Ronni Michelle Greenwood

Community Integration of Adults with Psychiatric Disabilities and Histories of Homelessness

This study tests components of Wong and Solomon’s (2002, Mental Health Services Research, 4(2), 13–28) model of community integration, identifying both the dimensions and predictors of integration. It evaluates community integration among adults with psychiatric disabilities assigned randomly to receive either independent scatter-site apartments with the Housing First approach (experimental) or services as usual (control). Factor analysis supported a definition of community integration that includes psychological, physical, and social domains, but also suggested the existence of another factor, independence/self-actualization. Regression analysis suggested that choice and independent scatter-site housing were predictors of psychological and social integration respectively. Psychiatric hospitalization, symptomatology and participation in substance use treatment were also found to influence aspects of integration. We discuss several issues that future studies should explore including the possibility that the same factor can differentially influence discrete aspects of integration, the role of person–environment fit, integration that is not based in the neighborhood, and, finally, conceptions of community integration from the perspective of consumers themselves.

INTERSECTIONAL POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS: APPRECIATION FOR INTRAGROUP DIFFERENCES AND SOLIDARITY IN DIVERSE GROUPS

This article introduces an intersectional approach to political consciousness and presents data to demonstrate its importance for predicting solidarity in diverse social change organizations. Women activists (N = 174) completed measures of political consciousness, diversity, and solidarity. As expected, women differed in the degree to which their political consciousness reflected intersectionality (sensitivity to intragroup differences arising from intersections of social identities, such as ethnicity with gender) and singularity (focus on intragroup similarities arising from a shared social identity, such as gender). Although high group diversity related to lower solidarity, the content of political consciousness moderated the negative association of diversity to solidarity. High diversity had a negative association with solidarity only when political consciousness reflected a high degree of singularity and a low degree of intersectionality. These findings challenge the common assumption that diversity undermines a groups ability to work together and suggest that, when appreciation of difference is an important aspect of an individuals identity, solidarity with a social change organization may be greater when group diversity is high rather than low.

Implementations of Housing First in Europe: Successes and Challenges in Maintaining Model Fidelity

To describe and evaluate the fidelity of Housing First (HF) initiatives in six European countries to the Pathways HF (PHF) model and examine the larger social, historical, and political factors that may foster or impede model fidelity. Key stakeholders representing six European HF initiatives completed semi-structured phone interviews. Interviews were thematically analyzed according to five key fidelity domains and updated with interim results of a recent European research project (Housing First Europe). Dissatisfaction with the status quo was often cited as the catalyst driving searches for system change. PHFs evidence base, consumer-driven philosophy, recovery-oriented services, and view of housing as a basic right swayed local decisions to implement HF programs. Interviews yielded stronger evidence of fidelity on no housing readiness requirements, separation of housing and services, a harm reduction approach, consumer choice in services, and weaker evidence of fidelity on scatter-site housing, choice in housing, and breadth and intensity of services provided. Implementation challenges included resistance from existing programs, availability of affordable housing, and moral judgments of worthiness for housing. Both new and established programs evidenced high commitment to PHF principles and philosophy, but older programs demonstrated greater fidelity on a wider range of indicators. Early evidence indicates that HF can be successfully replicated within the European context, though local historical, social, and political factors may impact fidelity. Many programs committed to fidelity in principle faced external or financial barriers to implementation. Strategic planning and training to ensure that the programs unfold and mature in ways that realize HF principles in practice is recommended.

Thanks, But No Thanks Women’s Avoidance of Help-Seeking in the Context of a Dependency-Related Stereotype

The stereotype that women are dependent on men is a commonly verbalized, potentially damaging aspect of benevolent sexism. We investigated how women may use behavioral disconfirmation of the personal applicability of the stereotype to negotiate such sexism. In an experiment (N = 86), we manipulated female college students’ awareness that women may be stereotyped by men as dependent. We then placed participants in a situation where they needed help. Women made aware of the dependency stereotype (compared to controls who were not) were less willing to seek help. They also displayed a stronger negative correlation between help-seeking and post help-seeking affect—such that the more help they sought, the worse they felt. We discuss the relevance of these findings for research concerning women’s help-seeking and their management of sexist stereotyping in everyday interaction. We also consider the implications of our results for those working in domains such as health care, teaching, and counseling, where interaction with individuals in need and requiring help is common.

'Ordinary decent domestic violence': A discursive analysis of family law judges' interviews

This study examined judges’ constructions of the ‘best interests of the child’ in child custody and access arraignments where there were allegations of domestic violence within the context of an interview. Using interviews with six Irish District Court judges, a micro-structural discourse analysis enabled the identification of socio-cultural discourses, scientific knowledge and judges’ own values and beliefs biases about custody arraignments in cases of domestic violence. Judges’ discourses were shaped by an idealisation of the nuclear family unit which resulted in a pro-access philosophy (Theme 1). The knowledge that domestic violence had occurred challenged this ideology and, to rhetorically manage this dilemma, judges’ talk normalised or trivialised abusive parents’ behaviour, which rendered domestic violence irrelevant to child custody and access (Theme 2). Mothers who alleged domestic violence when they disputed contact between fathers and their children were pathologised through talk (Theme 3). It is recommended that systems be put in place, including judicial training, to facilitate judges in their decision-making process in this highly discretionary and complex area of the law.

