations among non-Indigenous Australians are a significant site in which racism towards Indigenous Australians is reproduced and maintained. This study explores the possibilities of everyday antiracism by asking how people negotiate racist discourses in interpersonal contexts. Twelve first year psychology students (10 female, 2 male, aged 18-50) who had completed a compulsory Indigenous studies course were recruited as participants. Semi-structured interviews were thematically analysed for the constraints and facilitators for responding to racism in everyday contexts. As constraints against speaking up, participants offered 'social expectations to fit in', 'fear of provoking aggression and conflict', assessments of 'the type of relationship', whether they 'could make a difference' and the 'type of racism'. As a facilitator for speaking up, participants reported they were confident in challenging erroneous statements when they felt well informed and authoritative about the facts. The research suggests that everyday antiracism requires a preparedness to deal with possible discomfort and 'bad feeling' which participants reported avoiding. The paper concludes with suggestions for stimulating critical thinking and intergroup dialogue in relation to everyday antiracism. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participation is often espoused as a strategy to promote inclusion, social justice and equality. Exactly how to facilitate participation in practice is often not explicated, nor are the challenges or issues highlighted. By drawing on interview data, the first aim of this paper is to identify the key barriers to participation in an organizational planning activity as experienced by 12 disabled and non-disabled staff and board members in a small community-based disability advocacy organization. The second aim is to draw upon Jim Ife's principles of participation to further analyse the factors that hinder and enable participation in organizations. Reported barriers to participation were categorized at individual, interpersonal and organizational levels of analysis, and included a lack of skills and competence, interpersonal conflicts, poor resourcing and ad hoc processes. The importance of understanding the dynamic interplay of individual and structural factors, valuing different forms of participation and having participatory structures and processes embedded in organizational settings are all highlighted. This study illustrates that, even in an organization that is specifically attuned to meeting the needs of disabled people, there is still considerable exclusion and institutional discrimination. Strategies to promote participation within an organizational context may include providing sufficient time for reflection and support, and opportunities for board members to learn how to take part in constructive planning activities and to develop their strengths. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although people with intellectual disabilities (ID) are increasingly expected to relocate from traditional institutional care to ‘regular’ neighbourhood housing facilities and socially integrate in these neighbourhoods, little is known about how they are perceived and appreciated as neighbours. This paper reports on interviews carried out with 30 neighbours without ID who were neighbours of small-scale care facilities for people with ID. Interviews addressed the neighbours' everyday experiences of neighbouring in general, and neighbouring people with ID in particular. Neighbouring, for these informants, called for a fine balance between friendliness without over-involvement. While they were generally positive about their interactions with their neighbours with ID, it emerged that the formal nature of the care facility and the interaction style of some of the neighbours with ID often contravened informants' assumptions about neighbouring. Informants expressed concern about a possible lack of appropriate distance, reciprocity and accountability among their neighbours with ID. The nature of the care facility, with paid staff, often group activities, formal means of achieving the everyday small tasks which neighbours sometimes do for each other, and a high turnover of residents, all undermined the possibility of a typical neighbourly relationship. In conclusion, we suggest that integration of people with ID into everyday neighbouring relationships raises complex challenges for care organizations that need to find a balance between supporting the needs of people with ID they care for, adequate support and mediation for other neighbours when necessary, and all the while avoid becoming overly involved in neighbouring as a formal partner. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores conceptions of commitment and styles of money management in heterosexual couples at two points in time: Just before the wedding (T1) and about a year later (T2). It also examines the potential effects of using FOCCUS as a form of marriage preparation (MP). Forty-two couples were recruited at T1 and randomly allocated to either A MP group and a group that would not be offered any marriage preparation - the Non-Marriage Preparation group (NMP). Individual, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were carried out at T1 and T2, recorded and fully transcribed. A thematic analysis (TA) yielded three themes or levels of commitment which were used to categorize couples at T1 and T2. Their money management styles were defined based on Pahl's (1989) typology. The results showed that conceptions of commitment had developed slightly overall by T2, and had been enhanced in the MP group. At T2, a more elaborated conception of commitment was associated with a greater tendency to treat money as a collective resource. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practice of a woman assuming her husband's last name upon marriage is a deeply embedded norm in some countries. Whether or not individual heterosexual couples reproduce or resist this practice, it provides a context for making decisions about marital names. No conventions, other than heteronormative ones, govern naming practices in same-sex relationships and families, but very little is known about name changing in these contexts. This paper reports an exploratory qualitative study of the ways in which 30 lesbians and gay men in committed relationships made meaning of name changing and keeping. Only one participant reported changing her last name, some considered name changing a future possibility, but most had no plans to change their name. The lack of conventions regarding naming in same-sex families created a dilemma for some participants—who would take whose name? Many participants did not want to entirely give up their name, thus a hyphenated last name was the most popular option for those contemplating a name change. Accounts of name changing centred on doing/being family. This was also a theme in accounts of name keeping, along with maintaining a continuity of personal and professional identity, avoiding hassle, complications and confusion and resisting heteronormativity. The findings are discussed in relation to other research on naming in same-sex families and research on heterosexual marital naming practices. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes the case that discourse analytic approaches in social psychology are not adequate to the task of apprehending racism in its bodily, affective and pre-symbolic dimensions. We are hence faced with a dilemma: if discursive psychology is inadequate when it comes to theorizing ‘pre-discursive’ forms of racism, then any attempts to develop an anti-racist strategy from such a basis will presumably exhibit the same limitations. Suggesting a rapprochement of discursive and psychoanalytic modes of analysis, I argue that Kristeva's theory of abjection provides a means of understanding racism as both historically/socially constructed and as existing at powerfully embodied, visceral and subliminal dimensions of subjectivity. Kristeva's theory of abjection provides us with an account of a ‘pre-discursive’ (that is, a bodily, affective, pre-symbolic) racism, a form of racism that ‘comes before words’, and that is routed through the logics of the body and its anxieties of distinction, separation and survival. This theory enables us, moreover, to join together the expulsive reactions of a racism of the body to both the personal racism of the ego and the broader discursive racisms of the prevailing social order. Moreover, it directs our attention to the fact that discourses of racism are always locked into a relationship with ‘pre-discursive’ processes which condition and augment every discursive action, which escape the codifications of discourse and which drive the urgency of its attempts at containment. