Conflicted Feelings Research Articles

English

Organizational commitment along with other determinants of turnover intention plays a pivotal role in retaining the employees. Job performance and job satisfaction serve as antecedents of turnover intention of employees. The objective of this study is to identify the association between organizational commitment and turnover intention among employees of the Islamia University of Bahawalpur. Effects of job performance on turnover intention through job satisfaction are also brought under observation. Impact of job insecurity and employees work family conflict on job engagement is brought under consideration. Descriptive design is used to support the study of proposed relationships. Self-explanatory questionnaires are administered to 250 respondents both from the academic and administrative staff of the university. Analyses supported the relationships tentatively delineated before proceeding toward examination of the study. Organizational commitment, job performance and job satisfaction are found to be inversely related to turnover intention. An inverse relation is found between job insecurity, work family conflict and the job engagement. According to the results of this study an environment conducive to job performance and organizational commitment must be developed besides attempting to reduce employees’ feelings of job insecurity and work family conflict to avoid brain-drain and to retain valuable individuals so that proportion of turnover may be decreased. This was the very first study carried out in the history of the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, which will encourage future researchers to further augment the scope of this research. Key words: Organizational commitment, turnover intention, job insecurity, job performance and job satisfaction.

Street Cred: The Creation, Commodification, and Exhibition of San Francisco's Mission Street Art Community"

Street artists based in San Francisco’s Mission District have been creating art to resist the actions of gentrifiers who started moving into the district following the technology boom of 1993. Examining how the Mission art community has been negatively affected within the district and inaccurately represented by the contemporary art world provides insight into how similar artistic communities may be better sustained. In the midst of the Mission’s gentrification, a number of its artist-residents began to gain international art world success and were given the moniker “Mission School,” by art critics and curators. Many of those artists have resisted the “Mission School” label and have expressed conflicted feelings about compromising their desire for free access to art in exchange for admission to the commercial contemporary art world, where their work is bought and sold. The success of these artists, and the exclusion of others who were fundamental to the formation of their community, has reinforced the invisibility that both groups experienced from gentrifiers. An examination of the curatorial methods and criticisms of recent Mission Street Art exhibitions provides a basis to explore how the exhibition of artists who are celebrated as part of a highly respected yet endangered urban artistic scene affects their community.

Breaking Bad: Commitment Uncertainty, Alternative Monitoring, and Relationship Termination in Young Adults

Commitment uncertainty represents an ongoing state of conflicted feelings or thoughts about the future of a relationship. It is currently an underexplored dynamic within romantic relationships and may be a key component of young adult relationships that may influence the likelihood of relationship termination. When commitment is uncertain, individuals may engage in serious monitoring of relationship alternatives. The authors examined the associations between commitment uncertainty, serious alternative monitoring, attachment style, and relationship termination. Results supported the hypothesis that higher levels of commitment uncertainty are related to greater likelihood of termination. Interestingly, serious monitoring of alternatives was not related to relationship termination. Implications are offered for the management of these important relational processes.

Healing Our Emotional Pain and Relationship Pain

Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com J Psychol Clin Psychiatry 2015, 2(5): 00091 to compassionately, calmly, courageously, accept our natural judgments, reactions, preferences, and emotional pain without being controlled by, acting upon, or exclusively identified with nonconstructive or inappropriate urges. We can let be and embrace our judgments and conflicted feelings but also see beyond them to a deeper level of our being that is unconditionally relaxed, serene, intrinsically self-accepting, and naturally, compassionately nonjudgmental.

A systematic review of barriers and facilitators to and interventions for proxy decision-making by family carers of people with dementia.

