Associations Among Empathy,Social Competence, &; Reactive/Proactive Aggression Subtypes

Differences between proactive and reactive aggression subtypes on self-reported measures of empathy, social competence, and expectation for reward were examined among 433 middle school students (65.4% White, 33.9% Black). As hypothesized, males scored higher on proactive and reactive aggression scales and lower on empathy measures than females. K-means cluster analysis yielded the following four distinct groups: reactive, proactive, proactive/reactive aggressive, and uninvolved. Overall, uninvolved (nonaggressive youth) had higher empathy and social competence scores and lower expectation of reward for the use of aggression. The reactive and proactive groups did not differ significantly on study variables. Limitations and implications are discussed. Graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her M.S. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her main research interests are in youth aggression, specifically the influence of social cognitive factors and peer groups on adolescent aggression. Associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Indiana University. Her major research interests focus on several health related behavior, including bullying and youth aggression and disordered eating in adolescents.     

Spanish-language print media in the USA: A social semiotic analysis of ideological representations in photojournalism

Although Spanish-language media in the USA have grown rapidly since the turn of the century, little scholarship has been dedicated to the semiotic characteristics of these media. This study examines the visual representation of ideologies in 15 news photographs published in Spanish-language print media in the Midwest of the USA with the goals of understanding how ideologies are expressed visually in a culture that has received little treatment in the previous literature and of determining the potential for these photographs to challenge the negative semiotic treatment of Latin@ immigrants in the USA. Following a critical social semiotic approach, the analysis demonstrates how ideologies pattern around the inclusion and exclusion of Latin@s. These ideologies challenge and perpetuate the hegemonic structure, respectively, and as such, indicate the potential for local Spanish-language print media to challenge the negative semiotic representation of Latin@s in the USA while pointing to the need for future research of minoritized media using the social semiotics framework.     

Differentiation of Twenty‐One Glitter Lip‐Glosses by Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectroscopy*

Abstract: Differentiation of 21 glitter lip‐glosses from seven manufacturers was attempted by pyrolysis gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy. Samples were pyrolyzed on a ribbon probe at 800°C for 20 sec and analyzed with an Agilent^® 6890N Network GC System and Agilent^® 5973 Network Mass Selective Detector with MSD Productivity ChemStation^® Data Analysis software. The total ion chromatograms obtained were examined and differences in the presence or absence of certain chromatographic peaks corresponding to certain pyrolysis products (e.g., styrene, cyclohexane) noted. In cases where the total ion chromatograms between lip‐glosses were similar, select ion profiling was performed. Of the 21 lip‐glosses, 15 were differentiated by either the total ion chromatograms alone or through select ion profiling. Considering that lip‐glosses are typically worn by young women (who are disproportionately victims of sexual assault), this study offers the potential of being able to provide investigative leads in sexual assault investigations with evidentiary samples of this kind.     

Material Feminism and Epigenetics: A ‘Critical Window’ for Engagement?

ABSTRACT

While there is increasing interest in gender and sex issues in the medical field, most research in medicine can still be defined as operating with a binary of sex/gender. Epigenetics presents a marked challenge to such binaries as it operates across many tightly held boundaries, blurring the lines between the biological and social. Feminist scholars are paying attention to this new field and reconsidering relationships between the politics of matter, biologies and the social in new ways. The aim of this article is to investigate how theoretical insights from material feminism might enhance epigenetic research. Rather than repeat important critical arguments that point to the dangers of reductionism and biological essentialism, we make a case for examining the ways that material feminism can engage with epigenetic research by broadening ideas of reproduction (beyond in-utero effects) to relational and political views of gender and sex within a materialist framework. In conclusion, we suggest that a focus on material-discursive co-formations has the potential to contribute to an established body of feminist theory and science work; increasing awareness of the intra-action of gender and sex in relation to exposures, and increasing political leverage in supporting health-enhancing environments.     

Deficits in Emotional Clarity and Vulnerability to Peer Victimization and Internalizing Symptoms Among Early Adolescents

Peer victimization is a significant risk factor for a range of negative outcomes during adolescence, including depression and anxiety. Recent research has evaluated individual characteristics that heighten the risk of experiencing peer victimization. However, the role of emotional clarity, or the ability to understand one’s emotions, in being the target of peer victimization remains unclear. Thus, the present study evaluated whether deficits in emotional clarity increased the risk of experiencing peer victimization, particularly among adolescent girls, which, in turn, contributed to prospective levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms. In the present study, 355 early adolescents (ages 12–13; 53 % female; 51 % African American) who were part of the Adolescent Cognition and Emotion project completed measures of emotional clarity, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms at baseline, and measures of peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms at follow-up. Moderation analyses indicated that deficits in emotional clarity predicted greater peer victimization among adolescent girls, but not adolescent boys. Moderated mediation analyses revealed that deficits in emotional clarity contributed to relational peer victimization, which, in turn, predicted prospective levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms among adolescent girls, but not boys. These findings indicate that deficits in emotional clarity represent a significant risk factor for adolescent girls to experience relational peer victimization, which, in turn, contributed to prospective levels of internalizing symptoms. Thus, prevention programs should target deficits in emotional clarity to prevent peer victimization and subsequent internalizing symptoms among adolescent girls.     

Comparative partitions

Genre is often conceptualised as a product or text. Such a view, however, seems to downplay the dynamism of textual production encouraging a hermeneutics with rigid, formulaic tendencies. This is clearly evident in the contribution of many structural linguists such as Martin and Hasan to the study of genre. While semioticians, notably Kress, Threadgold and Freadman, have critiqued this position there is still considerable work to be undertaken in reconceptualising notions of genre to give emphasis to the pragmatic play of language use.

This paper uses a TV current affairs interview of the controversial author Helen Demidenko‐Darville as the basis for examining approaches to the study of genre. The analysis is framed by Deleuze and Guattari's metaphor of ‘the map’ which it is argued captures the fluidity and generative nature of the interpretation of genre espoused in this article. It is presented as an alternative to metaphors such as ‘the frame’, ‘the recipe’, ‘the game’, and ‘the template’ which form the basis of theorisations of genre that tend to focus on the stability of form and, as such, have difficulty in accounting for the rupturing of boundaries which is evident in the Demidenko interview.

What distinguishes the map from the tracing is that it is entirely oriented toward an experimentation in contact with the real ... the map is open and connectable in all of its dimensions; it is detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification. It can be torn, reversed, adapted to any kind of mounting, reworked by an individual, group, or social formation ... A map has multiple entryways, as opposed to the tracing, which always comes back “to the same”;. The map has to do with performance, whereas the tracing always involves an alleged ‘competence’.