心理学2014年第4期

Psychology Research

Volume 4, Number 4, April 2014 (Serial Number 34)

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Psychology Research Volume 4, Number 4, April 2014 (Serial Number 34)

Contents General Psychology The Body Image Constitution

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Henrique Guilherme Scatolin

Developmental and Educational Psychology Is Anatomy Exam Really So Stressful for Dentistry and Medical Students?

251

Renata Gržić, Sabina Saltović, Ivanka Živčić Bećirević USPPDT (University Student Psychosocial Problems Development Theory)

259

Norman David Nsereko, Seggane Musisi An Examination of the Mere Proximity Effect of Obesity Discrimination in Children in Chinese Culture

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Ai Chen, Shan Yin, Hui-Yi Tang, Zuo-Jun Wang

Applied Psychology Collective Guilt Makes Conflicting Parties More Collaborative: Quasi-experimental Study of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

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Inna Solomatina, Ivars Austers Coaching and Ethical Leadership: A Competence Executive Coaching Model for the Development of Ethical Leadership Lurdes Neves

285

Does Playing Games Contribute to Develop Better Attitudes?

301

Maria Thereza Costa Coelho de Souza, Ana Lucia Petty, Camila Tarif Ferreira Folquitto, Mariana Ines Garbarino, Tamires Alves Monteiro Value of a Friend, a Friend of Your Friend, and a Friend of the Friend of Your Friend

310

Kuninori Nakamura Contemporary Counseling and Its Discontents: A Counselogist on Homo Consultans J贸zef Kargul

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Psychology Research, ISSN 2159-5542 April 2014, Vol. 4, No. 4, 243-250

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The Body Image Constitution Henrique Guilherme Scatolin PUC-SP (Pontificate Catholic University of São Paulo), São Paulo, Brazil This article discusses the body image formation according to the neurologist Paul Schilder conceptions. It aims to conduct a bibliographic survey in his work The Body Image: The Psyche Constructive Energies. Throughout this survey, a literature review of the body image concept is done, investigating its libidinal structure and focusing on psychoanalytic contributions to its formation. As a result of this survey, the erogenous zones importance and its respective extensions throughout the body is highlighted. It is concluded that, for a body image study, this theme researcher should bring into prominence its psychological, physiological and sociological aspects; i.e., its three-dimensionality.

Keywords: body image formation, erogenous zones, three-dimensionality

Introduction This article seeks to focus on the neurologist Paul Schilder vision on the body image formation, based on a literature review of his work entitled The Body Image: The Psyche Constructive Energies. For starting this discussion, how does Schilder understand body image?

According to Schilder (1935, p. 11) “Body image is understood as the figuration of our body formed in our minds; i.e., the way the body is presented to us”.

The body schema (also understood as body image) is the three-dimensional image that all people have of themselves. In this three-dimensional aspect we have the psychological, sociological and physiological aspects.

For Schilder (1935, p. 15), “When studding the body image, we should address the central psychological problem of the relation between the impressions of our senses, our movements, and the general motility”. This means that the body schema is in perpetual self-construction, living in continuous differentiation and integration. On the other hand, our body postural model relates to the postural model of other bodies. Our body image experience and other bodies experience are closely interconnected. Therefore, the emotions, actions and perceptions are inseparable from our body image. They contribute to our body image construction.

Material and Method The method to be used in this article is supported in a bibliographical survey on the work entitled The Body Image: The Psyche Constructive Energies, published in 1935, which seeks to give prominence to the sociological and psychological aspects of body image constitution, emphasizing the erogenous zones, the libidinal phases and the social aspects throughout its constitution.

Henrique Guilherme Scatolin, Master, PUC-SP (Pontificate Catholic University of São Paulo).

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Results First, to Schilder (1935), the body image begins to form from birth. Namely, since birth, two factors have special participation in the body image creation: one is the pain and the other is the members’ motor control.

The pain helps us decide what we want to get closer to the ego and what we want to maintain the furthest possible from it. In addition, the visual experience has a leading role in the body image formation. This experience is also lived through the action. In other words, it is through the actions and determinations that we give the final shape to our body ego. Thus, the visual impressions influence the body schema, since body image can be disturbed by experimental changes in vision, but it is restructured, forming a new unit.

For Schilder (1935, p. 60), “The body schema development also occurs parallel to the motor sensory development”. Throughout the psychic development, the movement leads to a better guidance in relation to our body. We do not know much about the body, unless we move it. The movement is an important factor of unification of our body different parts and through it we come to a definite relationship with the outside world and with the objects, and only through the contact with the outside that we become able to correlate the various impressions about our body. The knowledge of our body depends, in large part, of our own action. Thus, since birth, the body postural model needs to be built. It is a creation and a construction, the production of a shape.

The structuring process is only possible when it closely relates with the world experiences.

For Schilder (1935, p. 102), “The body image, in its final result, is a unit. But this unit is not rigid, but liable of transformation. And all the senses are always contributions to the body scheme creation”. In other words, the visual perceptions strongly influence the body image. The images change under the impulses and motor imagination influences. Schilder (1935) argues that these distortions are called metamorphosias. Among these, we have polyopia that would be the tendency to multiply the visual image, becoming larger (macropsia) or smaller (micropsia).

The Libidinal Structure of Body Image Schilder uses the psychoanalytic theory to explain the libidinal structure of body image.

In his understanding of the psychoanalytic work, Schilder (1935, p. 107) points out that “We are interested in our body integrity”. He claims that the libido belongs to our own body. He declares that, in principle, libido is given to the body as a whole. This is the narcissistic stage. In this phase, the child only cares for herself. This stage, referred to as primary narcissism, is followed by an autoerotic phase, in which the libido is focused on body parts that have special erogenous signification. Concomitantly to auto-eroticism, Schilder describes the pre-genital and child genital phases.

The first phase or would be oral phase. In this, the milk intake occurs and the erogenous zone is the mouth.

At this phase, the body tries to incorporate the outside world, which is only considered according to its ability to produce (or not) satisfaction. At this point, the child also enjoys the sensations from the skin. There is a cutaneous eroticism.

In the oral phase, aggression can also occur aiming to destroy the mother breast. This aggressiveness (and consequently, the sadism) can persist in the anal phase.

The second phase is the anal-sadistic phase. In this, there is pleasure in defecation and the erogenous zone is the anus. During this phase, the outside world receives an interest portion from the child, occurring anal, and homosexual tendencies in relation to external objects.

The third phase would be the phallic, which coincides with the Oedipus Complex (nuclear complex of the

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psychic subject constitution). At this phase, the genitals acquire a new meaning and become the main libidinal zone in the body. At this phase, there is a complete understanding of the child’s body as something opposite to the outside world. After the end of the Oedipus complex, we have the secondary narcissism aspect, a moment when the libido is withdrawn from “outside world”.

According to Schilder reading, narcissism is seen as a large (libidinal) reservoir which lends part of its contents to the objects. The energy that was withdrawn from this reservoir can be brought back at any time.

And what is the relationship between the primary narcissism and the body image? For Schilder (1935), any libido or energy of ego desires can only appear in connection with an object. We are in a world, and the objects are part of it. When we live, we are facing this world. There is always a person and this person attitude. An attitude is an attitude to something: The narcissistic libido object is the body image. But there is no doubt that our body can only exist as part of the world.

For the newborn, body and world are interconnected experiences. One is not possible without the other. In so primitive level, the boundary between body and world is not clearly defined. It will be easier to perceive a part of the body in the world than a part of the world in the body. Thus, the body will be projected in the world, and this will be introjected in the body. And in adulthood, body and world are in constant exchange.

Thus, at birth there is a zone of lack of differentiation between body and world. But the body image has to be developed and built. Libido is linked to the different parts of body image and, in various phases of libido development, the body model will continuously change.

In the body scheme overall structure, the erogenous zones will have a leading role. In other words, we can assume that the body image, during the oral phase of development, will be centered in the mouth and, in anal phase, in the anus. The libidinal flow of energy will greatly influence the body image. And during the body image construction, there will be a continuous interaction between ego and id.

Erogenous Zones of Body Image For Schilder (1935, p. 142), “The own organs (of the body) force the individual to a continuous contact with the outside world, and there is no doubt that, at least in part, we discover our body through these contacts”.

The enormous psychological importance of every orifice of the body is present since birth. Through the mouth we eat the food. And in adulthood, by means of certain cavities we eject urine, sexual products, faeces and air.

In addition, the body surface is also an erogenous zone. The skin is easily irritable and, consequently, it is an irritation organ. There are continuous sensations that lead the child to touch or make people around him touch his skin.

It is very important to note that much of the body is discovered by the hands. In addition to the hand and look, the contact with the others (fathers, mothers, friends, and neighbors) and the interest that these demonstrate to the various parts of our body will be of huge importance for the development of the body postural model; since “whenever a part of our body image receives excessive importance, the symmetry and the internal balance of body image are destroyed” (Schilder, 1935, p. 113). Therefore, the organic pain (that leads the body model libidinal structure to change immediately), the organic diseases, the erogenous zones, our hands action on the body, the others actions regarding our body, and the others interest by our body are important factors for the body image final structuring.

In addition, the libidinal structures differences reflect in the body postural model structure. Individuals in whom a partial desire is increased will feel a certain point of the body, the particular erogenous zone belonging

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to the desire, in the center of his body images, as if the energy was accumulated in certain points. There are energy lines connecting different erogenous zones and we will have variations in the body image structuring, according to the individual psychosexual tendencies.

For Schilder (1935, p. 159), “Every erogenous zone has typical extension lines”. In adulthood there is the extension of these erogenous zones to certain parts of the body. The anal zone extends to the back. The mouth, usually, extends to the interior plan. In other words, extends to the hands, mouth and nose inner part. Therefore, it is impossible to study the libidinal structure of body image in isolation. It is an integral part of the individual internal vital history and, to understand it, it is necessary to study the libidinal development since childhood.

Thus, our body knowledge is developed based on the continuously renewed contact with the outside world since childhood, and the body image construction is based not only on the person individual story, but also in his relations with others.

For Schilder (1935, p. 164), “The body schema is a unit that not only incorporates parts of the outside world, but also waives these. There is not only a tendency to structure the body postural model, but also to destroy this image”. For example, when we eat food or drink, something from outside world is added to body image. After digestion, the intestinal movement just physically separates faeces from body, but psychologically, these continue to be part of us.

The anatomical configuration (of genital organs) plays an important role in body structure. A protuberance belongs less to the body; because whenever a body part connects less closely with the rest, there is a fear of losing it. It is the fear for body integrity, which is based on the postural model internal qualities.

In addition, the body postural model only remains stable for a short time, immediately changing. Probably, the psychic life figurations instability only connotes a passing phase with which the next phase can be contrasted. But there is no doubt that, in our psychic life, there are always tendencies to form units. But whenever a unit, a Gestalt is created, this immediately tends to change and destroy. Destruction is a partial phase of construction, which is a project and life general characteristic. Destroy to rebuild a new image.

Discussion Libidinal Development of Body Image Schilder, in his reading of Freudian work, points out that since the beginning of life there a nucleus of body image in the oral zone. Using Berfeld, Schilder (1935) admits that there is a primary development that begins in the oral zone and a secondary refinement that differentiates the body ego from the outside world. So, he points out: We have reasons to believe that there is an internal development, a maturation in all fields of psychic life, and that there are internal factors in the organism relatively independent of the experiences that determine this evolution. The maturation process acquires its final form from the individual experiences, which will depend, largely, on the vital experience, training and emotional activities. (Schilder, 1935, p. 179)

Our body image is not always the same. The body image evolution is, somewhat, parallel to the perceptions, thoughts and object relations development.

Every desire and every libidinal trend change immediately the body image structure. In any attitude, we desire to modify the postural model or body scheme spatial relationship. The minute we see something, muscular actions start leading to changes in its perception. All impulse or desire modifies the body image, its

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gravity and its mass. Thus, in every action and every desire we intend to obtain a body image change.

For Schilder (1935), “The body image can shrink or expand, can give its parts to outside world or seize upon parts of it” (p. 176). For example, the lips and face painting, hair discoloration and tattoo are attempts to change the body image. The meaning of all these changes of appearance is not always conscious; because there is a symbolic meaning, as for example, the skin cleaning can be considered an example of impulse to overcome unconscious anal tendencies.

In addition to hygiene, clothes became a part of body image. That is, any piece of clothes dressed becomes, immediately, part of the body image.

As the clothes are part of the body schema, these gain the same sense of body parts and can represent various symbolic meanings. Consequently, all transformations found in body image can be found in the clothes.

This means that clothes can become a means to entirely change our body image; and when imitating a famous person’s clothes, we modify our postural image, incorporating others image. Therefore, the body images are not isolated entities. The body images community is the basis of all social function.

It is necessary to emphasize that body image passes through a continuous process of expansion and reduction. The primitive peoples and certain psychotic patients can modify body image through a simple process of libidinal imagination; for example, they transform an individual into a werewolf on the basis of their beliefs. People already considered “neurotic” only achieve minor “autoplastic” modifications through masks and clothes.

Humans are surrounded and curtailed by their body images. One of the reasons for the transformation and use of clothes is the desire to overcome the rigidity of body image, which can be transformed through paintings, jewelry, etc..

The body can also be modified as a whole. We can make holes in the body or insert metal or wood pieces in it, as it occurred with the primitive peoples.

According to Schilder (1935), “One can also try to modify the body image in a less violent way, through all kinds of gymnastics” (p. 179). So, the dance and gymnastics are ways to decrease the body postural model rigid shape. The dance leads to a disruption and a change of body image, leading us from a body image change to a psychic attitude change.

For Schilder (1935), we expand and contract the body postural model, we remove and add parts, we rebuild it; we mix details; create new details; we do this with our body and with its own expression. There is a construction and a destruction linked to the needs, conflicts and energy of the total personality. During the construction and destruction phases appear two basic human tendencies. One is the tendency to crystallize unities and ensure rest points, immutability and absence of change. The other is the tendency to obtain a continuous flow, a permanent change.

Beauty and Body Image For Schilder (1935), “A beauty should be related to body postural model. When we consider the human figure beauty, we immediately realize that the aesthetic interest certainly relates closely with the interest in sex” (p. 128). The human being beauty does not cause the desires immediately, but it brings inside the seeds of desires development, since the human figure beauty has a direct relation with sexuality.

Beauty is a social phenomenon. The human body, its postural model, is the first object of plastic arts and painting. The beauty object causes sexual impulses without satisfying them; but, at the same time, allows

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everyone to enjoy it. The beauty is, also, giving up your own claims to the benefit of all.

It is obvious that the aesthetic influence disappears when sexual desire becomes stronger. We come to the conclusion that the aesthetic object triggers instinctual attitudes, but such attitudes are prematurely inhibited and interrupted, so that the aesthetic pleasure, although it offers rest and relaxation, it does not allow a complete satisfaction of desires. Thus, this pleasure continues far from the ideal to be achieved.

The aesthetic object offers a promise and a semi-satisfaction of desires, and such desires are characterized as incompletely satisfied and unfinished by the fact that, in the aesthetic figure, more than a desire seeks expression and satisfaction.

The aesthetic effect consists in the fact that instinctive attitudes are caused, but not developed. That is, the aesthetic experiences are incomplete and can never be completed. The aesthetic object acquires its color when impounding the instinctive energy. The person who appreciates aesthetic experience enjoys the free movement of his desires, without assuming the appropriate responsibility for it.

For Schilder (1935), we should not underestimate the importance of beauty and ugliness in human life.

Beauty can be a promise of complete satisfaction or a way to get such satisfaction. Our own beauty or ugliness does not take into account only the image that we have of ourselves, but also the image the others build about us, and which we will take back. Thus, the body image is the result of social life.

Certainly, beauty and ugliness are not isolated individual phenomena, but social phenomena of greater importance. Our own body image and that of others, their beauty or ugliness, become the basis of our sexual and social activities.

For Schilder (1935), “The beauty concept is directly related to each people culture” (p. 235). The beauty standard is always the libidinal expression of a society, such as the deformation practices adopted in the primitive societies.

When we structure the individual and others body image, we always tend to build something static that soon will be dissolved again. We always return to the body primary positions. When we think of a person running, we see him changing from a primary position to another primary position. That is, the primary positions are the relative rest position, the moment that the movement is not considered, but yes the postural model crystallized unit.

We should realize that our and others body image is not just a body image at rest, but a body image in motion. But the beauty is especially connected with the body image at rest, with the cover images of certain fashion magazines. And that is why we are so surprised when seeing an isolated phase of a movement in an old photograph.

The Body Image Three-Dimensionality Schilder (1935) considers the body as a unit, but points out that to understand the body image, we have to consider the three-dimensional aspect: the world, the body, and the mind. Schilder (1935) says: “It would be wrong to try to dissolve them in a cluster of isolated parts. We have three categories… of world, body and personality” (p. 246).

In the construction of body image it is essential the contact with the external reality, because all experiences with external reality already modify the most primitive body image imaginable. Parts of these experiences are accepted or not. Thus, the body image is continuously built through levels and layers, taking into consideration past and present experiences (such as memory and learning).

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For Schilder (1935), “To build the body image, we need to know where are the different members of our body” (p. 249). The body postural model, the members’ knowledge and their mutual relations are necessary to start any movement.

The body postural model finds its expression clearer in the phantom members of people who have lost their members more or less abruptly. An attitude regarding the phantom member shows that people affected with the loss of a member wish to recreate the body integrity. Certain experiments and observations of amputated people show that they contain in themselves the amputated member phantom.

The postural model is modified to each object that touches the body. This model also has relation with the postural model of people around us. In addition, the emotional life has an important role in the final form of body postural model, as it will change the relative value and the clarity of the various parts of the body image, according to the libidinal tendencies.

This change may be a surface change, but also an internal body change. The libidinal structure is expressed in the emphasis given to the different parts of postural model and in appearances resulting from its shapes. What happens in one part of the body can be transposed to another. That is, the female sexual organ cavity can appear as cavity in other parts of the body. The male sexual organ can be represented by earrings, piercings in other parts of the body.

Schilder (1935) calls this a transposition from a body region to another. Therefore, a part of the body can symbolize another part, such as the nose can take the importance of the phallus. Any protruding part can become a symbol of the male sexual organ. The body cavities and orifices can be exchanged by each other freely. The vagina, anus, mouth, ears, and even the nose cavities belong to the same group of orifices.

Conclusion We elaborate our body image according to the experiences gain through the actions and attitudes, as well as by words or acts directed to our body. In addition, the others attitudes towards their own bodies will also have a major influence on our body image.

We can take other people’s body parts and incorporate them into our body image. This is called personalization. Thus, the identification of the group where this subject is inserted, the projection of individual fantasies to the outside world, and the personalization have a prominent role in the construction of an individual body image.

In addition to these three aspects, Schilder also points out that libidinal conflicts constantly change body image. There is a tendency to keep the body image within its bounds, and another to expand and extend it.

There is also a tendency to keep their parties united and dissipate them all over the world. So, the movement and the expression belong to destructive phases in the continuous process of changes in the body postural model.

Based on this work, it can be concluded that the erotic changes in body image are always a social phenomena, and followed by the corresponding phenomena in the body image of others. There is a constant exchange between parts of our own body image and the parts of others body image. This means that there is a projection and a personalization. But the others body image totality (such as friends and neighbors) can be taken in the identification with them; as well as the totality of our body image can be projected to outside.

Therefore, a discussion on body image as an isolated entity is necessarily incomplete. A body is always the expression of an ego, of a personality, and it is inserted into a world. Even a preliminary response to the

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body problem cannot be given, unless we try a preliminary response on the personality and the world. In other words, for a body image study, any researcher is expected to give prominence to the psychological, physiological and sociological aspects of body image, i.e., its three-dimensionality.

Reference Schilder, P. (1935/1994). The body image: The psyche constructive energies. Translation of Rosanne Wertman. S達o Paulo: Martins Fontes.

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Psychology Research, ISSN 2159-5542 April 2014, Vol. 4, No. 4, 251-258

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Is Anatomy Exam Really So Stressful for Dentistry and Medical Students?

Renata Gržić, Sabina Saltović, Ivanka Živčić Bećirević University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia Test-taking situation is a stressful situation in which many students experience negative emotions associated with significant neurohormonal (changes in cortisol level) and physiological changes (psychosomatic symptoms). The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between trait anxiety, test anxiety, cortisol level, psychosomatic symptoms, perception of test difficulty, and final grade. The investigation was conducted with 116 first-year dentistry and medical students while taking a very difficult written examination in anatomy course. Just before the exam, they filled in Test Anxiety Inventory, provided saliva samples, assessed the level of difficulty of the exam and the grade they expected. Immediately after the exam, they filled in Subjective Health Complaints Inventory and a week after the exam, they filled in State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and stated the grade they achieved. Exam results had significant effect on the level of trait anxiety and the assessment of exam difficulty, but there was no significant effect of exam difficulty on test anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms. Trait anxiety and test anxiety explained 49% of variance in psychosomatic symptoms. Although there were only five samples of cortisol that were analyzed in the laboratory, the level of salivary cortisol showed significant positive correlation with overall psychosomatic symptoms. Although there is no difference in expressing test anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms between successful and unsuccessful students, there is a significant contribution of test anxiety to discomfort caused by psychosomatic symptoms. There is a need for reorganization of teaching classes and exam in anatomy course.

Keywords: anatomy course, trait anxiety, test anxiety, test difficulty, psychosomatic symptoms

Introduction Anatomy is a basic course taught in the first year of study of dentistry, using traditional teaching methods and it is a subject of ABSTD (Association of Basic Science Teachers in Dentistry) debate. Even though the courses underwent the process of harmonization with the EU (European Union) directives, a process set out by the EU as a part of accession negotiations, at the School of Medicine in Rijeka, anatomy course is still taught in a classic way and it has not been integrated within clinical courses. It is taught during the first year of dentistry study consisting of 150 teaching hours which are held in rounds over a period of two months. It has 17.5 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) points. It is also taught in the first year of medicine consisting of 241 teaching hours taught over a period of two trimesters, i.e., 20 weeks of classes. Students Renata Gržić, Ph.D., professor, Department of Dentistry, School of Medicine, University of Rijeka.

Sabina Saltović, mag.psych., Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka.

Ivanka Živčić Bećirević, Ph.D., professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka.

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obtain points by taking different types of examination. The minimum number of points which allows them to take the final exam is 40%. After reviewing the number of successful candidates who pass the exam, it has been noted that this is an exam with the poorest test performance. Only 50% of students pass the exam. Given the fact that this exam has been regarded among the generations of students as extremely stressful, we wanted to examine additionally the way in which students perceive it.

When taking an exam, many students experience fear, discomfort, restlessness, tension and insecurity caused by the anticipation of possible danger, i.e., they become anxious. Anxiety is usually defined as a displeasing emotional state followed by activation of autonomic nervous system, i.e., physiological changes which include rapid heartbeat, increased blood pressure, and bodily tension (Spielberger & Vagg, 1995). People who are high in trait anxiety perceive greater number of situations as threatening or dangerous. That is why they express more intense state of anxiety compared to people who are low in trait anxiety (Jezova, Makatsori, Duncko, Moncek, & Jakubek, 2004).

Fear of examination or test anxiety comprises of cognitive (negative, underestimating thoughts), emotional (feeling of tension and fear), physiological (perception of autonomous arousal), and behavioral responses (study skills, procrastination) to evaluative situations (Hong, 1998; Putwain, Woods, & Symes, 2010; Sarason, 1980). Students with high test anxiety are always prone to react negatively to an exam in the form of excessive preoccupation, anxiety, and low self-esteem, due to the nature of the exam which they perceive as threatening and which might bring about negative consequences (Keogh & French, 2001).

Given that anxiety occurs as a reaction to an anticipated or real stressful event, it is related to certain changes in organism which occur during stressful period (Jezova et al., 2004). The most important physiological changes happen in the autonomic nervous system and endocrine system (Havelka, 1998) where SAM (sympathetic-adrenal-medullary) axis and HPAC (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical) axis are being activated. SAM axis releases catecholamines into the bloodstream, adrenalin and noradrenalin being the most prominent ones, and HPAC axis is responsible for the release of glucocorticoids, namely cortizol. Compared to SAM axis which is activated immediately after the stressful situation, HPAC axis controls delayed responses to stressful situation primarily through cortisol (Hudek-KneŞević & Kardum, 2006; Takai, Yamaguchi, Aragaki, Eto, Uchihashi, & Nishikawa, 2004) whose level in the organism is the highest 30 minutes after the stressful situation (Hellhammer & Hellhammer, 2008).

Test-taking situation is an example of stressful situation in which significant neurohormonal changes occur and thus, changes in cortisol level should follow accordingly (Al-Ayadhi, 2005; Martinek, Oberascher-Holzinger, Weishuhn, Klimesch, & Kerschbaum, 2003). However, results obtained by examining the relationship between test situation and cortisol response are not consistent, even though test situations are perceived by students as stressful. Some studies show increased cortisol responses to stressful test situations (Allen et al., 1985; Frankenhaeuser et al., 1978; Lacey, Zaharia, Griffiths, Ravindran, Merali, & Anisman, 2000; Lovallo, Pincomb, Edwards, Brackett, & Wilson, 1986; Lucini, Norbiato, Clerici, & Pagani, 2002). For example, Elizabeth, Dayananda, Kusumadevi, Sunil, Sujayasri, and Suhas (Elizabeth, Dayananda, Kusumadevi, Sunil, Sujayasri, & Suhas, 2009) showed increased levels of cortisol in the first-year medical students before the exam compared to post-stressful situation. Al-Ayadhi (2005) obtained similar results, while other studies report decreased cortisol levels during an exam. For example, Vedhara, Hyde, Gilchrist, Tytherleigh, and Plummer (2000) observed that the exam period was associated with an increase in perceived stress levels, but also a reduction in cortisol levels. Some research even revealed no changes in cortisol levels due to stress

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(Glaser, Pearl, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Malarkey, 1994).