Relatives of people with dementia report that proxy decision-making is difficult and distressing. We systematically reviewed the literature about barriers and facilitators to family carers of people with dementia making proxy decisions, and interventions used to facilitate their decision-making. We searched electronic databases and references of included papers up to February 2014. Two authors independently evaluated study quality using a checklist. We included the 30/104 papers from our search which fitted predetermined criteria and prioritized higher quality papers. Family carers report that proxy decision-making is challenging and can be distressing, especially when decisions are made against the wishes of the care recipient and support from healthcare professionals is lacking. Decision-specific manualized aids have been developed, and while results for those supporting decisions about respite and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) feeding have shown promising results in pilot trials, no intervention has yet been shown to significantly reduce decisional conflict or carer burden, or increase knowledge in randomized controlled trials; a decision aid for advance care planning increased decisional conflict. We recommend development and testing of decision aids targeting the decisions carers report finding most distressing, including those around where people should live, accessing services, and end of life treatments. Being provided with information to make decisions which have not previously been considered may increase feelings of conflict, suggesting these aids should be carefully targeted.

Parent feeding interactions and practices during childhood cancer treatment. A qualitative investigation

In the general population it is evident that parent feeding practices can directly shape a child's life long dietary intake. Young children undergoing childhood cancer treatment may experience feeding difficulties and limited food intake, due to the inherent side effects of their anti-cancer treatment. What is not clear is how these treatment side effects are influencing the parent–child feeding relationship during anti-cancer treatment. This retrospective qualitative study collected telephone based interview data from 38 parents of childhood cancer patients who had recently completed cancer treatment (child's mean age: 6.98 years). Parents described a range of treatment side effects that impacted on their child's ability to eat, often resulting in weight loss. Sixty-one percent of parents (n = 23) reported high levels of stress in regard to their child's eating and weight loss during treatment. Parents reported stress, feelings of helplessness, and conflict and/or tension between parent and the child during feeding/eating interactions. Parents described using both positive and negative feeding practices, such as: pressuring their child to eat, threatening the insertion of a nasogastric feeding tube, encouraging the child to eat and providing home cooked meals in hospital. Results indicated that parent stress may lead to the use of coping strategies such as positive or negative feeding practices to entice their child to eat during cancer treatment. Future research is recommended to determine the implication of parent feeding practice on the long term diet quality and food preferences of childhood cancer survivors.

Moral Disengagement and Aggression: Comments on the Special Issue

This special issue on relationship between moral disengagement and aggression brings together nine sophisticated as well as theoretically, methodologically and analytically stimulating studies. Three of articles are concerned with individual characteristics that moderate (or buffer or aggravate) impact of moral disengagement on aggression or include moral disengagement as a moderator on link between individual characteristics and aggression. Three address trajectories and age-related changes by exploring developmental pathways of moral disengagement and aggression, while remaining three treat moral disengagement in its situational context in school and family and raise questions of socialization. Besides summarizing and discussing nine articles, this commentary raises some critical issues-for example, regarding assessment of moral developmental processes.For past decade, a growing, but still rather small group of international researchers have studied moral disengagement and its relation to prosocial and antisocial/aggressive behaviors in children and adolescents (including both traditional bullying and cyberbullying). Although much has been learned about both concurrent and longitudinal (inter) relationships (e.g., Barchia & Bussey, 2011; Gini, 2006; Hymel, Schonert-Reichl, Bonanno, Vaillancourt, & Rocke Henderson, 2010; Perren & Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, 2012), crucial issues regarding these relationships are still (partly) unresolved-for example, with respect to contextual and situational factors (e.g., see recent review by Gini, Pozzoli, & Hymel, 2014). This special issue on moral disengagement and aggression is result of a recent initiative bringing together many of these researchers in order to critically reflect on both conceptual and methodological foundations of this research and to develop avenues for future research. In this commentary, I discuss articles and their joint contribution towards advancement of theorizing and research in field against background of avenues suggested, namely (1) age-related changes (emergence of moral disengagement; precursors of moral disengagement; changes in moral standards, emotions, and justifications); (2) trajectories (Who is becoming morally disengaged? How and why?); (3) situational processes (situational variations; interplay between moral standards, emotions, justifications, and behavior; cognitive dissonance); (4) contextual effects (family, peers, and school; subcultural norms); and (5) interventions (moral disengagement as a mediator; morality as an intervention goal). Before doing so, core elements of Bandura's social cognitive theory of human agency (e.g., Bandura, 2002; Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996; Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, & Pastorelli, 2001), which lies at heart of this research, are briefly characterized to establish a common reference point with respect to conceptual and methodological issues raised later.The social cognitive theory of human agency offers an inclusive conceptual framework within which moral dimensions of aggressive and antisocial behaviors can be described. According to Bandura (2002), moral agency involves both the power to refrain from behaving inhumanely and proactive power to behave humanely (p. 101). Based on understanding that individuals monitor and regulate their behavior by anticipating consequences for self and others, anticipatory self-pride (for morally good behavior) and self-blame (for morally bad behavior) ensure that behavior is enacted in concordance with personal moral standards (Paciello, Fida, Tramontano, Lupinetti, & Caprara, 2008). Still, individuals can enact behaviors that are not concordant with these (individual as well as social) moral standards while claiming to adhere to them. By disconnecting moral thought and moral action, they avoid feelings of conflict, guilt, or remorse. …