Help-Seeking Helps Help-Seeking and Group Image

Seeking help from an outgroup can be difficult, especially when the outgroup is known to stereotype the ingroup negatively and the potential recipient cares strongly about its social image. However, we ask whether even highly identified ingroup members may seek help from a judgmental outgroup if doing so allows them to disconfirm the outgroup’s negative stereotype of the ingroup. We presented participants with one of two negative outgroup stereotypes of their ingroup. One could be disconfirmed through seeking help, the other could not. Study 1 (n = 43) showed group members were aware of the strategic implications of seeking help for disconfirming these stereotypes. Study 2 (n = 43) showed high identifiers acted on such strategic knowledge by seeking more help from the outgroup when help-seeking could disconfirm a negative stereotype of their group (than when it could not). Implications for the seeking and acceptance of help are discussed.

Immigrant Women’s Experiences of Acculturative Stress: Ordinary Privileges, Overt Discrimination, and Psychological Well-Being

We examined the relation of two acculturation stressors, exclusion from ordinary privileges and overt discrimination, to two indicators of psychological well-being (i.e., psychiatric symptoms and satisfaction with life) among a diverse sample of immigrant women living in Ireland (N = 174). We grouped our sample into “visible” immigrant women of color and “nonvisible” White immigrant women. As expected, visible immigrant women reported more experiences of overt discrimination and fewer experiences of ordinary privileges than did nonvisible immigrant women. The associations of belonging to a visible immigrant group with both psychiatric symptoms and satisfaction with life were each mediated through ordinary privileges and overt discrimination. The magnitude of the two indirect effects was equal for psychiatric symptoms, but for satisfaction with life, the indirect effect through ordinary privileges was stronger. After accounting for ordinary privileges and overt discrimination, the average score for satisfaction with life was higher for visible immigrant women than for nonvisible immigrant women. These findings suggest that visible immigrant women experience exclusion from ordinary privileges to a greater extent than nonvisible immigrant women and that this type of exclusion is at least as detrimental to psychological health as more overt forms of discrimination. Our findings demonstrate the importance of attending to discrimination of both visible and nonvisible immigrants and highlight the importance of ordinary privileges to immigrants’ well-being in their countries of destination. We discuss implications for future research and social policy.

From the "reel" world to the "real" world: subjective experiences of violent fictional entertainment

ABSTRACT Fictional violence holds strong appeal for a wide audience. Given this appeal and the public’s concern about it, researchers have extensively investigated whether there is a direct effect of exposure to fictional violence on individuals’ aggressive behaviours. In the present research, we aimed to contribute to the comparatively smaller body of research concerned with factors that motivate individuals to engage with fictional violence. We interviewed 10 adults about their own subjective understanding of the reasons why they engage with fictional violence. We used thematic analysis to explore participants’ talk about their subjective experiences of their motivations. We interpret our findings to indicate that individuals make sense of their engagement with fictional violence as a means to understand the real world, to regulate arousal, and to experience a just world. We discuss the practical implications of these findings and directions for future research.

Older adults’ social capital and generative activity in rural Ireland

For ageing adults, rural areas present challenges to social and psychological well-being that are qualitatively different from those encountered in urban and suburban areas. Because of its importance to well-being, we explored the ways in which older adults in rural Ireland operate on and experience their social environment. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample (n = 10) of active older adults living in a sparsely populated, rural, and geographically isolated area of Ireland. Transcripts were thematically analyzed to gain insight into the ways these older adults reciprocally build informal social capital and engage in generative activity. Findings challenge commonplace notions of rural life as socially isolating and lonely for older adults and suggest that these older adults enact valuable roles in their rural community that are important to social and psychological well-being

V. Toward a New Psychology of Women: Still Relevant After All These Years?

Through her book Toward a New Psychology of Women (TNPW) (1986[1976]), Jean Baker Miller touched and transformed countless women’s lives by showing them how and why to have confidence in their own ways of being in the world and also giving them hope for a different future, one in which society values women as much as it values men. Do the insights presented in this classic feminist text continue to speak to women of today in the ways that it did 30-odd years ago? After all, the feminist movement, of which the Second Wave was at its apex when the book was published, moved into another phase of doldrums (Rupp and Taylor, 1987) and out of the centre of public consciousness. The Third Wave now carries the torch for feminist activism, but the women allied with this movement critique Second Wave feminism for its failure to incorporate other systems of domination, such as class, race and sexual orientation into its analysis of women’s position in patriarchal society. Perhaps the singularity of Miller’s gender consciousness (Greenwood, 2008; Greenwood and Christian, in press) looms too large for young women of today and renders her framework an outdated analysis of gender and the psychology of women. Indeed, maybe women’s incontrovertible advances and accomplishments are evidence enough that Miller’s theory of the psychology of women has become irrelevant. Does such a stark portrayal of women’s subordination to men resonate with today’s young women, who enjoy a degree of independence, autonomy, political and social power that was just beginning to be imagined by women at the time TNPW was published? While we write this, for the first time in the