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to look at the processes of mentoring from the perspectives of adult mentors who were interviewed as part of a wider study of young people's perceptions and understandings of informal mentoring processes. It seeks to clarify the processes of mentoring within the context of the ‘risk society’ by posing the question, how do young people and mentors perceive these processes? What do mentors get out of the mentoring relationship? Findings from a qualitative study of informal mentoring relationships are drawn on to suggest that the mentors perceive the experience of being identified as a mentor and the processes of mentoring in highly positive terms. It is argued that this provides a form of ‘cultural capital for mentors’ in helping them to make sense of the challenges and dilemmas they face as adults. It is concluded that this finding has important implications for the design of mentoring interventions with young people. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the paper by sociologists Issac Prilleltensky and Geoffrey Nelson concerned with priorities for psychological and social interventions published in the March 1, 2000 issue of the "Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology." Authors use the quite well-established concepts of the prevention-intervention continuum, identifying target groups which are universal, selective, or targeted, which is useful conceptually but in practice it is often less clear. Authors use ecological levels as a conceptual tool for analysing the different levels of influence on child and family wellness, again consistent with a community psychology approach. In this brief commentary, the author wants to problematize psychological language and metaphor, which he suspects may undermine values and practices suggested as desirable. The author argues that the very language used to frame these issues actually works against achievement of the espoused goals.

The purpose of the paper is to describe and analyse the prevalence of parallel sexual relationships among adult Norwegians in terms of social background variables, possibility factors and motivational factors. Data stem from two cross-sectional, postal questionnaire surveys in 1987 and 1992 on two separate representative samples of 10,000 Norwegians aged between 18 and 60. The results showed that 16% of the respondents reported one or more parallel sexual relationships. The prevalence of parallel sexual relationships increased with possibility factors, such as the number of travelling days and population density. Among motivational factors, parallel sexual relationships increased with the number of years married/cohabiting, except for those married the longest. It decreased with increasing age of first intercourse, and increased with the number of partners before the last partnership. Of those not satisfied with coital frequency with their permanent partner, 22% had parallel sexual relationship experience compared to 12% among those who were satisfied. Furthermore, more men than women reported parallel sexual relationships; respondents with higher levels of education more often reported parallel sexual activity than those with lower level of education; and subjects born between 1937 and 1956 reported more parallel sexual activity than the other cohorts. When controlled for the number of years married/cohabiting, the predicted trend suggests that for the cohorts born up to 1970, men and women with lower and higher levels of education have become more similar as regards parallel sexual behaviour. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines an eight-fold typology of coping actions based upon a qualitative analysis of the accounts provided by 50 close relatives of people with drug problems. In a number of different ways relatives draw attention to the contrasts between these distinguishable ways of coping. Emphasis is placed upon the provisional nature of this typology and upon the compromises between, and combinations of, ways of coping that are often used by relatives in practice. Different ways of coping represent alternative choices for relatives, often explicitly expressed by them as difficult dilemmas. Links are suggested between the ways of coping identified here and those discussed in the literature on coping with other disorders and disabilities in the family, with ways of coping described in the general literature on coping with stress, and with types of social action appearing in general models of interpersonal behavior,. Implications for counseling close relatives of people with drug problems are also outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite over a decade of research and debate into the issue of relapse the majority of people in treatment for alcohol-related problems still relapse. In this paper the results of an innovative relapse prevention and management programme are reported. It was found that a cognitive-behavioral package of strategies reduced the likelihood of relapse. On average, clients receiving this experimental package took four times longer to return to any alcohol use and seven times longer to return to 'heavy drinking' than did a conventional treatment control group. However, notwithstanding these results, 60 per cent of the experimental group did return to harmful drinking. The authors question whether further refinement of these procedures is possible, and suggest that if relapse rates are to be further reduced then greater attention needs to be given by counselors to clients' social environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the paper by sociologists Issac Prilleltensky and Geoffrey Nelson concerned with priorities for psychological and social interventions published in the March 1, 2000 issue of the "Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology." The paper's review of intervention programmes is supportive of the sure start approach adopted locally. Firstly, a sociologist's meta-analysis indicates that programmes focused at the universal level, i.e., whole population, show a larger programme effect over time than the selective programmes, that is targeted at risk families. Secondly, many studies indicate that it is the multi-component programmes which are most effective, i.e., those incorporating community development, job placement and marital counseling as well as parenting skills training. An evaluative review of the time frame of projects would be helpful as sociologists are concerned that the three-year time frame for sure start approach is far too short to enable multi-component programmes rooted in the community to flourish and reap results.

This article presents information on the papers published in the February 1, 1997 issue of the "Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology." Several of the papers published here were initially presented at the East-West Meeting of the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology held in Prague in 1995. When the Association last met in that city, it was in less than happy circumstances. A meeting planned prior to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 went ahead, but in a much curtailed form. After the collapse of the Soviet empire the agenda changed, with social psychologists from both sides of the former divide within Europe attempting to develop a social-psychological perspective on the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Various teams of researchers presented their initial findings at the Prague meeting.