Social Worldview Research Articles

Understanding Factors that Influence the Grieving Process

Grief is a universal response to loss. Despite its universality, variation exists in how it is experienced and expressed. In light of evidence from bereavement research over the last two decades, previous paradigms regarding grief and loss are changing, which has important implications for professionals, including nurses, who work in end-of-life care. Much research centres on the recognition of grief as a complex, multidimensional phenomenon that is influenced by a variety of external factors. Social, cultural and religious worldviews all influence grief reactions, informing individual response to death. When caring for dying patients and their relatives/loved ones, nurses must be aware of the process of grief and the factors that influence the bereavement process following the patient’s death. Lack of openness towards death and bereavement may affect the quality and range of support and care services made available to families. This article will focus on the bereavement experienced by adults. It will provide an overview of the theories of grief. The external factors that may affect the grief process will then be considered. Conflicts of interest: none

A comparison of broad-bandwidth and frequency-specific measures of competitive and dangerous worldviews

We compare and contrast existing broad-bandwidth and frequency-specific worldview measures in the prediction of Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). As expected, broad-bandwidth and frequency-specific measures of dangerous worldview predicted common variance in RWA, and competitive worldview measures predicted common variance in SDO. Only the broad-bandwidth measures retained a unique concurrent association with RWA and SDO (n=347 New Zealand undergraduates). We argue that these alternative worldview measures share a common component reflecting schematic beliefs about the level of danger and threat in the social world (a descriptive belief component). The broad-bandwidth measure should be better suited for assessing a mixture of descriptive and prescriptive beliefs about how the social world ought to be, whereas the newer frequency-specific index is better suited for isolating the descriptive component of social worldview schemas. Directions for research examining heuristic biases that shape descriptive components of social worldview schemas are discussed.

HEXACO, social worldviews and socio-political attitudes: A mediation analysis

The Dual Process Model of Ideology and Prejudice states that ‘dangerous world’ and ‘competitive jungle’ beliefs shape Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), respectively. We investigated whether the associations of the HEXACO personality traits with SDO and RWA were mediated by these beliefs. Study 1 (297 Italian participants) investigated mediation at the general factor level. Study 2 (344 US participants) focused on the components of Honesty and Humility and of Openness-culture and Openness-curiosity. Personality associations with SDO were mostly mediated by Competitive Jungle beliefs, whilst personality associations with RWA were mostly unmediated. At the level of narrow trait components, different effects for Honesty and Humility and for Openness-culture and Openness-curiosity were revealed.

Mammogram-Screening Policy as Need Intervention

This study examines the rhetorical process that underlies how we constitute and promote needs related to mammogram-screening policy specifically and policy-making generally. The Rhetoric of Social Intervention model first frames a brief historical overview of symbolically constituted needs related to screening policy and then is used to analyze how the 2009 US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) attempted to introduce an alternative screening policy. Rhetorical strategies, tactics, and maneuvers related to promoting and impeding policy change are examined. Although the USPSTF intended to expand women's options by directing attention to women's individualized needs for screening, its approach to communicating appears inadvertently to have reduced them. To intervene more effectively, then, practitioners must consider a social system's worldview and interdependencies upon which the symbolic needs generating a policy are based. The findings suggest the overarching ideological need to create a more perfect world, which underlies all policy-making, needs further investigation.

Dangerous and competitive schemas: A new Frequency Estimation Index of the Dual Process Model’s Social Worldviews component

We present an alternative self-report measure of the social worldview component in Duckitt’s (2001) Dual Process Model (DPM) of prejudice. Theoretically, worldviews represent belief structures about the nature of the social world (schemas). The new Frequency Estimation Index of Dual Social Worldviews (FEI-DSW) uses 0–100% response scales to assess social worldviews using indicators of the subjective estimation of the frequency of events. Previously, worldview indicators have been indexed using ideological attitude measures as a proxy. Exploratory ( N = 378; Study 1) and Confirmatory ( N = 300; Study 2) Factor Analyses validated the factor structure of the FEI-DSW in undergraduate and New Zealand community samples. The FEI-DSW evidenced good construct validity, as its dual factors, dangerous worldview (FEI-DW) and competitive worldview (FEI-CW) differentially predicted Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). The FEI-DSW provides a reliable and valid measure of social worldviews that is closer to a formal definition of worldviews as social schemas.