Apart from physiological changes, such as the change in cortisol level, there are also “visible” physiological changes which students can perceive. Students who experience test situation as extremely stressful are tense and in that emotional state tend to focus more on their internal bodily signs. They can notice different physiological changes, i.e., psychosomatic symptoms (Havelka, 1998) or subjective health problems (Eriksen, Ihlebæk, & Ursin, 1999) as a reaction to stress. Psychosomatic symptoms refer to symptoms experienced by the individual without a defined diagnosis or somatic disease (Haugland, Wold, Stevenson, Aaroe, & Woynarowska, 2001; Torsheim & Wold, 2001). In literature, test anxiety is often stated as characteristic which predisposes individuals to react negatively to an exam (Keogh & French, 2001; Zeidner, 1991). Psychosomatic symptoms are one of the negative outcomes of such predisposition. It has been determined that the test period is associated with an increase in stress experience and also with higher levels of self-reported symptoms (Glaser et al., 1987). A student perceives test situation as threatening and therefore develops emotional reactions such as dissatisfaction, fear, or worry. Such emotions are mediators in relation between academic stressors and psychosomatic symptoms, because they are responsible for physiological and behavioral changes connected with the psychosomatic symptoms (Hjern, Gösta, & Östberg, 2008; Natvig, Alberktsen, Anderssen, & Qvarnstrøm, 1999).

If they continue to occur over a longer period of time, psychosomatic symptoms can develop into various somatic diseases and cause permanent damage to body system and organs (Havelka, 1998). Also, they are often the major symptoms of psychiatric problems such as depression, personality disorders, and anxiety (Haugland et al., 2001).

The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between trait anxiety, test anxiety, level of cortisol, psychosomatic symptoms, perception of test difficulty, and final grade. Additionally, it wanted to investigate the difference between the students who passed the exam from those who did not.

Materials and Methods Participants One hundred and sixteen students (70 females and 46 males), ages 18-22 years, who enrolled in the first year at the School of Medicine in Rijeka in the academic year 2010/2011 participated in the study. They were students of integrated undergraduate and graduate university course in medicine (N = 89) and students of integrated undergraduate and graduate university course in dental medicine (N = 27).

Instruments Saliva sample was used in the laboratory analysis of cortisol to obtain physiological measurement of students’ anxiety level just before taking an exam. Laboratory procedure of determining the level of salivary cortisol was based on the use of monoclonal antibodies to cortisol which are competitively bound to cortisol.

Research was based on EIA (enzyme immunoassay), and for that purpose, 96-well microtitration plate with a flat bottom shape which adsorbed specific monoclonal antibodies was used. Reference values of salivary cortisol range between 0.112 to 0.743 µg/dL for men and between 0.272 to 1.348 µg/dL for women who are both 21 to 30 years of age. In this research, only 5 out of 116 samples were processed due to insufficent amount of saliva in other samples.

STAI (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; Spielberger, 2000) was used to examine relatively stable individual

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differences in tendency to anxiety. The level of trait anxiety was assessed using a 5-point Likert-type scale whereby the examinees assess the way they generally feel (0 = “I never feel that way”; 4 = “I almost always feel that way”). Higher score indicates higher level of trait anxiety. The questionnaire shows high reliability on this particular sample (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.92).

TAI (Test Anxiety Inventory; Taylor & Deane, 2002) was used to measure the frequency of experiencing specific anxiety symptoms which occur before, during and after different exams. Apart from using the questionnaire to measure general level of test anxiety, it can also be used to measure levels of emotional (physiological) and cognitive test anxiety (worry). However, in this research a single factor inventory was used.

The level of test anxiety was assessed using a 4-point Likert-type scale (0 = “Never”; 3 = “Very often, almost always”). Higher score indicates higher level of test anxiety. A high level of reliability of the questionnaire has been determined (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.94).

SHC (Subjective Health Complaints Inventory; Eriksen et al., 1999) assess the intensity of subjective psychical and psychological symptoms. In the original version of the inventory the symptoms cluster into five subscales: musculoskeletal (e.g., arm pain, neck pain), pseudoneurological (e.g., anxiety, tiredness), gastrointestinal (e.g., stomach discomfort, diarrhoea), allergic (e.g., breathing difficulties, eczema), and flu-like symptoms (e.g., cough, cold). The examinees had to report to what extent they have been affected by each of these symptoms in the past seven days using a 5-point Likert-type scale (0 = “Not at all”; 4 = “A lot”). It is possible to render the result as a linear sum of examinees’ assessment given on a particular subscale and as a sum of answers on all the items of the inventory that provides information on the intensity of all psychosomatic symptoms. Higher score indicates higher intensity of psychosomatic symptoms occurrence. For the purpose of this research, the overall result of the Subjective Health Complaints Inventory was used as a measure of intensity of psychosomatic symptoms occurrence. This questionnaire shows high reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.92).

Procedure The investigation was carried out in groups in a situation of taking a very difficult written examination in anatomy course. It was divided into three phases. Just before the exam scheduled for 9 am, examinees filled in TAI and provided saliva samples that were stored in cups and kept at a –20ºC until the laboratory analysis.

Examinees were asked to assess the level of difficulty of the exam on 4-point scale and to state the grade they expect to achieve. Out of 108 students that stated their perception of test difficulty, 40 said that the exam was very difficult, 48 considered it as pretty difficult, 24 as somewhat difficult and just one student found the exam not difficult at all. Immediately after the exam, examinees filled in SHC. A week after the exam they filled in STAI and stated the grade they achieved. Out of 91 students who stated their grade, 33 of them failed the exam (36%), while 58 students passed it (64%).

Results To determine the correlation between examined variables, Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated.

Results are shown in Table 1.

As expected, psychosomatic symptoms positively correlate with trait anxiety and test anxiety. Expected grade and final grade show significant positive correlation. Final grade is also negatively correlated with perception of test difficulty as well as with trait anxiety, but not test anxiety. Although there were only five

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samples of cortisol that were analyzed in the laboratory, the level of salivary cortisol showed significant positive correlation with overall psychosomatic symptoms.

Table 1 Correlation Between Examined Variables 1 1. Perception of test difficulty

2

3

4

5

6

1 -0.39**

2. Grade expected 3. Final grade

1

**

0.60**

*

-0.28**

-0.36

4. Trait anxiety

0.22

*

*

1 -0.34**

1

-0.20

0.59**

1

5. Test anxiety

0.25

-0.24

6. Psychosomatic symptoms

0.04

-0.13

0.03

0.55**

0.68**

1

7. Cortisol

0.20

-0.10

0.30

0.40

0.66

0.97**

*

Note. p < 0.05,

**

7

1

p < 0.01.

In order to determine the difference in the level of trait anxiety, test anxiety, perception of test difficulty, and psychosomatic symptoms between the students who failed the exam and those who passed, a one-way ANOVA (analysis of variance) for independent groups was conducted. Analysis determined that there is a significant effect of exam results on the level of trait anxiety. Students who failed the exam showed higher level of trait anxiety compared to those students who passed it. Furthermore, it has been established that exam results have significant effect on the assessment of exam difficulty. Students who failed the exam assessed it as more difficult than those students who passed the exam. There is no significant effect of exam difficulty on test anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms. Results are shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Difference Between Students Who Passed and Those Who Failed the Exam in Trait Anxiety, Test Anxiety, Perception of Test Difficulty and Psychosomatic Symptoms Students who failed the exam

F Trait anxiety

F(1,79) = 8.41** **

Students who passed the exam

N

M

Sd

N

M

Sd

26

37.69

11.21

55

29.47

12.22

0.67

Perception of test difficulty

F (1,83) = 9.77

32

2.47

53

1.94

0.79

Test anxiety

F(1,79) = 0.44

26

31.77

10.4

55

29.99

11.74

Psychosomatic symptoms

F (1,83) = 0.15

31

27.39

17.30

54

28.98

18.33

**

Note. p < 0.01.

In order to determine contribution of trait anxiety and test anxiety to psychosomatic symptoms, a hierarchical regression analysis was performed. Trait anxiety was introduced first, given that it represents stable and more permanent disposition variable, and then test anxiety as a more specific individual characteristic was introduced. These two predictors explain 49% of variance in psychosomatic symptoms. Trait anxiety proved to be a significant positive predictor of psychosomatic symptoms, explaining 30% of variance in criteria.

Contribution of trait anxiety in explaining variance in psychosomatic symptoms although lower, remained significant after introducing test anxiety. Apart from trait anxiety, test anxiety is a significant positive predictor of psychosomatic symptoms, explaining additional 19% of variance in psychosomatic symptoms. Table 3 shows the results of the hierarchical regression analysis.

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Table 3 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for the Psychosomatic Symptoms Criteria Psychosomatic symptoms Predictors Beta ΔR2 R2 ** ** 1st step Trait anxiety 0.55 0.30 0.30** * Trait anxiety 0.22 2nd step 0.49** 0.19** Test anxiety 0.55** Notes. ΔR2: contribution of single predictor group to explained variance; R2: overall contribution to explained variance; *p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01.

Discussion Generations of students of the School of Medicine in Rijeka have regarded the anatomy exam as extremely stressful. In order to verify such claims, we conducted a research with first-year medical students and first-year students of dental medicine.

As expected, students who were more anxious while taking the exam, perceived it as difficult, expected to achieve lower grade and were more affected by psychosomatic symptoms compared to students who were less anxious. In addition, they tend to be more anxious in different situations.

Furthermore, students who tend to be more anxious in different situations and who perceived the exam as difficult were more troubled by psychosomatic symptoms and expected to achieve a lower grade and indeed, their final grade was lower when compared to students who were less anxious.

Cortisol, as a physiological measure of stress, is significantly correlated with the intensity of psychosomatic symptoms in students. Given that only five salivary cortisol samples were analyzed, we can conclude that among those five students those who had higher level of cortisol were more troubled by psychosomatic symptoms. However, more samples should be analyzed in order to reach more reliable conclusion.

Students who achieved lower grade, perceived the exam as difficult and expected their grade to be lower compared to students who achieved a higher final grade.

Results of differences in the level of trait anxiety, test anxiety, perception of test difficulty, and the intensity of psychosomatic symptoms occurrence between students who passed the exam and those who did not, show that students who did not pass the exam are higher in trait anxiety and show more negative perception of test difficulty compared to students who passed the exam. There are no difference in the level of test anxiety and discomfort caused by psychosomatic symptoms that depend on exam results, even though students in this study express relatively higher test anxiety (M = 31.16; SD = 12.02) compared to students of humanities and social sciences at the University of Rijeka who took a difficult exam (M = 26.51; SD = 10.55) (Juretić, 2008).

Exam results might be influenced by considerable amount of material that is being examined through both oral and written examination. Written examination is a precondition to take the oral examination and to pass the written examination 50% of questions should be answered correctly.

Although on average, students do not assess to be highly disconcerted by psychosomatic symptoms (average assessment of each questionnaire section is 1.02), the research determined that there is a significant contribution of trait anxiety to the explanation of the psychosomatic symptoms occurrence. Apart from trait anxiety, test anxiety is a significant positive predictor of psychosomatic symptoms. Students who generally tend to be more anxious will experience a higher level of anxiety during the exam, i.e., they will be more

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worried and will show a tendency to notice their physiological changes. Students who experience higher test anxiety are more disturbed by different psychosomatic symptoms compared to those who express lower test anxiety. This result is in accordance with findings of previous research on increased likelihood of psychosomatic symptoms occurrence in exam situations in students who express higher test anxiety (Glaser et al., 1987; Greene & Walker, 1997; Poikolainen, Kanerva, & Lonnqvist, 1995). As stated in the introduction, exam period is connected with an increased experience of stress and with higher level of self-evaluated disease symptoms (Glaser et al., 1987).

When interpreting research results and reaching a conclusion, it is necessary to mention certain research limitations. First of all, this type of measuring physiological changes is incomplete because our physiological system is so complex that just one measure of physiological functioning does not reflect the real image of our body when it is in a stressful situation. Moreover, there is a flaw in methodology of cortisol analysis because various factors that affect its level have not been controlled. Also, saliva sample was only taken in a stressful situation so there is no data on referential basic level of cortisol among participants.

Other measurements were conducted in the form of questionnaires and represent measures of self-report so it is inevitable to avoid the attempt of the participants to present themselves in the best possible way thus providing socially desirable answers.

Conclusion Although there is no difference in expressing test anxiety and discomfort caused of psychosomatic symptoms between successful and unsuccessful students, results indicate that there is a significant contribution of test anxiety to discomfort caused by psychosomatic symptoms. It is possible that the high level of discomfort before the exam does not interfere with test achievement that much, but rather it contributes to subjective student’s suffering which manifests through different psychosomatic symptoms.

This data indicates the need to reorganize teaching classes and the examination in anatomy course. It could be divided into smaller parts with smaller number of ECTS points thus reducing the students’ workload and subsequent stress.

We propose that further research carries out an experimental verification of effects that different test administration could have on the success and the intensity of psychosomatic symptoms on the generations to come.

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Allen, P. I., Batty, K. A., Dodd, C. A., et al. (1985). Dissociation between emotional and endocrine responses preceding an academic examination in male medical students. J. Endocrol, 107(2), 163-170.

Elizabeth, J., Dayananda, G., Kusumadevi, M. S., Sunil, K. C., Sujayasri, S., & Suhas, S. (2009). The response of serum cortisol and leptin levels to academic stress. Online J. Health Allied Scs., 8(3), 7. Retrived March 30th, 2011, from http://www.ojhas.org/issue31/2009-3-7.htm Eriksen, H. R., Ihlebæk, C., & Ursin, H. (1999). A scoring system for subjective health complaints. Scand J. Public Health, 27, 63-72.

Frankenhaeuser, M., Rauste, von Wright M., Collins, A., Von Wright, J., Sedvall, G., & Swahn, C. G. (1978). Sex differences in psychoneuroendocrine reactions to examination stress. Psychosomat Med, 40(4), 334-343.

Glaser, R., Pearl, D. K., Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K., & Malarkey, M. B. (1994). Plasma cortisol levels and reactivation of latent Epstein-Barr virus in response to examination stress. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 19(8), 765-772.

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Glaser, R., Rice, J., Sheridan, J. et al. (1987). Stress-related immune suppression: Health implications. Brain Behav Immun, 1(1), 7-20.

Greene, J. W., & Walker, L. S. (1997). Psychosomatic problems and stress in adolescence. Pediatr. Clin. North Am., 44(6), 1557-1572.

Haugland, S., Wold, B., Stevenson, J., Aaroe, L. E., & Woynarowska, B. (2001). Subjective health complaints in adolescence: A cross-national comparison of prevalence and dimensionality. Eur. J. Public Health, 11(1), 4-10.

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Hjern, A., Gösta, A., & Östberg, V. (2008). School stressors, psychological complaints and psychosomatic pain. Acta Pædiatrica, 97, 112-117.

Hong, E. (1998). Differential stability of individual differences in state and trait test anxiety. Learning and Individual Differences, 10(1), 51-69.

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Martinek, L., Oberascher-Holzinger, K., Weishuhn, S., Klimesch, W., & Kerschbaum, H. H. (2003). Anticipated academic examinations induce distinct cortisol responses in adolescent pupils. Neuroendocrinol Lett, 4(6), 449-453.

Natvig, G. K., Alberktsen, G., Anderssen, N., & Qvarnstrøm, U. (1999). School-related stress and psychosomatic symptoms among school adolescents. Journal of School Health, 69(9), 362-368.

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Psychology Research, ISSN 2159-5542 April 2014, Vol. 4, No. 4, 259-264

DAVID

PUBLISHING

USPPDT (University Student Psychosocial Problems Development Theory) Norman David Nsereko

Seggane Musisi

Nkumba University, Entebbe, Uganda

Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda

USPPDT (University Student Psychosocial Problems Development Theory) is a psychological model that seeks to explain university students’ mental health. The model is an outcome of a Ph.D. study at Nkumba University that developed and validated an instrument to measure university students’ psychosocial problems in Uganda. USPPDT is multidimensional suggesting that emotional, academic, antisocial behaviour problems and traumatic experiences, student demographic characteristics, study program characteristics and student related burden characteristics explain and predict psychosocial problems among university students. USPPDT posits that psychosocial vulnerability which has been identified as emotional, academic, antisocial behavior problems and traumatic experiences through a psychometrically sound instrument has a role to play in the understanding of university students’ mental health problems.

Keywords: theory, psychosocial problems, university students, multidimensional model, mental illness

Background and Orientation USPPDT (University Student Psychosocial Problems Development Theory) is a psychological model that seeks to explain university students’ mental health with the theoretical reasons the important connections that we think describe most of what is going on in the phenomenon of psychosocial problems among university students. This is done by considering a multidimensional approach to understanding mental illness as suggested by the contendingbiopsychosocial model of mental health that incorporates the social, psychological, and behavioural dimensions of mental illness (Engel, 1977). The model was developed in response to the gaps in understanding university students’ mental health problems.

The model is an outcome of a Ph.D. study at Nkumba University that developed and validated an instrument to measure university students’ psychosocial problems in Uganda (Nsereko, Musisi, & Holtzman, 2014). USPPDT provided empirically supported frameworks that explained student psychosocial problems.

Emotional, academic, antisocial behavior problems and traumatic experiences, accounted for a high variance explained of R2 = 0.74 (74%) while students’ demographic characteristics, study program characteristics and student related burden characteristics accounted for a variance explained of R2 = 0.22 (22%) of psychosocial problems. Psychosocial problems are referred to as those internalizing and externalizing difficulties experienced by an individual student that influence the effective dispositions in mental health.

The model was grounded on an adapted conceptual framework of PSWB (psychosocial well-being) Norman David Nsereko, Department of Guidance and Counselling, Nkumba University.

Seggane Musisi, Ph.D., professor, senior researcher, Makerere University.

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(Laelia Apicella, Brakarsh, Dube, Jemison et al., 2006). In the model, it was hypothesized that psychosocial problems are influenced by (1) individual factors and experiences (innate personality characteristics, family or household structure, personal exposure to emotional stress and trauma, and socioeconomic status); and (2) contextual factors, e.g., adjustment problems at universities, academic issues, peer influence, relationship issues, economic hardships, new western life styles, e.g., sports gambling/betting, health insecurities, uncertainties in the world of work and the sociopolitical environment. These factors are mutually interconnected.

Discussion Gaps in a Multidimensional Approach to Mental Health Illness It has been documented that students face multiple protective and risk factors to developing mental health illness (Kneser, 2004; Kitzrow, 2003). They face increasing expectations and demands placed on them by their family members, the university and the changing societal environmental expectations of today and extreme pressure to achieve academically. They also face developmental challenges including increased freedoms, challenging family beliefs, engaging in risky behaviours and concerns regarding sex and HIV/AIDS, as well as dealing with cross-cultural issues, family dysfunctions, alcoholism etc. (Brown-Ogrodnick, 2004; Harper & Peterson, 2005; Stallman, 2008; Holmes, Silvestri, & Kostakos, 2011).

A backing factor to this pattern is that situations commonly associated with the onset of mental health problems are habit-forming in the college/university environment (Stallman, 2008; Blanco, Okuda, Wright, Hasin, Grant et al., 2008; Holmes et al., 2011).

A large number of university students may thus be unhappy and emotionally upset but those who manifested major clinical anxiety and depression were only a small percentage which could be clinically determined (Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA, 1995). Their true internal pathology through psychiatric assessment, accounted for a relatively small percentage in the overall emotional and psychosocial disturbances which the students faced (Eisenberg, Gollust, Golberstein, & Hefner, 2007). Indeed, those who might have these major disorders may not necessarily be caused by internal pathology but by other psychosocial factors such as antisocial behaviour (Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA, 1995).

A critical review of current literature and research in mental health reveals a number of gaps in understanding university students’ mental health and the risk factors to the development of psychosocial problems. University student’s mental health problems are constructed within increasingly narrow theoretical, clinical and research frameworks (Mowbray & Holter, 2002). These emphasize a medical and pathology based construction of student’s behavior looking at syndromes such as depression or anxiety (Eisenberg et al., 2007; Ovuga, Boardman, & Wasserman, 2006) rather than one that takes into account the meaning of student’s psychosocial contextual variables (Engel, 1977; Nsereko, Musisi, Nakigudde, & Holtzman, 2014). These studies have concentrated on unidimensional aspects of these problems and less is known about potential risk factors within young adults, and student populations in particular to constitute psychosocial problems. Others have studied particular aspects to include demographics, e.g., sex, age (Silverman, Meyer, Sloane, Raffel, & Pratt, 1997); student economic issues (Roberts, Golding, Towell, & Weinreb, 1999); experiences of sexual victimization (Stepakoff, 1998), depression, anxiety, and suicidality (Ovuga, 2005; Eisenberg et al., 2007); sexual identity or problematic relationships (Kisch, Leino, & Silverman, 2005); students’ academics issues (Svanum & Zody, 2001; MdYasin & Dzulkifli, 2009; Atindanbila & Azasu, 2011); personality traits (Tosevski, Milovancevic, & Gajic, 2010) indicating that a multidimensional aspect of psychosocial problems is widely

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ignored. These researchers have theoretically suggested a number of psychological, educational, and physiological-related characteristics that were likely to have a relationship with unidimensional psychosocial problems. The risk factors to psychosocial compromised status among university students are therefore not conclusive on available literature (Nsereko, Musisi, Nakigudde, & Ssekiwu, 2014).

On the other hand, a number of psychosocial theories has been developed and grouped into two main categories namely social cognition models and stage models. These models have been developed to predict, explain, and change health behavior that influences, or is believed to influence, physical health outcomes, either by increasing or decreasing their risk or severity. The social cognition models specify a small number of cognitive and affective factors (“beliefs and attitudes”) as the proximal determinants of behavior. For instance, the Health Belief Model (Becker, 1974) sought to explain why some people do not use health services such as immunization and screening. The stage models use similar concepts but organize them in a different way whereby behavior change involves movement through a sequence of discrete, qualitatively distinct, stages. The most commonly used model of this category, TTM (the Transtheoretical Model) includes 15 different theoretical constructs drawn from different theories of behavior change outlining the processes of change in psychotherapy and smoking cessation (Sutton, 2002). The models do not address the hypothesized framework of the presence of psychosocial problems as influenced by individual factors and experiences and contextual factors to explain mental health illness among university students.

Etiology of Mental Health Illness Research has indicated that each individual has a degree of vulnerability for the development of mental health problems such as schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, etc.. This can happen due to a combination of biological factors which include, genetics, chemical imbalances in the body or damage to the central nervous system, such as head injury and environmental influences which include exposure to environmental toxins, such as high levels of lead, exposure to violence, such as witnessing or being the victim of physical or sexual abuse, drive-by shootings, muggings, or other disasters; stress related to chronic poverty, discrimination, or other serious hardships; and the loss of important people through death, divorce, or broken relationships (SAMHSA’S National Mental Health Information Center, 2003; Mowbray & Holter, 2002).

The boundaries between health and disease, between well and sick, are far from clear and never will be clear, for they are diffused by biological, cultural, social, and psychological considerations (Engel, 1977).

Adolescents in particular have been found to suffer from psychosocial problems at one time or the other during their development. Lucas (1976) noted that a group of psychosocial problems than psychiatric illness have been identified to occur to university students at particular times: in relation to entering university, often in relation to study, or examinations or both and in relation to important events in personal and family life.

Many of these problems are transitory and are often not noticed. (Ahmad, Khalique, Khan, & Amir, 2007).

Broader Approach to Mental Health Illness The biopsychocial model of mental illness is being proposed today by a new direction for mental health called “critical-psychiatry” as a comprehensive approach to addressing mental health issues in the current mental health debate (Double, 2006). The new contending school of thought suggests an alternative approach to mental illness that incorporates the social, psychological, and behavioural dimensions of mental illness (Engel, 1977).

This approach gives priority to the significance of social, political, and cultural contexts, to the

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interpretation of empirical knowledge and to meaningful psychological experiences for the understanding of mental illness. It argues that mental health practice does not need to be based on an individualistic framework centred on medical diagnosis and treatment (Double, 2006). Particular experiences among different cohorts can be derived to offer specific explanations to mental health vulnerability.

As a hybrid of the different models in approaching mental illness, the biological component would provide the understanding of the somatic component of the illness. The psychological aspects (thoughts, emotions, and behaviours) would offer the psychological causes of the problem by looking at issues like lack of self-control, emotional problems and cognitive influences. The social component would provide the understanding of the social-interpersonal world in which the individual lives by looking at such issues like the social economic status, culture, flaws in parenting, family interactions, stressful situations, or changes in life circumstances, occupation status, etc., that may predispose one to mental illness (Mowbray & Holter, 2002).

