JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY

The impact of psychological resilience and gender on the relationship between trauma-coping perception and levels of secondary traumatic stress in mental health workers
Özbay A and Bülbül AE
This study examined the mediating role of psychological resilience and gender on mental health workers' perceptions of coping with trauma and secondary traumatic stress. Following the February 6 earthquake, the study group consisted of 212 mental health workers who came from various provinces of Turkey to support the earthquake region. We collected data using the "Perception of Coping with Trauma Scale," "Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale," "Brief Psychological Resilience Scale," and "Personal Information Form." We conducted analyses using PROCESS Macro Model 4 and Model 8. The results show that the perception of coping with trauma indirectly affects secondary traumatic stress through psychological resilience. The relationship between men's perception of coping with trauma and their psychological resilience appears to be greater than that of women. The direct effect of perceptions of coping with trauma on secondary traumatic stress also varies by gender. As men's perceptions of coping with trauma and psychological resilience decrease, the level of secondary traumatic stress increases. We found no significant relationship between these three variables in women. We found that psychological resilience and gender mediate the relationship between perceptions of coping with trauma and secondary traumatic stress. While this relationship was significant for men, it was not significant for women.
An incomplete picture: A scoping review of how scholars account for race and ethnicity in family homelessness research
Heaton A
Families of color in the United States experience homelessness at a disproportionately higher rate than White families; however, little is known about how scholars account for race and ethnicity in family homelessness research. This scoping review analyzes how researchers examine race and ethnicity in conceptual frameworks, methods, and analysis. Following PRISMA-ScR reporting standards, I searched PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus, and ERIC for quantitative studies including a housing outcome for homeless service-involved families. I used Covidence to screen for inclusion and extract data, and QuADS to evaluate study quality. Fourteen studies met inclusion criteria. Researchers' articles lacked theory and the context of racism, lacked detail on how race and ethnicity were conceptualized and operationalized, and most (71%) did not disaggregate results. Without putting data within the context of systemic racism and disaggregating outcomes, research will produce incomplete knowledge on family homelessness, leading to ineffective interventions for families of color.
Urban Black adolescents' victimization experiences: The moderating role of family factors on internalizing and academic outcomes
Hernandez BE, McDaniel HL and Bradshaw CP
This study investigated the moderating role of family factors on victimization experiences and internalizing and academic outcomes. Data (collected 2017-2019) on 471 Black urban ninth graders (51% male; M = 14 years) with elevated externalizing symptoms were analyzed and we explored how the interaction between (self-reported) racial socialization, parent relations, and (teacher-reported) family academic involvement and (self-reported) violence exposure, racial discrimination, and (teacher-reported) bullying potentially influenced (student- and teacher-reported) anxiety and depression, and (student-reported) academic engagement and negative school attitudes. High racial socialization and parent relations were associated with lower internalizing symptoms for youth with discrimination and heard violence, respectively. High academic involvement and parent relations were linked with higher internalizing symptoms for youth with discrimination and high parent relations were linked with higher anxiety for bullied youth. Racial socialization and parent relations may help offset the potential influence of discrimination and heard violence, respectively, for adolescents.
Bridging health self-efficacy and patient engagement with patient-centered culturally sensitive health care for Black American adults
Garcia KA, Wippold GM, Goodrum NM, Williams MM and Kloos B
This study investigates whether systems-level interventions, specifically patient-centered culturally sensitive health care (PC-CSHC) from healthcare providers, office staff, and the clinic environment, moderate the relationship between health self-efficacy and patient engagement among Black American adults. An online survey was completed by 198 Black American adults. PC-CSHC from healthcare providers, office staff, and the clinic environment did not mitigate the adverse effects of low health self-efficacy on patient engagement. However, PC-CSHC from healthcare providers (b = 0.38) was as significant as health self-efficacy (b = 0.37) in predicting patient engagement, R = 0.47, F(9, 177) = 19.61, p < 0.001. Provider-delivered PC-CSHC can enhance patient engagement among Black American adults. This systems-level approach has the potential to reach more patients than intrapersonal interventions alone and alleviates the undue burden placed on Black Americans to leverage intrapersonal strengths in the face of health disparities rooted in structural racism.
