The Social Environmental Elements of Resilience among Vulnerable African American/Black Men Who Have Sex with Men

Resilience theory has been suggested as a strong framework for research on HIV prevention among men who have sex with men (MSM). Among this population, literature indicates that African American/Black MSM are particularly vulnerable to health and social disparities associated with HIV transmission risk. Conceptualizing resilience as a part of one’s social environment, this qualitative study investigates the specific elements of resilience, and the associated contexts and relationships, among a sample of 21 substance-using African American/Black MSM. Data indicate that: 1) elements contributing to resilience are multiple and co-occurring, including inner strengths, social relationships, diversity of experience, religion/spirituality, altruism, and creativity; 2) as an element of resilience, social support was experienced differently among men who did and did not have supportive relationships with other gay and bisexual men, which has implications for social service provision and intervention approaches; and 3) diversity of experiences and relationships is an important influencing factor on expressions of resilience. Social services or interventions that facilitate the development of these elements of resilience will likely be especially beneficial for vulnerable African American/Black MSM.

… The primary elements of resilience, as described during the interviews were inner strengths, social relationships, diversity of experience, religion/spirituality, altruism, and creativity. The data were themed in order to illustrate the distinct elements of resilience. Yet, men’s discussions of resilience indicate that key elements are interwoven, with each one contributing to a unified whole. Religion/spirituality is a key theme that illustrates how elements of resilience are interwoven. For many men, the distinction between internal assets and external resources was somewhat blurry. Men described the positive influence of religion and spirituality on the development and utilization of inner strengths. At the same time, religion and spirituality provides external resources for these men including social support and relationships and basic needs.

Similarly, the influence of diversity is woven into the development and expression of resilience. As is seen in the interviews, diversity allows men to see other ways of understanding the world, and thus, not being so constrained by the political, economic, or social structures in which they are embedded. While diversity is not apparent in the literature as an element of resilience, descriptions from men in the study indicate that it is an important influencing factor in the development of resilience. Diversity plays a role in drawing attention to and revealing the existence of resources, in addition to fostering resourcefulness and agency necessary to obtain needed resources.

External resources, especially social relationships, were also key elements of resilience. Sources of social support, however, varied somewhat among the respondents. Though a small number of men described connections with other gay men, for a large majority of respondents, supportive social relationships were found with non-gay individuals, such as family members or co-workers. This difference could potentially be an important aspect in the expression of resilience among MSM. The study of resilience must address the questions of when, how, and for whom resources matter (Panter-Brick, 2014); thus, further study of this phenomenon, comparing men who do and do not have supportive relationships with other gay individuals, may generate useful information about the expression of resilience as it relates to providing social services and developing interventions designed to facilitate resilient outcomes. Such a study would be especially relevant given the recently proposed hypothesis from HIV prevention researchers that connection to a sexual minority community may be a key element of resilience for MSM (Herrick et al., 2014).

A small number of men expressed that their supportive social relationships were with other gay or bisexual men. For these respondents, individual agency was expressed by seeking out and making connections to the gay community and creating a social environment in which their sexual orientation or same-sex behaviors could be freely disclosed. Thus, social support was more accessible for these men in a culturally meaningful way than for other men. Yet, future research on resilience among this population may do well to examine how the expression of individual agency could be expanded to negotiate for structural changes that contribute to health and social disparities. Such an approach would focus on the availability of resources, such as culturally-meaningful social support, in addition to the resourcefulness and agency of MSM to change their social environment (Panter-Brick, 2014). As has been noted by others, such a model that is focused on “changing the odds” in one’s social environment is preferable to one in which individuals simply “beat the odds” stacked against them (Panter-Brick 2014, p. 441; Ungar, 2008, pp. 220–221). Moreover, understanding resilience in this way would likely benefit the development of structural interventions or community approaches to ending the HIV epidemic among this population…

Full article at:  http://goo.gl/bdHJwk

By:  Mance E. Buttram

Mance E. Buttram, Center for Applied Research on Substance Use and Health Disparities, Nova Southeastern University, 2 NE 40th Street, Suite 404, Miami, FL 33137, Tel: 305-571-2774; Fax: 305-571-8468, Email: ude.avon@marttub.ecnam;

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Who Intervenes Against Homophobic Behavior? Attributes that Distinguish Active Bystanders

Research on homophobic behavior has focused on students engaging in this behavior or students toward whom this behavior is directed. There has been little attention to the large segment of students who observe this behavior, including active bystanders who defend or support students when homophobic behavior occurs. 