The proponents of the biopsychosocial model also urge that there is a necessity to broaden the understanding and approach to disease by including psychosocial without sacrificing the enormous advantage of the biomedical approach (Engel, 1977). This means that by taking into account the patient, the social context, in which he/she lives, and the complementary system devised by society to deal with the disruptive effects of illness (the physician role, the health care system) will inevitably provide the basis for understanding the determinants of disease and arriving at rational treatments and patterns of health care (Engel, 1977; Double, 2006). Critical psychologists and their followers therefore consider a biopsychosocial model as the ideal in addressing mental health illness.

The theory proposed (see Figure 1) identifies with the growing school of thought that moves away from the unifactorial model for understanding the etiology, course or outcome of mental illness among the student population (Reijneveld, Vogels, Brugman, Van Ede, Verhulst, & Verloove-Vanhorick, 2003; Zuckerman, 1999; Lucas; 1976, Engel, 1977; Double, 2006) to suggest a broader understanding of a particular multidimensional aspect of psychosocial problems leading to university studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; mental health problems. It posits that psychosocial vulnerability which has been identified as emotional, academic, antisocial problems and traumatic experiences through a psychometrically sound instrument and supported by demographic variables has a role to play in the explanation and understanding of university studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; mental illness.

Core Assumptions and Statements USPPDT is multidimensional suggesting that emotional, academic, antisocial problems and traumatic experiences, student demographic characteristics, study program characteristics and student related burden characteristics explain and predict psychosocial problems among university students. As long as the items underlying a given factor are perceived by an individual as significant they are assumed to lead to a high probability of a compromised psychosocial status. All factors considered together are commonly assumed to predict the likelihood of psychosocial problems and each factor can individually lead to psychosocial problems.

All the factors have strong correlations among themselves. Emotional problems represent the internalizing aspect of psychosocial problems with internal dispositions like lack of sleep or sleeping too much, stress, anger, and fear. The academic problems constitute those difficulties that impede academic performance and sustainability. These include motivational factors to study, study outcomes, classroom related behaviours and examination issues. The antisocial behaviour include any behavior being verbal or non-verbal that is not accepted by society and often causes personal harm and to others or may offend others or may destroy property.

Â

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Antisocial behaviour may be gang related behaviours, all types of abuse any behavior an individual would be ashamed of. Traumatic experiences represent threats possessed to an individual and are stressful and may include exposure to family problems, lack of financial support and all adjustment problems at the university, failed relationships, etc.. The student demographic characteristics include age, the study program characteristics include study program, income level of the parents to support the student and living in off campus dormitories, and student related burden characteristics include perception of health, having a previous mental health problem and having a chronic health condition.

Figure 1. USPPDT (University Student Psychosocial Problems Development Theory).

Conclusion The USPPDT has demonstrated that it can explain and predict psychosocial problems of university students in a developing world. It can be used in conjunction with USEPP scales for assessment of clients with psychosocial problems and for research purposes.

References Ahmad, A., Khalique, N., Khan, Z., & Amir, A. (2007). Prevalence of psychosocial problems among school going male adolescents. Indian Journal of Community Medicine, 32, 219-221.

Atindanbila, S., & Azasu, E. (2011). The types and occurrence of psychosocial problems of distance education (DE) students: A study of a university in Ghana. Journal of Business Research, 5(1 & 2), 38-49.

Barrios, L. C., Everett, S. A., Simon, T. R., & Brener, N. D. (2000). Suicide ideation among U.S. college students. Associations with other injury risk behaviors. Journal of American College Health, 48, 229-233.

Becker, M. H. (1974). The health belief model and personal health behavior. Thorofare, New Jersey: Slack.

Blanco, C., Okuda, M., Wright, C., Hasin, D. S., Grant, B. F., Liu, S., & Olfson, M. (2008). Mental health of college students and their non-college-attending peers: Results from the national epidemiologic study on alcohol and related conditions. Archives of General Psychiatry, 65, 1429-1437.

Brown-Ogrodnick, A. D. (2004). Factors that influence health services utilization for emotional or mental health reasons among university students (Unpublished masters thesis, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon).

Center for Mental Health in Schools at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). (1995). School Mental Health Project at UCLA. Retrieved June 23, 2011, from smhp.psych.ucla.edu Double, D. B. (2006). Paradigm shift in psychiatry: Processes and outcomes. Retrieved March 21, 2012, from http://www.critpsynet.freeuk.com/paradigm.htm Eisenberg, D., Gollust, S. E., Golberstein, E., & Hefner, J. L. (2007). Prevalence and correlates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality among university students. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 77(4), 534-542. Â

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Engel, L. G. (1977). The need for a new medical model: A challenge for biomedicine. Science, New Series, 196(4286), 129-136.

Harper, R., & Peterson, M. (2005). Mental health issues and college students. NACADA Clearinghouse of Academic Advising Resources. Retrieved January 10, 2011, from http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/clearinghouse/advisingissues/mental-health.htm Holmes, A., Silvestri, R., & Kostakos, M. (2011). The impact of mental health problems in the community college student population. Toronto: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.

Kitzrow, M. A. (2003). The mental health needs of today’s college students: Challenges and recommendations. Retrieved June 20, 2012, from depts.washington.edu/apac/roundtable/1-23-07_mental_health_needs.pdf Kneser, G. (2004, April). College students leading hyper-enriched lives. Retrieved March 20, 2011, from http://www.stolaf.edu/ president/enewsletter/0404.html#2 Laelia, G., Apicella, L., Brakarsh, J., Dube, L., Jemison, K., Kluckow, M., Smith, T., & Snider, L. (2006). Orphans and vulnerable youth in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe: An exploratory study of psychosocial well-being and psychosocial support.

Retrieved June 18, 2012, from www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/horizons/zimorphans.pdf Lucas, C. J. (1976). Aspects of student health psychological problems of students. British Medical Journal, 2, 1431-1433.

Md Yasin, A. S., & Dzulkifli, M. A. (2009). Differences in psychological problems between low and high achieving students. The Journal of Behavioral Science, 4(1), 49-58.

Mikolajczyk, R. T., Brzoska, P., Maier, C., Ottova, V., Meier, S., Dudziak, U., Ilieva, S., & El Ansari, W. (2008). Factors associated with self-rated health status in university students: A cross-sectional study in three European countries. Public Health, 8, 215-225.

Mowbray, C. T., & Holter, M. C. (2002). Mental health and mental illness: Out of the closet? Social Science Review, 76(1), 135-179.

Nsereko, N., Musisi, S., & Holtzman, S. (2014). Evaluation of psychosocial problems among African university students in Uganda: Development and validation of a screening instrument. Psychology Research, 2(4).

Nsereko, D. N., Musisi, S., Nakigudde, J., & Holtzman, S. (2014). Prevalence, types, distribution and associations of psychosocial problems among university students in Uganda. International Journal of Research Studies in Psychology, Available online March 17, 2014.

Nsereko, D. N., Musisi, S., Nakigudde, J., & Ssekiwu, D. (2014). Psychosocial problems and development of psychopathology among Ugandan university students. International Journal of Research Studies in Psychology, Available online February 23, 2014.

Ovuga, E., Boardman, J., & Wasserman, D. (2006). Undergraduate student mental health at Makerere University, Uganda. World Psychiatry, 5(1), 51-52.

Reijneveld, S. A., Vogels, A. G .C., Brugman, E., Van Ede, J., Verhulst, F. C., & Verloove-Vanhorick, S. P. (2003). Early detection of psychosocial problems in adolescent: How useful is the Dutch short indicative questionnaire (KIVPA)?

European Journal of Public Health, 13, 152-159.

Roberts, R., Golding, J., Towell, T., & Weinreb, I. (1999). The effects of economic circumstances on British students’ mental and physical health. Journal of American College Health, 48, 103-110.

SAMHSA’S National Mental Health Information Center. (2003). Selected mental health publications. Retrieved June 30, 2013, from http://www.idexter.com/understanding/depression/samhsa/8_samhsa_publications.pdf Silverman, M. M., Meyer, P. M., Sloane, F., Raffel, M., & Pratt, D. M. (1997). The big ten student suicide study: A 10-year study of suicides on Midwestern University campuses. Suicide Life Threatening Behaviour, 27, 285-303.

Stallman, H. M. (2008). Prevalence of psychological distress in university students: Implications for service delivery. Australian Family Physician, 3(8), 673-677.

Stepakoff, S. (1998). Effects of sexual victimization on suicidal ideation and behavior in U.S. college women. Suicide Life Threatening Behaviour, 28, 107-126.

Sutton, S. (2002). Health behavior: Psychosocial theories. Retrieved March 11, 2013, from userpage.fu-berlin.de/~schuez/folien/ Sutton.pdf Svanum, S., & Zody, Z. (2001). Psychopathology and college grades. Journal of Counselling Psychology, 48, 72-76.

Tosevski, D. L., Milovancevic, M. P., & Gajic, S. D. (2010). Personality and psychopathology of university students. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 23, 48-52.

Zuckerman, M. (1999). Vulnerability to psychopathology: A biosocial model. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

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An Examination of the Mere Proximity Effect of Obesity Discrimination in Children in Chinese Culture* Ai Chen, Shan Yin, Hui-Yi Tang, Zuo-Jun Wang Ningbo University, Ningbo, China This study investigated the mere proximity effect of obesity discrimination in children in Chinese culture. One hundred and thirty children between 9 and 14 years old were asked to indicate how much they would like or to be friends with a target character, who was either male or female and average-weight or overweight. The target character was presented with four other background characters of the same gender, whom were either average-weight or overweight. The findings demonstrated that female targets were preferred less when presented with overweight background characters than when presented with average-weight background characters. However, male targets were preferred more when presented with overweight background characters than when presented with average-weight background characters. The findings indicated an anti-fat mere proximity effect in female children but a contrary effect in male children in Chinese culture. These findings may have implications for a better understanding of weight bias from a cultural perspective.

Keywords: obesity discrimination, mere proximity effect, children, Chinese culture

Introductionď&#x20AC; Social stigma towards obese youths is pervasive and can have serious consequences for both emotional and physical health of these obese children and adolescents (e.g., Puhl & Latner, 2007). Some research has shown that the stigmatization of obesity would generalize to those who have, or not have, a relationship with a stigmatized individual (Hebl & Mannix, 2003; Neuberg, Smith, Hoffman, & Russell, 1994; Penny & Haddock, 2007a, 2007b). An interesting study by Hebl and Mannix (2003) revealed that an average-weight male job applicant was assessed negatively when he was perceived as sitting next to an overweight female stranger, as much as he was perceived as sitting next to his overweight girlfriend. The phenomenon that obesity stigma would generalize to average-weight individuals who was proximity to the obese individual was termed the mere proximity effect (Hebl & Mannix, 2003).

Given that close proximity is very important in children socialization and forming friends, Penny and Haddock (2007a) examined whether the mere proximity effect of obesity would occur in children. In their study, a target character who was either male or female and either average-weight or overweight with four other *

Acknowledgments: The National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31200791), the Humanity and Social Science Youth foundation of Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. 12YJC190029) and the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. LQ12G01001) supported this paper.

Ai Chen, B.S., Department of Psychology, Ningbo University.

Shan Yin, B.S., Department of Psychology, Ningbo University.

Hui-Yi Tang, B.S., Department of Psychology, Ningbo University.

Zuo-Jun Wang, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Ningbo University.

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background characters of the same gender, all of whom were either average-weight or overweight, was presented to 5-10 years old children. The participants were asked to indicate whether they would like to be friends with a target character. The results showed that overall, overweight targets were liked significantly less than average-weight targets, and in line with the mere proximity effect that average-weight female targets were liked significantly less when they were presented with overweight background characters. Hence, mere proximity effect was obtained among 5-10 years old children.

Culture is known to be an interesting and important factor that may impact obesity stigma. Latner, Stunkard, and Wilson (2005) found that Asian participants liked obese individuals more than white participants, and African-American female participants liked obese individuals more than white male or female participants.

Crystal, Watanabe, and Chen (2000) found that 5th grade Japanese children had a more positive attitude toward overweight characters than American children.

Chinese culture seems especially obesity-friendly. Lee, Ho, and Hsu (1993) suggested that the Chinese have regarded plumpness as desirable and attractive. Some Chinese sayings, such as “Xin-kuan-ti-pan (心宽体 胖)” and “Fu-tai (富态)” are all positive descriptions of fat or obesity. Hao et al. (2010) found that more than 40% of the 3rd-4th grade primary school students viewed obese children as friendly, liking to make friends, self-confident, and having good appetite, though they were considered lazy, inflexible, having bad figure, and so on. Ma, Li, Han, Ren, and Xu (2004) found that about 30% senior middle school students viewed obese companions as kind, gentle, happy, friendly, sociable, strong, with good appetite, and so on, while only 20% of the students viewed obese companions as lazy, careless, puffy, slow-acting, and so on. Chinese parents apparently believe that obese children are healthier and obesity reflects their love for their children (Bush, 2003).

Another characteristic of Chinese culture related to social stigma is its hackneyed idea of preferring boys to girls (e.g., Parish & Whyte, 1980), which makes females more prone to be stigmatized than males.

Accordingly, the obesity-friendly attitude in Chinese culture may be of differential concern to male children and female children. For instance, Ma et al. (2004) found that male high school students viewed obese females as more prone to be bullied and difficulty in further employment, while female high school students viewed obese males as strong, happy, with good appetite, and so on.

The present study aimed to examine the mere proximity effect of obesity discrimination in children in Chinese culture. We assumed that the mere proximity anti-fat discrimination effect may not necessarily be observed in children in Chinese culture, especially in male children. The present study aimed to test this assumption.

Experiment Method Participants. One hundred and thirty 9-14 years old primary school students took part in this research. Of these 130 students, 25 were excluded from analyses because they did not complete the whole experiment. The final sample included 64 males and 41 females with average age at 10.88. Given that some previous researches has demonstrated that age would moderate the obesity discrimination (Latner, Stunkard, & Wilson, 2005; Powlishta, Serbin, Doyle, & White, 1994), we divided the participants into three age groups, leading to 56 (53.3%) falling in 9-10 years old, 31 (29.5%) falling in 11-12 years old and 18 (17.1%) falling in 13-14 years old.

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Materials. The materials were prepared and characterized as described by Penny and Haddock (2007b).

Ten characters (5 females, 5 males), each one of which was a colored cartoon drawing of a child, were designed.

Both an average-weight version and an overweight version were designed for each character, which were identical expect for their weight (see Figure 1). Thus, each individual character was either male or female, overweight or average-weight, and was placed on a separated card with 10cm by 15cm.

Figure 1. Characters.

Procedure and Design The study was conducted in classroom. The experimenter told participants that she was interested in how much children would like or to be friends with other children. The participants were told that they would see a picture of a person and asked: (1) how much they would like this individual; and (2) how much they would like to be friends with this individual. The response options available were “Extremely not”, “Probably not”, “Yes” or “Extremely yes” (scored from 1 to 4, with 1 indicating “Extremely not” and 4 “Extremely yes”). The target character was presented in the middle of four other background characters of the same gender, all of whom were either average-weight or overweight. The participants were told to ignore the background characters and only make judgments on the target character in the middle.

A 2 (participant gender: male and female) × 3 (age group: 9-10, 11-12, 13-14) × 2 (target gender: male and female) × 2 (target size: overweight and average-weight) × 2 (background size: overweight and average-weight) mixed-subject design was employed in the experiment. Participant gender and age group (9-10, 11-12, 13-14) were manipulated between-participant, while the last three variables were manipulated within-participant: gender of the target and background character (both male or female), target size, and the size of the background characters. Each participant was asked to response to 16 tasks, with 2 counterparts of each 8 combinations outlined above.

Results We collapsed the two measures of “being liked” and “being friends” into one dependent measure of “preference”. A 2 (participant gender) × 2 (target gender) × 2 (target size) × 2 (background size) repeated measures analysis of variance was employed. The results revealed no significant main effects of participant gender, age, target gender or background size were observed (ps > 0.05). The results also revealed a significant main effect of target size on measure of preference (F(1, 99) = 66.082, p < 0.001) and a significant two-way interaction between participant gender and target gender (F (1, 99) = 85.691, p < 0.001).

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As the most important concern of the present study, we observed a three-way interaction between target size, background size, and target gender (F(1, 99) = 1.674, p < 0.01). This interaction is further dissected as a function of target gender. The results revealed that, for male targets, the interaction between target size and background size was significant (p < 0.05) (see Table 1). However, interestingly, male targets (especially average-weight male targets) were rated higher when presented with overweight background characters than with average-weight background characters (ps < 0.05). This finding indicated that male children were preferred more when they were connected to overweight children than with average-weight children, which was contrary to the mere proximity anti-fat discrimination effect.

Table 1 Ratings of Male Target as a Function of Target Size and Background Size Average-weight Background size Average-weight Overweight

Target size Overweight

2.509 2.956

2.173 2.325

For female targets, the interaction between target size and background size was not significant (p = 0.372) (see Table 2). Further analysis demonstrated that average-weight targets were more preferred than overweight targets either when they were presented with average-weight or overweight background characters (ps < 0.001).

Furthermore, both average-weight and overweight female targets were more preferred when were presented with average-weight background characters than with overweight background characters, indicating a mere proximity effect in female children (ps < 0.001).

Table 2 Ratings of Female Target as a Function of Target Size and Background Size Average-weight Background size Average-weight Overweight

Target size Overweight

3.075 2.654

2.373 2.023

Discussion and Conclusion The present study demonstrated that male children were preferred more when they were presented with overweight background characters than when they were presented with average-weight background characters, indicating a reversed pattern of the mere proximity anti-fat discrimination effect in male children in Chinese culture. However, overweight female children were preferred less when presented with overweight background characters than with average-weight background characters, indicating a mere proximity anti-fat discrimination effect.

The findings of the present study may have implications for a better understanding of weight bias from a cultural perspective. The findings in the present study illustrated that the findings regarding the social stigma towards obese youths found in the western culture may not necessarily extended to Chinese culture. Further more, as we have found in the present study, even in the same culture, social stigma may differ across demographic groups such as gender. The findings also may have implications for social and educational policy in China. As we have suggested, Chinese culture is traditional of preference of boys to girls. Girls in China fare

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worse than boys in many dimensions: They obtain less schooling, have lower labor force participation, earn lower salaries, are more likely to be poor, and often lack fundamental rights (Duflo, 2005). One often-cited extreme manifestation of this phenomenon is that mortality rates are substantially higher for girls than for boys (S. H. Chen, Y. C. Chen, & Liu, 2010). All of these lead us to conclude that we should give girls more concern and love in China. Our study especially had a better guiding significance for caring obese girls.

Some previous research indicated that not only their playmates will exhibit bias toward obese children, but also these negative attitudes had translated into discrimination toward obese children in a number of people, including the colleagues, medical and health care workers, teachers even parents. Crandall (1991; 1995) found that parents provide less college financial support for their heavy weight daughters compared to their average-weight daughters and heavyweight or average-weight sons. Teachman and Brownell (2001) suggested that even health care specialists had strong negative associations toward obese persons. The present study only examined the attitudes of companions toward obese children in Chinese culture. Future work could examine the attitudes of adults toward male or female obese children in Chinese culture.

References Bush, K. R. (2003). Commentary: Physical and mental health of contemporary Chinese children. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 24, 397-401.

Chen, S. H., Chen, Y. C., & Liu, J. T. (2010). The effect of sibling sex composition on child mortality and education. Mimeo: Royal Holloway University of London.

Cossrow, N. H. F., Jeffery, R. W., & McGuire, M. T. (2001). Understanding weight stigmatization: A focus group study. Journal of Nutrition Education, 33, 208-214.

Crystal, D. S., Watanabe, H., & Chen, R. S. (2000). Preference for diversity in competitive and cooperative contexts: A study of American and Japanese children and adolescents. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 24(3), 348-355.

Crandall, C. S. (1991). Do heavy-weight students have more difficulty paying for college? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 606-611.

Crandall, C. S. (1995). Do parents discriminate against their heavyweight daughters? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 724-735.

Duflo, E. (2005). Gender equality in development. MIT Working Paper.

Gortmaker, S. L., Must, A., Perrin, J. M., Sobol, A. M., & Dietz, W. H. (1993). Social and economic consequences of overweight in adolescence and young adulthood. N. Engl. J. Med, 329, 1008-1012.

Hao, L. N., Li, Y. P., Du, S. M., Hu, X. Q., Yang, W., Ma, G. S., et al. (2010). Perception and attitude on obese children of urban primary school students in Beijing. Chinese Journal of School Health, 31(2), 161-163.

Hebl, M. R., & Mannix, L. M. (2003). The weight of obesity in evaluating others: A mere proximity effect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(1), 28-38.

Kirsten Krahnstoever Davison & Leann Lipps Birch. (2004). Predictors of Fat Stereotypes among 9-year-old girls and their parents. Obesity Research, 12(1), 86-94.

Latner, J. D., Stunkard, A. J., & Wilson, T. G. (2005). Stigmatized students: Age, sex, and ethnicity effects in the stigmatization of obesity. Obesity Research, 13, 1226-1231.

Lee, S., Ho, T. P., & Hsu, L. K. G. (1993). Fat phobic and non-fat phobic anorexia nervosa: A comparative study of 70 Chinese patients in Hong Kong. Psychological Medicine, 23, 999-1017.

Ma, G. S., Li, Y. P., Han, X. M., Ren, H., & Xu, Y. J. (2004). The perception and attitudes on obese adolescents of Huiwen high school students in Beijing. Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 20(11), 975-978.

Marsh, H. W., Hau, K. T., Sung, R. Y. T., & Yu, C. W. (2007). Childhood obesity, gender, actual-ideal body image discrepancies, and physical self-concept in Hong Kong children: Cultural differences in the value of moderation. Developmental Psychology, 43(3), 647-662.

Neuberg, S. L., Smith, D. M., Hoffman, J. C., & Russell, F. J. (1994). When we observe stigmatized and â&#x20AC;?normalâ&#x20AC;? individuals interacting: Stigma by association. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 196-209.

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Parish, W. L., & Whyte, M. K. (1980). Village and family in contemporary China. University of Chicago Press.

Penny, H., & Haddock, G. (2007a). Anti-fat prejudice among children: The “mere proximity” effect in 5-10 year olds. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 678-683.

Penny, H., & Haddock, G. (2007b). Children’s stereotypes of overweight children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 25, 409-418.

Puhl, R. M., & Latner, J. D. (2007). Stigma, obesity, and the health of the nation’s children. Psychological Bulletin, 133(4), 557-580.

Powlishta, K. K., Serbin, L. A., Doyle, A., & White, D. R. (1994). Gender, ethnic, and body type biases: The generality of prejudice in childhood. Developmental Psychology, 30, 526-536.

Teachman, B. A., & Brownell, K. D. (2001). Implicit anti-fat bias among health professional: us anyone immune? International Journal of Obesity, 25, 1525-1531.

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Collective Guilt Makes Conflicting Parties More Collaborative: Quasi-experimental Study of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Inna Solomatina, Ivars Austers University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia The objective of the study was to investigate the impact of collective guilt on preferences towards resolutions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The study was conducted in four different countries: Israel (proximate in-group implying a higher degree of identification with Israel) and the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia (distal in-group implying a weaker identification with Israel). The participants were 240 persons representing the general Jewish population of Israel and the Baltic countries. This research was the attempt to employ both the experimental and quasi-experimental methods to examine the role of collective guilt on preferences for Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution strategies. In general, the study showed that collective guilt was facilitated by experimental manipulation. The greater collective guilt was provoked in groups with Israeli guilt and ambiguous information. Baltic respondents were more ready to accommodate and collaborate than Israeli respondents. In general, collective guilt and age facilitated a collaborating strategy, but the perceived legitimacy of group relationships and glorification predicted a competing strategy. The more one felt collective guilt, the greater the readiness was to cooperate. The stronger the identification with Jewish people, the less the readiness was to collaborate with the out-group.

Keywords: collective guilt, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, conflict resolution, in-group identification, social identity theory

Introduction Social Identity and Collective Guilt It is almost impossible to imagine our lives without considering the relationships we have with the people who are important to us: family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, etc.. All these people form groups which influence our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. We may derive our emotional reactions to others from the group with which we identify (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Immoral activities of an in-group may be perceived as harmful to one’s group identity since the human identity is based on group belongingness and the desire to think of one’s group positively which is often related to group exonerating strategies (Wohl, Branscombe, & Klar, 2006). However, when for some reasons this is not possible, people may feel collective guilt with a strength equivalent to the threat of in-group activities in the past, to present moral standards. People may have difficulties in simultaneously avoiding self-categorization as a member of a certain group and denying their collective responsibility. If such a strategy does not work, people start to feel collective guilt in relation to the Inna Solomatina, Department of Psychology, University of Latvia.

Ivars Austers, Department of Psychology, University of Latvia.

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group (Branscombe & Doosje, 2004). Despite the fact that one may not have been involved in harming certain group members, pure associations with the guilty group may elicit such emotions as collective guilt (Wohl & Branscombe, 2005). From the moment a person starts to identify oneself with a group, he/she is less ready for confrontations with negative episodes involving the in-group. When a person feels less connected to the group, he/she is ready to recognize the negative experience. People with low identification feel relatively stronger collective guilt (Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 1998) and dispositional attribution to the behaviour of their group (Doosje & Branscombe, 2003). According to these findings, people with lower identification are more supportive of the reparation policy (Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 1998). People with a higher degree of identification feel superiority; therefore, they feel less collective guilt and do more external attributions (Doosje & Branscombe, 2003), which result in lower involvement with reparation actions (Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 1998).