Seeing is Feeling

Most scholarship of the last few decades on the book of Revelation has focused on its colonial conditions and heated, even forceful, political engagement, making conflicting conclusions about to what extent it “reproduces” or “resists” imperial ideology. Of particular focus has been the striking image of the lamb on the throne, an image that ambiguously imparts both conquest and victimhood. This essay builds on and steps to the side of this work by addressing the image of the lamb on the throne as an expressive and emotionally, rather than ideologically, ambivalent image. Placing this image alongside other affectively rich spectacles in Revelation’s context, I suggest that the enthroned lamb gives voice to conflicted feelings about imperial life: attachment and loss, extravagant dreams of sovereignty and victory, as well as the painful realities of vulnerability and subjection, all in complex inter-implication.

Delacroix and the matter of finish

This groundbreaking publication centers on a previously unknown variation of Eugene Delacroix's (1798--1863) dramatic masterpiece The Last Words of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, published here for the first time. This book offers a compelling reassessment of the relationship of the artist, widely considered a primary exemplar of Romanticism, to Neoclassical themes, as demonstrated by his life-long fascination with the death of Marcus Aurelius. Through this investigation, the authors reinterpret Delacroix's lineage to such fellow artists as Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780--1867) and Jacques-Louis David (1748--1825). Playing on the various interpretations of the word finish, the book also offers a fascinating account of Delacroix's famously troubled collaboration with his studio assistants, his conflicted feelings about pedagogy, and his preoccupation with the fate of civilizations.

Relational Health and Masculine Gender-Role Conflict in the Friendships and Community Relationships of Bisexual, Gay, and Straight Men

This study examined how men's masculine gender-role conflict and the importance men placed on interpersonal relationships in defining their self-identities predicted their relational health experiences in same-sex, dyadic friendships and community relationships. Using an Internet sample of 283 self-identified bisexual, gay, and straight men, results of hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated that for men across sexual orientations, the more importance men placed on interpersonal relationships with other men, the greater the degree of relational health they experienced in dyadic friendships. Additionally, for bisexual and gay men in dyadic friendships with other men, gender-role conflict was inversely related to the relational health of their friendships. In the domain of community relationships, the importance that bisexual and straight men placed on interpersonal relationships in defining their self-identities and levels of gender-role conflict predicted relational health experiences. For gay men, however, feelings of masculine gender-role conflict, alone, predicted poorer relational health in community relationships. Study limitations, clinical implications for practice, and future research directions are discussed.