Among 722 high school students (55% female, 87% white, 86% heterosexual), 66.8% had observed at least one instance of homophobic behavior in the past 30 days. Gender (in this case, girls more so than boys), leadership, courage, altruism, justice sensitivity, and number of LGBT friends were associated with engagement in more active bystander behavior in response to observing homophobic behavior. 

Further, gender, courage, altruism, and number of LGBT friends each made unique contributions in accounting for variability in students' defending behavior in a comprehensive regression model. 

Findings highlight qualities that interventionists should cultivate in students that could lead to more active bystander engagement against homophobic behavior.

Purchase full article at:   http://goo.gl/bIML1V

By:  Poteat VP1, Vecho O2.

• 1Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA. Electronic address: PoteatP@bc.edu.
• 2Université Paris Ouest-Nanterre la Défense, Nanterre, France. Electronic address: ovecho@u-paris10.fr. 
• J Sch Psychol. 2016 Feb;54:17-28. doi: 10.1016/j.jsp.2015.10.002. Epub 2015 Nov 7.

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Are Women’s Mate Preferences for Altruism Also Influenced by Physical Attractiveness?

Altruism plays a role in mate choice, particularly in women’s preferences and in long-term (LT) relationships. 

The current study analyzed how these preferences interacted with another important mate choice variable, physical attractiveness. Here, female participants were presented with photographs of men of varying levels of physical attractiveness, alongside descriptions of them behaving either altruistically or not in different scenarios. 

The results showed women preferred altruistic men, particularly in LT relationships and that this interacted with physical attractiveness such that being both attractive and altruistic made a man more desirable than just the sum of the two desirable parts. 

Also, being altruistic made low attractive men more desirable but only for LT relationships. Finally, men who were just altruistic were rated more desirable than men who were just attractive, especially for LT relationships. 

Overall, these findings are discussed in terms of the role of altruism in mate choice, particularly in LT relationships and directions of future research.

Below: Graph of mean desirability ratings (±standard error [SE]) of men by level of attractiveness, level of altruism, and length of relationship.

Below:  Graph of proportional change in desirability from short-term to long-term (±standard error [SE]) of men by level of attractiveness and level of altruism

Below:  Graph of desirability ratings (±standard error [SE]) of men displaying either high altruism or high attractiveness only by different relationship lengths

Full article at:   http://goo.gl/CsBhtg

By:  Daniel Farrelly1, Paul Clemson2, Melissa Guthrie2

¹Institute of Health and Society, University of Worcester, Worcester, United Kingdom

²Department of Psychology, University of Sunderland, Sunderland, United Kingdom

Daniel Farrelly, Institute of Health and Society, University of Worcester, Worcester, United Kingdom. Email: d.farrelly@worc.ac.uk

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Inter-Group Conflict & Cooperation: Field Experiments Before, During & After Sectarian Riots in Northern Ireland

The idea that cooperative groups out-compete less cooperative groups has been proposed as a theoretical possibility for the evolution of cooperation through cultural group selection. Previous studies have found an association between increased cooperation and exposure to inter-group violence, but most have not been able to identify the specific target of cooperation and are based on correlational data making it difficult to establish causality. 

In this study we test the hypothesis that inter-group conflict promotes parochial altruism (i.e., in-group altruism and out-group hostility) by using longitudinal data of a real-world measure of cooperation-charity and school donations-sampled before, during and after violent sectarian riots between Catholics and Protestants in Belfast, Northern Ireland. 

We find that conflict is associated with reductions in all types of cooperation, with reduced donations to a neutral charity, and both in-group and out-group primary schools. After the conflict, both in-group and out-group donations increased again. In this context we find no evidence that inter-group conflict promotes parochial altruism.

Below:  Map of Belfast with the neighborhoods Ballymacarrett 1 and Bellevue 2 in green and the 4 primary schools used in the donations experiments before, during and after the sectarian riots. Catholic primary schools (green markers) and Protestant primary schools (red markers).

