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BACKGROUND: More people who smoke and are living with HIV now die from tobacco-related diseases than HIV itself. Most people are ambivalent about quitting smoking and want to quit someday but not yet. Scalable, effective interventions are needed to motivate and support smoking cessation among people ambivalent about quitting smoking (PAQS) who are living with HIV. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to develop an app-based intervention for PAQS who are living with HIV and assess its feasibility, acceptability, and potential impact. Results of this study will inform plans for future research and development. METHODS: In phase 1, PAQS living with HIV (n=8) participated in user-centered design interviews to inform the final intervention app design and recruitment plan for a subsequent randomized pilot study. In phase 2, PAQS living with HIV were randomized to either a standard care control app or a similar experimental app with additional content tailored for PAQS and those with HIV. Participants were followed for 3 months. Feasibility focused on recruitment, retention, and participants willingness to install the app. The study was not powered for statistical significance. Indices of acceptability (satisfaction and use) and impact (smoking behavior change and treatment uptake) were assessed via automated data and self-report among those who installed and used the app (n=19). RESULTS: Recruitment for both study phases was a challenge, particularly via web-based and social media platforms. Enrollment success was greater among people living with HIV recruited from a health care provider and research registry. Once enrolled, retention for the phase 2 randomized study was good; 74% (14/19) of the participants completed the 3-month follow-up. Phase 1 findings suggested that PAQS living with HIV were receptive to using an app-based intervention to help them decide whether, when, and how to stop smoking, despite not being ready to quit smoking. Phase 2 findings further supported this conclusion based on feedback from people who agreed to use an app, but group differences were observed. Indices of acceptability favored the experimental arm, including a descriptively higher mean number of sessions and utilization badges. Similarly, indices of potential impact were descriptively higher in the experimental arm (proportion reducing smoking, making a quit attempt, or calling free tobacco quitline). No participants in either arm quit smoking at the 3-month follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: On the basis of this formative work, PAQS living with HIV may be receptive to using a mobile health-based app intervention to help them decide whether, when, or how to stop using tobacco. Indices of acceptability and impact indicate that additional research and development are warranted. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05339659; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05339659.

This essay surveys the continued persistence of psychoanalytic theory and practice over the past decades. It argues that the psychoanalytic understanding of “ambivalence” has been crucial (and underappreciated) in key developments in both affect theory and in the use of psychoanalysis in critical race studies. Such ambivalence, moreover, still has the capacity to prod critical conversations in more nuanced, less antithetical, directions.

Background: Eating disorders (EDs) are serious psychiatric disorders that may cause great suffering and reduced quality of life. Severe EDs often lead to somatic complications and have a high mortality rate. The most seriously ill patients need hospitalisation, with a need for highly trained nurses. Methods: The aim of the study was to investigate challenges when nursing adults with a severe ED, and how to succeed in establishing a therapeutic relationship. A qualitative design was chosen, and individual qualitative interviews conducted with twelve nurses. The analytic method was Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis. Results: Six main themes were developed: entering the patient's world of experience (with the subthemes: understanding the patient's anxiety, understanding the patient's rigidity and need for control and understanding the patient's ambivalence), providing somatic nursing, building relationships, 'holding the line' (with the subtheme: demanding and rewarding), manoeuvring between rules and frameworks and providing good nursing care during coercive treatment. Conclusion: Nursing patients with a severe ED is demanding, requiring somatic as well as psychiatric expertise. The nurse must understand the patient's anxiety, rigidity and need for control, and ambivalence. Nursing patients with a severe ED requires clarity, and steadiness and the nurses must cope with resistance. To succeed, teamwork and support from colleagues are needed. Plain English summary: Eating disorders (EDs) are psychiatric disorders with potentially serious and life-threatening consequences, and it is important to develop knowledge about appropriate nursing for these patients. This study offers a timely look into the often-overlooked area, giving insight into the real-world challenges nurses face, and how they succeed in establishing a therapeutic relationship. Six main themes were developed: entering the patient's world of experience, providing somatic nursing, building relationships, 'holding the line', manoeuvring between rules and frameworks and providing good nursing care during coercive treatment. Nursing patients with a severe ED is demanding, requiring both somatic and psychiatric expertise. The nurse must understand the patient's anxiety, rigidity and need of control, and ambivalence. Nursing patients with a severe ED requires clarity and steadiness, and the nurses must cope with resistance. To succeed, teamwork and support from colleagues are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are we to understand the contemporary preoccupation—at least in many English‐speaking societies—with 'random acts of kindness' and the idea of kindness more generally? Should this be seen as a challenge to the logic of capitalism or reinforcing of it, an example of commodification of emotion within our everyday lives? By introducing and mapping the contours of an emergent 'kindness industry', placing emotion (and enchantment) at the heart of how attachment to the idea of kindness is theorised, and marshalling existing empirical research on contemporary framings of everyday kindness, I argue that there is a need for a critical sociological engagement with the 'pro‐social' that does justice to its profound ambivalence. In the case of contemporary kindness this involves understanding both the regulatory nature of the enchantment sold by a kindness industry and the problem‐solving potential of the enchantment of kindness in the everyday, where it both helps address contemporary feelings of hopelessness and shame and facilitates the possibility of making life materially liveable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to investigate hostile and benevolent sexist experiences of women in Turkey. We translated and adapted the Experiences with Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (EASI) and the Experiences with Benevolent Sexism Scale (EBSS) to the Turkish culture, which has higher average rates of sexism than the U.S., where the scales were originally developed. Three samples of college women (Ns = 245, 455, and 555) rated the frequencies of EASI and EBSS events. We also assessed participants' psychological well-being (i.e., life satisfaction, self-esteem, self-efficacy), aspirations, and ambivalent sexist attitudes. The findings provide preliminary support for the construct validity of the scales in a Turkish context, demonstrating that the EASI and EBSS measure benevolent experiences (i.e., protective paternalism, complementary gender differentiation, and heterosexual intimacy) and EASI also assesses hostile experiences (i.e., hostile sexism and heterosexual hostility). More frequent experiences of hostile sexism, protective paternalism, and complementary gender differentiation were related to lower levels of well-being, whereas heterosexual hostility and heterosexual intimacy were related to higher levels of well-being. Heterosexual hostility and heterosexual intimacy were also related to higher extrinsic aspirations. Participants rated benevolent experiences as more frequent but less distressing than hostile ones. Overall, these findings indicate that ambivalent sexist experiences are significant for women's psychological wellbeing and aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Over the last decades, psychotherapy of psychosis has increasingly gained attention. The quality of the therapeutic alliance has been shown to have an impact on therapy outcome. Yet, little is know about the influence of the therapeutic stance on the alliance. In this study, we explore psychotherapists' stance towards persons with psychosis with the aim of better understanding its characteristic—hindering and helpful—aspects. Method: 6 semi-structured interviews with psychotherapists from three different schools (CBT, PD, ST) were analysed with Grounded Theory. Credibility was checked through external and peer-researcher-supported debriefing. Results: 4 core categories were generated and interrelated in a theoretical model. Therapists' stance was initially characterized by uncertainty. Different ways of dealing with uncertainty yielded different stances: a monological and an open one. A helpful stance was conceived as stemming from openness and was characterized by a dialogical structure. A co-presence (or „dosing") of you and I was conceived as its core aspect. Conclusion: These findings specify the interpersonal dynamics arising from different stances and their impact on the therapeutic alliance and process. Research is still needed to further understand the characteristics of helpful and hindering therapeutic stances, which should also inform the training of psychotherapists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts a media archaeological perspective to excavate the social, technical, and ecological protocols embedded within videogames with the goal of imagining engaged users and alternative futures centred around photovoltaic technologies. We begin by dissecting the media lineages and infrastructures that are entwined with the development of mobile media. Then, we turn to the regime of planned obsolescence and address how eco-critical modding practices have flourished as a response. Using these theories as a provocation, we summarize the workshops and game jam we facilitated in the summer of 2022 as part of Concordia University's Solar Media Collective. Through these theoretical and practical explorations, we arrive at the clash between the optimism of solarpunk and the apathy of technological ambivalence. In our concluding discussion, we reflect on the realities of modding and DIY practices, closing with proposals for new (imaginary) research avenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating ambivalence theory and focus theory of normative conduct, this research has explored after effect mechanism of whistleblowing on whistleblowers' engagement. A multi-study approach was utilized to test these predictions. Study 1 (a multi-wave field study of working adults) examined the impact of whistleblowing on whistleblowers' engagement through emotional ambivalence, as well as the moderating effect of congruence between descriptive and injunctive norms. Study 2 (a vignette experiment) further investigate the effects of whistleblowing on whistleblowers' engagement through emotional ambivalence, aiming to strengthen causal inferences. In Study 3 (a recall experiment), we extended our model to consider a theoretically relevant moderator. Our results showed that the impact of whistleblowing on emotional ambivalence was weakened by whistleblowers' congruence between descriptive and injunctive norms. Managers ought to give significant consideration to the detrimental impacts of whistleblowing during the post-whistleblowing stage, as well as provide guidance to members of the organization to ensure a proper understanding of social norms. Above conclusions contribute to the general knowledge of after effect mechanism of whistleblowing, providing a deeper insight into whistleblowing's effects on whistleblowers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a method for contextualizing school education and initial teacher training, using the case of Mapuche in schools in central-southern Chile to change the ambivalence of teaching in an indigenous context. The analysis is based on a dispositionalist-contextualist theoretical framework and the results of empirical research projects on Mapuche socio-educational knowledge. It examines the co-construction of intercultural knowledge by researchers and parents. It concludes with a Mapuche educational knowledge base that can contextualize the school curriculum and teacher training plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heated debates on the definition of antisemitism as well as on the appropriate contextualization of the Holocaust have been ongoing for some years, in both scholarly and public discourse. In most of these debates, religion is rarely discussed. This article looks at the questions of the definition of antisemitism and the memory of the Holocaust as intra-Christian conflicts, which reconfigure traditional inner Christian tensions with regards to Jews in new contexts, and most pertinently, in the post-imperial context of a postcolonial, postchristian west. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like the Romantics, Charles Darwin was deeply though fruitfully torn between the mechanist dictate to banish agency from nature and the organicist impulse to naturalize agency, to make agency synonymous with life. His conflicting intellectual inheritances and allegiances put him in a state of profound and extraordinarily productive ambivalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alexander Berkman's 1912 Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist is a significant book in the development of American anti-prison politics, not despite, but because of its ambivalent approach to prisons. I trace through Berkman's book and archive an unresolved tension between two approaches to the prison: advocacy for political prisoners, whereby the prison is a state tool for suppressing radical ideas, and advocacy against the politics of prisons, whereby the prison is an "aggravated counterpart" of social structures and a site of struggle. Berkman's ambivalence between these approaches amid his memoirs and activism exemplifies the complex development of U.S. thinking on prisons and enduring tensions in contemporary prison politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart mobility aids invoke conflicting impressions of enhanced mobility and being restricted and dependent. This ambivalence between perceived gain and loss of personal control might affect the acceptance of these devices. In a preregistered study (N = 194), we investigated people's expectations on how using a flexible exosuit and a rigid exoskeleton would affect their personal control and tested how this influenced their acceptance of those devices. Overall, participants anticipated a net gain of personal control by using smart mobility aids. There was no difference in anticipations of gain of control between devices, but anticipations of loss of control were higher for the rigid exoskeleton than for the flexible exosuit. Anticipated gain and loss of control explained more than 50% of the variance in the acceptance of the investigated devices. The belief that a smart mobility aid would increase the user's personal control was more predictive of overall acceptance than the belief that such a device would limit the user's personal control. Overall, the current findings reveal that potential users' expectations regarding changes in personal control, in particular the degree to which positive changes are expected, are a key determinant of acceptance of smart mobility aids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Contemporary advances in combat medicine have allowed greater numbers of wounded service members to survive their injuries. An estimated 1,705 combat veterans sustained major lower or upper extremity amputations between 2001 and 2017 during the Global War on Terror. This study intends to answer the following question utilizing a qualitative study design: What were the common and abnormal experiences of the Global War on Terror combat amputees relative to their mechanism of injury, perception of injury, and systems of care utilized during their recovery and rehabilitation process?. Methods During the months of December 2022 and January 2023, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with U.S. Marines that served in the Global War on Terror (total n  = 10). Deductive and inductive approaches were employed to identify codes, themes, and meta-themes in the data. Results All participants deployed to Afghanistan between the years 2010 and 2014 and were assigned to the following military occupational specialties: Explosive Ordnance Disposal technicians (total n  = 2); combat engineers (total n  = 2); and infantrymen (total n  = 6). Analysis of data collected from interviews highlighted these key observations: (1) Themes in the combat amputee experience include support, systems of care, and mindset and (2) the themes synergistically contribute to the meta-themes mental health and pain and vice versa. As all participants were subjected to a blast mechanism of injury, it is difficult to determine if this played a role in deviating rehabilitation and recovery processes. Perception of injury and how well participants adapted to their new lifestyle, meaning how optimistic they were, appeared to play a significant role in recovery. Participants had mixed feelings about the care they had received but generally spoke favorably of military hospitals and were frustrated with the Veteran Affairs, and there was no clear consensus on their relationship with civilian health care, though most participants chose to seek most of their care through the Veteran Affairs. Conclusion Based on the research question, this study found an intricate relationship between mental health, pain, and the experiences of the participants regarding their care and rehabilitation. However, the nature of qualitative research makes it impossible to determine generalizations that can be used to create meaningful change to address improving combat amputee veteran care. Further research into long-term health outcomes based on hypotheses not evaluated in existing literature would further improve the ability of health care providers to care for this unique patient population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even if we know all relevant descriptive facts about an act, we can still be uncertain about its moral acceptability. Most literature on how to act under such normative uncertainty operates on moral realism, the metaethical view that there are objective moral facts. Lay people largely report anti-realist intuitions, which poses the question of how these intuitions affect their interpretation and handling of normative uncertainty. Results from two quasi-experimental studies (total N = 365) revealed that most people did not interpret normative uncertainty as referring to objective moral facts but rather as uncertainty regarding one's own view, uncertainty regarding the culturally accepted view or as the result of ambivalence. Especially the anti-realist majority of participants interpreted normative uncertainty different to how it is described in the literature on choice under normative uncertainty. Metaethical views were also associated with lay peoples' choice of uncertainty reduction strategies and with assumptions about the intended aim of such strategies. The current findings suggest that empirical investigations of normative uncertainty might benefit from considering folk metaethical pluralism, as the lay public largely disagrees with the metaethical assumptions underlying the current discourse on choice under normative uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of humor, specifically banter, in addressing gendered organizational tensions within the UK Fire and Rescue Service during a period of modernizing change. Such tensions reflect who holds authority and who is deemed to belong, and we explore how banter is used to both contest and confirm authority associated with the formal rank system and the informal, masculinist ideal‐typical worker in this context. We discuss banter's various roles as a cohering mode of humorous workplace communication, one that can reduce tension and consolidate authority and belonging, as well as its boundary setting, testing, and crossing capacities. In terms of the latter, we ask whether banter can genuinely trouble masculinist organizational norms. We conclude that specific humorous episodes that go "beyond banter" create particular ambivalence, but their impact is significantly limited by widespread discursive acceptance of banter as a central and permissible communication mode in the Service's culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The TV drama A Love for Dilemma (2021) has sparked widespread debates on motherhood and gender in China. This article explores the intricacy of the show's representation of "bad mother." While conventional perspectives often view motherhood as a realm of private intimacy, insufficient attention has been given to the distinctiveness of Chinese-style motherhood and its intersection with family, neoliberalism, and state politics. This article addresses the importance of analyzing the televisual representation of motherhood to gain insight into how the interplay between patriarchy, the market