Thomas Wolfe and Eugene O'Neill

Thomas Wolfe and Eugene O'Neill

A181: Evaluating Decision‐Making in a Pediatric Rheumatology Clinic

Background/Purpose:Children with rheumatic disease often have chronic needs that require comprehensive, lifelong medical care. Transition of adolescent rheumatology patients from pediatric to adult institutions, in addition to a shift in legal responsibility, calls for the development and activation of medical decision‐making skills. Medical decision‐making is the umbrella term for the dynamic and evolving process of arriving at a medical decision, and is comprised of multiple factors including adherence, self‐management, patient activation, health consciousness, and patient empowerment. This study assessed adolescent and caregiver medical decision‐making characteristics in the outpatient Rheumatology clinic of a pediatric tertiary care hospital. We hypothesized that (1) pediatric patients who are more involved in their care have lower decisional conflict (i.e., conflict over making a medical decision), (2) adolescents want to be involved in their care, and (3) higher health consciousness is positively correlated with valuing involvement in medical decision‐making, actual involvement in decision making, and lower decisional conflict.Methods:This was an anonymous survey study of adolescent patients with chronic rheumatologic illness and their caregivers presenting to the outpatient Rheumatology clinic at Boston Children's Hospital. Both adolescent and caregiver surveys included measures pertaining to health consciousness, medical values, potential barriers to involvement in care, decisional conflict, perceived actual involvement, and desired involvement.Results:A total of twenty‐eight adolescent'caregiver pairs completed the survey. The mean age of adolescents was 16.14 years old (SD = 2.5). There was a significant positive correlation between adolescent and caregiver health consciousness (r = 0.43, p = 0.027). Valuing involvement in medical decision‐making by adolescent patients was positively correlated with their perception of actual involvement (r = 0.39, p = 0.04) and with their level of health consciousness (r = 0.48, p = 0.009). Furthermore, adolescent perception of actual involvement in medical decision‐making correlated negatively with their feelings of decisional conflict (r = −0.64, p <0.001).Conclusion:Adolescent patients with chronic rheumatic disease have considerable motivation for involvement in care. Given the link between treatment adherence and medical decision‐making, the characteristics of medical decision‐making in the pediatric rheumatology population are a valuable area for future research.

Gender differences in burnout among municipal police sergeants

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to compare the levels and predictors of burnout between female and male sergeants in a large municipal law enforcement agency.Design/methodology/approach– This study used surveys of 171 female and 737 male sergeants. In the survey they described their extent of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and reported on other issues that affect burnout. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to compare the levels and predictors of these chronic stress reactions.Findings– Female sergeants expressed higher levels of emotional exhaustion and lower levels of depersonalization than male sergeants. Also, the burnout process is largely consistent between female and male sergeants, driven by similar factors, including feelings of work-life conflict and relations with peers and supervisors.Research limitations/implications– The survey was fielded in one organization, which may or may not be representative of other agencies. Future studies of different organizations are needed to test external validity and refine the theoretical model.Practical implications– The results indicate the importance of studying the different components of burnout as well as allocating organizational resources to mitigating these conditions. Programs focussed on mentoring female sergeants or younger sergeants would be beneficial.Originality/value– Prior research has not examined how the burnout experiences of female sergeants differ from or resemble their male counterparts as typically their numbers are too small to conduct a reliable test of differences and predictors. By focussing on a single large department, this obstacle can be overcome, while controlling for other variables.

Work-life conflict and facilitation among Australian Muslim men

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore work-life conflict and work-life facilitation among employed Muslim men, a growing ethno-religious minority in Australia. Design/methodology/approach – The study is guided by the interpretive paradigm and is qualitative in nature. The primary data collection method was semi-structured in-depth interviews and 20 participants participated in the study. Findings – Australian Muslim men experience both work-life conflict and facilitation simultaneously; however, facilitation is reported more frequently. Work flexibility, work and family support, and religiosity promote work-life facilitation. In contrast, workload and work hours lead to feelings of conflict, with workload being the stronger antecedent. Importantly, religious values and beliefs are an underpinning influence on participants’ experiences. Research limitations/implications – The study is conducted with a small sample and hence, lacks the power to generalise findings to the broader Muslim male population. Practical implications – There is a strong need to modify the traditional western models of work-life conflict and facilitation and workplace policies designed to assist workers when dealing with minorities, such as Australian Muslims. By including religion, the research offers a fresh voice to work-life research and encourages to think about the salience of other life domains beside family, an issue of great concern within the work-life literature. Originality/value – This is one of the few studies to focus on Australian Muslim men and explore how religion fits into the current understanding of work-life balance.

