Personal Worlds Research Articles

Depression, the future, and the past: Predictions correspond to recall of personally relevant events

Do mildly depressed individuals make different judgments about personally relevant events than their normal peers? Previous studies have examined this issue in regard to predictions: the present study considers whether these predictions correspond to recall of past events. Dysphoric and normal subjects made predictions about positive and negative events in their personal and academic worlds, and indicated whether these same events had occurred in the previous four weeks. Subjects' reports a month later demonstrated that the normal group recalled, predicted, and subsequently reported more positive than negative events, whereas the dysphoric group recalled, predicted, and later reported an equivalent number of positive and negative events. The normal subject appear to believe that their life consists of more positive happenings than negative, whereas the dysphoric subjects perceive the future and the past as involving similar proportions of positive and negative events.

Teachers' professional knowledge landscapes

This text provides a look at the multilayered professional lives of teachers, where moral, historical, personal and epistemological worlds merge. Using the language of the metaphor, the authors explore the realm of teachers' knowledge and how it applies to their lives.

Adolescent room culture: Studying media in the context of everyday life

For the past several years, the authors have been investigating adolescent room culture in order to learn more about the relationship between teens and the media. The bedroom, they have found, is an important haven for most teenagers, a private, personal space often decorated to reflect teens' emerging sense of themselves and where they fit in the larger culture. Teens listen to music, read magazines, watch television, do homework, and consider the events of the day in their rooms. They appropriate and transform media messages and images to help them make sense of their lives. By looking closely at how teens draw from the media as they construct their identities and personal worlds, the authors have come to see adolescent media use as a dialectical process played out through everyday practices. Their Adolescents' Media Practice Model highlights the connections between adolescents' identities and media selection, interaction, and application.

Conduct-disordered boys' perceptions of their liked peers

Person perception is one of several aspects of the first steps in social information-processing, viz, encoding and mental representation of social cues. To study person perception in conduct-disordered boys, we used the method of free person description. First, age-related effects on the various measures of peer descriptions were studied in normal boys. Second, peer descriptions made by oppositional-defiant and conduct-disordered (CD) boys were compared with those made by a normal control (NC) group and a psychiatric control group with internalizing disorders (ID). Just like younger normal boys when compared with older ones, CD boys, when compared with NC boys, perceived their peers more from an egocentric point of view. They paid less attention to the peers' inner, personal worlds, and instead attended more to the peers' external qualities; more specifically they focused more on items relating to the peers' activities with others. In all these respects ID boys took a position in between CD and NC boys without differing significantly from either group. Findings concerning CD boys' representations of peers are discussed with respect to other aspects of mental representation (perspective-taking, empathy) and the effect of these representations on the generation of nonprosocial and antisocial solutions to social problems with peers.

Differences in Assumptions about a Just World: Ethnicity and Point of View

Abstract This study assessed assumptions individuals make about their own personal worlds or the world in general and assessed whether these assumptions differ for members of a majority or a minority group. Undergraduate students at the University of North Carolina responded to one of two forms of the World Assumptions Scale and the Just World Scale. One form was the original, and in the other all third-person singular pronouns were changed to first-person singular pronouns. Analyses revealed effects for form and ethnicity. These individuals saw their personal worlds as less random, more just, and more benevolent than they saw the world in general. Minority persons saw the world, personal or general, as less benevolent and less lucky. Order of presentation affected scores on the World Assumptions Scale, raising concerns about the stability of scores for that scale.

