Negative Stories Research Articles

The American chronic pain crisis and the media: about time to get it right?

The American chronic pain crisis and the media: about time to get it right?

It Just Didn’t Work Out

First-year college student retention is important to colleges and universities, as well as beyond academia. An analysis was conduced of emergent themes and subthemes from 144 nonreturning students’ stories about school and about home throughout their first-year experience. These students wrote more negative stories about school-related events than they did positive ones and exhibited low levels of campus involvement or engagement. Also, they seemed to struggle with their college living experience, including socially and financially, and dealing with trouble at home. Three of the study’s demographic groups—women, students of color, and first-generation students—represented notable percentages of nonreturners. Researchers should focus more on what goes on during students’ first year of college both on- and off campus to better understand reasons for withdrawing. In doing so, college and university personnel can work more effectively with high school officials, parents, and students to achieve academic and personal success.

Cris de Coeur and the Moral Imperative to Listen to and Learn from Intersex People.

Intersex people first began to publicly tell their stories in the 1990s. Twenty years on, these narratives, scorching in their candor, attest to a continuing failure to bear witness to or to acknowledge some of the most painful experiences we inflict on one another. More than anecdotes, these narratives provide a first-person reflection on care and thus represent a type of long-term follow-up that is largely absent in clinical literature. Out of respect for their courage, we owe these narratives serious consideration. Clinicians who must make daily decisions that may alter patients' lives may distance themselves from negative outcomes and stories like those told here to avoid professional regret. Honest self-appraisal and accepting regret open the door to feeling guilty, devalued and ashamed, but experiencing these emotions can be a crucial first step in changing clinical practice.

Narrative therapy with an emotional approach for people with depression: Improved symptom and cognitive-emotional outcomes.

Narrative therapy is a useful approach in the treatment of depression that allows that person to 're-author' his/her life stories by focusing on positive interpretations, and such focus on positive emotions is a crucial component of treatment for depression. This paper evaluates narrative therapy with an emotional approach (NTEA) as a therapeutic modality that could be used by nurses for persons with depression. A nurse-administered NTEA intervention for people with depression appears effective in increasing cognitive-emotional outcomes, such as hope, positive emotions and decreasing symptoms of depression. Thus, NTEA can be a useful nursing intervention strategy for people with depression. Narrative therapy, which allows a person to 're-author' his/her life stories by focusing on positive interpretations, and emotion-focused therapy, which enables the person to realize his/her emotions, are useful approaches in the treatment of depression. Narrative therapy with an emotional approach (NTEA) aims to create new positive life narratives that focus on alternative stories instead of negative stories. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of the NTEA programme on people with depression utilizing a quasi-experimental design. A total of 50 patients (experimental 24, control 26) participated in the study. The experimental group completed eight sessions of the NTEA programme. The effects of the programme were measured using a self-awareness scale, the Nowotny Hope Scale, the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Scale, and the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale. The two groups were homogeneous. There were significant differences in hope, positive and negative emotions, and depression between the experimental and control group. The results established that NTEA can be a useful nursing intervention strategy for people with depression by focusing on positive experiences and by helping depressed patients develop a positive identity through authoring affirmative life stories.

Telling a Family Culture: Storytelling, Family Identity, and Cultural Membership

This study examines the role of public performance of private family identity through family storytelling. Using Narrative Performance Theory (Langellier & Peterson, 2006a), stories told as part of The Library of Congress’s StoryCorps project were analyzed for how families publicly told private family stories to identify themselves as a particular family as well as a culturally appropriate family in the modern United States. Five themes of cultural identity in family stories were identified. The study found that families largely focused on positive stories that portrayed the family as pro-social and happy. Negative stories focused on how the family overcame their adversities as a group. Laughter was used to minimize face-threatening stories. The construction of the group identity was framed in such a way as to connect the family group to a larger culture that values independence, self-reliance, and cohesion as a family group. The study concludes by arguing that more work should be done to understand how public and private communication in families shape our understanding of what it means to be a family.

The late positive potential predicts emotion regulation strategy use in school-aged children concurrently and two years later.