Foster Children Caught in Loyalty Conflicts: Implications for Mental Health Treatment Providers

Fifty-two foster parents participated in a two-hour training on the topic of children caught in loyalty conflicts. Prior to and following the training attendees completed measures including one in which they rated their foster children's exposure to 15 different family situations which research indicates are likely to induce feelings of loyalty conflict in children. Analyses of these data indicate that each of the situations was endorsed by between one fourth and one half of the sample. Three-fourths of the foster parents endorsed at least one of the situations, with the average number 5.5. Implications for clinicians working with this population are discussed.

The Effectiveness of Postmodern Feminist Empowering Counseling for Abused Women: A Perspectives of Thai Abused Women

This qualitative research aimed to explore the perspectives of Thai abused women regarding the effectiveness of postmodern feminist empowering counseling (PFEC) for them. The research and data collection was done in nine months. The setting of the study was a tertiary hospital located in the lower Northern area in Thailand. The participants were six abused women. The research instruments consisted of semi-structured interviews. The findings showed that the abused women, who received counseling, achieved changes in three aspects; (a) men and women are equal, (b) being abused is not fate, and (c) feeling powerful. These findings suggested that the PFEC process proposed can be utilized by counselors to increase perceived empowerment in abused women. Positive adjustments to their lives can be explained by their perceived empowerment and developed through the counseling process. Violence against women is danger facing women in every corner of the world. It can happen to women of any age, as a fetus, toddler, girl child, teenager, adult, and elderly. (Kritaya, Kanchanachitra, Im-em, & Lerdsrisuntad, 2005). According to the report of office of women's affairs and family development (2012), the incidence of violence related to children, women, and domestic violence markedly increased in Thailand, with a total of 916 occurrences of violence reported. The violence was perpetrated by men (86.23%) more than by women (11.50%); in about 2.27% of cases, the gender of the perpetrator was not identified. Considerably more women were abused within the family (87.18%) compared to men (10.28%); the gender of the abused was not identified in around 2.54% cases. Physical and psychological violence (in some instances) was carried out repetitively, and sexual violence represented 61.29%, 27.54%, 6.22% and 4.95% of the cases, respectively. The impact of violence on women's physical, psychological, and sexual well-being has not been systematically assessed (Leslie, 2001). However, some empirical studies revealed that the consequences of violence can lead to depression, psychological breakdown, or serious injuries. More importantly, in extreme cases, it can even lead to murder or suicide (Henttonen, Watts, Roberts, Kaducu & Borchert, 2008). A previous study by Smith, Tessaro, and Earp (1995) reported that women who were abused might develop fear and powerless. Consequently, the abused women were hesitate to receive health services due to shame, lack of self-respect, and decreased self-appreciation. Based on previous study, it has been found that the feelings of raped women were powerlessness, loneliness, and inner conflicts about power issue, being controlled, and inner questioning about the meaning of how sex with their partners should be (Finkelhor & Yoll, 1983, as cited in Howard, Riger, Campbell, & Wasco, 2003).

Neural correlates of the essence of conscious conflict: fMRI of sustaining incompatible intentions

The study of intrapsychic conflict has long been central to many key theories about the control of behavior. More recently, by focusing on the nature of conflicting processes in the brain, investigators have revealed great insights about controlled versus automatic processes and the nature of self-control. Despite these advances, many theories of cognitive control or self-control remain agnostic about the function of subjective awareness (i.e., basic consciousness). Why people consciously experience some conflicts in the nervous system but not others remains a mystery. One hypothesis is that people become conscious only of conflicts involving competition for the control of skeletal muscle. To test one aspect of this larger hypothesis, in the present study, 14 participants were trained to introspect the feeling of conflict (the urge to make an error during a Stroop color-word interference task) and then were asked to introspect in the same way while sustaining simple compatible and incompatible intentions during fMRI scanning (to move a finger left or right). As predicted, merely sustaining incompatible skeletomotor intentions prior to their execution produced stronger systematic changes in subjective experience than sustaining compatible intentions, as indicated by self-report ratings obtained in the scanner. Similar ratings held for a modified Stroop-like task when contrasting incompatible versus compatible trials also during fMRI scanning. We use subjective ratings as the basis of parametric analyses of fMRI data, focusing a priori on the brain regions involved in action-related urges (e.g., parietal cortex) and cognitive control (e.g., dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, lateral PFC). The results showed that subjective conflict from sustaining incompatible intentions was consistently related to activity in the left post-central gyrus.