Gender and the academic experience: Berkeley women sociologists

'These memoirs provide new and thoughtful evidence that pioneers are necessarily diverse, illuminating two crucial decades of dawning self understanding for women, for America, for the discipline of sociology' - Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Life. It is difficult to imagine an intellectual world with only a few - if any - women scholars and sociologists. But that was the case, nor so long ago, for women such as Arlene Kaplan Daniels, Dorothy Smith, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Jacqueline Wiseman, and Lillian Rubin. These and many other now-eminent women in sociology began their careers as graduate students at Berkeley; they tell their stories in this volume, which spans two decades beginning with the first woman graduate student in 1952. With Berkeley as the backdrop, each woman constructs a personal memoir of her educational experience in a department and a profession then dominated by men.In this thought-provoking book, sixteen women describe their marginal status and how their struggles informed their studies and their later work. Though each woman's story is unique, common themes surface: mixed feelings of intellectual self-confidence and inadequacy, difficulties in integrating personal and professional worlds, a net humor that both masked and helped the women cope with their hardships. These compelling essays tell how these women creatively met the challenges and obstacles of our gendered society, conducted their lives intrepidly, and left a clearer path for those who followed. Gender and the Academic Experience illustrates that times are changing: by 1991, women made up the majority of graduate students in the Berkeley sociology department. Kathryn P. Meadow Orlans is a senior research scientist and professor in the Department of Educational Foundations and Research at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.She helped pioneer a program of research and mental health services for deaf people, and her inventories for teachers of deaf children have been translated into eight languages. She has published and Child Development and co-authored Sound and Sign: Childhood Deafness and Mental Health. Ruth A.Wallace is a professor of sociology at George Washington University, where she has taught since 1970. She has written They Call Her Pastor: A New Role for Catholic Women and co-authored Gender in America: Social Control and Social Change.

A review of “Personal worlds of learning—reconstruing education as a resource for the learning society”

Abstract Achieving A PHD—Ten Students' Experiences, London: Trentham Books, 1992, Reviewed by Sheila Harri-Augstein and Laurie Thomas, Centre for the Study of Human Learning, Brunel University, West London, England

To the “Infinite Spaces of Creation”: The Interior Landscape of a Schizophrenic Artist

Abstract Of the personal worlds that fall within the domain of geography, the the world of the schizophrenic is perhaps the most distinctive. Schizophrenics possess a subjective world imagery that reflects their past experience, family background, delusions, hallucinations, cognitive processes, and quests for order. These imageries are, on rare occasions, expressed in art. The art of Adolf Wolfli offers a glimpse of schizophrenic images and perceptions and enables us to enter a world otherwise enshrouded in mystery. Our revelations on the world view of an incarcerated schizophrenic enable scholars to add a profoundly subjective geography to their repertoire and to their understandings of the most personal of worlds.

Neither homed nor homeless: Contested definitions and the personal worlds of the poor

As economic conditions in the United States worsen, controversy about the causes of and solutions to homelessness intensifies. The public stands by normative definitions of home thereby discrediting the personal worlds of poor people. Although labeled homeless, many poor people are contesting this categorization and claiming that the environments and experiences that constitute their personal worlds are indeed home. Public discourse about home and homelessness is contrasted with results from fieldwork with poor people in the state of Delaware. Observations of and interviews with ‘homeless’ Delawareans suggest that poor people are defining and interpreting their own versions of home on the basis of what is socially tolerated, immediately available, and individually desired.

Conceptual Roots of Internalization: From Transmission to Transformation

The concept of internalization is traced through two lines of theorizing that include Freudian and social-learning accounts of socialization and the sociogenetic theories of general mental functions and development held by Janet, Baldwin, and Vygotsky. An account of internalization as transformation is presented. An analysis of earlier theorists’ views is proposed as a foundation for regarding internalization as a process involving transformations of semiotic material imported from the social world into personally constructed subjective experience. It is argued that researchers who work within the increasingly popular sociogenetic tradition would benefit from making explicit the historical connections between their versions of the concept of internalization and the thinking of major figures in sociogenetic theorizing. Explicit analysis of internalization as constructive transformation makes it possible to understand the uniqueness of personal subjective worlds and their social (intersubjective) developmental roots.

Mentoring the novice nurse researcher.