The ability to use cognitive emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal may be a core component of emotional competence across development, but due to methodological challenges in measuring such strategies, they are rarely studied in young children. One neurophysiological measure, the late positive potential (LPP), has been examined in response to reappraisal as a potential neurosignature for emotion regulatory capacity in adults. The association between the LPP and emotion regulatory capacity in children is unknown. The present study examined whether the LPP during reappraisal could predict greater observed adaptive emotion regulation strategy use in school-aged children over a two-year period. Thirty-two 5- to 7-year-olds participated in two identical lab visits spaced two years apart. EEG was continuously recorded during a computerized reappraisal task in which children viewed unpleasant images paired with either reappraisal or negative stories. Next they completed a disappointing and a frustrating task during which emotion regulation strategies were observed. As predicted, children who showed reappraisal-induced reductions in the LPP at the first assessment used significantly more adaptive ER strategies concurrently and two years later. These findings provide observation-based evidence that the LPP may be a viable neurosignature for emotion regulatory capacity in children.

Sources, responses and moderators of childbirth fear in Australian women: A qualitative investigation

Backgroundaround 20% of women suffer childbirth fear causing them significant distress and often leading to requests for caesarean section. In Sweden, fearful pregnant women are offered counselling, however in Australia no dedicated service caters for the specific needs of these women. Indeed scant research has been conducted in Australia and little is known about women׳s concerns and if these align to those reported in the international literature. Aimto describe the sources, responses and moderators of childbirth fear in a group of pregnant women assessed as having high levels of childbirth fear. Methodcomparative analysis was used to identify common concepts and generate themes that represented women׳s perspectives of childbirth fear. Data consisted of 43 tape recorded telephone conversations with highly fearful pregnant women who were participating in a large randomised controlled trial known as BELIEF (Birth Emotions, Looking to Improve Expectant Fear). Findingswomen׳s fears were conceptualised into three themes: fear stimuli; fear responses; and fear moderators. Lack of confidence to birth, fear of the unknown, internalising other women׳s negative stories, perineal tearing and labour pain were common concerns for first time mothers. For multiparous women, not having had personal feelings resolved following their previous birth and negative experiences of last birth influenced current expectations for their upcoming birth. Themes common to both groups were: unmet information and support needs, feelings of loss of control and lack of input in to decision-making. Some women however, chose to avoid birth planning in order to cope during pregnancy. ConclusionAustralian women had similar childbirth concerns to those reported in the international literature. However unique to this study was finding two opposing discourses; one of preoccupation with negative events and the other; avoidance of planning for labour and birth. Provision of woman centred maternity models that minimise obstetric intervention, offer personalised conversations following birth, and are sensitive to identifying; listening and assisting women to modify their fears in early pregnancy are required to promote positive anticipation and preparation for birth.

In the aftermath of the German labor market reforms, is there a qualitative/quantitative trade-off?

This paper argues that the German labor market reforms implemented in 2003–2005 were successful, according to the main quantitative indicator of labor market conditions. Long-term unemployment decreased substantially in the years after the reform, and the trend of continuously increasing systemic unemployment was reversed. At the same time, the extreme shock to the GDP incurred by the world recession in 2008/2009 left only minor traces in the German labor market. Employment climbed to an all-time high, and several regions, especially Southern Germany, are close to full employment. One should also stress that youth unemployment in the country is among the lowest in Europe. The evidence from several qualitative indicators of labor market conditions, however, is less clear. Since 2005, these different indicators tell both negative and positive stories. On the positive side, the German ‘job miracle’ could have played a role in this context. Even during the sharpest recession in the post-war period, employment was stable. My interpretation is that this ameliorated the perceived job stability for many workers. On the negative side, the wage growth for many groups of workers is unsatisfactory. Wage inequality has risen substantially. Today, the size of the low-pay sector in Germany is higher than that in almost all other European countries. I argue that the increase in wage dispersion has gone too far. It was not a necessary condition for the improvement of the employment rate but was instead an unintended by-product of the reforms. Therefore, this side effect can be corrected without jeopardizing the indisputable employment rate successes.