and the state configures maternal subjectivity, particularly under the leadership of Xi Jinping. By examining the emotional meaning of motherhood produced by the TV series, this study unveils the inherent contradiction of mother love as a site of political investment. It argues that the ambivalence surrounding mother love stems from its entanglement with patriarchal expectations, the burdens of emotional labor, and the state's vested interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Although the simultaneous presence of multiple ambitions is inherent in hybrid venturing, pursuing social and/or environmental missions while securing commercial viability can generate ambivalence among stakeholders. In this study, we draw on the notion of "holism" to show how venture founders both embrace tensioned ambitions and sustain hybridity during critical venture development phases. Based on 6 years of data on The People's Supermarket in the United Kingdom, we identify three distinct practices— fantasizing, bartering, and conjuring —used by founders to harness tensions productively, without compromising their venture's multiple ambitions. These practices demonstrate the founders' ability to maintain a venture's hybrid nature throughout the ideation, organizational, and scale-up phases, thereby shedding light on the application of "holism" within the realm of hybrid venturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1940 saw the mass internment of so‐called ‘enemy aliens’ within Britain as a response to the rapid advance of Nazi forces on the continent; this meant that innocent civilians—including many who were already refugees from Nazism—were incarcerated in camps across the country, particularly within the tourist spaces of the Isle of Man. We do not seek to argue that internees simply experienced internment as being akin to a holiday, or that the overarching internment process itself shared any similarity with leisure time per se. Nonetheless, the appropriation of tourist infrastructures for use within the internment process contributed towards the presence of a lingering tourist gaze in a situation to which it should not, ostensibly pertain. A state of ambivalence may not accurately capture internment's effects—exclusion and imprisonment—but it certainly captured the dissonances experienced, how it was remembered (particularly with the passage of time), and how the internment camp's exceptional level of control was rendered much more fragile and complex (Katz 2015, p. 49, 84). We interrogate how residual touristic ways of seeing, infrastructures, practices and sensibilities, are evident in a variety of archival source material, contemporaneous newspaper articles, and eyewitness accounts, and consider the rhythms and practices of camp life, deportations abroad on ships such as the SS Arandora Star and the HMT Dunera, and the gaze of locals and the press. The holiday—as a geography of ideas, spaces, practices, movements and sensibilities—became a frame of reference, both by those in charge of the process, and the internees who had to make sense of it. We proffer an exploration of internment and ‘the holiday’ to the burgeoning geographies of camp and detainment spaces, (im)mobilities and their politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asexuality is a sexual orientation centered around low or absent sexual attraction. Despite the growth of empirical scholarship on asexuality, laboratory sex research with asexual individuals remains significantly underutilized. As such, we conducted a qualitative survey aimed at examining asexual individuals’ perceptions of laboratory sex research as well as their perspectives/experiences on participation. Reflexive thematic analysis of 412 responses revealed 4 themes and 10 sub-themes focused on mapping the domain of asexuality, participants’ trust, distrust and ambivalence toward laboratory sex research, and developing best practices for overcoming challenges with asexual individuals. A large proportion of asexual individuals emphasized concerns related to the potential medicalization and pathologization of asexuality, with 34.6% exhibiting their unwillingness to participate. Nonetheless, 41.7% of asexual individuals expressed a desire to take part in laboratory sexuality studies. These findings indicate a strong interest in laboratory sex research, driven by the lack of knowledge about ace sexual functioning. To further improve ace individuals´ engagement and experience in such studies, a set of participant-driven recommendations was presented. As such, this study highlights the importance of grounding future laboratory sex research with asexual individuals in ethical and reliable procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social interactions that are simultaneously characterized by positive and negative aspects—i.e., ambivalent relationships—have been found to be related to distress and poor mental health. As the university setting is also characterized by several social interactions, this study aimed to investigate for the first time to what extent objective and subjective ambivalence towards lecturers or instructors are linked to university students' distress levels and mental health indicators. A notable relationship of ambivalence with the outcomes was found in 1105 students from Germany. The association with psychological distress was more pronounced for objective than for subjective ambivalence (adjusted betas = 0.342 vs. 0.261, p-values < 0.001), while both also had an independent association. The association with mental health was comparable for both types (adjusted beta = −0.206 vs. −0.191, p-values < 0.001). For paradoxical emotions, the relationship with objective ambivalence was stronger, and only this remained significant in the mutually adjusted model (adjusted beta = 0.376, p-value < 0.001). This study provided evidence of a previously unconsidered stressor at the university—ambivalence towards lecturers—associated with negative health effects among students. Future studies are needed to establish this connection and to create the basis for preventative measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early Buddhist discourses, distressing experiences like fear and disgust are evaluated in contradictory modes. These upsetting emotions are considered both a detriment and an advantage for those seeking liberation from suffering. This ambivalence is reflective of the classical Buddhist conception of distress. The earliest scholastic Buddhist texts (i.e., Abhidharma sources) have sought to resolve the ambivalence surrounding this conception. The Abhidharma texts thus explain precisely how, when, where and for whom distress can prove favorable. By tracing this intellectual endeavor, I examine in this article the systematic and philosophical treatments of distress (saṃvega) in early Buddhist scholasticism. I outline the reasons for considering the experience of distress to be beneficial, unveiling the religious framework within which distress is rendered positive and even essential. My central claim is that early Abhidharma sources conceive of distress as a potential source of energy that facilitates one's progress on the religious path and determines how rapidly one can understand the truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Suicidal ambivalence is