Research at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century revealed contradictory results about the relationships between identification and collective guilt. For example, Doosje et al. (1998) first found negative connections, then a positive one, or did not find any connections at all (Branscombe, Slugoski, & Kappen, 2004). Under conditions of ambiguous information, people with low identification felt more collective guilt than did people with high identification (Schmitt, Branscombe, & Brehm, 2004). On the one hand, people with high identification must have a higher moral responsibility for activities of the in-group, which may mean that collective guilt can be positively related to identification. On the other hand, on the basis of social identity theory, it has been established that people who identify more with the in-group will also be more motivated to maintain positive social identity; hence, they will experience a higher degree of confrontation with negative information about the in-group and will try to find an alternative interpretation of it. According to this line of reasoning, group identification facilitates the perceived legitimacy of intergroup relationship; hence, less guilt will be experienced regarding the groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s action. By summarizing both of these approaches, identification may simultaneously be related both positively and negatively to collective guilt; this issue is still under discussion. A recent study found a non-linear effect of identification on collective guilt (Klein, Licata, & Pierucci, 2011). Respectively, it was discovered that an inverted U relationship exists between group identification and collective guiltâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;The strongest feelings of collective guilt were found for those with an average degree of identification. A negative correlation has been found between the degree of identification and recognition of the severity of harm, as well as a positive correlation between the degree of identification and the perceived legitimacy of intergroup actions (Klein, Licata, & Pierucci, 2011). In addition, a negative effect of identification on reparation support, as well as a positive correlation between collective guilt and reparation support has been found. This relationship indicates two different processes: collective guilt serves as a function of social identity, where the social identity facilitates the feeling of guilt, while collective guilt endangers social identity; thus, people with higher identification use defensive reactions (Klein, Licata, & Pierucci, 2011).

In order to solve the identification-guilt paradox, Roccas, Sagiv, Schwartz, Halevy, and Eidelson (2008) offer a new multi-dimensional model of group identification. Roccas, Klar, and Liviatan (2006) proposed looking at identification as two dimensions: attachment (a combination of importance and commitment) and glorification mode (a combination of superiority and deference). The more people glorify their group, the smaller is the collective guilt which they feel. The attachment mode is positively related to collective guilt in the case where the glorification dimension is being controlled, which means that glorification reduces the effect

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of attachment identification to collective guilt in general.

National and other social groups have their own history. Reminding a group about its history can affect current emotional reactions considerably. When people think about different aspects of their group’s history, they may feel collective pride; in turn, there are some aspects of group history which can cause collective guilt and a wish to minimize the harm. Such emotional reactions are increased, not by personal involvement in these situations, but by a categorization of the personal I as a part of the group. “Collective guilt is a group-based guilt”, which could be conceptualized as guilt that is experienced as a consequence of belonging to a group that has done something that is perceived as illegitimate (Doosje et al., 2006, p. 326). In general, four main processes in the course of the emergence of collective guilt are under discussion: self-categorization with a group that has harmed another group, an acceptance of group responsibility for the harm, recognition of illegitimate activity, and harm reparation efforts (Wohl et al., 2006). People self-categorize as members of a group, which has caused harm to another group. Group members take group responsibility for activities which caused harm to another group. Group members recognize the illegitimacy of the group activities. The size of the collective guilt will depend on the harm reparation “expenses” or costs of such efforts. From the perspective of social identity theory, an increase in the significance of the group enlarges the possibility that the individual will experience emotions coming from belonging to the group (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). People are protective of their in-group image: in-group members may try to minimize or deny the responsibility of their group for the harm, or they can admit it as legitimate (Wohl et al., 2006). Another possibility for reducing collective guilt is the mechanism of exonerating cognitions (Roccas, Klar, & Liviatan, 2004).

Negative information about the in-group’s past endangers group morality; consequently, people with high identification will do everything to deny such information. Based on the information source, people make a decision about the credibility of the information. Doosje et al. (2006) investigated the effect of information sources and national identification on collective guilt. They found that in cases when the information was presented by an out-group, participants felt less collective guilt; whereas, when the information was presented by the in-group, participants had difficulties in denying it, which resulted in higher collective guilt. The linking of this cognition with the level of identification shows that with high identification, people are more affected when the source is the in-group and consequently feel more collective guilt.

The Israel-Palestine Conflict The Israel-Palestine conflict has been widely researched in the context of different factors: collective emotions, matters of identification, socio-demographic variables, etc.. Most studies on resolutions of the Israel-Palestine conflict are correlative; and only a small part is composed of research of an experimental design (Maoz, 2009; Wohl & Branscombe, 2008). It has been found that resistance to compromise is best predicted by social confidence about the zero-sum nature of the conflict and the perceived threat from the Palestinian side. Meanwhile, readiness for compromise is positively related to sympathy for the Palestinians, which, in turn, is not connected to fear of them (Maoz & McCauley, 2005). Another explanation is linked to the attribution of illegitimacy to the Palestinians. Halperin, Bar-Tal, Nets-Zehngut, and Drori (2008) found that attribution of illegitimacy to the Palestinians is negatively related to hope and optimism in respect to conflict resolution. Dehumanization of the Palestinians facilitates aggressive activities by the Israelis (Maoz &

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McCauley, 2008). A large part of the research is devoted to the influence of the in-group victim role on forms of conflict resolution. Research of different groups discloses the following: Trust of the in-group victim role is connected to low receptiveness to new information about the conflict and low support for compromise (Bar-Tal, Chernyak-Hai, Schori, & Gundar, 2009). People, who believed that Israel bore the role of a victim, believed more in only the Jewish people having the right to Israel’s territories, were more supportive of dehumanizing ideas about Arabs and Palestinians; they ascribed the guilt for the length and failures of the conflict to the out-group; they felt a deeper hate of the out-group and, consequently, gave less support to compromise. People who were more accepting of the role of victim felt less guilt for the causes, were less ready to assume group liability and were less ready to compensate the harm caused to Palestinians. In addition, such people applied exonerating cognitions (Bar-Tal et al., 2009). Trust in the vulnerability of the in-group facilitated aggressive behaviour and less searching for compromises (Maoz & Eidelson, 2007). A recent study disclosed that trust in the in-group victim role is related to a wish to offend Palestinians and negatively related with collective guilt (Schori, Klar, & Roccas, 2009).

Some of the studies have been devoted to the effect of emotions on conflict resolution. A recent study by Halperin (2011) reveals that fear facilitates destructive methods of conflict resolution. People with stronger fear emotions, were less ready to support a compromising strategy because of the lack of security. Israeli respondents experiencing hate gave much stronger support to activities related to aggression by Israel and weaker support for compromise (Halperin, 2008).

The present study was designed in a way that it integrated both experimental manipulations of guilt, as well as quasi-experimental differences in identification—Our participants were from Israel (proximate in-group implying a higher degree of identification with Israel) and Baltic countries (distal in-group implying a weaker identification with Israel). “Diaspora” Jews probably identify themselves as Jews but not as “Israelis”. In addition to differences in level and mode of identification with Israel, there are also real differences in terms both of responsibility for and consequences of particular resolution strategies. The proximate in-group (Israeli Jews) has much more direct influence on past, present and future policy-making than the distal in-group (Baltic Jews). That is also the reason why we suggested, that Israeli Jews would be more risk-averse in their choices and employ defensive coping strategies when they would be adversely affected in ways that the Baltic Jews would not. We expected to determine the impact of collective guilt on preferences for Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution strategies. We tested two hypotheses: (1) That collective guilt would facilitate a readiness to support a collaborative strategy of conflict resolution; (2) Baltic Jews (distal in-group) would identify with Israel less than the Israelis Jews (proximate in-group) would; as a result, they would feel a stronger collective guilt and would be ready to choose a collaborative strategy to a greater extent.

Method The study was a 2 (country) × 4 (collective guilt manipulation) quasi-experiment. The country (expected to manifest a high and low identification of the participants with Israel) served as a quasi-experimental factor.

Collective guilt (high/low) was manipulated by offering different facts about the Israel-Palestine conflict to participants to read that indicate the guilt of one or other party. To determine the level of identification and collective guilt, respondents filled in two questionnaires. In addition to collective guilt, the readiness to accept

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group responsibility, the perceived legitimacy of the group relationship, and the exonerating cognitions were measured. Conflict resolution strategy (the dependent variable) was measured by a list of feasible solutions to the Israel-Palestine conflict. In addition, questions were asked about readiness for social contact with the out-group (Palestinians).

The quasi-experiment involved participants from four countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Israel.

Jewish people with their own attitudes and preferences with respect to the Israel-Palestine conflict live in each of these countries. Studies with a similar scope of interest were performed mainly in one country only, in Israel.

We treated the study sample as a set of two sub-samples: one from the Baltic countries (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) and another from Israel. The participants were recruited from schools, universities, and Jewish communities. The quasi-experiment was completely computerized.

Participants There were 240 Jewish respondents of both genders in the age range from 15 to 36 years with a mean age of 22.8 (SD = 5.06) taking part in the quasi-experiment. The mean age of Baltic participants was 22.2 (SD = 4.72), and the mean age of Israel respondents was 23.3 (SD = 5.34). There was no difference in age between the respondents t(238) = -1.67, p > 0.05. Each sub-sample contained 69 women and 51 men. Six participants from the Baltic countries described themselves as atheists, and 114—as followers of Judaism, while four participants in Israel described themselves as atheists, and 116—as followers of Judaism. The results of the χ2 test, showed no differences in the religion between the subsamples (χ2(1, N = 240) = 0.42, p > 0.05). However, there were differences in importance attached to religion in Israel (M = 3.40, SD = 1.49) vs. the Baltic countries (M = 2.97, SD = 1.18), t(238) = -2.50, p < 0.05. These results suggest that Israeli respondents are more attached to religion than Baltic respondents.

An independent-sample t-test was conducted to compare gender differences. There were some gender differences stated; respectively, there were statistically significant differences between men (M = 2.54, SD = 1.30) and women (M = 2.94, SD = 1.40) in collective guilt t(238) = 2.30, p < 0.05 and a statistically significant difference between men (M = 2.96, SD = 1.39) and women (M = 3.35 , SD = 1.32) in the importance of religion t(238) = 2.20, p < 0.05. In general, women felt collective guilt more and attached more importance to religion.

In each sub-sample, four randomized groups were formed. Each group had a different manipulation of guilt: Israeli guilt, Palestinian guilt, ambiguous guilt, and neutral information. Respectively, the first three groups had a collective guilt manipulation while the fourth served as a control group. Each experimental group consisted of 30 persons.

Measurements and Procedure Two items of identification with Israel (“Israel is important state for me”, α = 0.75) and two items of Jewish people’s identification (“Jewish people are an important group for me”, α = 0.85), together four statements from the “Identification scale with the Dutch” (Doosje et al., 2006) were used in the current research.

Four modes of attachment (“I am strongly committed to Israel”, α = 0.79) and four modes of glorification (“Other nations can learn a lot from Israel”, α = 0.74), together eight statements from the “Measure of identification with Israel” (Roccas et al., 2006) were used. Respectively, 12 statements were established in total for the measurement of identification with the in-group. Agreements with the statements ranged from 1 (“Disagree completely”) to 7 (“Completely agree”).

The research lasted four months (from January to April). Two assistants organized the quasi-experiment in

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Israel. The research was performed in two languages: Russian (in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) and Hebrew in Israel. To ensure the comparability of Russian and Hebrew experiment versions, pilot researches were conducted; no differences were found in translations. The Russian language was native language for Baltic Jews, the Hebrew was native language for Israeli Jews. First, the quasi-experiment was carried out in the Baltic countries; afterwards the Israeli sample was formed by matching age and gender. The quasi-experiment was completely computerized. The quasi-experiment was performed in a frontal mode; respectively, 2-7 people participated simultaneously. Each participant sat at computer; the process had no time limit. In the first stage of the study, the participants were asked to rate their level of identification. After that, each participant was randomly provided some experimental manipulation (reading facts about Israel’s guilt, Palestinian guilt, ambiguous guilt or neutral information). After this, a manipulation check was provided: The respondents filled in the statements on collective guilt, in-group responsibility, perceived legitimacy of the group relationship and exonerating cognitions. And finally respondents rated 14 different conflict resolutions and readiness for social contact with the out-group. At the end of the quasi-experiment, participants were asked to answer questions about their gender, age, city of residence, occupation, study program (in the case of students), religious adherence, and the importance of religion to them. The participants were also provided with a debriefing at the end of the research.

Dependent Variables The degree to which collective guilt was accepted by participants was assessed by four statements (“I feel guilty when I think about Israel’s policy towards Palestinians”, α = 0.87). These items were used from “Collective guilt measurement” (Wohl & Branscombe, 2008). In addition, two statements about in-group responsibility (“Israel assumes the key responsibility for consequences from the conflict with Palestinians”, α = 0.86) were used (Wohl & Branscombe, 2008). Two additional statements about the perceived legitimacy of group relationship (“Palestinian terrorism made Israel defend itself using its armed forces”, α = 0.51) were measured (Wohl & Branscombe, 2008). We also measured exonerating cognitions by two statements (“I think that information reflected in the previous slide is too negative in respect to Israel”, α = 0.83) (Roccas et al., 2006). Ratings were made from 1 (“Disagree completely”) to 7 (“Completely agree”).

For an evaluation of the conflict resolution strategies, participants assessed every resolution from a given list on a scale from -3 (“Completely against”) to 3 (“Support completely”). The list consisted of 14 possible resolutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Four resolutions measured collaboration (“Organize peace negotiations”, α = 0.76), three measured competition (“Jerusalem and other places belong only to Israel”, α = 0.73), three measured avoidance (“Develop relationships with other countries and not deal with Israel-Palestinian conflict”, α = 0.61), and four measured accommodation (“Israel provides some part of Jerusalem to Palestine”, α = 0.74).

A Bogardus-type scale was used to measure readiness for out-group social contact. Participants had to respectively assess the level of their readiness for involvement in contact with Palestinians. Respondents were asked: “How willing would you be to have each of the following contacts with a Palestinian”. Respondents replied on a 5-point scale anchored by 1 (“Not at all willing”) and 5 (“Definitely willing”) (Y. Bar-Tal, D. Bar-Tal, & Cohen-Hendeles, 2006; Sagiv & Schwartz, 1995). Seven items described different types of contact, for example, “living in the same neighborhood”. Responses to the seven items were averaged as an overall index of readiness for contact. The internal reliability of this index was 0.92.

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Results We expected to determine the impact of collective guilt on preferences for Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution strategies. Two hypotheses were assessed during the research: (1) That collective guilt would facilitate a readiness to support a collaborative strategy of conflict resolution; (2) Baltic Jews (distal in-group) would identify with Israel less than the Israelis Jews (proximate in-group) would; as a result, they would feel a stronger collective guilt and would be ready to choose a collaborative strategy to a greater extent.

Impact of Independent Variables An independent-sample t-test was conducted to compare identification with Israel. There was a significant difference in the score of identification with Israel between Baltic (M = 5.24, SD = 1.26) and Israeli respondents (M = 6.50, SD = 0.70), t(238) = -9.65, p < 0.001. There was a significant difference in the score of the identification attachment mode between Baltic (M = 4.93, SD = 1.14) and Israeli respondents (M = 6.20, SD = 0.84), t(238) = -9.86, p < 0.001. Respectively, Israeli respondents had a higher identification with the country as well as a higher attachment to Israel.

In order to test experimental manipulation, we performed a 2 (country) Ă&#x2014; 4 (type of collective guilt manipulation) ANOVA on the measure of collective guilt, in-group responsibility, exonerating cognitions and in-group legitimacy. Irrespective of the country (F < 1, n.s.), there were differences between experimental groups in collective guilt, F(3, 232) = 21.95, p < 0.001, and a post-hoc analysis Bonferroni test (p < 0.05) revealed that a higher collective guilt was raised in the Israeli guilt group and in the group with ambiguous information (see Table 1 for the results). There were statistically significant differences between experimental groups in the in-group responsibility measurement F(3, 232) = 8.94, p < 0.001, and a post-hoc analysis Bonferroni test (p < 0.05) revealed that a higher in-group responsibility was raised in the Israeli guilt group and in the group with ambiguous information (see Table 1 for the results). There were also differences between countries as well (F(1, 232) = 7.39, p < 0.01). Baltic respondents (M = 2.47, SD = 1.26) were, in general, more ready to assign responsibility to Israel than Israel respondents were (M = 2.02, SD = 1.40).

There were also differences between experimental groups in the measurement of the exonerating cognitions F(3, 232) = 46.09, p < 0.001, and a post-hoc analysis Bonferroni test (p < 0.05) revealed that higher exonerating cognitions were raised in the Israeli guilt group and in the group with ambiguous information (see Table 1 for the results). The ANOVA also showed that experimental manipulation or the country, or interaction of the factors had no effects on in-group legitimacy (F < 1, n.s.). No interaction effects were found to be significant.

Tests of Hypotheses In order to test the hypotheses we regressed conflict resolution strategies one by one on a set of predictor variables: experimental manipulation (coded as a dummy variableâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;respective experimental manipulation was coded 1 against the control group coded as 0), identification with Israel, identification with Jewish people, modes of attachment and glorification, collective guilt, in-group responsibility, in-group legitimacy, exonerating cognitions, gender, age, importance of religion, and country of the participants. Results of all the regressions are presented in Table 2.

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Table 1 Descriptive Statistics of Variables of the Study Israeli guilt

Identification with Israel (2) Identification with Identification Jewish people (2) Mode of attachment (4) Mode of glorification (4) Collective guilt (4) In-group Experimental responsibility (2) manipulation In-group legitimacy (2) Exonerating cognitions (2)

Conflict resolutions

Ambiguous information

Control group

Israel M(SD)

Baltic M(SD)

Israel M(SD)

Baltic M(SD)

Israel M(SD)

Baltic M(SD)

Israel M(SD)

5.68 (1.23)***

6.63 (0.64)***

4.92 (1.47)***

6.53 (0.63)***

5.08 (1.01)***

6.27 (0.90)***

5.27 (1.21)***

6.58 (0.56)***

6.38 (1.06)

6.10 (1.12)

5.82 (1.48)

5.92 (1.58)

6.07 (1.12)

5.62 (1.52)

5.58 (1.73)

8.28 (1.28)

4.95 (1.10)

***

5.31 (1.05) 3.52 (1.61)

3.57 (1.53)

3.15 (1.42)*,a 5.80 (0.96) 5.17 (1.44)

6.30 (0.74)

***

4.91 (1.31)

5.07 (1.30) a

-0.71 (0.98)

**

a

-1.56 (1.34)

***

4.97 (0.91)

5.26 (0.87) 2.39 (1.04)

2.12 (0.88)c

1.95 (1.40)

5.18 (1.43)

**

3.69 (1.56)

b

-0.11 (1.29)*** 1.10 (1.08)*** **

6.23 (0.90)

b

2.16 (0.63)

2.18 (1.63)*

5.42 (1.34)

***

5.30 (1.16) a

5.57 (1.32) a

Collaborating (4) 1.31 (1.08)*** Accommodating (4)

Palestinian guilt

Baltic M(SD)

-0.86 (1.09)

*

5.16 (0.88) b

3.22 (1.43)

6.07 (1.03)

**

3.32 (2.14)

b

3.29 (1.55) 2.38 (1.56)

5.45 (1.08)

5.40 (1.26) a,b

4.23 (1.94)

4.89 (1.25)

***

5.54 (0.98) a

a,b

-0.02 (1.39)**

1.95 (0.65)

6.29 (0.70)*** 5.32 (1.13)

b

2.08 (0.86)b

1.73 (0.60)b

1.57 (0.81)

5.48 (1.21)

5.53 (1.20)

2.20 (1.18)

c

1.92 (1.52)c

1.13 (1.25)**

-1.00 (1.15)

-1.21 (1.71)

-1.03 (1.22)

-0.10 (1.54)

**

0.20 (1.35)** -2.05 (1.19)**

Competing (3)

-0.53 (1.33)

-0.32 (1.85)

-0.42 (1.85)

0.01 (1.51)

-0.24 (1.56)

Avoiding (3)

0.06 (1.22)*

-0.81 (1.47)*, a -0.19 (1.36)

-0.20 (1.44) a,b 0.11 (1.31)

0.18 (1.12) b

0.13 (1.30)

-0.19 (1.22) a,b

2.55 (0.93)

2.42 (1.10)

2.31 (1.03)

2.15 (1.11)

2.63 (0.70)

2.30 (1.06)

Readiness for social 7 statements contact with out-group

-0.34 (1.73)

***

4.71 (1.19) a

0.94 (1.17)**

*

6.00 (1.01)

2.87 (1.43)a,c

4.30 (1.01)

0.04 (1.31)*** -1.63 (1.33)

-0.09 (1.48)

***

2.35 (0.79)

Notes. *(p < 0.05), ** (p < 0.01), *** (p < 0.001); compliance with Bonferroni Post-Hoc test results.

a, b,c

2.53 (1.02)

Means that share the same superscripts does not differ at p > 0.05 in

Table 2 Regression Predicting Conflict Resolutions and Readiness for Social Contact With Out-Group Dependent variables Independent measures

Collaborating a B

Accommodating b

β

Competing c

B

SE B

β

B

SE B

β

-0.15

0.08

-0.13*

0.41

0.09

0.28***

-0.22

0.08

0.09

Readiness for social contact with out-group e

Avoiding d B

SE B

β

B

SE B

β

-0.19**

0.20

0.05

0.28***

0.19**

-0.24

0.05

-0.29***

-0.10

0.04

-0.15*

0.13

-0.12*

Identification with Israel Identification with Jewish people

-0.12

0.06

-0.13*

Mode of attachment Mode of glorification Collective guilt

0.23

0.06

***

0.23

In-group responsibility

0.37

0.06

0.37***

In-group legitimacy

-0.17

0.07

-0.16** 0.25

Exonerating cognitions

*

-0.10

0.04

-0.15

0.03

0.02

0.13*

Gender Age Importance of religion Country

-1.17

0.15

-0.43*** -0.43

0.17

-0.17*

Israeli guilt Palestinian guilt Ambiguous information

-0.27 *

**

***

a

Notes. Regressions were conducted applying stepwise (forward) method; p < 0.05, p < 0.01, p < 0.001; F(5,239) = 17.17, p < 0.001, R2 = 0.27, b F(4,239) = 24.71, p < 0.001, R2 = 0.39, c F(3,239) = 27.15, p < 0.001, R2 = 0.26, d F(4,239) < 1, n.s., e F(4,239) = 23.95, p < 0.001, R2 = 0.29.

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As we can see in the case of collaborating identification with Jewish people, exonerating cognitions predict it negatively, while collective guilt and participantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; age positively. Baltic participants too were more positive towards collaborating than their Israeli counterparts. Accommodating strategy was negatively predicted by the mode of glorification and the perceived in-group legitimacy, while positively by the perceived in-group responsibility. In this case too, Baltic participants were more prone to suggest this strategy in comparison with Israeli participants. A competing strategy was negatively predicted by perceived collective guilt, but positively by the mode of glorification and the perceived in-group legitimacy. Regression of the avoiding strategy did not yield any statistically significant results. We also regressed the readiness for social contact with the out-group on the same set of variables as for the conflict resolution strategies. For this analysis we found that the perceived in-group legitimacy, importance of religion, and experimental manipulation of ambiguous information were negative predictors, while the perceived collective guilt was a positive predictor.

Discussion and Conclusion Results of the quasi-experiment show that the hypothesis that collective guilt facilitates a readiness to support a collaborative strategy was partially confirmed. Respectively, the collective guilt predicts a collaborative strategy in general; however, the experimental manipulation of collective guilt alone did not succeed in promoting choice of a collaborative strategy. To some extent these findings are in line with other studies showing that collective guilt facilitates compensation (Sharvit, Halperin, & Rosler, 2011) and promotes motivation for averting the harm caused by the in-group (Doosje et al., 1998). Another hypothesis â&#x20AC;&#x153;Baltic Jews (distal in-group) would identify with Israel less than the Israelis Jews (proximate in-group) would; as a result, they would feel a stronger collective guilt and would be ready to choose a collaborative strategy to a greater extentâ&#x20AC;? was also partially confirmed. Respectively, Israeli Jews had a higher identification with the country of Israel as well as a higher attachment mode to Israel than Jewish people from the Baltic countries; however, participants from both countries had roughly the same level of collective guilt. Simultaneously, Baltic respondents are more supportive of a collaborative strategy than Israeli respondents are. One of the explanations is the construal level theory and its effect on social judgments (Trope & Liberman, 2010).