"I Speak Up for Myself, My Family, and for My Community": How Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders Respond to Anti-Asian Racism During COVID-19
Nguyen JK, Chu W, Yu SH and Ng AC
This qualitative study explored how Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPIs) responded to anti-Asian racism during COVID-19. Participants (n = 459; M = 26.4 years; 77.8% female) completed a survey and responded to the open-ended question: "How have you responded to anti-Asian racism since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic?" Reflective thematic analysis was utilized to code responses. Three themes were identified, indicating that AANHPIs engaged in knowledge sharing and cultural exploration; experienced emotional reactions that galvanized efforts to take care of themselves, friends, family, and their community; and engaged in advocacy and activism to advance social justice. Subthemes were also identified to further characterize responses. Results reflect how AANHPI communities responded to anti-Asian racism by leveraging cultural strengths and taking the initiative to create social change. These findings have individual-, organizational-, and community-level implications to mitigate the impacts of anti-Asian racism and promote the well-being of AANHPI communities.
Development and initial validation of the Immigrant Optimism Questionnaire (IOQ) for immigrant-origin young adults
Arce MA and Kuperminc GP
Immigrant optimism has been identified as a cultural protective factor that could be targeted in prevention efforts that support immigrant well-being. However, to date, immigrant optimism has not been consistently operationalized. We report on an iterative and collaborative approach to develop and validate a measure of immigrant optimism.
Do Social Trust and a Sense of Community Matter for the Engagement of Australian Migrants?
Miranti R
Previous studies have shown mixed results regarding the potential association between trust and community participation. Only a few studies comprehensively investigated the relationship between different forms of social trust. Most of the previous studies distinguished the different forms of social trust separately. This article investigated trust and a sense of community with a more comprehensive framework in a rarely investigated population, migrants in Australia. The increasing social capital approach has been gaining importance in studying the social/political participation of (ethnic) minorities as this has primarily been seen to suit 'ethnic' social capital. The article aims to fill the theoretical gap by including trust and a sense of community and examining their associations with civil engagement in society using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey data, a longitudinal survey in Australia with a particular focus on bringing the heterogeneities among groups of migrants. There has been an increasing number of people born overseas-a third of the population, according to the latest Australian Census in 2021. The results show that it is likely that the Australian-born population requires trust to engage in the community, particularly, in the case of volunteering, but this is not significant in the case of migrants. A high sense of community matters for both types of participation, political and volunteering, among Australian-born and the first generation of migrants. The results for the second generation of migrants in the context of trust and sense of community are limited, and other factors may influence their community engagement.
One step further in mistreatment research: Assessing the scalability of the Explicit Discrimination Scale among Brazilian working-age adult respondents
Bastos JL, Bernardo FR and Reichenheim ME
Though the Explicit Discrimination Scale (EDS) has been subjected to extensive psychometric evaluation in Brazil, the instrument has yet to be comprehensively assessed among working-age adult respondents in the country. This study aimed to fill this knowledge gap. Data from around 1200 diverse members of a cohort investigation were used to examine: (1) the positioning of respondents along the continuum of the EDS latent trait; (2) how well the corresponding items represent the EDS construct map; and (3) the extent to which the EDS items follow their expected levels of intensity. We assessed these properties with Loevinger's H, Guttman errors, and Item Response Theory parameters. Findings suggest that two abridged versions of the instrument-but especially the eight-item EDS-may adequately arrange respondents along the latent trait continuum. Analyses also revealed that scale items are reasonably spread over the construct map, with some discrepancy between the expected levels of intensity and their empirical positioning in the corresponding plot. The shortened versions of EDS have good psychometric properties among Brazilian working-age adult respondents. In addition to examining the invariance of the EDS across multiple groups, future psychometric evaluations should assess the external validity of the scale.
Effects of recalling place memory on promoting cooperative behaviors in local communities
Li Z and Aoki T
The present study aimed to develop a theoretical model that explores the influence of recalling place memory on cooperative behaviors in local communities.
Shared Traumatic Reality During the Continuous War in Ukraine and the Protective Role of Transgenerational Transfer: Voices of Mental Health Professionals
Leshem B, Zasiekina L, Guterman NB and Pat-Horenczyk R
Shared traumatic reality has nagative professional effects on mental health providers. The study explores the professional effects of prolonged shared traumatic reality, and the protective role of intergenerational transfer, among Ukrainian psychotherapists during the war with Russia, in the context of their national history of traumatic events. We conducted focus group interviews with 20 Ukrainian therapists who lived and worked in Ukrainian war zones. The recorded transcriptions were analyzed, applying two stages of inductive thematic analysis, and identifying common themes and sub-themes. The main reported negative effect was compassion fatigue, with secondary traumatization and lack of interpersonal and professional support reported as the dominant risk factors. Positive effects included compassion satisfaction and professional growth. The leading protective factors included active coping and social support, while transgenerational transfer of empowering messages increased coping resources. We concluded that intergenerational transfer could promote coping and positive professional effects, especially in the context of chronic shared traumatic reality, suggested as a new construct. Further studies are suggested.