Below:  Predicted donations by type over time. Predicted value (£) of an individual donating to the neutral charity Save the Children, an in-group primary school, an out-group primary school and all combined donations over time (before, during, and after the riots). These predicted values are controlled for individual household income, educational level, age, gender and religion. Error bars represent the standard errors.

Full article at:   http://goo.gl/mfidL5

By:   Silva AS1, Mace R1.

• 1Department of Anthropology, University College London London, UK. 

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The Role of Compassion in Altruistic Helping and Punishment Behavior

Compassion, the emotional response of caring for another who is suffering and that results in motivation to relieve suffering, is thought to be an emotional antecedent to altruistic behavior. However, it remains unclear whether compassion enhances altruistic behavior in a uniform way or is specific to sub-types of behavior such as altruistic helping of a victim or altruistic punishment of a transgressor. 

We investigated the relationship between compassion and subtypes of altruistic behavior using third-party paradigms where participants 1) witnessed an unfair economic exchange between a transgressor and a victim, and 2) had the opportunity to either spend personal funds to either economically a) help the victim or b) punish the transgressor. In Study 1, we examined whether individual differences in self-reported empathic concern (the emotional component of compassion) was associated with greater altruistic helping or punishment behavior in two independent samples. 

For participants who witnessed an unfair transaction, trait empathic concern was associated with greater helping of a victim and had no relationship to punishment. However, in those who decided to punish the transgressor, participants who reported greater empathic concern decided to punish less. In Study 2, we directly enhanced compassion using short-term online compassion meditation training to examine whether altruistic helping and punishment were increased after two weeks of training. Compared to an active reappraisal training control group, the compassion training group gave more to help the victim and did not differ in punishment of the transgressor. 

Together, these two studies suggest that compassion is related to greater altruistic helping of victims and is not associated with or may mitigate altruistic punishment of transgressors.

Below:  The association between trait compassion and third-party altruistic behavior after an unfair dictator transfer

Full article at:   http://goo.gl/UEk9mv

By:   

Helen Y. Weng, Richard J. Davidson

Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Helen Y. Weng, Andrew S. Fox, Heather C. Hessenthaler, Diane E. Stodola, Richard J. Davidson

Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America

Helen Y. Weng, Andrew S. Fox, Heather C. Hessenthaler, Diane E. Stodola, Richard J. Davidson

Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America

Andrew S. Fox, Richard J. Davidson

Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America

Richard J. Davidson

Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America

 

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The Cognitive Basis of Social Behavior: Cognitive Reflection Overrides Antisocial But Not Always Prosocial Motives

Even though human social behavior has received considerable scientific attention in the last decades, its cognitive underpinnings are still poorly understood. Applying a dual-process framework to the study of social preferences, we show in two studies that individuals with a more reflective/deliberative cognitive style, as measured by scores on the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), are more likely to make choices consistent with “mild” altruism in simple non-strategic decisions. 

Such choices increase social welfare by increasing the other person's payoff at very low or no cost for the individual. The choices of less reflective individuals (i.e., those who rely more heavily on intuition), on the other hand, are more likely to be associated with either egalitarian or spiteful motives. 

We also identify a negative link between reflection and choices characterized by “strong” altruism, but this result holds only in Study 2. Moreover, we provide evidence that the relationship between social preferences and CRT scores is not driven by general intelligence. 

We discuss how our results can reconcile some previous conflicting findings on the cognitive basis of social behavior...

In two studies, we showed that those individuals with a more reflective cognitive style (i.e., those who are less likely to rely on intuitive, System 1 processes) are more likely to make choices consistent with mildly altruistic motives in simple monetary decisions free of strategic and reciprocal concerns. These results suggest that behaviors that increase social welfare by increasing others' payoffs at a very low or no cost for the individual may be the result of conscious deliberation rather than automatic heuristics. Behaviors driven by egalitarian or spiteful concerns, however, appear to be more intimately associated with intuition⁶.