Negotiators located in different places are able to find a better solution than under a condition of reduced distance between them (Henderson, 2010). Respectively, the ones living near the conflict area are operating with more detailed information than are people living far away from the conflict zone; thus, finding a complete compromise might be more complicated. Consequently, Jewish people living far away from the conflict area are more tended towards negotiations with the opponents. One more explanation is that in addition to differences in level and mode of identification with Israel there are real differences between Baltic and Israeli Jews in terms both of the responsibility for and consequences of particular resolution strategies. The proximate in-group (Israeli Jews) has more direct influence on past, present and future policy-making than the distal in-group (Baltic Jews), and different implications for collective guilt could be demonstrated. It would be quite natural for Israeli Jews to be more risk-averse in their choices and employ defensive coping strategies when they would be adversely affected in ways that the Baltic Jews would not. Another explanation is related to the fact that people involved in conflict are more accepting of the role of victim (Branscombe, 2004); thus, Israeli participants are less ready for a positive solution to the problem than are Jewish people living outside the conflict area. Similar studies have disclosed that trust in the in-group victim role is related to a low receptiveness to new information about the conflict and low support for compromises (Bar-Tal et al., 2009).

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People believing in the victim role of Israel had a greater belief that Jewish people have a right to Israeli territories, were more supportive of dehumanizing ideas about Arabs and Palestinians, attributed the fault for the length of the conflict and failures to the out-group, felt stronger hate towards the out-group, and, consequently, were less supportive of compromise. This might be one of the explanations for the fact that the people in the conflict area resistant to positive collaboration.

An important finding is related to the identification measurement: Israeli Jews have a higher identification with the country of Israel as well as a higher attachment dimension to Israel than have Baltic respondents. This tendency showed up in all experimental groups. It coincides logically with the idea that people identify themselves more with the country in which they are living. This was exactly predicted in the planning of the present study. Measures of the experimental manipulations showed that the highest collective guilt was provoked in the Israeli guilt group and in the group with ambiguous information in both countries. In general, Israeli and Baltic participants feel collective guilt at the same level. Baltic participants are in general more ready to assign group responsibility to Israel than Israeli Jews. In groups where collective guilt was provoked the most (Israeli guilt group and the ambiguous information group), group responsibility’s assignment was also provoked more. Nevertheless, theoretical speculation proves that the in-group can use several mechanisms to protect itself: People may not admit responsibility or declare the damage as legal (Wohl, Branscombe, & Klar, 2006). It is possible that, when reading negative information about their in-group, Israeli participants were blaming Palestinians for their misfortune and were trying to excuse their own behaviour. Consequently, people from a group with a higher degree of identification were more resistant to admitting group responsibility, while people from a group with a lower degree of identification were more flexible in the recognition of their in-group’s failures.

Higher in-group responsibility’s assignment was observed in the Israeli guilt group and the ambiguous information group. Stronger exonerating cognitions are observed in the Israeli guilt group and in the ambiguous information group. Consequently, an increase in collective guilt made the admission of group responsibility more and more annoying and people began to look for exonerating strategies (Klein, Licata, & Pierucci, 2011).

This is why higher collective guilt and higher exonerating cognition scores were stated in the Israeli guilt group and in the ambiguous information group. Baltic and Israeli respondents use exonerating cognitions of approximately the same level. The in-group legitimacy parameter of the Baltic and Israel respondents was approximately at the same level in all experimental groups. It is possible that the ambiguous information reflects the most precise reality about the suffering of both parties and the mutual responsibility of both parties for the continuation of the conflict; therefore, a higher collective guilt and a lower parameter of in-group legitimacy was stated in this group.

The regression analyses showed that experimental manipulation on its own does not affect the preference for any of the four conflict strategies. At the same time, it was discovered that the country influences the accommodating and the collaborative strategy. It means that Baltic respondents were more ready for accommodation and cooperation than were Israeli respondents across all experimental groups. It coincides with findings stating that persons with a lower level of identification are ready for cooperation to a higher extent, as well as being more ready to admit group responsibility than are persons with a high degree of identification (Doosje et al., 1998). Baltic and Israeli participants supported both the competing and the avoiding strategies similarly. In general, Baltic participants were ready to support a collaborative strategy in all experimental groups to a higher extent than were Israeli respondents. In addition, the results obtained confirmed that people

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with a higher degree of identification (in this study the Israelis) are more ready to resist negative information than are people with a lower identification with the in-group (in this study the Baltic participants), and consequently, were less ready to be involved in reparation actions (Doosje et al., 1998). People tend to protect the image of their in-group- they can minimize or deny the responsibility of their group for the damage they have caused, or they can acknowledge it as legal (Wohl, Branscombe, & Klar, 2006).

The quasi-experiment disclosed that in-group responsibility positively predicts the accommodating strategy. It means the following: The more respondents are ready to assign responsibility to in-group, the more they are ready to accommodate in the conflict. Meanwhile, in-group legitimacy, the country, and the glorification dimension predict a readiness to accommodate negatively. Namely, the more people support in-group legitimacy, the less they are ready to accommodate. Israeli respondents are, in general, less ready for accommodation. Collective guilt predicts a readiness for competing negatively, which in turn means that in the case of a higher collective guilt, there will be less support for a strategy of competing. The glorification strategy and in-group legitimacy predicted a competing strategy positively. It means the following: The higher one scores on the glorification dimension, and the more one supports in-group legitimacy, the more he/she will be ready to use the strategy of competition. Previous studies have found that the glorification dimension reduces the demand for justice through moral recovery; thus, the glorification dimension does not permit acceptance of critical information about in-group behaviour (Leidner, Castano, Zaiser, & Giner-Sorolla, 2010); consequently, it may lead to destructive resolutions of the conflict. This research also supported the fact, that different identification modes could predict conflict resolution strategies. It is another substantiation for the multidimensional concept of identification (Roccas et al., 2008), which can be more efficiently observed by the application of several dimensions. Strong identification with the in-group increases hostility to the out-group and reduces the ability of in-group participants to see the demands of the other party as legitimate (Ashforth & Mael, 1989).

Collective guilt and age predict support for a collaborative strategy positively. It means that, by age, people are tended more towards cooperation; in addition, the stronger the collective guilt, the more people are ready to support a collaborative strategy. Meanwhile, the country, the exonerating cognitions, and the identification with Jewish people predict a collaborative strategy negatively. In general, Baltic respondents support cooperation more; and the more respondents exonerated behaviour and the higher the identification with Jewish people, the less the participants were cooperation-oriented. It coincides with other studies, which have found that exonerating cognitions are related to the overall tendency to minimize the consequences of harm created by the in-group behaviour (Roccas et al., 2004).

Collective guilt was positively related to the readiness to engage in social contacts with Palestinians, which means that the more the collective guilt is admitted, the more ready people will be to engage in contacts with the out-group. The in-group legitimacy and the importance of religion negatively predicted the involvement in social contacts with the out-group. Namely, the more participants supported the legitimacy of the in-group and the more importance they attached to religion, the less ready they were to engage in contacts with the out-group. Similar findings are coming from other studies as well; it was found that, in general, orthodox Jewish people have a lower tendency to support the peace plan than non-religious Jewish people (Richman & Nolle, 2011). It means that the importance of religion in life can block a readiness to involve in contacts with an out-group. Another recent study disclosed that religious Jewish people are less supportive of the peace plan (Moore & Aweiss, 2002); and, the less they support the peace plan, the stronger is their hate

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towards the out-group. Also, a stronger hate of the out-group was present in religious participants with a high importance for the safety issue and Jewish identity (Moore & Aweiss, 2002).

The results of the present study coincide with ideas underlining that the admission of damage is often accompanied by a wish to redeem guilt, like asking for forgiveness, or financial compensation (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1994). This research showed, that the groups in which collective guilt was higher, did not choose cooperation strategies to a higher extent; however, collective guilt predicts a collaborative strategy and the readiness to involve in social contacts with the out-group positively, while the competing strategy is predicted negatively. Based on theoretical and practical findings, it can be stated that collective guilt facilitates a motivation to diminish the harm caused by the in-group to participants of the out-group.

The results of the present experiment supplement the range of experiments on the effect of collective guilt on conflict resolutions. The hypothesis of the study was partially proven to be true: that collective guilt predicts a collaborative strategy positively. At the same time, groups with a higher level of collective guilt supported a collaborative strategy on the same level as did groups with lower collective guilt. Baltic Jews were in general more ready for an accommodating strategy as well as more supportive of a collaborative strategy than were Israeli respondents. Respondents from Israel had higher scores in identification with Israel and in identification attachment mode. Exonerating cognitions and identification with Jewish people predicted a collaborative strategy negatively while glorification and in-group legitimacy predicted a competing strategy positively.

Collective guilt predicts a collaborative strategy and a readiness to involve in social contacts with Palestinians positively and simultaneously predicts a competing strategy negatively. These results are similar to others, which showed that collective guilt positively correlates with a compromise strategy (Maoz & McCauley, 2005).

One of the research limitations is the number of respondents, it would be interesting to take more representative random samples and extend the diversity of the sample. One of the possible future direction is to evaluate the collective guilt and other collective emotions on conflict resolutions preferences based on different distal in-groupsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; family ties within Israel (how many relative living in Israel etc.). It would be interesting to continue the research topic, investigating more personal and collective responsibility and guilt. Being aware of the present studyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s findings, several mechanisms affecting our assessment of conflicts become obvious. These findings are not limited only to the Israel-Palestine conflict; they may help us to understand other conflicts from the past, as well as other modern conflicts. By applying the findings of the present study, it becomes clear that manipulations with collective guilt can change human preferences for conflict resolutions. Especially, people with a high identification with the country (Israel) feel a necessity for updated information reflecting both in-group guilt and out-group guilt (ambiguous information) because it provides for the possibility of increasing collective guilt and reducing the perceived legitimacy of the in-group relationship. These findings can be applied in the media industry, displaying information about this conflict every day, as well as by planning common exchange programs between Jewish people and Palestinians. Since there are demographic differences, the necessity of working with people having a high identification and attaching more importance to religion is evident. It is recommended that people from different countries be included in such special training groups in order to provide them with the possibility of sharing their experience and exchanging their ideas for a better solution of this conflict.

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Psychology Research, ISSN 2159-5542 April 2014, Vol. 4, No. 4, 285-300

DAVID

PUBLISHING

Coaching and Ethical Leadership: A Competence Executive Coaching Model for the Development of Ethical Leadership Lurdes Neves University of Oporto, Portugal The current transformations in societies and work contexts are putting managers in ambiguous situations and with consequent impact on the leadership profile when trying to adapt to those changes. It is in this context that the executive coaching models and coaching programs that aim to help leaders develop new attitudes and skills and to achieve organizational goals arise. Empirical research on executive coaching, however, has lagged far behind, and theoretical work on the processes underlying effective coaching has been limited. Consequently, the purpose of this work is to plan a competence executive coaching model for ethical leadership based on a literature review. It also provides a conceptual framework for intervention on ethical leadership. Based on the literature review of Neves, Jordão, and Cunha (2013a), there are no results that relate the model development and executive coaching construct of ethical leadership. Therefore, we aimed to draft a model of executive coaching for the development of ethical leadership. The proposed model is based on the results presented in the literature review of Neves, Jordão and Cunha (2013b) and integrates both the theoretical model of ethical leadership Hoog and Hartog (2008) and the perspective of Berling, Weber, and Kelloway (1996). This model is important to support the planning and implementation of executive coaching in ethical leadership development.

Keywords: executive coaching, executive coaching models, ethical leadership

Introduction Societies are currently going through large structural changes, being involved in a process of economic, political, and technological globalization that affects organizational strategies and firms’ decision-making.

With the increasing of organizational competitiveness, coaching is becoming more and more necessary, since the success of organizations is strongly dependent on the knowledge and learning processes of their employees. The growing popularity of coaching is visible in all sectors of activity and follows the increasing spread of consulting and inter-company training. Over the last decade, coaching has also become one of the top five strategies for the development of leadership and change to face the continuing challenges in organizations (Bennett & Bush, 2009). Coaching main purpose is to achieve excellence in results, not only at a personal level but also organizational. That is possible through the effective use of the potential and real capabilities an individual has, thereby allowing a development of its knowledge and experience.

The coaching process should be developed on an individual, intentional and planned basis, and the identification of the particularities of each element submitted to coaching is essential, so that everything is in accordance with the environment and functions performed and it is possible to disseminate the process through Lurdes Neves, Ph.D., professor, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Oporto.

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all the organization or each working team.

Coaching is not about learning “what” but rather learning “how”, which is becoming increasingly relevant in the individual and therefore organizational effectiveness. It is not enough to have the right information, you need to know how to implement it and that necessarily goes through those who have the skill and competence for such (Hale & Whitlam, 2000).

Coaching is a short-term relationship between a coach and a client that provides feedback about the areas that require change (Milner & Bossers, 2004). Coaching is a one-to-one trust relationship that aims to foment personal and professional learning and stimulate growth, in which the relation is intended to give a boost to “professional advancement”, in other words, a significant change that potentiates individual development (Haynor, 1994; Price, 2009).

The present work refers specifically to executive coaching that emerges from the application of coaching to the organizational leadership and constitutes one of the methodologies that can contribute the most for the development of psychological variables in the professional performance. From the several areas of intervention of executive coaching, we refer in the present work to the application of executive coaching to development of ethical leadership behavior in organizational context.

We expect that coaching contributes positively to the development of ethical leadership behavior (Berling, Weber, & Kelloway, 1996) and that may be useful for the development of leadership behavior, seeing the success they have been evidencing in the transformation of leaders and transformational leadership behavior (Berling et al., 1996). Therefore, the aim of this paper is to propose a model of executive coaching to the development of ethical leadership.

Executive Coaching Definition In the review of the literature on executive coaching, we can see different perspectives about the concept.

Some have defined the role of executive coaching limiting it to the individual level (Kampa-Kokesch & Anderson, 2001). In contrast, other authors prefer a broader definition, extending it to the organizational level (Bacon & Spear, 2003; Kilburg, 2000, 2004). Although most authors define coaching as a one-to-one relationship, between a professional coach and an executive (coachee) (Whitmore, 2002, p. 468) with the aim to provide behavioral change through the coachee’s self awareness and learning, and thereby achieving individual and organizational success, Joo (2005) highlighted coaching in groups as the preferred tool for behavior change.

According to Bennet’s review (2010), the definitions of executive coaching tend to group around learning and development of performance, with the intent of facilitating change and personal growth. Executive coaching may contribute to help leaders develop new attitudes and competences in order to achieve organizational goals necessary to adapt to organizational changes.

The principle of executive coaching is to provide learning, behavioral change and growth of the coachee for the economic benefit of the client who uses it. Despite the differences, the objective translates into behavior change, self-knowledge, learning, and finally, career and organizational performance success (Sherman & Freas, 2004).

In this paper, we adopt the concept of executive coaching as a learning process with a practical guidance focused on specific activities, directly linked to the functions performed by the client, which meets the design of Cunha, Marcelino, Oliveira, and Rêgo (2007) who consider it as a planned and continuous improvement process and with personal and professional fulfillment, especially based on action learning and maieutics.

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Considering coaching models presented in the literature, it also possible to enunciate a variety of approaches, as referenced in the literature review of Neves, Jordão, and Cunha (2014a).

Now, we will define leadership and, integrated in this concept, we will develop the ethical leadership construct.

The Concept of Leadership The reviewing of the literature allows referring a variety of classifications and theoretical models about the concept of leadership.

For this work one of the most important dimension of leadership is to consider it as an influence relationship, conducted with leaders and followers, seeking real change in the organization, taking into account that they have to reflect the mutual purposes of leaders and followers, so, lead means to influence, guide and direct and know what is necessary to make (Bennis & Nanus, 1985).

Leadership is related with the way change is deal with and its relevance comes mainly from competitiveness and volatility of the current business world (Kotter & Heskett, 1992).

In this work, is adopted the definition of Sampaio (2004), who considers leadership as an interpersonal factor of influence that appears as a power to transform knowledge into action, resulting in a desired rate of performance. According to the author, leadership is seen as a personal quality, that is, as a set of personality trait that makes an individual a leader, according to the characteristics of the situation in which the individual is and also as a social phenomenon that occurs only in social groups. So, the leadership style adopted may give the organization the needed flexibility to achieve its goals, in a hostile indoor and outdoor environment constantly changing.

Referring to the literature, the other important dimension of leadership is related with the leader’s abiliy to learn and develop with training. It is possible to see that there are several theories explaining the concept of leadership and it stands out the self-directed learning theory of Boyatzis (2007) which is based on the assumption that the leader can develop or purposely reinforce a quality which is already there, a quality that is needed, or both. This requires the leader to develop a clear vision of the ideal self and a true vision of the real self. This learning process is more efficient and long-lasting if the change process is being understood while it is running.

The purpose is to use each of these findings, which may happen during the coaching process as a tool to make the changes that are needed in the leadership profile. The leader can make the following findings regarding the self-awareness of its leadership profile: (1) The ideal self—How do I want to be?—This first discovery leads to the vision of the ideal that we want as a model for ourselves, where we feel motivated to develop leadership skills; (2) The real self—How am I? What are my strengths and my flaws?—It is like looking into a mirror and discovering how we are in fact, some of these facets are consistent with the ideal self, and then can be considered as strengths; (3) The learning program—enhance the strengths and reduce the flaws—devising a plan for the improvement of our capabilities; (4) Try the new behaviors, thoughts and feelings, until completely dominate them—comes from the practice of the new leadership skills; (5) Develop trusting relationships that support change and make it possible—This discovery can occur in

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any of the various stages of the process and consists in realizing that we need others to be able to identify our ideal self and our real self, to discover our strengths and our flaws and to be able to experience and practice.

Therefore, leadership is an interactive process that results in the development of new habits that come from the learning done and their integration in the structure of the individual personality. Ideally, this progression occurs through moments of discontinuity that give a new awareness and convey a sense of urgency.

Other forms of training and education, such as coaching, may be useful in the transformation of leaders (Berling, Weber & Kelloway, 1996), so executive coaching models may be in this case an important mechanism for changing the leader.

Ethical and Unethical Leadership As a result of the many organizational changes that we are currently living, leaders are influenced by situations of uncertainty that may lessen their ability to lead ethically.

Integrated into the concept of leadership, ethical leadership is little explored in the field of organizations and management (Brown & Treviño, 2006).

In recent years, has being grown the interest about the development and promotion of ethical leadership in organizations, given the impact that leaders can have on the conduct of the organization, its members, and organizational performance (as cited in Aronson, 2001; Kanungo, 2001; Trevino, Brown, & Hartman, 2003), and even given the high cost of ethical lapses on their part.

For these reasons, we consider relevant the possibility of development of ethical leadership profile (operationalized in terms of the skills of morality and fairness, role clarification, and power sharing) through the implementation of the methodology of executive coaching for the achievement of organizational goals necessary to adapt to organizational changes, and designed a proposal of an executive coaching model for the development of ethical leadership.

Ethical leadership can be considered as “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, as well as the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision making” (Brown, Treviño, & Harrison, 2005, p. 120), and thus refer to a moral person (characterized by traits such as honesty and integrity) and to a moral manager (create and diffuse a strong ethical message).

Based on the definition and in earlier investigations (e.g., Trevino et al., 2003), Brown et al. (2005) describe ethical leaders as honest, reliable, fair and supportive, able to make righteous choices and structure just work environments.

The research on ethical leadership has been considering how leaders should behave, contrary to how they behave in practice (Brown et al., 2005; Clegg, Carter, Kornberger, Messner, & Laske, 2007; Clegg, Rhodes, & Kornberger, 2007). Research on ethics in leadership has also been focusing on the characteristics of ethical and unethical leaders, emphasizing the personal dispositions of ethical leaders and contextual factors, namely the organizational culture, that promote ethical or unethical behaviors. The result of these guidelines is a dual vision of ethical leadership: (1) A positive perspective, focused on ethical leaders and organizations, so openly normative (that is, focused on what leaders should do); and (2) A pessimistic analysis that considers the cases in which ethics are ignored by leaders and their followers, based on cases of organizational misbehavior (Ackroyd & Thompson, 1999). Both approaches are based on retrospective analysis and case studies, mainly with public impact.

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Leaders influence their organizations, even in the ethical dimension, through the modeling of roles, but are also influenced by their expectations, interpretations, and interactions with others, including their own followers (Glynn & Jamerson, 2006; Kellerman, 2004). They are often involved in different ethical contexts, which makes it difficult for the “good” people “to make good decisions in bad situations” (Glynn & Jamerson, 2006, p. 154). Kellerman (2004) also emphasized this fact, suggesting that poor leadership (including unethical leadership) is the result of the interaction of three factors: leaders, followers, and context.

In contrast with these components of the ethical behavior of the leader, Aronson (2001) describes the despotic leadership as being based on personal domination and authoritarian behavior centered in the interests of the leader and the exploitation of others. Other forms of unethical leadership that have received attention in the literature include abusive supervision and personalized charismatic or pseudo-transformational leadership (see Ashforth, 1994; Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999; Beu & Buckley, 2004; Bies, 2000; Howell, 1988; Tepper, 2000).

Based on this concept of ethical leadership, this study aims to propose an executive coaching model which enables the development of ethical leadership behaviors (operationalized in terms of morality and fairness, role clarification, and power sharing), contrary to an unethical leadership behavior (despotic leadership). Following the model proposed by Hoog and Hartog (2008), we expect that the behavior of ethical leadership contributes to the development of a positive relation with the performance of top management and optimism of the followers about the future. In contrast, we expect the behavior of despotic leadership to be negatively related with optimism of the followers about the future of the organization and with the performance of top management.

According with this perspective of Berling et al. (1996), other forms of training and education, such as coaching, may be useful for the development of leadership behavior, seeing the success they have been evidencing in the transformation of leaders and transformational leadership behavior (Berling et al., 1996). So, it is expected that coaching contributes positively to the development of ethical leadership behavior. The following figure shows the relationships proposed.

Figure 1. Adaptation of the theoretical model of ethical leadership by Hoog, Hartog, and Deane (2008) and the perspective of Berling et al. (1996) and on the Hale and Whitlam (2000) model.

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Methodology The common patterns identified in models of executive coaching reported by Neves et al. (2013b) as well as the premises of the theoretical model of ethical leadership de Hoog and Hartog (2008) allowed to propose an executive coaching model for the development of ethical leadership according to the following steps: (1) building the relationship between coach and client; (2) problem definition/areas of development and the goal of the coaching process; (3) setting plans and goals for action; and (4) results and effectiveness of the implementation of coaching models.

After literature review by Neves et al. (2014a; 2014b), a search was also performed using the keywords: coaching, AND model (OR theory OR Framework), AND leadership, AND ethical leadership for the period 1990-2012, for which no results were obtained. The full text databases included Business Source Complete, Academic Search Complete, Educational Research Complete, MEDLINE, PsycArticles, PsychINFO and Academica, Psybooks and Psychology, and Behavioral Sciences Collection.

According to Hoog and Hartog (2008) the dimensions of ethical leadership considered (morality and fairness, role clarification, and power sharing) are measured by three subscales adapted to the Portuguese population (with adaptation and validation study of a Scale of Ethical Leadership to Portuguese Population

by Neves et al., 2014a; 2014b) from the MCLQ (Multi-Cultural Leader behavior Questionnaire) (Hanges & Dickson, 2004), with items with a response scale of seven points, ranging from 1 (“Strongly disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly agree”).

The dimension of morality and justice is measured by six items that assess the demonstration of honesty, reliability and high ethical standards, as well as the most understanding and fair treatment to subordinates, by the leaders.

The dimension of the role clarification is measured using five items that assess the transparency of the leaders, the commitment to open communication, clarifying the expectations and responsibilities.

The dimension of power sharing is measured by six items that assess behaviors that give voice to subordinates and allow them to participate in decision-making.

The despotic leadership is measured using a scale adapted from MCLQ (Hanges & Dickson, 2004), which consists of six items that reflect the authoritarian behavior that serves the leader’s own interests, overestimation of himself, insensitivity and exploitation of others.

Next, it will be presented the Executive Coaching model proposed for the development of ethical leadership behavior that was based on literature review of Neves et al. (2014a; 2014b).

Results (Proposed Coaching Model) and Discussion Following the literature review presented by Neves et al. (2014a; 2014b), there were not found results that relate executive coaching models and the concept of ethical leadership and therefore describe the development of executive coaching models applied to ethical leadership behavior.

For this reason, the model of executive coaching for ethical leadership behavior’s development is based on commonly accepted steps considered in the literature review of Neves et al. (2014a; 2014b) about the executive coaching models. The proposed model consists in seven stages of integrative development acting jointly and continuously, integrating in the central position a monitoring stage, referred as the Monitoring Stage of the model.

This model presents the main stages’ components of executive coaching model for ethical leadership

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behavior development and it is important to define the conceptual framework to support planning and implementation of processes of executive coaching for the development of ethical leadership.

The presented model can be adapted to the context and needs of the organization and to the client and take into account the premises mentioned from the adaptation of the theoretical Model of ethical leadership by Hoog and Hartog (2008) and from the perspective of Berling et al. (1996) and the following premises based the literature review of Neves et al. (2014a; 2014b).

Premises From the Proposed Executive Coaching Model Building the relationship between coach and client. The proposed model relies on building a relationship based on trust and open communication and in a non-judgmental environment that allows emotional support needed to develop a process of effective coaching (Giglio, Diamante, & Urban, 1998; Hoojiberg & Lane, 2009; Joo, 2005; Kowalski & Casper, 2007; McNally & Lukens, 2006; Passmore, 2007; Sherman & Freas, 2004; Truijen & Woerkom, 2008). At the core of the relationship, there must be a satisfactory level of confidence so that the degree of client involvement is boosted. The development of knowledge about the responsibilities, decision-making capabilities, and the client’s status within the organization can also contribute positively to the construction of the relationship (Giglio et al., 1998, Keil et al., 1996; Kowalski & Casper, 2007; McNally & Lukens, 2006).