M ENTORING, an ancient concept, is achieving a resurgence of interest today. Although the primary emphasis on mentoring has been in the business community, other professions, specifically nursing and education, are also beginning to examine the mentoring process for the development of new professionals. The focus of this article is to discuss how mentoring can assist the novice nurse researcher in his or her professional and personal growth. Mentorship originated in Greek mythology and stems from Ulysses’ appointment of Mentor, a‘wise and faithful friend, to be the guardian and tutor of his son. Mentoring occurs “when a senior person (mentor) in terms of age and experience, undertakes to provide information, advice and emotional support to a junior person (mentee) in a relationship lasting over an extended period of time, and is marked by substantial emotional commitment by both parties” (Bowen, 1986, p. 61). In nursing, mentoring is believed to enhance the socialization process of young professionals (Betz, 1985; Caine, 1989; Hagerty, 1986). Mentoring is viewed as an effective method for reducing the stress experienced by the novice student (Policinski & Davidhazar, 1985), as well as by the newly graduated practitioner (O’Connor, 1988). It is also thought that mentoring raises the mentee’s selfesteem, assists in the development of a professional identity, and promotes career success and advancement for the mentee (May, Meleis, & Winstead-Fry, 1982). However, little has been said about the role of mentoring in preparing future nurse researchers. The traditional mentoring relationship is formed between a senior, experienced mentor and a junior, developing professional; the only necessary tie between the mentor and the mentee is that they mutually agree to the establishment of the relationship. In terms of mentoring for research, mentoring requires that this mutually agreed to and purposeful relationship is formed between a senior, experienced researcher and a junior or novice researcher. Typically, the mentor and mentee have the mentoring relationship as the common bond between them; in other words, they ‘are colleagues who, by age and/or experience, are at different points in their professional development. When the mentee is in a service or employee relationship with the mentor, mentoring is still possible; it just takes careful attention to the mentoring aspects of the relationship. The mentoring relationship includes goals for both professional and personal growth of the mentee. More specifically, mentoring is expected to (a) provide resources and experiences that improve the mentee’s skills and abilities to engage in research activities, (b) create research opportunities for the mentee, and (c) assist the mentee to identify how her/his professional and personal worlds merge. From personal experience as a research assistant* to a faculty member-mentor engaged in several research projects, I have found that while mentorship has provided many things, it has mainly provided me with a clearer and more profound understanding of the research process. On a technical level, the mentor has served as a teacher, guide, and role model. During formal and informal discussion, I have been able to identify problem areas in nursing and nursing research, especially those areas that are

All the World's a Writing Stage: Living Contexts for Literature

change. Her plea explore literature, to view it in its living context was exactly what I was not doing with my students, either in reading or in writing (1968, Literature as Exploration, New York: Noble, 7). With theater fresh in mind and Rosenblatt's words in hand, I discovered an interesting twist. My class and I would transform the fictional world presented in the literary piece into a real world containing people, events, and places. Where the writer provided minimal characters, limited plots, and singular settings, we created characters, events which occurred both before and after those depicted, and settings which, though not provided, were implied. Through brainstorming and list formulation on the chalkboard, we took the author's given and added the ungiven to create our real world. With this completed, myriads of writing opportunities became available as we asked what types of writing would occur in this real world and what types of real writing our characters might do. Imagination and pen moved quickly and excitedly as we first built our real world from fiction and then created the writing tasks which might be required in that world. Never realizing the benefits which were to be ours, my students and I began to see this technique as significant as we used it with different literary pieces. It became an important step in the prewriting stage, one which made us look closely at the fictional world and our own personal worlds and make links.

Chapter Seven: Celebration

In Chapter One we brought you through the doors into the world of the nursing home. In Chapters Two and Three we faced head-on some of the frustrations and anxieties this experience can be for many people. Part II of the book explored the personal and professional worlds of nursing assistants, supervisory personnel, administrators, and those we chose to call the underground. The intent has been to bring the reader through the initial horror of the nursing home and into its humanness. While special moments have been illustrated from time to time, we now wish to bring to the surface this humanness which struggles to be seen and experienced. The many players in this drama have their special problems with which to deal, but it is undeniable that the human spirit is present in nursing homes. This chapter celebrates the humanness in these settings.