Prepared for commissioning? A qualitative study into the views of recently qualified GPs

Expectations of the latest manifestation of GPled commissioning, in delivering cost-savings and improved services, are considerable. However, previous models suggest clinical engagement and other factors may hinder its success. It is timely to explore the views of the newest generation of GPs about involvement in commissioning, to inform plans for preparing the future workforce. To explore the views of recently qualified GPs about their future role in commissioning health services. A qualitative study with GPs qualifying with Severn Deanery between 2007 and 2010. Semi-structured interviews with 18 GPs between November 2011 and April 2012. These GPs lack understanding of roles and skills required for commissioning. Readiness is related to experience as a GP and of how services are financed and run, making timeliness for becoming involved important. Not all GPs feel motivated for commissioning and readiness is further hindered by feelings of conflict and uncertainty about how commissioning will work. There is optimism around working differently and better representing patients, but caution around risks and for some, cynicism about motives, will need addressing. While there is some optimism among these GPs about representing patients, leading reform and working differently with colleagues, there are concerns. GPs need to better understand the processes involved, experience and skills needed, and roles they can take. They can be helped through education and mentoring by established GPs to be ready for a role in commissioning.

The Opposite of Hallelujah (review)

Reviewed by: The Opposite of Hallelujah Deborah Stevenson Jarzab, Anna . The Opposite of Hallelujah. Delacorte, 2012. [464p]. Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-385-73836-1 $16.99 Library ed. ISBN 978-0-385-90724-8 $19.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-375-89408-4 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 8-12. Caro has grown up around her sister's absence, ever since Hannah, eleven years older, became a nun and immured herself in a contemplative order. Now Hannah's left the convent and returned home, and Caro, a high-school junior, is so thrown by the situation she can't even tell her friends what's happened. She even lies to Pawel, the cute new boy who's becoming her boyfriend, about where Hannah has spent her years away. At the same time, Caro begins to wonder what drove Hannah [End Page 148] and what makes her so unhappy now, and she begins to delve into her sister's long-buried secrets. This is an original premise, and Caro's conflicted feelings about the sister who seemingly turned her back on the family are plausible. The portrayal of Hannah herself, frail, sad, and occasionally determined, is poignant and credible. Narrator Caro is so unrelievedly unpleasant in her selfishness and her brutal dismissal of her sister, however, that it's hard to invest in her; while it's probably plot convenience that makes the family suppress truth so fiercely, the result is a dysfunctional family that seems to be projecting all its difficulties on poor Hannah, who's the only one who ends up getting any treatment. There's nonetheless some thoughtful discussion of faith and commitment here, and many readers will recognize the trials of loving someone with a vocation, religious or otherwise. Copyright © 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

“Terrible Twos” and “Terrible Teens”: The Importance of Play

In the process of individuation, toddlers and their adolescent parents share similar dynamics; that is, both are involved with anxiety-laden preoccupations about difference and separateness and about bodily changes, loss of control, and containing aggression. Both experience internal struggles between emotional vulnerability and a sense of invincibility; both make fierce self-assertive bids coupled with a powerful need for guidance. When synchronized, such teen-toddler similarities can create a bond of mutual excitement; when their intentions clash, however, a terrible battle of wills erupts, fuelled by furious frustration or intense despair. It is suggested that play can provide an essential bridge between teen parent and toddler, enabling each to work through his/her anxieties and passionate reactions of love and hate. Joint play increases reciprocal understanding. However, a teen deprived of play in childhood, or one who resents her/his own playtime being curtailed by parenthood, may become intrusive or controlling, projecting disowned aspects of her/his self into their mutual play. The parent thus breaks the play frame, creating confusion in the child between pretence and reality. By providing a safe space to explore conflictual feelings through joint play, thoughtful practitioners can foster better emotional awareness and mentalization in troubled young parents and their toddlers.