Problem definition/areas of development and definition of the goal of the coaching process. This model provides the inclusion of diagnostic tools to obtain feedback about the performance and the stage of development of the client to help to identify the strengths and weaknesses, motivations, expectations, and strategies for conflict resolution (Hoojiberg & Lane, 2009; Joo, 2005; Keil et al., 1996; McNally & Luken, 2006; Saporito, 1996; Sherman & Freas, 2004).

In the diagnostic phase is also included the evaluation of the perception of peers, of top management and employees in relation to the client, through the application of tools such as the 360-degree assessment (Saporito, 1996; Sherman & Freas, 2004), questionnaires (Hoojiberg & Lane, 2009) or interviews (Keil et al., 1996). For setting the goal that has to be worked in the coaching process, other methods of questioning may also be adopted, such as evaluation of the areas of development which need to be worked via the coaching process, instead of more formatted assessment tools (Giglio et al., 1998; Passmore, 2007; Truijen & Woerkom, 2008).

According to the psychodynamic approach by Passmore (2007), it is relevant that the method of questioning adopts the use of open questions that promote self-awareness and questioning of automatic and intrusive thoughts (Passmore, 2007).

The client is responsible to identify the areas of development that should be targeted for reflection with the help of the coach (Kowalski & Casper, 2007) and based on the interpretation of the feedback with the coach (Giglio et al., 1998; Keil et al., 1996; Sherman & Freas, 2004) of the data obtained from the client, the feedback from the coach, from peers, superiors or subordinates (as described above).

It is also relevant the need of involvement and participation of top management in the adaptation of the definition of the goals to the needs of the organization and to the organizational culture (Giglio et al., 1998; Keil et al., 1996; Saporito, 1996). Top management may also determine the focus and priorities in setting goals so that the definition of objectives is a client’s responsibility (McNally & Lukens, 2006).

Setting plans and goals for action. The present model predicts the need to create specific action plans of established goals. For the technical implementation of the action plan, is considered relevant the use of role

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playing as well as debate with the objective of promoting more appropriate skills and attitudes to each objective (Giglio et al., 1998, Keil et al., 1996; McNally & Lukens, 2006). It integrates also psychological techniques such as reframing, immersion, visualization and definition of homework (Passmore, 2007). To determine the progress of the development of the model and the success of it, it becomes relevant measures to the assessment of action plan implementation (Kowalski & Casper, 2007; McNally & Lukens, 2006; Sherman & Freas, 2004), the techniques of self-monitoring and the possibility of periodic monitoring interviews with peers, collaborators, and superiors in order to be assessed the degree of progress of the client performance and the objectives to implement (Keil et al.,1996; Saporito, 1996).

Results and effectiveness of the implementation of coaching models. Change and transformation of thought arise when the client raises his self-awareness, which enables him to review its own perceptions and consequently conceive new perceptions as he begins to experience success and see the future with optimism and responsibility (Giglio et al., 1998; Kowalski & Casper, 2007). The client’s personal transformation is also caused by his ability to be more focused and his commitment to change (Giglio et al., 1998; Saporito, 1996; Sherman & Freas, 2004), as well as the understanding of the consequences of his behavior (Passmore, 2007; Sherman & Freas, 2004).

Here we can distinguish structural and intrinsic mechanisms of change.

Regarding the structural mechanisms the present model considers that the structure of the coaching process will be a script in which its stages focus behavior change, goal setting and implementation of action plans (Hoojiberg & Lane, 2009; Keil et al., 1996; Kowalski & Casper, 2007; McNally & Lukens, 2006; Sherman & Freas, 2004), and will also imply providing progress reports of actions taken to the coach (Keil et al., 1996).

Regarding the intrinsic mechanisms considered, it is relevant to note that as the client gets results, it will increase his perception of the return on his investment, which will further motivates his creativity and action (Hoojiberg & Lane, 2009; Giglio et al., 1998). If the recommendations given in the coaching process are seen as relevant to the context and objectives of the business, they will allow client to adjust his behavior (Saporito, 1996).

In the proposed model is also integrated the perspective of McNally and Lukens (2006), defending the partnership of an external coach with a coach inside the organization, in the development of the coaching process since this combination allows joining greater objectivity with the knowledge of culture and organizational functions. We also believe that it is indispensable the analysis of prior training, experience and certification processes performed by the coach.

It is crucial to ensure that the collaborative work between the coach and the client to encourage and motivate learning will help testing new skills and understand the patterns of relationships between people and the organization (Giglio et al., 1998; Joo, 2005; Keil et al., 1996; Kowalski & Casper, 2007; McNally & Lukens, 2006; Passmore, 2007; Saporito, 1996; Sherman & Freas, 2004). As attributes of the selected coach, diplomacy, the establishment of trust relationships and the ability to moderate conflicts must be present.

Aiming the success of the process, and as a selection criteria for clients, the perspective of is recommended as a criteria for the selection of clients the ability to manage change and accept new challenges, as well as the ability to challenge a more autocratic or vertical (“top down”) leadership style (Saporito, 1996). It is also significant the importance that the subordinate assumes to the organization, therefore justifying the cost inherent in the coaching process (Sherman & Freas, 2004).

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Proposal of an Executive Coaching Model for the Development of an Ethical Leadership Behavior This model aims the approach of executive coaching ntervention closest to psychological counseling. The proposed model means to be integrative (Passmore, 2007) and simultaneously uniqueness, by allowing the specificity of skills development for ethical leadership. Although the model suggests a typical pattern, it is malleable, and may allow the coach to move forward sequentially in the stages or re-explore some previously implemented stage, allowing, for example, if he considers necessary, redefining the purpose and plan of action, even being at a more advanced stage of implementation of the coaching process.

This process, defined in seven steps, is dynamic, collaborative, focused on solutions, particularly in the pre-defined goal, focused on the present and oriented to the coacheeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to act autonomously.

Stage 1: Establishment of a trust relationship between coach and coachee and establishment of the coaching contract. There are two important steps in this phase: building a relationship of trust between coach and coachee and the formalization of the coaching process with the persons involved. The first is related with the relationship with the leader and requires the alignment of expectations, goals and defining the rules and parameters of this relationship (for example, confidentiality, standards of conduct in sessions and others). This first step lays the foundation of the relationship of the executive coaching and development goals of the process (Lankau & Feldman, 2005).

Prior to verifying the improve in performance, it is needed that the coach builds a close relationship of mutual respect and trust with the coachee in accordance with what is defended in the humanistic perspective.

Despite these characteristics proposed by Rogers (1957) being essential but not sufficient (Patterson, 1984), it is essential that the coach believes in the coachee and develops for him an attitude of positive regard. In addition, there is the coachâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to establish a positive relationship with the coachee, being empathetic and understanding and show concern so that the coachee can find the answers to his problems. It is also necessary openness and honesty in the interaction with the coachee, and the coach should express his feelings when considered important to the coachee and allow him to be able to share their perception without feeling judged.

When the relationship is built, the goal of the coach must consider three aspects: (1) his own emotions and behaviors; (2) the emotions and behavior of the coachee; and (3) managing his emotions and adapt his behavioral responses to achieve a balance between professional detachment and personal intimacy. According to the research by Stein and Book (2000), the higher the management of emotional intelligence of the coach, greater ability to build and maintain effective relationships, so the coach must use the transference and counter-transference of emotions in the relationship so that they can prove useful work.

A second step concerns to the definition of the contract between coach-client-coachee. At this stage, the definition of the parties involved should be present, explicit statements of the confidentiality agreement between coach and client, definition of the contract of the coach or coaches involved (internal coach and the possibility of collaboration with an external coach), rules and standards of conduct in sessions for the coach-coachee partnership and aspects related with schedules, number of sessions and costs.

Stage 2: Leader context analysis and identification of needs and areas of improvement. This step relates to how the coach and coachee may obtain additional information about their own performance.

Included in this diagnostic phase is the evaluation of perception by peers, by top management and by subordinates in relation to the coachee, through the application of tools such as the 360-degree assessment (Saporito, 1996; Sherman & Freas, 2004), questionnaires (Hoojiberg & Lane, 2009), individual interviews

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(Keil et al., 1996) and the application of ethical leadership scale of Hoog and Hartog (2008) to be filled by the subordinates and in the form of self-report by the leader. Meanwhile, questions may be asked to the leader regarding situations or critical incidents, to better analyze certain issues that are directly related to his difficulties and performance of ethical leadership behavior (Hale & Whitlmam, 2000). Through questions about the performance, how it was done and the difficulties in implementation, it is possible to identify the individual development needs.

The integration of perspectives from peers, superiors and subordinates in the identification of the problem and in defining the objectives of the data obtained through the leader (coachee), may complete the assessment of leadership style and performance of the leader.

At this stage, the coach helps the coachee to perform a self-assessment by asking about “How I am?”, “What I want to be?”, “What is happening now?”, and “What is the effect or result of this?” (Boyatzis, 2007).

This step allows the client (and coach) to understand the results already achieved, skills, behaviors and resources available, beliefs and feelings, while challenging those who limit him (Boyatzis, 2007), and even make possible the review of progress, creating accountability and identifying new learning processes and actions.

Stage 3: Establishment of performance standards and setting goals. The coach, in collaboration with the coachee, begins to identify the phase in which the coachee is on its way for personal change (Miller & Rollnick, 2002), and helps him to better understand the consequences of his actions and achieve more rational thought patterns around the advantages and disadvantages of their behavior. Therefore, the greater availability of coachee to change will contribute to the higher promotion of reflection and speech regarding the change, with less need for living the problems in the work context. This step allows both to be aware of what they are developing, makes it possible to divide goals into smaller ones and to ensure that all actions are geared towards achieving the goals (“begin with the end in mind”) (Covey, 1989 cited by Passmore, 2007).

Furthermore, it is important that the definition of the objectives does not conflict with other existing goals and that it is possible to develop a positive and attractive vision of the achievement of goals that encourage action (Passmore, 2007).

After identifying the real needs of development, current performance standards should be identified and established those that the coachee should achieve in the future. At this stage, the coachee’s involvement is very important because it is essential to establish his own standards or objectives to a sense of involvement and, consequently, of belonging.

The establishment of these goals should follow the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bouded) principles and have to be specific, measurable, attainable, results-focused, and timed.

It is important that the goals are well defined and are in accordance with the development needs of the coachee, before starting to accomplish tasks. Additionally, there must be a realistic proportion between the levels of current performance and those that are intended. When objectives or performance standards are determined, the following phase in the model is action planning.

Stage 4: Action planning for the development of ethical leadership behavior. At this stage, are adopted psychological techniques such as reframing, immersion, visualization and definition of homework (Passmore, 2007).

It is assumed the need of cognitive patterns exploration underlying the visible behaviors, using cognitive-behavioral techniques developed by Beck (1976) and Ellis (1962). For this dimension, it was

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considered also the levels of mentality of the Schein (1985) model adopted in the integrative model of Passmore (2007) and which describes how the individual reads the world and fits his experience in it.

The main goal of the coach is to support the coachee in identifying and challenging his irrational beliefs, associated to ethical leadership, using behavioral techniques, cognitive-emotional and rational therapeutic context as recast, immersion, viewing and suggesting tasks to accomplish at home. In reformulating the perspective of the client, the coach promotes the adoption of a worldview based on rational evidence.

Immersion allows precisely the coachee to gradually test this view and immerse himself in a scheme of thought more sustained rationality. Visualization requires the exemplification/simulation of behaviors of the actual context and enhances the validity of the skills developed. The definition of homework to the client, aims to monitoring automatic thoughts and challenge them.

This step is based on the work of Schein (1995) concerning the examination of the culture of the organization and the individual, and which supposes the evaluation of behavior based on five levels (applicable to institutions but also individuals): artifacts, behaviors, mentalities, emotional basis, and motivation. Coach and client should also identify the clear and achievable set of goals (outcomes) for discussion and should question “How to know that this goal was achieved?” and “How to know that the problem was solved?”.

Stage 5: Implementation of actions/goals for the implementation of objectives. This stage refers to the relationship between coach and coachee in the implementation of the achievable set of goals (outcomes) about ethical leadership behavior in his context. Coach has to help the coachee to understand the extent and the influence of the system on which he works, both in his behavior and in the behavior of others with whom he interacts.

This step consists in the application of the plans that were previously formulated, which implies that the coachee assumes tasks and responsibilities in order to provide new experiences and learning opportunities.

With regard to leadership and the act of delegating, the greatest difficulty for management positions is the fact they see “their issues”—for which they feel responsible—be solved by other individuals. This situation can lead to a feeling of insecurity by allowing others to take ownership of these projects and responsibilities and the idea that the level of quality will not be assured. This restlessness is partly accepted because the act of delegating is always an element of risk.

The development of the coachee at this stage comes always from an empowering process where he will take responsibility and make decisions without any restrictions. Empowerment is related with the skills and competencies of the coach in applying it (empowering) efficiently and he must take into account the behavior of the coachee (empowered) and affected by the process The correct empowerment is a two-way process in which success is determined by the distinctiveness of the one is applying it (coach) and the characteristics of those who adopt it (coachee) (Hale & Whitlam, 2000).

The purpose of this phase is that the client can make a list of other possible goals/actions that he can do without judgment and evaluation, and can be encouraged by coach with effective questions (for example, “What else could I do?”, “And if this or that constraint were removed?”, and “What are the advantages and disadvantages of each option?”). This stage consists in the development of creative thinking of the coachee (Hale & Whitlam, 2000).

Stage 6: Review of actions and skills transfer. At this stage, coach and coachee present the results of the objectives defined to the client who asked for the coaching process (depending on the initial formalization of the process and the parties involved in it). The intention here is to communicate the result to the client, and to

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facilitate and guide the discussion of the strengths and development areas of the coachee. The coach will also seeks collaboration with other people involved so that they facilitate the influence on the context in which is integrated. Besides that, the coach also has to recognize and explain his influence on the coachee. Thus, according to his system, it is important that the coach works in line with the limits of law and cultural conventions to which his behavior is subjected.

At this stage the coach needs to help the coachee to overcome any resistance to feedback about his ethical leadership behavior and that can be a key representative of the organization. One of the results of this step may be identifying new goals and areas of intervention of the coachee to explore together with the coach.

The main responsibility to the coach is to demonstrate at this stage is his effectiveness in providing a clear and effective feedback, to develop the collaborator and the organization.

It is important to note that the barriers placed to the development and implementation of feedback in organizations is motivated by the fact that the word “feedback”, as a rule, has a negative connotation, not only for employees but also to their superiors. Due to this factor, organizations clearly need to implement actions that allow feedback to be a cultural norm.

Stage 7: Assessment of the implementation of the action-evaluation plan of the coaching process.

This last step of the proposed coaching model has particular importance for the coachee as a result of the generated feedback of his development throughout the whole process. In this phase, his needs in terms of ethical leadership behavior will be identified, which will lead him to continuous performance improvement.

In each block of two to three sessions an evaluation of the process should be conducted and also has to be predicted an integrative evaluation at the end of the process. The description of the results presented in each phase is dependent on the employment contract between the parties involved: coach—coachee—organization (client).

Once the process ends (after an average of 6-10 sessions), the coach’s role is to make an overall assessment of the sessions with the coachee and present the results to other parties involved or other representatives of the organization, as it is initially set on the contracting of the coaching process. In addition, the coach must collect client information in relation to the learning experience and evaluate how coaching helped the organization effectively (Lankau & Feldman, 2005).

Monitoring Stage of the Actions and Motivations of the Client This stage is transverse to the implementation of all other stages of the executive coaching model for the development of ethical leadership. Here we have to search the exploration of unconscious aspects that may exist in each stage as a block to the action (Miller & Rollnick, 2002).

This stage aims the coachee’s awareness of the consequences of his behaviors and the stimulation of his motivation to act, being very useful when there is resistance to change. The use of motivational interviewing in the context of executive coaching is still limited, but may have high potential in these situations (Passmore, 2007).

Below, a graphical representation of the proposed model is shown.

In conclusion, the Executive Coaching Model for Development of Ethical Leadership Behavior is functional because it assumes that is possible to achieve the unconscious level of the coachee and that prevents the coachee from achieving his goal. So, as long as he is in line with his capabilities and goals, setting what behaviors he has to change and the skills to acquire (Passmore, 2007).

COACHING AND ETHICAL LEADERSHIP

Stage 7: Assessment of plan-evaluation of the coaching process

Stage 1: Establishment of trust between coach and coachee and establishment of coaching contract

Stage 2: Analysis of the leader context and diagnosis of areas for improvement

Monitoring motivation and follow-up of development.

Stage 6: Revision of actions and transfer of skills

Stage 5: Definition of actions needed for the implementation of goals

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Stage 3: Establishment of performance standards and setting of goals

Stage 4: Planning of development activities of ethical leadership behavior

Figure 2. Proposal of an executive coaching model for the development of ethical leadership behavior based on the integrative model by Passmore (2007), on the competence executive coaching model by Koortzen and Oosthuizen.

Conclusion The presented model stands out from the coaching approaches proposed by other authors and aims to distinguish itself from approaches similar to consulting and get closer to approaches of psychological counseling and therefore differing in the methods and coaching style used.

The proposed approach emphasizes the process of awareness on the part of the coachee/client (Giglio et al., 1998), oriented towards the definition of a task and organization of the respective action plan (Joo, 2005; Sungkhawan & Mujtaba, 2009).

Focusing on the client, it is a model directed to the training of leaders for a new role or the development of complementary skills (Joo, 2005; Sungkhawan & Mujtaba, 2009), such as ethical leadership. Simultaneously, the present model aims the discovery of behaviors and feelings associated with the areas of improvement of the client even if they have to be in a more corrective logic (Passmore, 2007).

The importance of this paper follows the literature review developed about the executive coaching models for the development of ethical leadership and arises in regard of the finding that there has to improved the link between the constructs of executive coaching and the concept of ethical leadership. Moreover, there is a lack of conceptualization of executive coaching models for the development of ethical leadership behavior.

Therefore, it is expected that the conceptual framework and propositions made stimulate more rigorous and relevant research on executive coaching (Passmore, 2007). Finally, there is the need for longitudinal studies

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to support the construction of executive coaching models for the development of ethical leadership and that enhance the evaluation of the effectiveness of the results of executive coaching, so that it does not become transitory like other management practices.

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Psychology Research, ISSN 2159-5542 April 2014, Vol. 4, No. 4, 301-309

DAVID

PUBLISHING

Does Playing Games Contribute to Develop Better Attitudes?

Maria Thereza Costa Coelho de Souza, Ana Lucia Petty, Camila Tarif Ferreira Folquitto, Mariana Ines Garbarino, Tamires Alves Monteiro University of Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil This research was held at the Laboratory of Studies about Development and Learning (Institute of Psychology, University of Sao Paulo) for the period of three semesters in which children with learning disabilities aged 7-11 years were observed in a game context mediated by professionals. It investigated in which categories playing games interfered in the construction of favorable attitudes towards the learning and development processes. To collect data researchers used a questionnaire, answered in the beginning and at the end of each semester, and where attitudes were registered considering four categories: time, space, objects and interaction. A total of 88 questionnaires were analyzed. Results show that: (1) All categories increased scores; (2) There was no decrease in any category; (3) At space and objects there were more visible changes, comparing high scores between the first and third semesters, increasing 25% and 36% respectively; (4) At time and interaction, changes showed 20% high score increase in both, also comparing first with third semester; and (5) It was identified a decrease in low scores at time and there were not visible changes at interaction. Taking Piaget’s theory as reference and the practice in seeing children with learning disabilities at the laboratory, playing games in an intervention context contributes to help them build up better attitudes towards reasoning and social development.

Keywords: development processes, attitudes, playing games, intervention, genetic epistemology

Introduction The genetic epistemology of Jean Piaget embassies the psychogenetic approach of the development, presenting a relevant discussion about the factors that interfere in the mental evolution, contributing to the construction of new structures, such as those related to the knowledge of the physical world, the social interaction and the self. This author has proposed a succession of levels regarding the development of reasoning, stating that the operational thought supposes both: the transition from the concrete to the abstract level and from the individual to the social knowledge. About morality in children, he underlines that beyond the intellectual capacity to understand and practice social rules, the child also needs affectivity as the energetic regulation of the feelings towards the ones that presented the rules and expect them to be respected (Piaget, Maria Thereza Costa Coelho de Souza, Ph.D., professor, Laboratory of Studies about Development and Learning, Institute of Psychology, University of Sao Paulo.

Ana Lucia Petty, M.D., Laboratory of Studies about Development and Learning (Institute of Psychology, University of Sao Paulo.

Camila Tarif Ferreira Folquitto, Ph.D., Laboratory of Studies about Development and Learning (Institute of Psychology, University of Sao Paulo).

Mariana Ines Garbarino, M.D., Laboratory of Studies about Development and Learning (Institute of Psychology, University of Sao Paulo.

Tamires Alves Monteiro, M.D., Laboratory of Studies about Development and Learning (Institute of Psychology, University of Sao Paulo.

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1991).

According to Smith (2009), Piagetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perspective can be defined as a developmental epistemology because it articulates a theory of knowledge, in which genesis and structure are related (genetic epistemology), with a psychological method that allows to observe the transformations occurred with the subject and the object (clinical interview and piagetian tasks). Furthermore, for the author, psychology provides evidence about the transformations of knowledge and structures as the child develops, regarding the relations between external and internal factors. The genetic epistemology focuses on the interaction between subject and object, as well as between structure and genesis (dialectical constructivist). Together, they allow the subject to be investigated both from an epistemological point of view as well as the psychological.

The main subject of this research is the concept of attitude on solving problem situations as a system of intentional procedures organized by consciousness. Many times these procedures are isolated or not enough developed to face situations with more than one possible solution. As a consequence, they do not contribute to anticipate better strategies because they are too strict. Playing games in a problem-solving context, with peers and adult supervision promotes awareness of different points of views and look for better solutions. According to Inhelder (1992), procedures have to be coordinated, related to particular tasks and based on global mental processes (cognitive structures). Good procedures also have to be anticipatory and generalized to other situations, because they are based on macrogenetic construction. One can state that being able to construct successful procedures in terms of space, time, objects, and interaction allows the subject to change attitudes in favour of the learning and development processes.

Regarding the game context, Piagetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (1945) theory brought about important contributions to the researches that are game-based. In his studies, they were classified into three main structures: practice games, symbolic games, and games with rules. The latter supposes adjustment to reality and learning about the social world, and includes intellectual combinations regulated by rules and where there is competition between individuals. The author also states that knowledge means the existence of a subject-object relation, in a context where action is a condition for the former to build up new structures. In this particular case, he is making reference to actions that are significant to the subject. Firstly, these actions are physical, observable, involve movement and manipulation. Within the development process, the child becomes able to establish relations, and the actions are not only reduced to object manipulation, but they can also be mentally executed. From this moment on, he/she is capable of thinking, raising hypothesis, interpreting and creating, as well as can define goals, acts with intention and planning, coordinates information and considers different points of view. When rules are understood as a social regulator, it is possible to improve new competences in order to succeed and win, and to develop more adequate, interactive and cooperative attitudes (Piaget, 1932). To do so, it is also necessary to use different skills such as attention, organization, and self-control (Petty & De Souza, 2012).

Thus, the piagetian approach in which this research is based upon is considered interdisciplinary and provides a fundamental understanding about how children that have to solve challenges, in a context of playing games and problem-solving situations with adult supervision, articulate different elements that promote awareness of their actions and also improve their reasoning, affectivity and the ability to value judgments.

The practice in seeing children with learning disabilities (Macedo, Petty & Passos, 1997, 2000, 2005; De Souza, et al., 2002) at the Laboratory of Studies about Development and Learning has confirmed the contribution of playing games to the learning and development processes. This program is based on a methodology that supposes the use of games in an intervention context, and it is divided in four sequential Â

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moments: First of all, children must learn the rules and play, being orientated on how to act accordingly and achieve the target. After that, they are invited to play several matches, aiming at building up strategies, and are questioned about their procedures and attitudes. The third moment includes problem-solving situations, created to find out if each one has improved strategies and procedures while taking part of the game context. At last, and mostly important, the child has to establish relations between the attitudes and procedures constructed while playing games with his/her difficulties, being able to use inner resources to understand and deal with them. The main point is not to become a good player, but to surpass school problems and/or inadequate attitudes, and the game context offers a privileged opportunity to contribute in order to help each one build up better attitudes towards reasoning and social development.

This contribution was also observed in a longitudinal study (Folquitto, 2013) that aimed at providing favorable experiences to the development of children diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder). In this context, 18 children with ADHD aged 7-12 years took part in the research and were separated into two groups: one with children participating in the intervention program, and another group in which they were exclusively followed in their development (control group).

All participants were assessed before and after taking part of the intervention project, with rating scales of ADHD symptoms (SNAP-IV (Swanson, Nolan, and Pelham questionnaire (IV version)—parents and teacher rating scale of ADHD symptoms)), and with neuropsychological tests (ROCF (Rey Osterrieth Complex Figure), WISC-III’s subtests “Vocabulary”, “Block Design”, “Coding”, “Digit Span”, and “Symbol Search” for obtaining IQ, and measures of attention and processing speed).