Is it okay to tell? Children's judgements about information disclosure

The present research investigates how young children evaluate and reason about the disclosure of private information. Using story vignettes, children aged 4-5 and 7-8 years were asked to evaluate an individual who passed on information from a peer revealing that he or she had broken a rule (e.g., stolen a cookie; rule type) or lacked a skill (e.g., could not ride a bicycle; competence type). These negative valence stories were compared with positive valence stories in which the peer had followed a rule or possessed a skill. Younger children approved the sharing of positive, but not negative, information, irrespective of type (rule vs. competence). Older children disapproved the disclosure of someone's incompetence, whereas they approved the disclosure of a rule violation. Children justified their evaluations by reference to social rules in the rule-type vignettes and to an individual's feelings in the competence-type vignettes. The findings suggest that young children are concerned about the disclosure of negative information about other people, but with age they become increasingly concerned about protecting the social order even at the cost of individual privacy.

Consumer Demand for Cynical and Negative News Frames

Commentators regularly lament the proliferation of both negative and/or strategic (“horse race”) coverage in political news content. The most frequent account for this trend focuses on news norms and/or the priorities of news journalists. Here, we build on recent work arguing for the importance of demand-side, rather than supply-side, explanations of news content. In short, news may be negative and/or strategy-focused because that is the kind of news that people are interested in. We use a lab study to capture participants’ news-selection biases, alongside a survey capturing their stated news preferences. Politically interested participants are more likely to select negative stories. Interest is associated with a greater preference for strategic frames as well. And results suggest that behavioral results do not conform to attitudinal ones. That is, regardless of what participants say, they exhibit a preference for negative news content.

Perceptions of crime at the Olympic Games

While mega sport event planners seek to foster a positive destination image (Roche, 2008), the media is often more interested in negative stories about the host destination (Beirman, 2003), which can affect destination risk perceptions (Sönmez and Graefe, 1998a, 1998b). There is, however, a lack of empirical research in this area. Thus, this study examined whether information received through the media, travel advisories, and social media affected perceptions of increased crime in a host destination during a mega sport event, using the case of London 2012. The role of information in reshaping destination risk perceptions in the context of mega sport events was partially supported. Particularly, Australian leisure travelers who were exposed to written media about London and Canadian travelers who were exposed to travel advisories surrounding the United Kingdom had higher perceptions of the likelihood that London would experience increased crime at the time of the Olympics.

Implementing a social media policy in a traditional media company: Case study of TC Transcontinental

Since the advent of social media, companies have been concerned about their employees’ online communications. While some have had favourable experiences, some negative stories have adversely affected corporations, encouraging them to guide employees better through social media policy. TC Transcontinental, a major Canadian media company, had to implement such a policy for its 9,500 employees. Traditionally a print company, its move towards online media was also pushed by an increasingly savvy workforce. This paper will examine the origin of the company’s social media policy before discussing its implementation process and examining its control mechanisms. The paper finds that the central element in setting up the company’s guidelines was to create them as a complement to their existing corporate culture and ethical guidelines.

The emotional content of life stories: Positivity bias and relation to personality

We examined whether past and future negative life story events, compared to past and future positive events, were less likely to be related to life story chapters and situated at a greater temporal distance from the present. We also examined relations between life stories and personality traits. Three hundred ten students and 160 middle-aged adults completed a measure of personality traits and identified chapters as well as past and future events in their life story. All life story components were rated on emotion and age. Negative future events were less likely to be a continuation of chapters and were more temporally distant than positive future events. Extraversion and Conscientiousness were related to more positive life stories, and Neuroticism was related to more negative life stories. This suggests that the life story is positively biased by minimising the negative future, and that the construction of life stories is related to personality traits.

Comparative Analysis of the Effects of Negative and Neutral TV News Stories

The current article compares the impact of emotionally negative and neutral TV-plots on psycho-physiological state of a recipient. After introducing the participants to negative and neutral videos, we detected such short-term media effects as changes in mood, emotional well-being, facial reactions, and increase of heart rate.

How did the meanings constructed by Taiwanese pre-service teachers from educational news media affect their beliefs?