Child-friendly cities: a place for active citizenship in geographical and environmental education

This research1 was designed to investigate innovative practices associated with child-friendly cities2 initiatives in the United Kingdom and Italy and how civics and citizenship initiatives are being applied into practical programmes of exploration and learning in geography and environmental education. The Child-Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI) of the United Nations Children's Fund was launched in 1996 at the UN Conference on Human Settlement (Habitat II). At this conference it was declared that the well-being of children is the key indicator of a healthy habitat, a democratic society and good governance committed to children's rights. The CFCI was closely allied to the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in which the right of children and young people to participate in the life and decision-making of their communities became a human right. Child-friendly cities initiatives have provided a framework and a myriad of programmes in which to create ways for children and young people to develop and exercise citizenship and participation skills. These projects assist young people to investigate issues relevant to their social and spatial worldviews, to interact with local government and community resources, to develop research skills and to promote the development of spatial competence and confidence.

David Dubinsky, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and the Limits of Social Democratic Trade Unionism

Unlike Parmet’s (2005) well-written and thoroughly researched biography and many other generally admiring books and articles on David Dubinsky, the former International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) president from 1932 to 1966, this essay contends that even though Dubinsky initiated important developments within the ILGWU and fought heroically against Nazism and Fascism, his right-wing social democratic worldview was ultimately divisive to the achievement of national and international working class unity. Dubinsky’s political positions become evident through his vigorous anti-Communism which he engaged in with regards to his dealings with Communists in the ILGWU, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the American Labor Party. Moreover, the exporting of his anti-Communism abroad via the American Federation of Labor’s Free Trade Union Committee and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions damaged international working class unity through the sabotaging of radical trade unionism not only in Western Europe but in nations around the globe. Understanding Dubinsky’s anti-Communism is the key for ultimately comprehending the garment union leader’s politics.

The Woman’s Page: Journalism and Rhetoric in Early Canada (review)

Reviewed by: The Woman’s Page: Journalism and Rhetoric in Early Canada Valerie J. Korinek The Woman’s Page: Journalism and Rhetoric in Early Canada. Janice Fiamengo. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Pp. 256, $60.00 cloth, $25.95 paper The Woman’s Page is essential reading for anyone interested in feminism, social activism, journalism, and English-Canadian cultural histories between 1875 and 1915. Literary scholar Janice Fiamengo offers an exceptionally sophisticated analysis of the motivating forces that drove six English-Canadian female journalists and fiction writers Agnes Maule Machar, Sara Jeannette Duncan, Pauline Johnson, Kit Coleman, Flora MacDonald Denison, and Nellie McClung to create distinctive public voices and literary personae. Those familiar with first-wave feminist histories, and with late-nineteenth / early-twentieth-century work on the social gospel and activism, will be familiar with the individuals included in this collection. Initially, in the scholarship of the seventies and eighties these women (albeit to varying degrees) were revered as icons of women’s ‘herstory,’ as women who forged unconventional career paths and received widespread public acclaim. Within the past fifteen years that view has been displaced, as we’ve become increasingly familiarized with the darker side of these formerly uncomplicated icons of first-wave suffrage and activism. Appropriately tough questions have been raised about their imperial, religious, and class-based motivations [End Page 791] for national transformation. Now, in this new work, Janice Fiamengo asks that we once again reconsider these women’s accomplishments and take a middle path between these two schools of thought. While Fiamengo acknowledges the significant work of Canadian gender and social historians (and in particular the interest in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century religiously inspired social and political activism), she indicates that substantial work remains to be done if we are ever to comprehend the ideological diversity and goals of this ‘generation’ of activists. In particular, though many of the authors she analyzes have been the beneficiaries of dedicated biographies (notably Coleman, Johnson, and McClung), she laments the insufficient attention paid to their work. Thus, Fiamengo’s aim in this monograph is to offer a detailed appraisal of their work, one that pays particularly close attention to their religious, social, and political world views, and then to assess why works by these authors were so popularly received. In successive chapters, each woman receives a dedicated analysis of her magazine and newspaper publications. The range of materials collected, many of which have been astonishingly erased from our memory despite their popularity at the time, demonstrates the tremendous diversity and vitality of much of this writing. Some real gems have been uncovered here, and in the published excerpts the women’s writing fairly leaps off the page, at turns humorous, provocative, scholarly, or heart-rendering. Fiamengo is a skilled writer, and her ear for the cadences of the women’s writing, combined with a shrewd assessment of what will capture a modern reader’s attention, makes for a lively book. For example, readers are treated to excerpts from Sara Jeannette Duncan’s scathing social commentaries on Toronto ‘society,’ to flashes of Kit Coleman’s wit and intelligence as she rebukes the more clueless of her readers, and, finally, to glimpses of Nellie McClung’s evident joy at skewering the pomposity of male politicians. However, The Woman’s Page is not content merely to restore and analyze the women’s journalistic output; instead the book illustrates the interactions among the authors, texts, and reading audiences. In so doing, it moves us beyond the usual academic specialized reading, providing glimpses into the real world experience of reading these ‘women’s pages.’ It is clear that the most skilful writers really connected with their audiences, became well-loved public figures (particularly Coleman and McClung), and very cleverly knew how to translate their own religious, political, and social views into eagerly consumed texts. In only one case, the chapter on Flora MacDonald Denison, does Fiamengo showcase a writer whose literary skills lagged behind her [End Page 792] message of radical suffrage goals, with the result that Denison’s columns were more leaden than those of the other writers. Given the muted engagement with readers (no such evidence...