increasingly understood as the result of the interplay of two conflicting motivational orientations, the wish to die (WTD) and wish to live (WTL). However, research is scarce regarding the nature of their relationship, their temporal structure, and their relevance in predicting suicidal desire. Methods: Fifty psychosomatic/psychiatric inpatients (17 reporting suicide attempts) took part in an intensive longitudinal design with 10 signal‐contingent prompts per day over 10 days; assessing WTD, WTL, and suicidal desire. We calculated mean values and variability of WTD, WTL, suicidal ambivalence, and suicidal desire and tested mixed‐effects models of suicidal desire. Results: The mean number of answered prompts was 40.98 (SD = 21.68). Repeated‐measures correlation of WTD and WTL was r = −0.60. Patients with a history of suicide attempts reported higher WTD, lower WTL, more suicidal ambivalence, stronger suicidal desire, and showed higher variability in all constructs. At the same assessment, WTD was the strongest statistical predictor of suicidal desire. Only WTL and the interaction of WTD and WTL predicted suicidal desire prospectively. Conclusion: Wish to die and WTL are likely two distinct (although correlated) constructs that should not be reduced to a single ambivalence score. A stronger focus on WTL holds potential for suicide research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ambivalence in attitudes towards life and death are associated with suicide ideation (SI) among adolescents. However, previous research was mainly cross‐sectional and did not examine through which psychopathological mechanisms (such as depression) attitudes towards life and death are associated with SI. Objective: The current longitudinal study examined the mediating role of depression at follow‐up in the association between attitudes towards life and death at baseline and SI at follow‐up among at‐risk adolescents referred to an outpatient psychiatric clinic. Methods: 129 adolescents aged 10–18 years (75.2% females) with a history of suicidal thoughts and behaviors were assessed at clinic intake and 1 month follow‐up (80% retention rate at follow‐up). All participants completed a questionnaire assessing attitudes towards life and death and SI severity at clinic intake, and depression and SI severity at 1 month follow‐up. Results: While controlling for SI severity at intake, attraction towards life at baseline, rather than attraction and repulsion towards death at baseline, led to higher SI severity at follow‐up, while depression at follow‐up fully mediated this association. Conclusions: Attitudes towards life, as well as depression play critical roles in the development of SI among adolescents. Interventions targeting reasons for living and promoting meaning of life may be beneficial in preventing depression and SI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Research has largely conceptualized suicidal ambivalence as the difference between one's wish to live and wish to die without fully considering other suicide ideation (SI) experiences included on measures like the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS). We utilized BSS items to identify SI latent classes and examined relevant correlates and outcomes. Methods: We collected self‐report data from two samples of US adults who: (1) self‐identified as LGBTQ+ (N = 349; cross‐sectional) and (2) self‐reported past‐week SI (BSS score ≥ 11; N = 133; 3 timepoints). Results: Latent class analyses supported three‐class (Sample 1) and four‐class solutions (Sample 2), which included ambivalent classes. In Sample 1, sexual orientation, gender, depression, anxiety, SI, and suicide‐specific rumination were concurrently associated with class membership. In Sample 2, depression, SI, suicide‐specific rumination, and physical/psychological distance from suicide methods were concurrently associated with class membership. In Sample 2, at both follow‐ups, suicide plans/preparations and Acute Suicidal Affective Disturbance symptom frequencies were provided by class membership, and suicidal intent significantly differed by class membership. Conclusions: SI classes differed by sample and evidenced nuances in SI and suicidal ambivalence. Risk factors and suicide‐related outcomes also differed by class membership. Implications and limitations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Suicidal ambivalence is a recognized phenomenon in suicidology, yet not much is known about it in the context of progression from suicidal ideation to action. The current study addresses this gap. We explore narrative dynamics of suicidal ambivalence in stories about transition from suicidal ideation to action. Methods: We employ an experiential qualitative approach to gain in‐depth understanding of narrated experience of suicidal ambivalence. We conducted semi‐structured interviews with 22 patients hospitalized after a suicide attempt. For a detailed analysis, we selected 11 interviews in which the interviewees' accounts spontaneously referred to their ambivalence about attempting suicide. We used a text‐oriented version of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) to analyze the semantics and syntax, as well as the functions of what was said within the local context, and the social actions thus accomplished. Results: Our study shows primarily that ambivalence is not resolved. Rather, it is set aside and removed from the narrative and replaced by an action‐focused narrative with no references to mental activities. Conclusion: We propose that ambivalence recedes and gives way to action and that qualitative research provides a useful evidence base for conceptualizing and understanding the role of ambivalence in transition from suicidal ideation to action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Suicide risk is highly fluctuating. There is a need for predictors of short‐term change in suicide risk to optimize risk assessment and treatment, especially among individuals who already attempted suicide. Methods: Based on 1776 daily assessments of 16 former psychiatric inpatients with a history of suicide attempts, we examined how suicidal ambivalence and, respectively, wish to die (WTD) and wish to live (WTL) predicted same‐day and change in perceived suicide risk (i.e., next‐day perceived suicide risk, controlled for same‐day perceived suicide risk) in multilevel regression models. Additionally, based on the assumptions of nonlinear dynamics, we examined the associations between levels of fluctuations in the WTD/WTL and perceived suicide risk within the same time period. Results: Suicidal ambivalence, WTD, and a WTL significantly correlated with same‐day suicide risk. Suicidal ambivalence and WTD significantly predicted change in suicide risk. Fluctuations in WTD were significantly associated with concurrent suicide risk. Conclusion: The results suggest that suicidal ambivalence and WTD are drivers of suicide risk among individuals who already attempted suicide. The association between fluctuations in WTD and suicide risk was small and warrants further investigation on the practical utility as a warning sign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Suicidal ambivalence is considered a characteristic condition of suicidal individuals. At the same time, there is a lack of a uniform definition, conception and assessment of suicidal ambivalence. On this background, the current scoping review aims to explore the extent, range, and nature of research activity on suicidal ambivalence and to summarize research findings. Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted in four different databases (PubMed, Psychinfo, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) using an array of search terms (e.g., ambivalence, internal suicide debate, reasons for living and reasons for dying, wish to live and wish to die). Results: In total, 28 articles published between 1977 and 2023 were included in the scoping review. The study situation lacks a clear definition, conceptualization and operationalization of suicidal ambivalence. Nonetheless, suicidal ambivalence is a common experience in persons contemplating suicide and suicidal ambivalence seems to be present before, during and after a suicide attempt. Suicidal ambivalence is associated with diverse markers of negative/positive mental health as well as suicidal ideation and behavior. Conclusion: Results point to the relevance of suicidal ambivalence. At the same time, there are large gaps in knowledge about the development, impact and therapeutic responsiveness of suicidal ambivalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Findings on the role of suicide ambivalence, an individual's wish to live (WL), and wish to die (WD) in the development of suicidality have been heterogenous. The main goal of this study was to examine associations of these constructs within the past week with sociodemographic factors and to longitudinally investigate their predictive power for suicidal ideation (SI) and suicide attempts (SA). Methods: N = 308 patients (54% female; M = 36.92 years, SD = 14.30), admitted to a psychiatric ward due to suicidality, were assessed for all constructs after admission, after six, nine, and 12 months. Data were analyzed with univariate fixed‐effect models and lagged mixed‐effect regression models. Results: Decreased, WL increased post‐baseline. Gender showed no significant link to ambivalence, WD, and WL. Ambivalence and WD correlated negatively with age and positively with depressiveness. More participants in a relationship showed a WL compared with single/divorced/widowed participants. More single participants or those in a relationship showed ambivalence than divorced/widowed participants. More single participants showed a WD than participants in a relationship/divorced/widowed. Longitudinally, ambivalence and WD predicted SI and SA. Conclusion: The findings underscore the importance of taking suicide ambivalence and WD into account in risk assessment and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the incredible challenges of caring for a family member with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia, many dementia family caregivers exhibit resilience. Framed by the communication theory of resilience, this study examines how resilience processes unfold within dementia caregivers' relationships with their family member, and dementia caregivers' experiences of resilience. Analysis of 27 interviews with adult children and spousal caregivers revealed acknowledging dementia as an actor in the relationship as a central facilitating mechanism that enabled caregivers to enact other communicative resilience processes within their relationship. Resilience processes were enacted through shifting blame to dementia, accommodating dementia, and relying on memories. Caregivers experienced resilience through personal growth, enhanced relational closeness, and ambivalent resilience. We discuss implications for dementia caregiver resilience and forward facilitating mechanisms as an extension of communication resilience theorizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that the gender-role incongruity between being a woman and the masculine stereotypes of political leadership roles will lead to more ambivalence about women relative to men and that gendered traits will comprise the content of these ambivalent attitudes. I analyze attitudinal ambivalence toward female candidates using ANES data. The results find that ambivalence is higher among voters who hold cross-pressured identities as strong partisans with sexist beliefs for both Democratic and Republican women. In 2016, individuals held stronger ambivalent attitudes about Hillary Clinton even among strong Democrats but there was very little ambivalence in attitudes about Trump. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review article surveys recent work in political theory that has brought together biopolitics and the COVID-19 pandemic. Centered on 2021 books by Giorgio Agamben and Benjamin Bratton, the essay outlines prominent visions of "negative" (Agamben) and "positive" (Bratton) biopolitical responses to the pandemic, engages public reactions to these approaches, and reassesses the position of biopolitical thinking in light of these. In doing so, the article recalls the foundations and original interventions of biopolitical theory, calling for a renewed engagement with the perspectives afforded by biopolitics that pushes past the negative/positive binary. Ultimately, the essay gathers together major developments in biopolitical thinking today, counters moves to discard the theoretical approach despite the limitations of recent examples, and repositions biopolitics as an ambivalent tool for political thought and practice going forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This short essay will dwell upon the 'law of literature and the literature of law', as illuminated in the enduring scholarship and intellectual legacy of Peter Fitzpatrick. Reading with Fitzpatrick, we must grapple with a law that is both constituted and subverted by recourse to the supplement of fiction. These ambivalent 'affines', law and literature, share in an oscillatory rhythm: each is constituted and enlivened by an unbounded exteriority, yet each must be rendered normatively determinate. I reflect upon the ways in which Fitzpatrick's account of 'law like literature' grasps and hones the methodological challenge implicit in this reading: to read law as literature and literature as law. Yet further, I extend a reading of Fitzpatrick's scholarship that acknowledges this fictive law as not merely susceptible to but constituted by decoloniality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotions are an important basis for decision making, and their influence is increasingly attracting attention from the academic community. However, existing research mainly focuses on the impact of a single emotion on people and lacks information on the impact of ambivalent emotions. Based on the Cognitive-Affective processing system theory, this study explores tourists' willingness to travel, while experiencing the emotions of hope and anxiety through two situational experiments. This study used the Sojump platform to recover data, and a total of 200 valid samples were collected in Experiment 1 to explore the chain-mediating role of proactive coping and well-being. A total of 240 valid samples were collected in Experiment 2, which verified the boundary conditions of the interaction between hope and anxiety on tourists' willingness to travel. The results broaden the theoretical research on tourism ambivalence and provide a reference source