Drug use and associated harms among people in contact with the criminal justice systems
Moazen B
Effective sanction avoidance in drug trafficking: The construction and validation of the restrictive deterrence utility scale using a sample of female drug offenders
Guan X and Lo TW
Drug traffickers perform many crime strategies to avoid legal sanctions. The use of any crime strategy is mainly for reducing the risk of arrest, which has been the focus of research on restrictive deterrence. This study aims to develop a Restrictive Deterrence Utility Scale (RDUS) to measure the effectiveness of crime strategies used in drug trafficking. Survey data were collected from August to October 2021, including 294 female drug offenders aged between 21 and 61 years serving sentences with a median length of around 10 years in a Southern city in Mainland China. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted for scale investigation. Three valid and reliable factors for the RDUS were found: anomaly avoidance, reduction of exposure time, and the use of weapons and tools. Composite reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity of three factors were confirmed with Cronbach α being higher than 0.9, that being higher than correspondent Average Variance Extracted which all being higher than 0.5 and higher than correspondent factor correlation. The RDUS offers a helpful method for assessing the motivation for drug traffickers to persist in drug crime and for formulating appropriate interventions for drug prohibition.
Community crime and safety: An investigation of gender differences in the daily stress process
Robinette JW, Piazza JR and Stawski RS
Few studies have investigated the associations between community crime rates and affective well-being, and how that relationship may differ according to gender. Using data from the National Study of Daily Experiences and the Uniform Crime Reporting Program, the current study examined gender differences between daily affective experiences, crime rates, and perceptions of neighborhood safety. Although feeling unsafe in one's neighborhood was related to worse affective well-being (i.e., higher negative affect/lower positive affect) and larger affective responses to daily stressors, crime rates were not. Women's negative affect was more strongly tied to daily stressors, whereas men's was more strongly tied to lower perceived neighborhood safety. Findings reveal the importance of understanding factors, such as gender, that impact safety concerns beyond that from crime. They also suggest that increasing visibility within communities might dissuade perpetrators and enhance residents' feelings of safety.
Civic Identity and Mental Health in Russia: The Role of Psychological Coping Strategies During Sanctions and Perceived Threat
Tatarko A, Mironova A and Jurcik T
We explore the role of Russian civic identity in maintaining mental health in a challenging socioeconomic and political environment. The study was conducted on a sample of Russians in August 2022 after the beginning of the military conflict in Ukraine and the imposition of multiple sanctions on Russia. The sample included 384 respondents from 18 to 54 years old. The questionnaire included methods for assessing Russian civic identity, general psychological health, depression, and the psychological coping strategies in crisis situations. We explored whether Russian civic identity has direct, indirect, and total positive effects on general psychological health. The indirect effect was examined through psychological coping strategies, such as Reframing and Spiritual support. For depression reduction, the role of Russian civic identity was not significant as we did not find a statistically significant direct or total effect. However, we found a statistically significant indirect negative effect of civic identity on depression via a Reframing strategy. Thus, Russian civic identity may increase general psychological health and reduce depression through Reframing. Although the conflict is highly controversial geopolitically, our study findings may have important implications for other settings that may be involved in conflict or be under sanctions.
The Role of Contact and Emotional Intelligence in the Attitudes of General Population Towards Individuals Living With Mental Illness
Andreopoulou A, Vasiou A and Mastrothanasis K
Mental illness stigma is still a widespread phenomenon with damaging psychological and social consequences. This study is of relevance to the design of appropriate psychiatric services which reinforce the social integration of individuals living with mental illness. It investigates the relationship between contact, emotional intelligence (EI) and attitudes of the general population towards people with mental illness. This study utilized a random sampling method to collect data from 183 participants. Measures included the EI Scale for assessing EI, the level of contact (LOC) Report to examine the LOC with mental illness, and the Attitudes towards Mental Illness Scale to evaluate attitudes towards mental illness. Each of these instruments has been validated in previous research. Data analysis involved Pearson's correlation analysis, multiple linear regression, and mediation analysis to explore the relationships between variables. EI and particularly the abilities of use of emotion and other's emotional appraisal were associated with more positive attitudes towards mental illness. conversely, lower levels of contact were associated with higher levels of social care, indicating a complicated relationship between contact and attitudes. The findings highlight that a deeper understanding of the association between contact with individuals living with mental illness and attitudes towards them is needed, focusing on potential mechanisms that might modify this association. Additionally, a focal point that is underlined in this research is the important role of EI in affecting attitudes as it seems to offer promising directions in planning educational programs and stigma reduction interventions.