During approximately one year, children were seen every week, in which games with rules were used to intervene in the symptomatic characteristics of children with ADHD, such as inattention, hyperactivity and deficits in executive functions. Results suggest that games and problem-solving situations, mediated by professionals, can be useful instruments to enhance the development of children with ADHD, decreasing many symptoms and improving the executive functions. Among those who took part in the activities proposed, there was a 36% reduction in symptoms of inattention and 40.9% in those related to hyperactivity. Regarding the executive functions, improvements occurred in tests that evaluated processing speed, memory, and visuospatial attention.

Another study has confirmed the value of playing games to benefit the development and learning processes (Torres, 2001). It was also conducted in the context of game workshops held at the laboratory, with seven elementary school students who had learning disabilities. The longitudinal study evaluated the evolution of the subjects regarding the operational thought, using the Longeot Scale (EPL (Échelle de la Pensée Logique)). The post-test indicated that all of them changed from a lower level to a superior one. Pedagogical progress was evaluated by two tests, involving linguistic and mathematical contents, and every participant showed better results, mainly in mathematics. Regarding attitudes to the learning process, analysis was made from data registered in records and they also confirmed that all subjects changed attitudes and improved school results.

Authors such as Zaia (1996; 2003), Brenelli (1993; 2002), Zuben (2003), Rosseti and Missawa (2008), Dias (2009), Saravali et al. (2009), Ortega, Rossetti, Queiroz, and Stursa (2012), Rossetti and Ortega (2012), also brought about several contributions of playing games. In their studies and investigations, the main goal was to enhance the importance of the game context to interfere positively to the learning and development processes of children diagnosed with learning difficulties.

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Each game and problem-solving situation investigated enables to analyze different procedures and attitudes, considering the piagetian perspective. In this approach, empirical researches have shown several possibilities of building up strategies and evaluating in a game context intervention. Brenelli (1996; 2005) has studied the game Quips taking into consideration aspects such as equivalence, inclusion, correspondence, seriating and conservation of quantities. According to the author, it is not the game itself that stimulates development, but the action of playing games in groups, which demands comprehension and cooperation. Petty & Passos (1996; 2005) have demonstrated how the Tic-Tac-Toe game brings about important contribution to make children learn how to become more organized in terms of dealing with limits and respecting opponents, both concepts based in the piagetian perspective. Tangram was another game investigated by the same authors.

In this case, the main point was to analyze the operational relations that could be observed as children played, and also the expression of patience as an important attitude to be developed in order to find solutions and understand the geometric relations among the pieces.

Games can be used as evaluating instruments and with different perspectives, willing to interfere in favour of the construction of more positive attitudes. As Souza (1996/2005) states, they allow researchers to study how children think, develop reasoning, build up affectivity and social relations. Professional interventions in a game context can help them visualize, understand and correct unfavourable procedures. In accordance with Souza, another interesting research held by Dell’Agli and Brenelli (2010) confirm that children with learning difficulties and school maladjustment proceed and get better results when participating in game contexts. We completely agree with their hypothesis that this ludic context enables children to feel more confident to explore different solutions, being less afraid to make mistakes, if compared to the school demands.

Problem This research summarizes a long-term study in which children were observed in a game context and their attitudes were registered in questionnaires that included four categories: time, space, objects, and interaction. It aimed at investigating in which categories playing games interfered to help them construct favorable attitudes towards the learning and development processes.

Materials and Method Children with learning disabilities aged 7-11 years took part in the research. They were seen at the Laboratory of Studies about Development and Learning (Institute of Psychology, University of Sao Paulo) for the period of three semesters, during one hour every week. In this context, they were invited to play games with rules, solve logical problems and interact with peers. The activities were supervised by professionals, who mediated and challenged them to develop reasoning and build up favorable attitudes towards the problem-solving situations. It is important to underline that the program held at the laboratory offers a particularly interesting empirical environment because children are always seen in groups, which allows a more complete understanding of the social relations.

To collect data researchers used a questionnaire, answered in the beginning and at the end of each semester. It investigated four categories (time, space, objects, and interaction), divided in different aspects that informed about what would be considered at each one.

(1) At “Time”, sequence of actions, action coordination and rhythm at tasks were the main references. It also included questions about: punctuality, beginning and ending of activities in the established period of time,

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commitment with started activities that were undone, concentration during individual and/or group propositions; (2) At “Space”, it was investigated how children managed with localization, organization and orientation in different places. There were also questions about the condition to remain at a defined place, the use of space without interfering in other’s place, how the space in a sheet of paper was used and if the child dominated the space of a board game; (3) At “Objects”, the questionnaire demanded information about caring of belongings, sharing materials with peers, and if the child could keep things in the proper place or find them when required. It was also important to register the use of garbage bin and files for papers, if there was interest in helping adults when necessary and if could follow a match moving the right piece at his/her turn; (4) At “Interaction”, there were many questions investigating social relations, friendships and choices of peers, recognition of the right time to talk and/or listen. It was also registered if the child required help and how often (meaning if he/she could do some activities alone before asks for interferences), comments and contributions, respect for friends and adults, observation of rules and limits, if accepted errors and mistakes, if followed others opinion and if was chosen by different colleagues.

Three scores were defined in order to register children’s procedures and attitudes: 3 for high, 2 for medium or 1 for low, to each aspect of every category, according to the frequency observed. To analyze data, by the end of the three semesters it was possible to sum up the total of scores in each semester and compare them, aiming at verifying if the game context would interfere in favour of attitude improvement, and in which categories high scores were noted. A total of 88 questionnaires were analyzed.

Results Results show important empirical indicators about the changes observed within the three semester game context. As a consequence, we can affirm that all investigated categories increased scores (see Figures 1 and 2).

70 60 50 40

1 sem 3 sem

30 20 10 0 S1

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Figure 1. Distribution of scores 1 and 3 per category in 1st and 3rd semesters.

Figure 1 represents the distribution of scores 1 and 3 per category in the first and third semesters. It is possible to observe that the most preeminent progress happened at space and objects. At the same figure, it can

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be noticed that the frequency of answers for score 1 decreased from the first to the third semester at three categories, exception to interaction, in which little changes happened. On the other hand, considering scores 3, even at interaction some progress occurred. At space and objects there were more visible changes, comparing high scores between the first and third semesters. They increased 25% and 36% respectively. At time and interaction, the changes were more discrete, showing 20% high score increases in both, also comparing first with third semester.

The distribution of score 3 per category during the three semesters can be visualized at Figure 2. It shows how changes developed at each semester.

There is a non linear progress, in which slight changes are noticed from the first to the second semester, and they become more evident from the second to the third. It seems the second semester represents a transition among the frequencies for score 3, that appears more evident. Another interesting aspect to be underlined is that there was no decrease of score 3 in any category (per semester). It was identified a decrease in low scores comparing results for each semester at time and there were no visible changes at interaction.

70 60 50 TIME S3

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Figure 2. Distribution of score 3 per category during the three semesters.

Comparing Figures 1 and 2, it can be observed that there was no decrease of score 1 at interaction and there was score 3 increase, which enables to infer that the progress was influenced by decrease of score 2. For future planning, it will be necessary to define interaction as a priority, among the other categories, as results showed.

Considering the childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s development perspective, the results are not a surprise and are aligned with Piaget's theory. Objects are one of the first things he/ she relates with, explores and learns about. Children who are not familiar enough with their school belongings, who are not able to share or take care of them, definitely need to conquer this competence. Doing so, and knowing what to do with objects contribute to spatial organization and this fact is confirmed with this research. In addition, it is known that to proceed adequately in relation to time matters, such as sequence of actions and rhythm at tasks, depend on a balanced relation between objects and space. All this is an interdependent construction, which has to include not only subject-object interaction, but also interaction, sharing and mutual respect. At interaction, scores 3 increased, but scores 1 did not indicate visible changes. The complexity of relating and establishing social interaction is probably one fundamental reason to explain the tardiness for changes to happen at this achievement.

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Discussion and Implications Playing games with children, under professional supervision and with adequate interventions, turned out to be a privileged opportunity to interfere in the categories they needed to improve. The game context demands from the players coordination between space and objects, as well as supposes action coordination in a period of time, always interacting with opponents and respecting the rules. As a consequence, it stimulated changes and the development of better attitudes, in particular those related to attention, organization and social relation.

It is important to underline that playing games is a necessary condition, but not enough for itself. In other words, it is not a guarantee that playing games will make children develop better attitudes at the four studied categories neither will directly interfere at their development. Changes can be noticed as the consequence of a well planned context in which interventions lead the subject to analyse procedures and attitudes, shifting the how-to-do action to the understanding of why it was done, widening the comprehension of the process. Thus, from this rich and favourable environment, that demands reasoning and reflection, the child becomes aware of his/her actions and is able to perform the necessary changes in attitudes. Macedo (1994) states that awareness of an action supposes understanding the process. Actions mean to do, being coordinated in space and time.

Awareness, in its turn, is also the consequence of mental processes including reflection about the actions and their coordination. In other words, to do supposes the construction of many procedures (regarding how) and to comprehend implies thinking about them (regarding why). Considering the piagetian approach, it is possible to affirm that action awareness means not only describing it, but also being able to understand and explain it.

As mentioned in the introduction, the research performed with children with ADHD indicated that playing games in the intervention context and in accordance with the methodology already described, showed that it helped them improve executive functions, generating a reduction of the symptoms of hyperactivity and inattention, contributing at social adjustment as well as improving the necessary resources for the learning and development processes. Moreover, the worsening of performance in neuropsychological tests presented by the control group can be interpreted as an indication that interventions focused on executive functions such as planning, attention and working memory are essential for children with ADHD to show improvements at the learning and developing processes. At the same time, the reduction of ADHD symptoms observed on children who took part in the game project can also be interpreted as a consequence of the interventions that contributed to the development of better attitudes, which were more targeted and focused to the goals.

Conclusion An important implication of the present research is to reinforce some methodological conditions to achieve good results, which are: (1) the game situations must be carefully planned; (2) interventions contribute to make children more conscious about their actions; (3) adequate problem-solving situations and significant tasks motivate children to face different challenges; and (4) this context favours children to become more confident and able to observe similarities among the procedures and attitudes constructed in the game context with school demands, willing to change.

This research consists of an important reference for further investigations and will enable professionals to use the results as a guide: (1) to define priorities at planning activities with games; (2) to know in what categories the project interferes first at childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attitudes; and (3) to create adequate interventions for the ensuing semesters, in order to help children surpass the remaining difficulties.

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To sum up, we can affirm that playing games and solving problems seem to bear powerful means to help children with learning disabilities build up resources to achieve high scores at fundamental categories of the learning and development processes. When they act in pro of the changes and succeed, they also behave like this at home and school, becoming more autonomous and competent.

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(Environment demandings and the construction of operational structures in children with learning difficulties) (Tese (Doutorado em Psicologia Educacional) Faculdade de Educação, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas). (in Portuguese) Zaia, L. L. (2003). Aprendizagem e desenvolvimento: Superando dificuldades. Aprender—Caderno de Filosofia e Psicologia da Educação—número especial: Dificuldades de Aprendizagem (Learning and development: Overcoming difficulties.

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17-36). UESB. (in Portuguese) Zuben, R. B. (2003). A construção dialética no jogo de regras Traverse em alunos com queixas de dificuldades escolares (The dialetical construction in Traverse games in students with learning difficulties) (Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação), Faculdade de Educação. Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas). (in Portuguese)

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Psychology Research, ISSN 2159-5542 April 2014, Vol. 4, No. 4, 310-321

DAVID

PUBLISHING

Value of a Friend, a Friend of Your Friend, and a Friend of the Friend of Your Friend Kuninori Nakamura Seijo University, Tokyo, Japan Jones and Rachlin (2006) found that the amount of money a person is willing to forgo in order to give $75 to another person decreased as a hyperbolic function of perceived social distance, in the same way as occurs in intertemporal choice. This study aimed to extend this finding to the domain of social networks, in which social distance is defined by degrees of separation. A total of 334 participants responded to tasks very similar to those in Jones and Rachlin (2006), except that they were required to choose whether they would prefer to receive an amount of money for themselves only or an amount of money for themselves and a person who is n degrees of separation from them up to six degrees. The results show that the hyperbolic function fit the data well, and that several processes appear to contribute to the judgments made in the experimental tasks.

Keywords: social discounting, n degrees of separation, intertemporal discounting, probability discounting

Social Discounting in n Degrees of Separationsď&#x20AC; In modern society, people must use money to live. However, as a matter of course, people cannot use all their money at once. Rather, people must allocate it between several purposes or several time periods. They distribute money between several stock options so as not to lose all their money at once. They save money for the future to avoid financial difficulties when they are old. Additionally, we also must share money with others in order to prevent poverty. As these examples show, how people use money is of vital importance in life, and appears to be organized according to several dimensions.

According to Simon (1995), a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s allocation of available goods can be described in terms of a three-coordinate system: One is the coordinate of their own current consumption, included in which is the concept that a person has several selves corresponding to their various positions, such as the family self or working self, and so need to allocate goods to these selves. The second is a coordinate of later times, representing sequential temporal persons as different from each other. The third is consumption by other people, according to which the feeling of sympathy between people may be measured by a discount factor. Simon (1995) suggested that this discount function may be similar to that of intertemporal discounting.

Consumption in later time periods corresponds to what is called intertemporal discounting. Many studies have demonstrated that people discount the value of goods as time goes by. Generally, it is known that people prefer small but immediate goods to large but delayed goods (e.g., Lowenstein & Prelec, 1998). To account for this preference, exponential and hyperbolic functions have been proposed.

An exponential discounting function has a form in which the discounted value v of rewards V is expressed Kuninori Nakamura, associate professor, Faculty of Social Innovation, Seijo University.

VALUE OF A FRIEND, A FRIEND OF YOUR FRIEND

311

as follows:

  Ve  kD

(1)

where v and V are the discounted and undiscounted reward values, respectively, and D is the time delay.

Alternatives to exponential discounting have been proposed by psychologists, behavioral ecologists, and behavioral economists. One major alternative proposal is that the discounting function is hyperbolic (e.g., Mazur, 1987):



V 1  kD

(2)

Until now, many studies have demonstrated that the hyperbolic function, rather than the exponential function, is the most appropriate because it fits the data better than the exponential function, under various experimental conditions (for a review, see Green & Myerson, 2002).

On the basis of findings within the intertemporal choice literature, Jones and Rachlin (2006) investigated whether discounting similar to intertemporal choice could also be found in Simon’s third coordinates. In their experiments, Jones and Rachlin (2006) required participants to imagine that they had made a list of the 100 people closest to them in the world, ranging from their dearest friend at position #1 to a mere acquaintance at #100, and then participants answered whether they would forgo a fixed amount of money to give it to another person or not. The results showed that the amount of money people were willing to give to another person decreased as a hyperbolic function of the perceived social distance between them, indicating that the discounting function with regard to social distance is similar to that in intertemporal choice, as Simon (1995) claimed. This study aims to extend the findings of Jones and Rachlin (2006) by considering another type of social distance.

Recent studies in network science have begun to pay attention to the concept of human society considered as a network (Barabási, 2002; Christarski & Fowler, 2009; Milgram, 1967). You have a friend, and your friend has a friend. If you do not know the friend of your friend, you can still have a link to the person via your friend.

You can extend such connections infinitely. In this vein, our society is a network of friend connections, and much research has paid attention to various aspects of our society considered as such a network (Barabási, 2002; Christarski & Fowler, 2009).

In a social network, the nth degree of separation can be considered as one type of social distance between two persons. The degree of separation refers to the number of links via friends between two persons. For example, your friend is a friend of the first order, because there is one link between you and your friends, and a friend of your friend is of the second order because there are two links; one is between you and your friend, and the other is between your friend and the friend of your friend. The number of links (n) between two persons can be increased infinitely, and as n increases, the social distance from you increases. For example, a second order friend is more remote than a first order friend, because you have not met the former whereas you directly know the latter. In addition, a third order friend is more remote than a second order friend, because even your friend does not know the former person. If the degree of separation is taken as social distance, the following questions arise: Does social discounting also appear with this type of social coordinate? If so, is it hyperbolic or exponential? The first purpose of this study is to address these questions.

A second purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between social ranking and degrees of separation as measures of social distance. Although both social ranking and degrees of separation can be

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considered as indices of social distance between persons, their meanings are a little different. Whereas the former measure reflects the distance among in-group members because it assumes that the ranking orders the 100 people closest to a person, from the dearest friend to a mere acquaintance, the latter measure contains not only in-group but also out-group individuals, because one cannot know a friend whose degree is of more than two. Thus, even if hyperbolic discounting is found in the nth degree of separation measure, the relationship between social ranking and degrees of separation would still be an interesting question. Therefore, this study also aims to address this issue.

For this research two empirical studies have been performed. Study 1 was to examine whether social discounting occurs with social distance in terms of degrees of separation. Study 2 explored the relationship between degrees of separation and closeness ranking, as used in Jones and Rachlin (2006).

Study 1 Study 1 required participants to answer whether they would prefer (a) an amount of money for themselves or (b) an amount of money for themselves and the person who is n degrees of separation from them, up to 6 degrees of separation. By this procedure, we tried to determine the amount of money forgone to give a person 60,000 yen. This procedure is almost the same as that of Jones and Rachlin (2006), except that the closeness ranking had been exchanged for degrees of separation.

Procedure One hundred and nineteen undergraduates participated in Study 1 for course credits, and all materials and response formats were provided in booklets. The booklets explained the meaning of the degrees of separation on the first page, and the experimental tasks began on the second page. The second page contained the following instructions: You know a person who is called “your friend”. The minimal condition for a person to be called a friend is that you and s/he know each other. In addition, there is a “friend of your friend” who is known to your friend but unknown to you.

This “friend of your friend” can also know a “friend of the friend of your friend” and a chain of friends can extend infinitely. Thus, we connect to various people through friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends, and so on, although most of them are unknown to you.

Next, you will be asked to make a series of judgments based on your preferences. On each line, you will be asked if you would prefer to receive an amount of money for yourself or an amount of money for the person listed. Please circle A or B for each line.

Each of the next six pages summarized the above instructions and then presented a list of questions as follows, with a different N-value on each page: Now imagine the following choices between an amount of money for you and an amount for you and for your friend. Circle A or B to indicate which you would choose in EACH line.

120,000 yen for you alone 60,000 yen for you and 60,000 yen for your friend 110,000 yen for you alone 60,000 yen for you and 60,000 yen for your friend …………………(continuing down to)………………..

(A) 60,000 yen for you alone (B) 60,000 yen for you and 60,000 yen for your friend

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The A-rows listed 9 amounts decreasing by 10,000 yen on each line, from 120,000 to 60,000 yen. Row-B had a different degree of separation on each page. The degrees of separation were from one to six. On each line, the participants were asked to choose between an amount of money just for themselves and 60,000 yen each for themselves and for the person. The degrees of separation were manipulated by adding “of friend” to the sentence in line B. For example, the second order friend was described as the “friend of your friend,” and the third order friend as the “friend of the friend of your friend.” All participants finished their questionnaire within fifteen minutes.

Results and Discussion

50000 30000 10000

Hyperbolic: R2=0.995

Exponential: R2=0.971

0

Amount of money forgone for 60,000yen to friend

The crossover point was estimated as the average of the last selfish (row-A) choices and the first generous (row-B) choices, in the same way as in Jones and Rachlin (2006) or Rachlin and Jones (2008). For example, if a participant preferred 90,000 yen for herself to having 60,000 yen and giving 60,000 yen to the Nth degree of separation friend, but preferred to have 60,000 yen and give 60,000 yen to the Nth friend over having 80,000 yen for herself, then the crossover point was taken as being 85,000 yen for that participant at that N-value.

Some participants chose the generous option even when the alternative was 120,000 yen for themselves. In these cases, a crossover point of 125,000 was assumed. In contrast, many participants chose the selfish option even when the choice was between 60,000 yen for themselves and 60,000 yen for themselves in addition to 60,000 yen for their friends. In these cases, the crossover point was assumed to be 0.

Figure 1 shows the mean allocation of money to friends who have n degrees of separation. We fitted both the hyperbolic and exponential functions to this data and compared their performances. The solid line is the best fitting hyperbolic discount function and the dashed line is the best fitting exponential discount function.

The fit is remarkably good (R2 = 0.995) when compared with the fit of intertemporal choice (e.g., Rachlin & Raineri, 1992) or of social discounting (Jones & Rachlin, 2006).

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Degree of separation Figure 1. Hyperbolic and exponential discount functions under the nth degree of separation in Study 1.

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For comparison, the best fitting exponential discount function is also shown in Figure 1, as the dashed line.

Although the fit with exponential discounting is high (R2 = 0.971), the percentage of variance accounted for by the exponential discount function is less than that of the hyperbolic function. The difference found between the fit of the hyperbolic and the exponential discounting is almost the same as that in Jones and Rachlin (2006). In sum, these results show that the hyperbolic function provides a better fit to the data than the exponential discount function. Thus, we can conclude that people’s discounting in terms of degrees of separation is similar to that of social ranking and intertemporal choice.

Study 2 Study 2 was designed to investigate a relationship between n degrees of separation and social rankings.

Although the two are similar as they both represent some kind of social distance, they do differ as while the latter distance can only represent the remoteness of in-group members, the former includes that of both in-group and out-group people. Thus, although Study 1 demonstrated hyperbolic discounting occurs in n degrees of separation, the way in which social ranking and degrees of separation are similar types of social distance still remains unclear. Therefore, Study 2 required participants to indicate their preference between receiving money for themselves and sharing money with their friends, under both social ranking and degrees of separation types of distance.

Procedure Two hundred and fourteen participants answered social discounting tasks using both social ranking and degree of separation conditions. As tasks to explore preferences with social distance as degrees of separation, we employed the same tasks as those in Study 1. For the social ranking tasks, we employed a procedure almost the same as that of Jones and Rachlin (2006). Precisely, the participants were provided with instructions that had been translated into Japanese from the original ones used by Jones and Rachlin (2006). Then participants were required to make choices between receiving an amount of money for themselves or receiving an amount of money for themselves and their friends, using the following response form: Now imagine the following choices between an amount of money for you and an amount for you and for your friend. Circle A or B to indicate which you would choose in EACH line.

(A) 120,000 yen for you alone (B) 60,000 yen for you and 60,000 yen for your #_person (A) 110,000 yen for you alone (B) 60,000 yen for you and 60,000 yen for your #_person ……………………(continuing down to)………………..

(A) 60,000 yen for you alone (B) 60,000 yen for you and 60,000 yen for your #_person The blanks shown above was replaced by a number (N = 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, or 100), with a different number used on each of the seven question pages.

Participants answered both the social ranking and degree of separation tasks in random order. All participants completed all the tasks within 20 minutes.

Results and Discussion Figure 2 shows the results of both the social ranking and the degree of separation tasks. We found that the

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50000 10000

30000

Hyperbolic: R2=0.998

Exponential: R2=0.873

0

Amount of money forgone for 60,000yen to friend

hyperbolic function fitted the data better than the exponential function in both cases. The differences between the hyperbolic and exponential discounting in Study 2 are more remarkable than those in Study 1, or in Jones and Rachlin (2006); whereas the R2s of the exponential functions are 0.873 and 0.850, those of the hyperbolic functions are greater than 0.90. Additionally, the data points systematically deviate from the exponential functions. Thus, we can conclude that Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1 and of Jones and Rachlin (2006).

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

70000 50000 10000

30000

Hyperbolic: R2=0.936

Exponential: R2=0.850

0

Amount of money forgone for 60,000yen to friend

Degree of separation

0

20

40

60

80

100

Social ranking Figure 2. Hyperbolic and exponential functions with data from the n degrees of separation and social ranking tasks in Study 2: The upper graph shows results in the n degrees of separation case, and the lower shows those in the social ranking case.

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Social ranking

To explore the relationship between social ranking and degrees of separation in depth, we performed the following two additional analyses. First, we estimated the k parameters of hyperbolic functions for the social ranking and degree of separation tasks. There was no relationship (r = -0.03, p > 0.01: see Figure 3) between k parameters in the two tasks (see Figure 3), indicating that the steepness of the functions in the social ranking and degrees of separation cases are somewhat independent from each other.

Degree of separation Figure 3. Scatterplot of k parameter.

Second, we also performed a factor analysis of the crossover points with promax rotation using the maximum likelihood method. The eigenvalues for the first three factors were 7.04, 2.54, and 1.35, respectively. Mainly due to the eigenvalue results, we adopted a three-factor solution pattern for the discounting tasks shown in Table 1, assuming the following interpretations of the meaning of the three factors.

Factor 1 leads mainly to allocations for high ranking friends and first degree friends. To define, these friends can be interpreted as close friends, so we named this factor “close friends”. Factor 2 can be considered as the “unknown others” factor, because it strongly influences the allocation to friends who have more than one degree of separation. Logically, one cannot directly know friends who are of more than the second order, and specifically, friends who have more than two degrees of separation are actually unknown because they are not even the friend of a first order friend. Factor 3 mainly impacts friends with rankings higher than 10th, and in particular those who are ranked at 20th place or higher. These friends are considered as not being so close.