Big-Five Personality, Social Worldviews, and Ideological Attitudes: Further Tests of a Dual Process Cognitive-Motivational Model

In this study, we extended the Dual Process Model of Ideology and Prejudice by incorporating the Five-Factor Model of Personality (N = 924). Disagreeable people tended to view the social world as competitive, which in turn predicted heightened motivations for group-based dominance and superiority (Social Dominance Orientation or SDO), whereas people low in Openness to Experience and high in Conscientiousness directly expressed heightened security-cohesion motivations (Right-Wing Authoritarianism or RWA). Other personality dimensions were weakly associated with RWA, and these effects were mediated by dangerous worldview. Multiple distinct aspects of personality predict SDO and RWA both directly and indirectly through worldviews, but we found little evidence for the possibility that personality alters the extent to which worldviews (once formed) predict SDO and RWA.

A Dual-Process Motivational Model of Ideology, Politics, and Prejudice

There have been two broad approaches to how sociopolitical or ideological attitudes are structured. The more traditional unidimensional approach sees ideological attitudes as organized along a single left-to-right dimension, and influenced by a single coherent set of social and psychological causes, but has not been well supported empirically. During the past 2 decades evidence has increasingly suggested that there are two distinct dimensions of ideological attitudes, which seem best captured by the constructs of Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). These dimensions may sometimes be strongly related, but often are not, and seem to express quite different basic values or motivational goals. This has been formalized in a dual-process motivational model of ideological attitudes, which sees RWA and SDO as originating in different social worldview beliefs, personality trait dimensions, and social environmental influences, and as influencing socio-political and intergroup behavior and outcomes in different ways and through different mechanisms. New research supporting these propositions is reviewed.

Political Expertise, Social Worldviews, and Ideology: Translating “Competitive Jungles” and “Dangerous Worlds” into Ideological Reality

The psychological bases of ideology have received renewed attention amid growing political polarization. Nevertheless, little research has examined how one’s understanding of political ideas might moderate the relationship between “pre-political” psychological variables and ideology. In this paper, we fill this gap by exploring how expertise influences citizens’ ability to select ideological orientations that match their psychologically rooted worldviews. We find that expertise strengthens the relationship between two basic social worldviews—competitive-jungle beliefs and dangerous-world beliefs and left–right self-placement. Moreover, expertise strengthens these relationships by boosting the impact of the worldviews on two intervening ideological attitude systems—social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism. These results go beyond previous work on expertise and ideology, suggesting that expertise strengthens not only relationships between explicitly political attitudes but also the relationship between political attitudes and their psychological antecedents.

The Inevitable Conflict Between Religious and Social Work Values

There exists considerable conflict between the current social work worldview and that espoused by traditional Christianity. While the conflict is most evident in specific definitions of general social work values, innate differences in foundational assumptions of competing philosophical perspectives make such conflict inevitable. An attempt to utilize pluralism in two forms to reconcile differences while somewhat successful is inherently incomplete. The failure of pluralistic solutions is primarily due to the issue of exclusivity. New philosophical principles need to be explored and applied to the problem of competing and exclusive worldviews if social work is to advance developing a comprehensive value base

Blacks on the Border: The Black Refugees in British North America, 1815–1860 (review)