for tourism companies to use ambivalence in precision marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban trees are recognised worldwide as one of the most sustainable and effective nature-based solutions to combat the effects of climate change and improve the quality of life for city dwellers by cooling the air, absorbing pollutants and damping noise. Along with protection from flooding and soil retention/restoration, trees also symbolise beauty, aesthetic quality, and orientation in urban spaces. Nevertheless, the relationship between street/park trees and urban society is highly ambivalent when it comes to pollen emissions and allergies, but also due to clearing space for new housing, road extensions, or parking places, which is accepted by large sections of urban society. In addition, climate change in itself is a major challenge to urban trees, as they suffer from drought and are increasingly attacked by pests. Urban planners and community partnerships have already developed a range of strategies (from more expert-led approaches to participatory co-design and actions) to maintain, increase, and diversify tree cover. They have also created new habitats and at the same time caused competition for space in the city, where every square centimetre is fought over. Using the case studies from Central and Eastern Europe and also considering the examples from Northern America and Asia, this commentary highlights the ambivalent relationship between humans and nature in regard to urban trees. It also demonstrates that the acceptance of this ambivalence can be a key to the conservation and maintenance of urban biodiversity through the involvement of different stakeholders including citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most workers around the world are part of the precariat, characterized by non-permanent, informal, short-term, low-pay, low-skill, and insecure jobs. While there have been many socio-economic critiques of the negative impacts of precarity on workers, the literature has increasingly asked how precarious workers actually live their lives and how their subjectivities are produced on a daily basis. We contribute to this literature by providing a psychosocial account of the ambivalent experiences of precarious workers. We contend that the interplay of recognition and misrecognition plays a crucial role, as the vulnerable, working subject becomes entangled in a complex web of recognizability. We present insights from 104 in-depth interviews, providing a Lacanian analysis of how precarious workers develop unconscious attachments to neoliberal values that are central to the logic of precarity. Understanding this ambivalence helps us develop a more nuanced view of an ethics of precarious workers' vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Eating disorders (EDs) are serious psychiatric disorders that may cause great suffering and reduced quality of life. Severe EDs often lead to somatic complications and have a high mortality rate. The most seriously ill patients need hospitalisation, with a need for highly trained nurses. Methods The aim of the study was to investigate challenges when nursing adults with a severe ED, and how to succeed in establishing a therapeutic relationship. A qualitative design was chosen, and individual qualitative interviews conducted with twelve nurses. The analytic method was Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis. Results Six main themes were developed: entering the patient’s world of experience (with the subthemes: understanding the patient’s anxiety, understanding the patient's rigidity and need for control and understanding the patient's ambivalence), providing somatic nursing, building relationships, ‘holding the line’ (with the subtheme: demanding and rewarding), manoeuvring between rules and frameworks and providing good nursing care during coercive treatment. Conclusion Nursing patients with a severe ED is demanding, requiring somatic as well as psychiatric expertise. The nurse must understand the patient's anxiety, rigidity and need for control, and ambivalence. Nursing patients with a severe ED requires clarity, and steadiness and the nurses must cope with resistance. To succeed, teamwork and support from colleagues are needed.

Although digital transformation has aroused the interest of scholars and practitioners, how to reach a win-win situation between economic and carbon performance in the context of carbon neutrality has not been well addressed. Based on organizational information processing theory, this study investigates how digital transformation affects economic and carbon performance via low-carbon operations management practices (LOMP) and the moderating role of CEO ambivalence. We test research hypotheses using hierarchical regression analysis by collecting data from 297 Chinese manufacturing firms. Our results reveal that all three dimensions of LOMP mediate the impact of digital transformation on carbon performance, and low-carbon products mediate the impact of digital transformation on economic performance. In addition, CEO ambivalence weakens the impacts of digital transformation on three dimensions of LOMP. The findings extend the digital transformation and LOMP literature and provide theoretical guidance for managers to achieve the goals of economic development and carbon reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information representations such as ratings and reviews play an important role in assisting users in making decisions in online environments. Prior information systems (IS) research has mostly focused on the role of extreme valence, i.e., the positivity/negativity of information, portrayed by such representations. Yet this bipolar approach discounts how the coexistence of positivity and negativity (i.e., ambivalence) or their absence (i.e., indifference) is formed and leads to distinct attentional processes and outcomes such as purchase decisions. We theorize how and why the valence of information projected through such representations may elicit mixed feelings and influence decision-making in online environments. We conducted four randomized controlled experiments, including an electroencephalography (EEG) study, to disentangle the influence of ambivalence and indifference on decision-making in an online shopping context. We found that ambivalence and indifference to online information distinctly influenced attention and purchase decisions relative to positivity and negativity. Our findings further suggest the inability of incumbent bipolar representations, such as the widely implemented star rating system, to capture the mixed feelings expressed in online content. We propose a bivariate intervention that overcomes the limitations of bipolar representations by not only discerning ambivalence from indifference but also amplifying purchase decisions for products with ambivalent information by at least 50%, compared to incumbent bipolar representations. Our findings advance ongoing research on the role of information valence in online environments and offer implications for practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the friendships that young refugees make in Germany as their country of arrival. Although friends are highly relevant in children's lives, little attention has been paid to this subject regarding