Authority, Autonomy, and Choice: The Role of Consent in the Moral and Political Visions of Franz Kafka and Richard Posner

In The Ethical and Political Basis of Wealth Maximization and two related articles, Professor (now Judge) Richard Posner argues that widely shared pro-autonomy moral values are furthered by wealth-maximizing market transfers, judicial decisions, and legal institutions advocated by members of the and economics school of legal theory. Such transactions, decisions, and institutions are morally attractive, Posner argues, because they support autonomy; wealth-maximizing transfers are those to which all affected parties have given their consent. This Article argues that Posner's attempt to defend wealth-maximization on principles of consent rests on a simplistic and false psychological theory of human motivation. Posner's argument depends on both an explicit assumption that the presence of consent, without more, satisfies the requirements of an ideal of autonomy and on an implicit assumption that people consent to changes in their world in order to improve their well-being. Through a series of contrasts, I will argue that Franz Kafka's fictional works on the nature of law dramatize a dark underside of Posner's argument that the fact of consent morally legitimates our legal, social, and personal worlds. In Kafka's fictional and horrific world, as in Posner's theoretical and ideal one, victim, aggressor, and community all regard this consent as validating an otherwise unappealing state of affairs. Consent insulates these situations from moral criticism and renders them, without more, morally attractive. Kafka's fictional world thus provides a dramatic enactment of Posner's moral claim: Posner argues that consent morally legitimates all; Kafka illustrates what a world so legitimated might look and feel like. In both worlds, good and evil, and right and wrong, lose all meaning when all that matters is whether and to what extent people get exactly what they think they want.

Book Reviews: Evaluation in School Districts: Organizational Perspectives

In one sense this monograph represents the culmination of a long line of inquiry conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Center for the Study of (CSE) focused on explaining how school districts use testing and evaluation information. In another, I hope it represents just the beginning. The four authors of the major chapters in this monograph-Oscar Grusky, Charles O'Reilly, David O'Shea, and Lynne Zucker-served with a team of CSE researchers to design a national survey of school district evaluation units and to analyze the data from that survey in light of several major trends in the theory of formal organizations. The survey was begun in 1977, and the monograph was completed in 1981. The editors claim that the monograph's content is unique. This cannot be disputed. The monograph represents concepts and ways of thinking about school district evaluation units and the organizational realities in which they are embedded that lie outside the mainstream of evaluation technology. That these perspectives are vital to the successful operation of evaluation units should also be acknowledged, for evaluation results make a difference only in relation to the complex interests and pressures that characterize the personal and career worlds of educational decision makers. This case is clearly and thoroughly made in O'Reilly's chapter entitled Evaluation Information and Decision-Making in Organizations: Some Constraints on the Utilization of Research, and sets the tone for everything that follows. This chapter should be compulsory reading for any practicing evaluator, not only for its treatment of competing operational definitions of rationality and informational impacts on decision making, but also for the systematic set of propositions he draws from his review of pertinent literature on information acquisition, processing, and communication; decisionmaking processes; organizational power, goals, and incentives; and bias. These propositions, or hypotheses about conditions likely to positively affect the use of evaluation results, represent both salient inferences from the literature and useful guidelines for practicing evaluators. Taken together, they portray the decisionmaking process in organizations as far more subjective, pragmatic, and selfinterested than rational, methodological purists are prepared to acknowledge. In his view, evaluators are more likely to hinder than help their own cause when they embrace the rigors of research design and statistical elegance. Decisionmakers neither understand nor appreciate technical jargon and complex arguments. Paradoxically, however, this is a message that his sociologist co-authors in this monograph largely missed. Consequently,