Blacks on the Border: The Black Refugees in British North America, 1815-1860. By Harvey Amani Whitfield. (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2006. Pp. 200. Maps. Cloth, $65.00; Paper, $24.95.)Reviewed by W. Bryan Rommel-RuizIn his timely and important study of the Black Refugees from the War of 1812, Harvey Amani Whitfield has reminded us that the black communities established in Nova Scotia in the nineteenth century were among the connected nodes of black freedom in the Atlantic world. Whitfield traces the regional, cultural, and social histories of the Black Refugees, a constellation of former American slaves who fled to the British Army during the war, from the Chesapeake and Lowcountry (primarily Virginia and Georgia's Sea Islands). Ultimately, he confronts a profound issue: How did the cultural and social worldviews of the Black Refugees with such deep roots in American slavery endure migration and resettlement to Nova Scotia? Much as American historians have discovered in their studies of nineteenth-century urban black communities in the American North, Whitfield sees the ways in which economic, social, and political marginalization in Nova Scotia promoted a black racial consciousness, becoming the impetus for community development, political action, and identity formation. As Whitfield demonstrates, the Black Refugees embraced their identity as subjects of the British monarchy, and moved from that position to advocate for their rights as citizens in Nova Scotia.Blach on the Border opens with two narratives: The history of blacks in Nova Scotia and the history of American slavery in the Chesapeake and Lowcountry. Weaving together Canadian and American historiography, Whitfield illuminates the ways in which the longer history of blacks in Nova Scotia, particularly the legacies of the Black Loyalists and Jamaican Maroons, influenced the Black Refugee experience. Furthermore, he demonstrates how slave culture and society in the American South shaped their lives in nineteenth-century Nova Scotia. These histories and traditions would collide and define the contours of black life in this maritime Canadian province. Like the Black Loyalists during the Revolutionary War, the Black Refugees were promised land and freedom for their support of the British military. And similar to the Black Loyalist experience, this next wave of black American migrants encountered a government and communities in Nova Scotia hostile to their arrival. Indeed, the Black Refugees discovered a harsher racial climate because of the history of tense race relations in the province. Ultimately nearly half of the Black Loyalists left to help found the Afro-British colony of Sierra Leone, and most of the Jamaican Maroons left Nova Scotia as well. Many white Nova Scotians hoped the Black Refugees would follow these earlier examples and leave the colony. While a few of the Refugees would accept the offer of removal to the Caribbean, most decided to stay and make a life in Nova Scotia.It is in the stories of the struggles and hardships of the Black Refugees in the early years of their settlement that we see the richness of Whitfield's research. Significantly, Chesapeake blacks settled in Preston, a rural area outside of Dartmouth (a suburb of Halifax) while Lowcountry migrants settled in Hammonds Plains, another area bordering the seaport, although distant from the black community in Preston. Looking at the petitions submitted by Black Refugees for land and supplies, Whitfield discovered work patterns that paralleled the black experience in the American South, particularly in the insistence of the Refugees to pursue farming and practice traditional artisan trades, occasionally engaging the urban labor market in Halifax. In their work and labor, the Black Refugees were practicing cultural and social traditions tied to their experience in American slavery, and identified their commitment to farming with ideas of independence and freedom. …

Effects of Dangerous and Competitive Worldviews on Right‐Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation over a Five‐Month Period

The cross‐lagged effects of dangerous and competitive social worldviews on Right‐Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) were examined over a five‐month period (N = 165). Analyses indicated that the motivational goal for group‐based dominance and superiority indexed by SDO changed as a function of the degree to which the social world was perceived as a competitive place characterized by inequality and resource scarcity. The motivational goal for ingroup conformity and collective security indexed by RWA, in contrast, changed as a function of the degree to which the social world was perceived as a dangerous and threatening place prone to high levels of crime and immoral behavior. These findings are consistent with the causal pathways between social worldviews and ideological attitudes predicted by Duckitt's (2001) model of the dual motivational and cognitive processes underlying prejudice. An unexpected reciprocal effect in which RWA predicted longitudinal change in dangerous worldview was also identified, suggesting that the relationship between these two constructs may be more complex than previously hypothesized.