young refugees. We conducted ego‐network interviews with 17 young refugees aged 9–15, with which we explored the opportunity structures in which young refugees choose their friends and their ways of establishing and deepening friendships, as well as the limitations thereof. Core dimensions of friendship, as proposed by Shmuel Eisenstadt, are used as sensitizing concepts: voluntariness, moral quality, unconditionality, trust, deep meaning/brittleness, and ambivalence. By reinterpreting them through an interactionist lens, the analysis reveals the complex work young refugees invest into making friends and establishing themselves in the social world of their school and peer groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of recognition in political and social thought, focusing on the ambivalence of recognition and its implications for ideological recognition. The author critiques Axel Honneth's theory of ideological recognition, proposing an alternative epistemic structural account that considers epistemic trust and structural power. The epistemic structural account aims to identify unjustified recognition by examining the violation of the basic norm of trust and the operations of structural power. The article also explores the theoretical and practical implications of the epistemic structural account for critical theory, social pathology, power dynamics, and the recognition of racial identities. [Extracted from the article]

In commercial BDSM sessions, the problems of feminized labor, the myth of modern subjectivity, and the contested status of the sex worker as variably subject or object become the frameworks for erotic play. These problems, which circle around fantasies of objectification and subjectification, are never resolved. Rather, they conflict with one another, and it is the tension engendered through this conflict that invests the session with its erotic charge. Through an ethnographic discussion of three professional dominatrixes and their clients, this article asks how transgressive investments in sociohistorical fantasies of objectification as well as the ambivalence of psychosexual processes of objectification get enacted in BDSM sessions. When dominatrixes play with these fantasies, they leverage the ambivalences in both their own and their clients' drives for becoming subjects and becoming objects in order to play with--and even derive pleasure from--objectification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from 102 in-depth interviews conducted with first-year Master of Divinity (M.Div.) students at a Mainline Protestant seminary, this paper examines how students describe and account for their positions on homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy. We found that students on "both sides"—i.e. those who lean affirming and those who lean non-affirming—invoked three primary authorities in their accounts: Biblical authority, Godly authority, and the authority of lived experience, as demonstrated in the lives of gay and lesbian people. We also found that nearly one-third of the students in our sample expressed uncertainty, ambivalence, and/or contradictions in their responses. Through a close analysis of these accounts, we show that ambivalence and uncertainty are rooted in attempts to navigate and "reconcile" the pulls of these different authorities and that attitudinal certainty is often accomplished by privileging one authority over others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pathological ambivalence, which refers to the simultaneous experience of opposing and contradictory thoughts or emotions, is a relatively understudied construct despite its integral role in early formulations of schizophrenia and schizotypy. The Schizotypal Ambivalence Scale (SAS) was developed to measure this synchronic ambivalence characteristic of schizophrenia-spectrum psychopathology. Interview, questionnaire, and ambulatory assessment studies have demonstrated the SAS is associated with multidimensional schizotypy. The present study examined the expression of ambivalence, as measured by the SAS, in daily life using experience sampling methodology (ESM) in 227 young adults. We also examined ambivalence as a predictor of reactivity, variability, and instability affective dynamics. Participants were prompted by a smartphone application eight times per day for one week to complete ESM questionnaires that assessed affect, social functioning, situation appraisals, and schizotypic experiences in daily life. Overall, SAS scores were associated with daily life experiences of positive, negative, and disorganized schizotypic experiences, emotional dysregulation, and social impairment. SAS scores also predicted time-dependent affective dynamics. Specifically, ambivalence predicted reactivity and variability of negative affect, as well as variability of appraising the current situation as positive. The study also includes an exploratory examination of the effects of ambivalence over-and-above neuroticism measure by the NEO-FFI-3. The present study supports results from interview and questionnaire studies that pathological ambivalence is a cross-cutting component of multidimensional schizotypy and provides further support for the construct validity of the SAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: Sustainable development goal 5.6 calls for "universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights" to fulfil sexual and reproductive practices. The capability approach helps refine the analysis of contraceptive use by going beyond the dichotomous view of contraceptive use as use/non-use to focus on women's freedom to choose what they have good reason to value. Using the case of Burkina Faso, we probe more deeply into whether contraceptive use reflects real progress in women's reproductive rights to realize the fertility projects they value. (2) Methods: We use PMA2020 data collected in Burkina Faso between December 2018 and January 2019. The survey included 3329 women with a participation rate of 97.7%. The PMA2020 female core questionnaire solicits information on fertility and contraceptive behavior, much like the DHS. We asked a series of specific questions about cognitive and psychosocial access relating to FP. We examined bivariate associations between our outcome measure "contraceptive behavior" and a set of independent variables. We also used logistic regression models to evaluate associations with endowments/conversion and capability factors and current functioning by focusing on overuse (i.e., use of contraceptives despite desiring pregnancy within the next 12 months). (3) Results: Women who said their ideal number of children was "up to God" had the highest level of overuse, which was also higher among women living in communities with medium acceptance of contraception and greater support for fertility. Women who have higher and middle levels of information tend to engage less in overuse than those with lower information levels. (4) Conclusions: We conclude that overuse (contraceptive use when desiring a child soon) may reveal a lack of rights, as it is associated with a lack of information about contraceptives and women's inability to conceive an ideal number of children. Efforts should be made to enhance women's level of contraceptive information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]