The study investigates how Taiwanese pre-service teachers make meaning after reading positive or negative news coverage of educational events and how they construct meaning impact their pedagogical beliefs. An experiment with a two-group pre-test–post-test design, consisting of a positive and negative news group, is conducted. Multimedia news stories of seven educational events were selected and evaluated as positive or negative materials. In total, 215 pre-service teachers were assigned randomly to one of the two groups. Analytical results reveal that pre-service teachers who read positive news preferred inference to construct meaning. Their pedagogical beliefs did not differ when they used interpretation or inference. For negative news, pre-service teachers preferred interpretation; however, belief scores using interpretation were lower than those using inference. Specifically, meanings constructed using interpretation when reading negative news about school administrative engagement severely weakens their pedagogical beliefs. Pre-service teachers should be given sufficient material and training to rationally deal with a wide range of news stories, especially negative educational news stories.

Ingroup Favoritism and Outgroup Derogation: Effects of News Valence, Character Race, and Recipient Race on Selective News Reading

This study examined whether the positive or negative valence of a news story, and the race of the character portrayed in the story, would influence Black or White readers' selection of a story. The study employed selective exposure methodology to unobtrusively measure story selections among Black and White readers as they browsed a news site. The results demonstrated Black newsreaders were more likely to select and read positive and negative stories featuring their racial ingroup, and more likely to select and read negative vis-à-vis positive stories about their outgroup. In contrast, Whites' story preference was not affected by story valence or character race. Theoretical assumptions from social identity, social comparison, and social cognitive theories are used to explain the findings.

Opting out of dialysis – Exploring patients' decisions to forego dialysis in favour of conservative non‐dialytic management for end‐stage renal disease

Dialysis prolongs the life of people with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), but for patients who are elderly and suffer multiple comorbid illnesses the benefits of dialysis may be outweighed by its negative consequences. Non-dialytic conservative management has therefore become an alternative treatment route, yet little is known on patients' experience with choosing end-of-life treatment. To gain insight into the decision-making process leading to opting out of dialysis and the experience with conservative non-dialytic management from the patients' perspective. Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was undertaken as the framework for data analysis. N = 9 ESRD participants who have taken the decision to forego dialysis were recruited from the advanced care programme under the National Healthcare Group, Singapore. Participants discussed life since ESRD diagnosis, and the personal and contextual factors that led them to choose conservative management. The perceived physical and financial burden of dialysis both for the individual but most importantly for their family, uncertainty over likely gains over risks which were fuelled by communication of negative dialysis stories of others, coupled with sense of life completion and achievement led them to refuse dialysis. All participants took ownership of their decision despite contrary advice by doctors and were content with their decision and current management. Study highlights the factors driving patients' decisions for conservative non-dialytic management over dialysis to allow medical professionals to offer appropriate support to patients through their decision-making process and in caring them for the rest of their lives.

Factors influencing consumption of farmed seafood products in the Pacific northwest

This study used a mail survey (n=1159 usable surveys) of Pacific northwest (US) residents to understand general seafood preferences (familiarity, price, freshness, health and environmental concerns), beliefs and attitudes specific to aquaculture versus wild products, and how those cognitive factors affect decisions to consume types of farmed seafood products. Respondents strongly agreed that seafood is healthy, and they preferred wild over farmed products. Many respondents were uncertain about human health and environmental benefits and problems associated with aquaculture. While there was agreement that aquaculture reduces pressure on wild fish, there was equally strong agreement that it has the same problems as other agricultural practices. Belief in the superiority of wild seafood was a strong predictor of consumption choices. Belief in the benefits of aquaculture was positively related to higher consumption of farmed products, but – unexpectedly – beliefs related to environmental and health problems associated with aquaculture did not predict specific consumption choices. Nearly half of respondents recalled hearing or reading about aquaculture in the mass media, and recall of negative stories contributed to a general preference for wild products, but not consumption of specific types of farmed products. Consumption of the different classes of products had some different predictors, and communication efforts directed at different beliefs may have different impacts on consumer behavior.