The intervening role of social worldviews in the relationship between the five‐factor model of personality and social attitudes

The present research investigates in a student (N = 183) and a voter sample (N = 276) whether the relationships between the Five‐Factor Model (FFM) personality dimensions and social attitudes (i.e. Right‐Wing Authoritarianism [RWA] and Social Dominance Orientation [SDO]) are mediated by social worldviews (i.e. dangerous and jungle worldviews). Two important results were obtained. First, the perception of the world as inherently dangerous and chaotic partially mediated the relationships of the personality dimensions Openness and Neuroticism and the social attitude RWA. Second, the jungle worldview completely mediated the relationships between Agreeableness and SDO, but considerable item overlap between the jungle worldview and SDO was also noted. It was further revealed that acquiescence response set and item overlap had an impact on social worldviews and attitudes, but that their relationships were hardly affected by these biases. The discussion focuses on the status of social worldviews to explain social attitudes. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Eroticism, Death and Redemption: The Operatic Construct of the Biblical Femme Fatale

AbstractThis article explores the themes of eroticism, death and redemption as seen in the world of opera, through a particular lens. This lens is the construct of the femme fatale as drawn from the particular world of the Bible. This construct is of course largely the product of the composer's and/or librettist's own social, religious, political and philosophical world view; where the origin of the construct is a biblical narrative, a high degree of elaboration is always required, since the psychology and motivation of women in the Bible is particularly under-developed. The article first surveys the terrain—surprisingly limited to six chief operas, which together treat only four biblical subjects. The first of the operas, Verdi's early work Nabucco, is analysed in terms of the depiction of its—totally invented—femme fatale, a fictitious daughter Abigaille given to King Nebuccadnezzar. The development of the concept of femme fatale is then traced until it reaches its apotheiosis with the extraordinary character of Kundry, in Wagner's Parsifal. She is then used as the vehicle to explore the themes in depth.

Breast Cancer as an Embodied Life Event: A Synthesis of Research and Theory and Directions for Intervention and Future Work

With the present work, we reviewed literature exploring breast cancer and body image and invoked this synthesis as a platform from which to develop (a) theoretical applications for understanding the embodied experience of breast cancer, (b) implications for counseling interventions, and (c) recommendations for continued research. Of particular relevance to our analyses was theory related to the social construction of the female body and also theories related to meaning-making, illness, and loss. Based upon our synthesis, we suggest a counseling approach in which professionals treating breast cancer patients listen for and attend to breast cancer patients' attributions of meaning and consider the varied influences that may contribute to those meanings. Additionally, we propose that researchers invoke qualitative approaches and social constructionist/meaning-making perspectives to build understanding about the ways in which a woman's social roles, embodied history, world views, and other contextual factors shape her embodied experience of breast cancer.

The Labour Movement and the National Question: The Communist Party ofYugoslavia in Macedonia in the Inter-War Period

In economically less developed countries, communism and nationalism tend to appear as closely related concepts, even though they might belong to ideologically different spheres. In the case of Macedonia, scholarship has viewed the domestic communist organization as an instrument in the service of a nationalist movement. However, even the still limited source material available today would allow one to draw a more complex picture of the situation. Typically East European by social background and world view, the Macedonian communists shared the scepticism of orthodox Marxists as regards nation and nationalism and resisted Soviet attempts to exploit national discontent in the Balkans in the early post-World War I era. In the wake of a severe inter-generational conflict, a group of young Belgrade students gained control of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the late 1930s. The subsequent transformation of the party according to the Bolshevik model prepared the ground for a greater emphasis on the national question, especially since the Comintern had decreed in 1935 the transition to a policy of national front.

From Whence We Came

As Whiston and Keller’s integrative review illuminates, several contextual factors (e.g., particularly sex and race) have begun to receive attention in the past 20 years in the career development literature. Their review also demonstrates that social class and socioeconomic status (SES), as contextual variables, have not. Authors of this reaction hypothesizeaboutwhy this maybe the case. They alsoarguefor the importanceof investigating the entire spectrum of social class—lower, middle, and upper. In addition, recent methodological advances, such as the social class worldview model and instrumentation, which emphasize the potential power of subjective perceptions of class, are also highlighted. The authors urge us to go beyond merely acknowledging our lack of understanding of this potentially critical variable to developing a rigorous research agenda that places social class and SES variables at the core.

Social Work Response to the Needs of Biracial Americans

The number of interracial marriages is rising. The offspring of these marriages are a special group that is experiencing the complexities and frustrations of multiracial existence. Over six million Americans identified themselves as biracial in the 2000 census. These people are different from biracial Americans of the past. They do not want to disown any part of their ancestry and are resisting the societal practice of forcing them to identify with only the racial community of one parent. This paper examines the social realities and worldviews of these Americans and identifies their major needs. It discusses these and suggests a social work response at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels of practice.