Cultural Pluralism and Educational Policy: In Search of Stable Multiculturalism

The significance and meaning of cultural pluralism, or of multiculturalism as it is more commonly referred to in Australia, continue to excite much debate, as well as conceptual confusion. In this paper three possible types of multiculturalism in ethnically plural societies are analysed, namely those of ‘transitional‘, ‘residual’, and ‘stable’ or enduring multiculturalism. The latter orientation is carefully distinguished from separatism, while the transitional and residual types of multiculturalism are related to assimilationist solutions to pluralism. Throughout the paper the emphasis is placed on the paramount significance of culture in social life and on the need to distinguish between viable cultures that can be transmitted and modified by future generations, and cultures that have been reduced to residues through the loss of their core values. Such a concept of ethnic cultures, each with its distinct core, is discussed within the framework of values that are supra-ethnic, or shared by all sections of Australian society. From this vantage, the role of the school appears to be that of cultivating such shared values, and of transmitting the cores of all groups, within a social matrix that is dynamic and capable of change. This type of viable and developing pluralism is only possible if it is related to the personal cultural worlds of all Australians, since plurality remains a sterile notion unless it is seen to permeate the lives of individuals from all groups in society. The focus of the paper is on Australia, but examples from other ethnically plural societies are introduced, in order to highlight those developments that bear upon the Australian scene, and to explicate certain conceptual distinctions that are best understood in an international context.

Crisis intervention guided by attachment concepts-a case study.

SUMMARYCaplan's concepts of crisis and crisis intervention arc summarized and compared with Parkes' concept of psychosocial transition, which embodies attachment concepts (Bowlby) and an elaboration of Cantril's concept of the Assumptive Form World.This latter concept, taken further is presented as a metaphor in which to discuss events, experiences and behaviour commonly seen in crisis situations.The case study of a suicide bid by a young adolescent boy, illustrates the way attachment concepts, expressed through the metaphor of personal assumptive worlds, may be used to guide intervention in crisis situations in child and adolescent psychiatry.

Our Need for Perspective

WTHEN we are actively engaged in our complex personal and social worlds, it is difficult to view the present in perspective. Our daily teaching sched-, ule, the multitude of committee meetings, the demands on our time as leaders in our communities, and our personal responsibilities to our families and friends engulf us in a situation that allows us little time and space for the broader view. Because we are compelled to focus too closely on the scene immediately before us, we fail to see the entire picture.

Teaching Fiction through Visual and Verbal Art

little to the world they must cope with. The answer is, I think, that they have never developed the capacity to see. The capacity to see is the capacity to observe the physical world in all its detail so that we notice how things resemble and differ from one another, how complex they are, how they relate to human life; in other words, we plunge through the rich surface of the concrete to the universal and realize the physical world as metaphor. The capacity to see is, furthermore, the capacity to notice human interactions so fully that we are aware of what is transpiring on the surface and of what might be happening beneath it. Through such perception we can infer possible reasons for the behavior we observe, can recognize the psychological and moral complexity of the situation, can realize how it might be if we were so involved: we can, in other words, understand. The capacity to see is, finally, the capacity to imagine what might be; that is, to rehearse dramatically our decisions and envision their consequences and to conceive more satisfying alternatives to our personal and social worlds.

Greeting as a trial approval.

THE FIRST thing people do when they meet is to exchange greetings. In doing so they are only vaguely aware of the age-old behavioral processes built into our genes and our cultural habits, of all that reverberates in this initial trying out of who and what the other fellow is. Yet it is precisely in this probing at the initial encounter of personal worlds that the mystery of our separateness and our uniqueness comes to the fore. Even before the expressed ritual of salutation, there already exists a cluster of expectations and anticipations as to how the other fellow will react. This makes us bad witnesses of our own greeting ceremonial because we always see the world in a subjective, prejudiced light. It is our prejudices that make us hallucinate, as it were, the way other people react and behave toward us. This is equally true when meeting