‘Quality’, Cinema and the ‘Superior Woman’ Persona: understanding women’s film criticism in post‐war Britain (1945–59)

Criticism was a particularly buoyant area of film culture in Britain during the post‐war period, a regular feature in newspapers, periodicals, magazines, and BBC radio programmes. What has not been widely recognised is the central role that women played as critics of film at this time, and where their interests differed from those of their male peers. This article recovers the contribution made by women film critics, arguing that middle‐class writers such as C. A. Lejeune and E. Arnot Robertson adopted a form of ‘distanced amusement’ with regard to themes of sentimentality and romance (associated with low‐brow female pleasures). This strategy permitted them to engage with the broader cultures of film‐watching, commenting on subjects such as female crying and character identification, and recognising cinema‐going as a pleasurable activity for women, subjects which male critics did not discuss. These findings expand knowledge about film criticism in the post‐war period and reconfigure received understandings of film culture to account for women’s gendered contribution to the critical field.     

Social Exclusion: The Interplay of Group Goals and Individual Characteristics

Past research has shown that adolescents justify social exclusion based on concerns for group functioning, and yet, to date, no study has evaluated whether group functioning justifications shift or remain stable across different exclusion contexts. In this study, we systematically manipulated exclusion context (i.e., competitive or noncompetitive soccer groups) and individual characteristics of the target of exclusion to test the nature of the interaction between these factors during exclusion judgments. Adolescents’ (N = 201; 61 % Female) exclusion judgments differed across contexts only when an individual’s ability was under consideration. Intergroup (i.e., gender, nationality) and interpersonal (i.e., aggression, shyness) characteristics overwhelmed contextual considerations. Results indicate the complexity of factors weighed by adolescents when making exclusion judgments, and suggest the need for extension of the present findings to understand more fully the interaction between the context of exclusion and individual characteristics in exclusion judgments.     

Physical Injuries, Pain, and Psychological Trauma: Pathways to Disability

Because physical injuries occur so frequently and are associated with significant mortality and morbidity, these injuries have been acknowledged as a worldwide public health concern. While the greatest cost associated with physical injury is the loss of life, non-fatal injuries are associated with significant personal and societal costs. Traditionally, examinations of the personal costs of physical injuries have emphasized functional losses and limitations, in addition to resulting losses in work productivity and income earning power. Efforts to capture the societal costs associated with physical injury have emphasized medical expenditures related to their treatment as well as costs related to lost work performance and disability compensation. Less emphasized but possibly more relevant to post-injury functional outcomes is the experience of psychological distress that frequently accompanies injury-related changes in function and overall quality of life. Any calculation of the true cost of physical injuries must include a reckoning of their impact on psychological health and the interactive influence of physical and psychological injuries on immediate and long-term recovery of function. In the current article, we briefly summarize data pertaining to the prevalence and cost of physical injuries; we briefly describe the more common consequences of physical injury, including injury-related limitations in physical function, pain and pain-related limitations in physical function, occupational impairment, psychological distress, and impairment in interpersonal relating; we review select theoretical models that are considered to explain the transition from physical injury to disabilities and we identify the pre-, peri-, and post-injury influence of physical and psychological health on injury management, recovery of function, risk of re-injury, and disability.     

Fake Claims of Fake News: Political Misinformation,Warnings, and the Tainted Truth Effect

Political Behavior - Fact-checking and warnings of misinformation are increasingly salient and prevalent components of modern news media and political communications. While many warnings about...     

Impact of deception detection errors on public's trust in the police

Purpose. The present study explored the public's attitude towards errors in police officers’ detection of deception. Based on findings on trust in the police after responses to terrorist threats, we predicted a positive influence of a correct credibility assessment and of a risk‐averse response bias of police officers on public's trust. Methods. A general population sample (N= 151) read a hypothetical scenario concerning a credibility judgment and indicated their trust in the officers making the judgment. Decision outcome was manipulated by varying the four outcomes of a signal‐detection task, namely, Hit, Miss, False Alarm, and Correct Rejection. Results. In line with findings on trust in the police following responses to terrorist threats, people trusted police officers more if they judged the credibility of a suspect correctly. Moreover, officers who disbelieved the suspect's statement were trusted more than officers who believed, independently of outcome correctness. Furthermore, this effect was moderated by individual differences in error weighting. Conclusions. In sum, these findings indicate that lie‐biased credibility judgments made by police officers are supported by the public and increase their trust in the police. In addition, the present findings suggest that an asymmetrical weighting of judgment errors is a relevant factor in explaining the development of and attitude towards lie bias.     

Worth the Wait? The Effect of Early Term Birth on Maternal and Infant Health

Early term birth is defined as birth at 37 or 38 weeks gestation. While infants born early term are not considered premature, the medical literature suggests that they have an increased risk of serious adverse health outcomes compared to infants born at term (39 or 40 weeks). Despite these known harms, we document a rise in early term births in the United States from 1989 to the mid‐2000s, followed by a decline in recent years. We posit that the recent decline in early term births has been driven by changes in medical practice advocated by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, programs such as the March of Dimes’ “Worth the Wait” campaign, and by Medicaid policy. We first show that this pattern cannot be attributed to changes in the demographic composition of mothers, and provide some evidence that efforts to reduce early term elective deliveries (EEDs) through Medicaid policy were effective. We next exploit county‐level variation in the timing of these changes in medical practice to examine the effect of early term inductions (our proxy for EEDs) on infant and maternal health. We find that early term inductions lower birth weights and increase the risks of precipitous labor, birth injury, and required ventilation. Our results suggest that reductions in early term inductions can explain about one‐third of the overall increase in birth weights between 2010 and 2013 for births at 37 weeks gestation and above.     

African American Women’s Readiness to Change Abusive Relationships

This study explores 178 low-income, abused African American women’s readiness to change abusive relationships and achieve safety. We explore stages of change using Prochaska and DiClemente’s transtheoretical model (TM; Precontemplation, Contemplation, Action, Preparation, and Maintenance). Results reveal that: for abused women, the stages fall along a continuum (versus discreet and linear stages); abused women are primarily in the Contemplation stage; and multiple factors (perception of current abuse, number of children in her home, symptoms of general anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD], substance use, spiritual well-being, self-esteem, and social support) affect women’s total readiness to change intimate partner violence (IPV). Current IPV, anxiety, PTSD, substance abuse, and spirituality were positively correlated with readiness to change, and children in the home and self-esteem were negatively correlated with readiness to change. Multiple regression analysis revealed that PTSD and spiritual well-being are positive predictors of readiness to change. Findings contribute to the growing body of literature supporting the TM as applied to IPV. Results are discussed in terms of applicability to interventionists, policy makers, and community leaders as they consider the plight of abused women and their efforts towards violence-free relationships.     

“Developing a community soul”: A Comparative Assessment of the Australian Assistance Plan in Three Regions, 1973–1977

The Australian Assistance Plan (AAP) was an innovative yet largely forgotten social welfare program from the 1970s. A key platform of the Whitlam Labor government, which established a series of Regional Councils for Social Development across Australia, the AAP reframed citizens’ participation in their communities, stimulated voluntary organisations and volunteering and attempted to transform engagement among all levels of governments and the voluntary sector. Through an analysis of three Regional Council case studies in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, this article focuses on the themes of regionalism and regional distinctiveness in order to assess how questions of regional difference can impact on the development of policy practices.