Thus, we named this factor as the “acquaintances” factor.

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Table 1 Results of Factor Analysis Factor 1

Factor 2

Factor 3

Degree of separation 1st

0.78

0.12

-0.07

2nd

0.35

0.43

0.10

3rd

0.11

0.75

0.07

4th

-0.03

0.94

0.06

5th

-0.05

0.99

-0.02

6th

-0.06

0.99

-0.03

Social ranking 1st

1.00

-0.03

-0.10

2nd

1.01

-0.03

-0.07

5th

0.79

-0.06

0.23

10th

0.50

-0.08

0.53

20th

0.26

-0.11

0.79

50th

-0.09

0.05

0.97

100th

-0.16

0.18

0.83

Correlations Factor 1

1.00

Factor 2

0.36

1.00

Factor 3

0.53

0.49

1.00

The above results suggest that there are several dimensions to social discounting. Specifically, it is interesting that people have two dimensions of social distance with others who are not so close to them. To examine this indication more precisely, we also performed structural equation modeling and compared models of one, two, and three factors (see Figure 4).

The one factor model represents a hypothesis that both social rankings and degrees of separation can be summarized by one dimension, that peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dimension of social discounting is unitary. In contrast, the two and three factor models assume that social discounting can be decomposed into several dimensions. The two-factor model entails that social discounting occurs separately in the social ranking and the n degrees of separation tasks. In other words, this model assumes that participants construct a dimension of social discounting in accordance with experimental tasks. The three-factor model expresses an implication, based on the results of the factor analysis, that the two types of social distance considered in this study can be decomposed into three factors: one influences both social ranking and degrees of separation, and the other two factors affect these two dimensions, respectively.

The results of the structural equation modeling, shown in Table 2, clearly support the three factor model, as all of the fit indices indicate it is superior to the other two models. Thus, we can conclude that although social discounting in social rankings and degrees of separation share the same components, they can be decomposed into several dimensions. That is, while these two types of social distance are similar in how they reflect allocations made to closer friends, they differ in representing the allocations made to others who are not so close.

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Social distance

1ｓｔ 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th

1ｓｔ 2nd 5th 10th 20th 50th 100th

N degree of separation

Social ranking (a)

Social ranking

N degree of separation

1ｓｔ 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th

1ｓｔ 2nd 5th 10th 20th 50th 100th

N degree of separation

Social ranking (b)

Friends

acquaintance

Unknown others

1ｓｔ 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th

N degree of separation

1ｓｔ 2nd

5th 10th 20th 50th 100th

Social ranking

(c) Figure 4. Three structural equation models: (a) a one-factor model that indicates both the social ranking and n degrees of separation can be summarized by one dimension; (b) a two factor model that implies participants construct dimensions of social discounting corresponding to the experimental tasks; and (c) a three-factor model that reflects the implication of the factor analysis that social rankings and degrees of separation share one common factor (“friend”), but are also individually affected by “acquaintances” and “unknown others” factors, respectively.

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VALUE OF A FRIEND, A FRIEND OF YOUR FRIEND Table 2 Results of Structural Equation Modeling Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

AIC 311.98 342.47 186.37

BIC 497.11 534.33 331.11

GFI 0.88 0.90 0.94

CFI 0.96 0.95 0.99

General Discussion The results of the two studies can be summarized as follows. First, we found that there is hyperbolic social discounting with the n degrees of separation type of social distance. Recently, many researchers have paid attention to the way in which the structure of our social networks affects human life (e.g., Christarski & Fowler, 2009). Most of these studies investigate how people’s behavior affects others through links between persons.

However, previous studies have not considered the way in which people consider others in their social network.

In this vein, this may be the first study that concerns how people consider others who have n degrees of separation. Furthermore, as far as we know, this is the first study that shows hyperbolic discounting occurring with social distance other than in closeness rankings. Hyperbolic discounting is found not only in the domain of social discounting but also in probability or intertemporal discounting (Jones & Rachlin, 2009). Thus, this study applied hyperbolic discounting to another type of social distance and has demonstrated with evidence the hyperbolic function’s ability to explain discounting under various types of psychological distance.

Second, from the results of estimating the parameters of hyperbolic discounting and the structural equation modeling, we can conclude that people have two dimensions to their conceptualization of others who are not so close to them: One applies to others who are known but are not so close, and the other applies to those who are unknown. Intuitively, these appear to be quite natural results. However, these results are interesting because hyperbolic discounting occurs under both dimensions, despite them being independent of each other.

Additionally, this finding is also of interest because it appears to contradict Simon’s (1995) suggestion that social discounting is one-dimensional.

The results of this study may support construal level theory (Trope & Lieberman, 2010). This theory assumes that people’s judgments of various types of psychological distance can be decomposed into two levels of construal: higher and lower levels. The theory claims that high-level construals are relatively abstract, coherent, and super-ordinate mental representations as compared with low-level construals. It also argues that people use increasingly higher levels of construal to represent an object as the psychological distance from the object increases. The results of our factor analysis and structural equation modeling consistently show that both the social ranking and n degrees of separation can be decomposed into two factors. One factor reflects allocations made to psychologically close friends, and the other reflects those to psychologically remote friends.

This factor structure appears to match the structure entailed by construal level theory.

In addition, what is more interesting in the results of the factor analysis is that the factor reflecting allocations to close friends is related to both the social ranking and n degrees of separation types of distance. As stated in the introduction, social rankings and degrees of separation are somewhat different dimensions of social distance: while the former represents distances between known others, the latter contains those between unknown others. In this vein, the results of the factor analysis suggest that the contents of the “friends” factor are richer than those of the other two factors, because this factor influences the two different types of social

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dimension. If we interpret the “friends” factor as a lower level construal that is psychologically closer, this indication corresponds to a proposition of construal level theory that lower level construals have more complex representations than higher level construals (Trope & Lieberman, 2010).

One may suspect that current results solely reflects participants’ perception for “number” rather than that for social distance. That is, social distances employed in this study such as social ranking or degree of separation is somewhat abstract for participants, so there is a possibility that participants could not grasp precise images for these distances and thus might respond depending on their perception for magnitude of numbers used in this study.

This question is important and should be explored in the future research because it concerns meaning of social distance: it is sure that social distance is a very abstract concept and at least ordinary people rarely rank their friends or consider how remote friend of their friend is more them. In this vein, a question that how participants distinctively understand meanings of rank or degree of separation is critical for experimental aspect of studies on social discounting.

However, as far as this study concerns, the results of factor analysis can eliminate the above interpretation.

The factor pattern shown in Table 1 indicate that there is a prominent distinction among the three factors, suggesting that participants surely had precise distinction among “close friend”, ”acquaintances”, and “unknown others”. This distinction matches experimental manipulation of this study, supporting a possibility that participants’ judgments reflect their perception for various dimension of social distance.

Of course, the following possibility still remains: it is sure that participants’ judgments are based on their perception for social distances, but good fit of the hyperbolic function in social discounting is due to their perception for number. This demarcation should be investigated not only in the domain of social discounting but also other domains of discounting including intertemporal discounting (e.g., Lowenstein & Thaler, 1989) or probability discounting (for a review, see Vulkan, 2000). Thus, one more important issue for future research regarding social discounting in cases of n degrees of separation may be its relationship to probability or intertemporal discounting. Jones and Rachlin (2009) reported that the steepness of discounting, represented by the k parameter, was correlated for probability, intertemporal, and social ranking discounting across participants.

The results of Study 2 show that the k parameter did not correlate between the social ranking and n degrees of separation experiments, suggesting that the latter dimension may be unique and different from the other three dimensions. If so, what is the meaning of social discounting? Why does the n degrees of separation differ from delay, probability, and social ranking in its discounting? Pursuing this question may be fruitful in exploring how “social” is represented in the human mind.

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Christakis, N. A., & Fowler, J. (2009). Connected: The surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives.

Little, Brown and Company.

Green, L., & Myerson, J. (2002). A discounting framework for choice with delayed and probabilistic reward. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 769-792.

Jones, B., & Rachlin, H. (2006). Social discounting. Psychological Science, 17, 283-286.

Jones, B., & Rachlin, H. (2009). Delay, probability and social discounting in a public goods game. Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 91, 61-73.

Lowenstein, G., & Thaler, R. (1989). Intertemporal choice. Journal of Economic Perspective, 3, 181-193.

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Mazur, J. E. (1987). An adjusting procedure for studying delayed reinforcement. In M. L. Commons, J. E. Mazur, J. A. Nevin, & H. Rachlin (Eds.), Quantitative analysis of behavior Vol. 5: The effects of delay and of intervening events on reinforcement value (pp. 55-73). Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum.

Milgram, S. (1967). The small-world problem. Psychology Today, 1, 60-67.

Rachlin, H., & Jones, B. (2008). Social discounting and delay discounting. Journal of Behavioral Decision making, 21, 29-43.

Rachlin, H., & Raineri, A. (1992). Irrationality, impulsiveness, and selfishness as discount reversal effects. In G. F. Loewenstein, & J. Elster (Eds.), Choice over time (pp. 93-118). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Simon, J. L. (1995). Interpersonal allocation continuous with intertemporal allocation: binding commitments, pledges, and bequests. Rationality and Society, 7, 367-392.

Trope, Y., & Lieberman, N. (2010). Construal-level theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review, 117, 440-463.

Vulkan, N. (2000). An economistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perspective on probability-matching. Journal of Economic Surveys, 14, 101-118.

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DAVID

PUBLISHING

Contemporary Counseling and Its Discontents: A Counselogist on Homo Consultans Józef Kargul University of Lower Silesia, Kłodzko Campus, Kłodzko, Poland The paper addresses risks and threats inherent in the “counseling boom”, which has affected the actual modes of help provision in guidance/counseling, and generated a unique “counseling fashion” for counseling of various kinds and hence, of various quality. Offering a critical analysis of counseling, the author proposes a few hypotheses about the phenomenon and posits that: (1) Some of the current counseling interventions—also within career counseling—are clearly market-driven; (2) Neoliberal (and post-neoliberal) social policies, as well as stratification of society, have prompted changes in the counselor’s role, who is no longer a creator of unique social services but, with the services having been marketized, has become a “commodity supplier”; and (3) Contemporary homo consultans, falling into the “clutches” of experts, becomes dependent on counselors, who exert power over him/her and appropriate his/her life.

Keywords: counseling boom, wilfing, marketization of counseling, counselor’s role changes, search for another human being, dependency on counselors

Introduction This paper addresses risks and threats inherent in the “counseling boom”, which has observably affected the actual modes of help provision in guidance/counseling and generated a unique “counseling fashion”: a rapidly spreading vogue for counseling of various kinds and, hence, of various quality. The aim of this paper is to critique the current developments in counseling based on the hypothesis that many (perhaps most) contemporary counseling interventions, also within career counseling, are a predominantly market-driven enterprise. Before embarking on this critical task, the author needs to state the obvious: neoliberal (and post-neoliberal) social policies, coupled with the social stratification, have altered the role of counselors: Once the creators of unique social services, they have become “commodity suppliers” as the services have turned marketable goods. In this context, the author will reflect on the current condition of the homo consultans1 and offer further, in his opinion, highly plausible, hypotheses about the causes and ramifications of the counseling boom.

Discussion It hardly needs arguing that we inhabit a multifaceted and rapidly changing world. The complexities of Józef Kargul, Ph.D., professor, Head of the General Pedagogy and Counsellogy Unit, University of Lower Silesia, Kłodzko Campus.

1 The Latin term has been adopted by Alicja Kargulowa to denote not only a counselee but also any advice-seeking person, with advice-seeking identified as a typically human engagement recognizably intensified in the modern era.

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contemporary reality—revolutionary advancements in communication, a dynamic expansion of science and technology, and the concomitant radical changes in work and organization of labor—are manifest in social and cultural transformations ubiquitous not only in European societies but also across the world. These changes have all but “abrogated” culture as described by Margaret Mead, and to say this is not to propose a hypothesis but to state the obvious. Namely, they not only annihilated the postfigurative and cofigurative cultural patterns, but also effaced the prefigurative model, producing a gaping generational divide: a cultural “gulf” that separates parents from children. Unable to keep up with the accelerated changes, the former refuse to learn from their offspring, who in their turn are hardly eager to “share” with their knowledge and skills, through which they create a world of their own. This world tends to be a virtual one, consisting of social networks, Facebooks, Twitters, and e-mails. The inhabitants of this world communicate and seek information in specific modes and manners, involving a novel language different from the language of traditional books. And the books themselves are rarely, if ever, resorted to.

That the author refers to “information” and not to “knowledge”, here is a fully purposeful word choice.

The author posits, namely, that a substantial proportion of the multitude of young school-goers and university students seek first of all functional, instantly applicable information, which could be put into use here and now.

Impelled by such motivation, they form “a swarm”, to render it metaphorically, which pursues information rather than knowledge2, the goal attainable without the perusal of books—the computer alone suffices. As Robert Siewiorek (2013) observes, Traditional books rely on long thought sequences and intricate argumentation, which gradually lead the readers toward conclusions that the author intended for them to arrive at. The Internet does not operate in this way. On the Internet, we do not need to follow the author dutifully.… Knowledge transmitted and obtained here is “networked knowledge”—accumulated through links which propose interconnections among ideas, sprawling in all directions at the same time. Instead of a logically sequenced series of facts, we are confronted with complexity and chaos that are supposed to reflect the nature of the modern world. The chaos penetrates into our consciousness. It alters the ways in which we think and read. But we do not read e-books on the Internet; instead, we just wilf them. An acronym for “What was I looking for?”, “wilfing” denotes a type of mental activity characteristic of our involvement with the computer. (p. 31)

Thus, we could legitimately hypothesize that when answering the fundamental question of “What was I looking for?” many of the “wilfing” Internauts, irrespective of their age or sex, would conclude that they were looking for “another human being”. Immersed in the instant culture of hasty consumerism and fully subordinated to its rules, they are on a quest for a person with whom to bond and, thereby, to fulfill the urgent need for reciprocity, affiliation and human kindness. This is the essential drive behind the dazzling popularity of social networks. Their search, nonetheless, frequently fails to produce satisfying outcomes, because their contact with “another human being” is electronically “mediated”—by the computer, the tablet, the mobile phone. As such, it is not a face-to-face relation, which, despite the ubiquity and attractions of mediated communication, continues to be an object of desire occupying top positions in people’s priority lists—a humanistically underpinned and inimitably appealing value.

Searching for another human being in the post-modern world, an individual realizes that the consumer market—ready to meet nearly all needs, including the most sublime ones—rushes to his/her help with an offer 2

The literature distinguishes between information and knowledge. The author finds Marc Porat’s formulation most convincing.

Cited by Manuel Castells in The Rise of the Network Society (Harvard UP, Cambridge, Mass., 1996), Porat defines information as “the data that has been organized and communicated”.

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of a “bought friendship”, as Kargulowa (1996) puts it, and refers him/her to multiple counselors. With the proliferation of counselors in consumer culture, individuals encouraged to use their help can choose among tax advisors, financial consultants, vocational counselors, investment consultants, account handlers, legal advisors, school advisors and family counselors, not to mention hosts of counselors in psychological and educational counseling facilities.

The list above represents but a handful of examples, comprising merely a sample of professional guidance and counseling practitioners. As such, it is a fraction of the multitude of people who perform a range of advisory and helping functions, including our kin, neighbors, friends, acquaintances, and also strangers we coincidentally engage with in face-to-face encounters. Their already numerous ranks are augmented by counselors who advise us via various media—the authors of sundry advice publications, self-help handbooks, and “advice columns” available in newspapers and magazines as well as on the Internet, radio and television.

Additionally, we are also guided by astrologists, numerologists, fortune-tellers, Tarot diviners, clairvoyants, etc.. Briefly, we are inundated with advice by experts in nearly all spheres of social life, who, likewise, seek counseling themselves. Certainly, it is common knowledge that there are two principal categories of counselors: professional and non-professional ones, with the latter role frequently assumed also by ourselves. All of them, irrespective of all differences, have one characteristic in common. Namely, they are not accountable for the guidance they provide, even though it may prove deleterious to their clients, as the author has already discussed elsewhere (Kargul, 2004).

This does not in the least hinder either the growing popularity of counseling or the increase in the “population” of counselors. Inferably, we could propose another hypothesis, that these outcomes ensue from the joint, mutually reinforcing impact of the cultural change mentioned above, aggressive advertising of counseling services, anomie and authority crisis as well as the dismissal of the book, or the printed word as such, by a significant proportion of consumers of culture. The quest for “another human being” or “a friend” indulged in by helpless people who are dissatisfied by both on-line and off-line life (“being-on/off-the-Web”, so to speak) only enhances the effect. “The buying of friendship”, thus, is not necessarily caused exclusively by the buyer’s cynicism, who in purchasing a counselor, purchases a listener and a friend. The buyer may be prompted by the scarcity of well-wishing people around (Kargulowa, 1996), by the sheer inability to find a trustworthy person to confide in and entrust him/herself to, by there simply being no “human being” within his/her horizon. Scott Lash has aptly observed that in the post-modern world, which makes the “expert-systems” universally accessible, people’s automatic reaction to any disruption is to consult experts.

When family relationships become fraught with tension or other intimate bonds collapse, people tend to seek experts’ advice, rather than actually try to probe into intentions, emotions and sentiments behind, for example, the partner’s latest fax message, her sadness or her silence. Lash highlights the deeply distressing fact that our recourse to the expert-systems increasingly tends to be pre-emptive in the first place (Lash, 1994, p. 163).

Investigating guidance provision, counseling researchers observe that irrespective of whether the intervention is executed professionally or non-professionally, one can always distinguish its subject, object, aim, methods, tools, means, course, and measurable effects. The counseling action is situated in a particular social, cultural and natural environment. More incisive analyses identity various meanings and positions of counseling: counseling as enactment of a role, counseling as performance of the counseling profession, and counseling as provision of specialized services. In an optimal situation, the service entails cooperation of the counselor and the counselee, who focus together on the problems of the latter. On other occasions, it may

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gravitate towards rivalry, which is the case especially if a person seeks counseling under others’ pressure rather than out of his/her own acknowledged need and wish. And on still other occasions, it mutates into a bought friendship, in which the counselee invests in sustaining the contact with the counselor, but does not attempt to use the counselor’s help to solve problems or fundamentally change his/her life. In such contexts, the counselee simply seeks to feign change so as to uphold the illusion of him/herself as a “modern” person, for example. The advice-providing counselor, in turn, finds it expedient to listen to the client, to spare him/her any effort, and to ensure his/her comfort and satisfaction by offering ready-made “identity kits”, e.g., a macho, a new sensitive man, a business woman, etc., without actually fathoming the counselee’s experiences and emotions.

In specifically psychological terms, especially in the wake of the Rogerian turn, counseling tends to be identified with the counselor-counselee relation as such. Frequently, it is even supposed to be “a pure relation” sustained because of and for the sake of pleasure it gives to the partners, who relish being together, supporting each other psychologically, and offering each other understanding, kindness, tolerance, and security in the collaborative problem-solving. The counseling relation entered into, created, and constructed by its participants emerges in a situation which is at the same time discrete and open. It must be discrete enough to be identifiable, separable and distinguishable from other situations; and it must be open enough to “come into being” at all, “to become”, to enable its participants to act expressively, to reflect profoundly, to analyze intellectually, and to feel sensitively. This pertains both to situations which materialize in counseling institutions, to situations which occur in genuine, unintentional, unstructured, and incidental circumstances (cf.

Siarkiewicz, 2010) as well as to situations which unfold in the virtual world created at the interface with diverse media messages (cf. Zielińska-Pękał, 2007; Zierkiewicz, 2004). Whatever emerges and happens in the counseling situation produced in such a dyad, in the created space of cooperation, is called counseling. And the site where the relationship commences, as well as the time and circumstances in which it develops, constitutes its context.

Understood in this way, counseling is often identified with Buberian dialogue, with emphatic communication and with the transmission of honest, generally positive and reinforcing messages. However, even if we could demonstrate the performative character of the “space” of interactions created in such a conjuncture, delineate their cultural frameworks, attempt to spell out the general formula of “guidance provision/reception in counseling” or distinguish stages in which helping proceeds, all this would be of no avail to us in specifying many other, perhaps more important, dimensions of counseling. We would still be unable to codify the values invested in the counseling situation, the degree to which its participants commit their own resources to it, the nuances abounding in each particular implementation of the general formula, the participants’ experiences and, ultimately, the final outcomes of the “guidance provision/reception in counseling”. Not only would we fail to codify them, but we would also be unable to comprehensively design them both for an individual and for society, let alone for the whole globe.

Clearly, irrespective of thoroughness and sophistication of counseling researchers’ interventions into counseling—and they include theorizations, analyses and resultant proposals for the optimization of counseling practice—the modern Western market-generated human being cannot do without counselors. Homo consultans indeed depends on counselors, regardless of what competencies they possess and what attitudes to the client they embrace. Homo consultans more and more frequently finds him/herself unable to evade “the helping

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hand” which “strikes again”, as John Holt wittily and poignantly put it3. At this point, another hypothesis offers itself, that now hardly any sphere of human activity grants an individual a free “space” to be enjoyed and used for truly unrestrained and self-reliant being and participation. Under the media terror, we are all manipulated into believing that we are, without exception, incompetent in particular spheres of our lifeworlds. As a result, we internalize the conviction that we are unable to create our own life paths. Constantly beset with insecurity, confusion and overpowering vulnerability, homo consultans seeks, thus, advice and guidance. The underlying motivations are legion. Most frequently people pursue educational and therapeutic goals, which means that they seek to obtain certain knowledge and/or to attain an emotional equilibrium, possibly solving certain technical problem in the process. Nonetheless, if sought with immoderate frequency, advice and guidance prove a counterproductive entrapment: since they can be highly addictive, homo consultans risks developing dependency on counselors and the learned helplessness syndrome. S/he falls into the “clutches” of experts, who start to exert power over him/her and appropriate his/her life. Additionally, while providing guidance, counselors themselves are sometimes inclined to pursue their own agendas, striving to satisfy their diverse needs, such as the need for domination or the need to solve their own problems in life, with the counseling situation turning into a psychotherapeutic session for the counselors themselves.

Conclusion Concluding, and eager to evade charges of one-sidedness, the author must add that the counseling situation is supposed to be a unique performance—a language-based cooperation; a collaboratively accomplished event/fact/process of performative character. Undoubtedly, there are people who enter a relation with the counselor reflectively, and use the knowledge, help, support and understanding obtained from the counselor to re/de/construct their biographies and life visions. They use guidance selectively as a corrective to the trajectories of their biographies.

This optimistic note cannot however prevent further interrogations. It must be ascertained that given the findings and observations discussed above, we need wide-ranging psychological research to verify the hypotheses proposed in the foregoing and to respond to the yet unanswered queries and ambiguities, such as: How can we shield our identities while seeking counselors’ help?

(When) Can we do without counselors?

Should we protect ourselves against counselors? If not, why? If so, how?

References Castells M. (1996). The rise of the network society. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Holt, J. (2009). O pomocy i specjalistach od pomagania. In A.Czerkawska (Ed.), Podstawy pomocy psychologiczno-pedagogicznej.

Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Dolnośląskiej Szkoły Wyższej.

Kargul, J. (2004). Kilka uwag o niebezpieczeństwach poradnictwa. In E. Siarkiewicz (Ed.), Niejednoznaczność poradnictwa.

Zielona Góra: Oficyna Wydawnicza Uniwersytetu Zielonogórskiego.

Kargulowa, A. (1996). Przeciw bezradności. Nurty—opcje—kontrowersje w poradnictwie i poradoznawstwie. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego.

Kargulowa, A. (2012). Counseling in the satellite communication era. Studia Poradoznawcze—Journal of Counselogy. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskiej Szkoły Wyższej.

3

The phrase “The Helping Hand Strikes Again” comes originally from Holt’s “On Help and Helpers”, part of his Escape from Childhood: The Needs and Rights of Children, (New York, Ballantine Books, 1974).

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Kargulowa, A. (2013). About the development of counselogy. Conference paper read at the international conference Career Guidance, Counseling and Dialogue for a Sustainable Human Development. Wrocław, Poland, November 26th-28th, 2013.

Lash, S. (1994). Reflexivity and its doubles: Structure, aesthetics, community. In U. Beck, A. Giddens, & S. Lash, Reflexive modernization: Politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order. Palo Alto, C.A.: Stanford University Press.

Mead, M. (1970). Culture and commitment: A Study of the generation gap. Garden City, N.Y.: Natural History Press/Doubleday & Company.

Siarkiewicz, E. (2010). Przesłonięte obszary poradnictwa. Realia—iluzje—ambiwalencje. Zielona Góra: Oficyna Wyd. UZ. Siewiorek, R. (2013). Poczwarki rosną w sieci. W erze e-booków to nie ty czytasz książkę. To książka czyta ciebie. Gazeta Wyborcza, Magazyn (30.03-01.04., p. 31).

Zielińska Pękał, D. (2007). Od wirtualnego “realis” do “symulakrum”. O historii pewnego zniewolenia.

Teraźniejszość—Człowiek—Edukacja (No. 3, pp. 37-54).

Zierkiewicz, E. (2004). Poradnik—oferta wirtualnej pomocy?. Kraków: Impuls.

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