While the above findings are robust across the two studies, we also find a slight but remarkable difference with respect to strongly altruistic choices that increase the other's payoff at a relatively high cost to the individual. In Study 1 reflective subjects were quite likely to make such choices whereas in Study 2 they were not. This may be partly explained by differences in stakes across studies, although our estimation procedure relies on the assumption that utility is linear over the relevant range of payoffs (as in Fehr and Schmidt, 1999) in which case stakes would not affect social preferences decisions. Methodological differences across studies (in Study 2 weak altruism was divided into four subcategories and strong altruism into two subcategories) may also have facilitated the observation of this divergence. In addition, this difference might also be accounted for by either students' educational backgrounds (majors) or cultural differences (Study 1 was conducted in the US while Study 2 was conducted in Spain). Interestingly, no differences in giving behavior between US and Spain student subjects were documented in the baseline experiments conducted by Rey-Biel et al. (2015) suggesting that cultural differences in giving may not play a major role in our findings⁷. Finally, this difference could also be explained by the existence of ceiling effects as the average level of cognitive reflection, as measured by the number of correct answers to the CRT, was higher (25% higher, two-sided t-test: p < 0.01) in Study 1. Exploring these possibilities is an interesting avenue for future research...

Full article at:   http://goo.gl/vzJshi

By:  Brice Corgnet,1,* Antonio M. Espín,2,3 and Roberto Hernán-González3,4

¹Argyros School of Business and Economics, Economic Science Institute, Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA

²Economics Department, Middlesex University Business School, London, UK

³Granada Lab of Behavioral Economics, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain

⁴Business School, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

Edited by: Agnes Gruart, University Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain

Reviewed by: Tobias Kalenscher, Heinrich-Heine University Duesseldorf, Germany; Matteo Migheli, University of Torino, Italy

*Correspondence: Brice Corgnet ; Email: ude.nampahc@tengroc

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The Negative Association between Religiousness and Children's Altruism across the World

Prosocial behaviors are ubiquitous across societies. They emerge early in ontogeny [1] and are shaped by interactions between genes and culture [2, 3]. Over the course of middle childhood, sharing approaches equality in distribution [4]. Since 5.8 billion humans, representing 84% of the worldwide population, identify as religious [5], religion is arguably one prevalent facet of culture that influences the development and expression of prosociality. 

While it is generally accepted that religion contours people's moral judgments and prosocial behavior, the relation between religiosity and morality is a contentious one. Here, we assessed altruism and third-party evaluation of scenarios depicting interpersonal harm in 1,170 children aged between 5 and 12 years in six countries (Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey, USA, and South Africa), the religiousness of their household, and parent-reported child empathy and sensitivity to justice. 

Across all countries, parents in religious households reported that their children expressed more empathy and sensitivity for justice in everyday life than non-religious parents. However, religiousness was inversely predictive of children's altruism and positively correlated with their punitive tendencies. 

Together these results reveal the similarity across countries in how religion negatively influences children's altruism, challenging the view that religiosity facilitates prosocial behavior.

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By:  Decety J1, Cowell JM2, Lee K3, Mahasneh R4, Malcolm-Smith S5, Selcuk B6, Zhou X7.

• 1The Child Neurosuite, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. Electronic address: decety@uchicago.edu.
• 2The Child Neurosuite, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
• 3Erick Jackman Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5R 2X2, Canada.
• 4Department of Educational Psychology, Hashemite University, Zarqa 13133, Jordan; College of Education, Qatar University, 2713 Doha, Qatar.
• 5Department of Psychology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa.
• 6Department of Psychology, Koc University, Rumelifeneri Yolu 34450, Turkey.
• 7Department of Psychology, Sun-Yat Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China. 

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What Motivates Men to Offer Sperm Donation via the Internet?

To investigate why men offer sperm donation via the internet, a questionnaire was disseminated via 39 Dutch-language websites thought to be visited by potential sperm donors... 

The findings shed light on the motives and attitudes of internet donors. Both groups of donors indicated that their primary motivation for donating was altruism (>80% of all respondents). However, internet donors had a more pronounced desire to procreate than sperm bank donors and more often felt that they had good genes they wished to pass on. The main reason internet donors gave for donating via the internet was that they wanted to know the prospective parents and be kept up to date on the progress of the offspring conceived from their donations. This distinguishes them significantly from sperm bank donors. A further finding was that they were not prompted to avoid the formal donation circuit for which, by law in the Netherlands, pregnancies resulting from donations have to be registered in a central database. This study is subject to several, in some cases inevitable, limitations, but it provides an interesting starting point that future studies can seek to confirm and extend.

Via:  http://ht.ly/RRIP2

By: Woestenburg NO1, Winter HB, Janssens PM.

• 1a Pro Facto , Ossenmarkt 5, 9712 NZ Groningen , The Netherlands.