Precision dairy farming in Australasia: adoption, risks and opportunities

Dairy farm management has historically been based on the experiential learning and intuitive decision-making skills of the owner-operator. Larger herds and increasingly complex farming systems, combined with the availability of new information technologies, are prompting an evolution to an increasingly data-driven ‘precision dairy’ (PD) management approach. Automation and the collection of fine-scale data on animals and farm resources via precision technologies can facilitate enhanced efficiency and decision making on dairy farms. The proportion of dairy farmers using this approach is relatively small (between 10 and 20% of farmers); however, industry trends suggest a continual increase in the use of precision technologies. Australasian PD farms have reported both positive and negative stories regarding the approach but to date there has been little industry attention or co-ordination in Australia or New Zealand. A series of workshops was held in late 2011 between industry-good representatives, researchers and farmers, from Australia and New Zealand, to discuss the opportunities and risks associated with PD. To take advantage of the emerging PD opportunity the trans-Tasman workshop group suggested five focus areas including: industry-good co-ordination and leadership in precision dairy; working to define the on- and off-farm value of PD; improving the technology available to farmers; integration of PD within farming systems for improved management; and developing learning and training initiatives for farmers and service providers. Action in these focus areas will enable future dairy farmers to implement the PD approach with enhanced confidence and effectiveness.

<em>Challenges to Success in Higher Education: An Examination of Educational Challenges from the Voices of College-Bound Black Males</em>

In recent years, researchers have devoted much discussion to finding ways to increase the academic success of Black males in K-12 and higher education. Despite this emphasis, Black male enrollment in higher education stands at 4.5%, which is the same as it was in 1976. One factor noted by researchers for the stagnation among Black male college enrollment is their disproportionate departure from high school. Therefore, this qualitative study of college-bound high school seniors discusses four critical factors that contribute to Black males premature departure from high school. Implications for practice andfuture research are discussed.Keywords: education, college access, retentionThere is a great deal of evidence to demonstrate that all children are not valued equally, that some children are clearly valued more than other children, and finally that, African-American male children are valued least of all. It is not likely that schools, as they are currently structured, will ever look on the majority of children they serve as having unlimited potential-Governor's Commission on Black Males. (Maryland State Department of Education, 2007)INTRODUCTIONAs the quote posits, the educational plight of the Black male is often associated with underachievement and underrepresentation (Carter, 2005, Scott, 2012). Although negative in context, the association offers a profound need to understand and address why such is the case. Researchers discussed the lack of scholarship on Black males who overcame their environmental obstacles, and became successful in graduating from high school and college (Harper, 2005; Palmer, Davis & Hilton, 2009; Parson & Kritsonis, 2006). Therefore, identifying challenges that Black males face could serve as a catalyst for developing support structures that deter high school departure (dropouts) and encourage college attendance.Much of the research on Black male achievement presents troublesome statistics and often negative stories about their chances of academic success. The plethora of negative findings is alarming and often neglects the insight of students themselves and potential solutions for these obstacles. For example, Tatum (2006) highlighted self-concept and identity as two major internalized factors that influence the academic success for Black students. His findings posit that Black male students sometimes respond by disassociating themselves from school and acting-out in negative ways as coping mechanisms-for a lack of self-concept and identity. Additionally, several scholars discussed external factors that impede Black male student achievement. In some cases, these male students are disproportionately placed in special education classes (Nickson, Kritsonis, & Herrington, 2006), where they are provided with instruction that fails to prepare them for higher education (Bailey & Moore, 2004; Hopkins, 1997). Moreover, Anthony, Kritsonis, and Herrington (2007) emphasized that a high percentage of Black males are taught by White females. Suggesting that in most educational settings, the Black male presence is custodial staff or sports instructors. Furthermore, Black adolescent males are constantly bombarded with stereotypical depictions of older Blacks as incompetent or lazy (Irving & Hudley, 2008).Verj' few positive depictions are highlighted in the literature about Black males. Research from Irving and Hudley (2008) indicated a relationship between cultural mistrust and academic achievement, noting that an increase in mistrust facilitates negative academic outcome among Black males. Therefore, Brown (2009) and others (e.g., Bailey & Moore, 2004; Hopkins, 1997) urge the need for Black male role models in and outside of the classroom. However, it should be clear that a model that employs a one-size-fits-aH approach contradicts the very essence of the issue (Brown, 2009). This study seeks to take into consideration the voices of high school graduates on this topic, in order to proffer potential solutions to augment the challenges that are faced by Black male students. …