Mixed methods on adverse childhood experiences predicting transitional and recurrent homelessness
Boesveldt NF, van Dungen W and de Castro BO
Research has associated lack of parental care, physical abuse, and parental substance abuse to homelessness, with the presence of two or more such factors dramatically increasing one's chances of becoming homeless as an adult. Less clear is which (cumulation of) factors may mediate the difference between transitional and recurrent homelessness.
Increases in resilience and school performance among elementary school-aged afterschool participants
Longhi D, Brown M and O'Connor B
Elementary-school students enrolled in a trauma-informed program participated in a prepost longitudinal study of resilience. The study assesses increases in various components of resilience, the effects of the afterschool program on resilience, and the relationship between resilience and school performance. A shortened version of a reliable resilience survey was developed from Madsen Thompson's Trauma Resilience Scale and administered at students' entry and exit from 3 yearly sessions. The high response rate provided a sample of 103 students, 37 of whom were new students with no ceiling effects. Statistical analysis demonstrated that both contextual and individual resilience increased significantly, with protective components impacting one another. Regression analyses found that the afterschool program supports significantly affected individual resilience increases, and high levels of individual resilience led to increases in school performance. The results suggest that trauma-informed contextual supports may be useful in increasing young students' well-being and closing gaps in academic performance.
Mitigating the effect of COVID-19 in a postemergency phase: The role of sense of community and individual resilience
Marco R, Angela F, Anne E B, Alessia R, Jenny Z and Terri M
To identify and confirm patterns of relationships connecting sense of community (SOC) and individual resilience with psychological well-being, via the mediation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) impacts on life domains. An online survey was conducted with a sample of adults (n = 650) 1 year after the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy and the United States (April-December 2021). Utilizing a Structural Equation Model, we tested a mediation model (n = 563) to identify the associations between SOC and individual resilience and the perceived impacts of the emergency situation and psychological well-being. Results revealed that during the crisis, SOC had an influence on psychological well-being, but only by mediating the effects of COVID-19 impacts on life domains. Independently, individual resilience had a direct influence on psychological well-being. The findings support the importance of the interaction of individual and collective variables that played different roles at different phases of the pandemic. The findings suggest for possible interventions to enhance well-being during crises.
Examining dimensions of help-seeking intentions and associations with personal mental illness stigma among racial and ethnic minority immigrants
Deng Y and Rose T
This study examined the factor structure of the General Help-seeking Questionnaire and how personal mental illness stigma was associated with different types of help-seeking intentions among racial and ethnic minority immigrants in the United States. A sample of 202 immigrants aged 18-39 were recruited from a Qualtrics panel and completed the online survey. Confirmatory factor analysis and multiple linear regression were conducted. Results confirmed four dimensions of help-seeking intentions: informal, formal, semi-formal, and traditional sources. Immigrants with higher levels of mental illness stigma are more likely to seek help from traditional sources (e.g., religious leader or other community-based nonfaith resources) and semi-formal sources (e.g., web-based resources). Lack of awareness of service options is a key barrier to formal help-seeking. Results signal the importance of collaboration between mental health service providers. Adopting culturally sensitive care and web-based delivery formats may help address immigrants' concerns about mental health stigma.
Moving money to support social justice movements: A spiritual practice
Wernick LJ, Jimenez DR, Nimkarn M, Abbott S, Green A, Vaughn JH, Robins BL and Tice-Brown D
Wealth inequality is rising, and millennials will be the future recipients of the largest intergenerational wealth transfer. Meanwhile, there is a need to move more money to support transformative social justice movements. This study examines the impact of spirituality as a motivator for the social justice movement giving among progressive young adult activists with wealth and class privilege, organizing toward the equitable redistribution of wealth, land, and power. Using survey data (n = 560), regressions and mediation models suggest that spiritual motivation was a significant positive predictor of how much participants monetarily gave to social justice movements. While religion did not significantly predict movement giving, indirect effects models showed that spirituality positively mediated the effect of being raised with any religion on movement giving compared to those indicating no religion. Implications are explored for how transformative organizing models draw upon secular spiritual practices in their pursuit of individual and collective change.
What matters most to the perception of community resilience in Romania?
Druică E, Vâlsan C and Aligică DP
We aim to measure and explain the perception of community resilience in Romania. We use survey data from a country-representative sample of 1500 respondents. We rely on factor-based partial least squares path modeling to measure five reflective latent constructs from a CCRAM-type questionnaire. We use these constructs to extract a second-order formative latent construct representing an overall measure of community resilience. Next, we use three sub-dimensions of family resilience, along with individual resilience and several control variables to explain community resilience. Among the five sub-dimensions of the overall measure of community resilience, social trust exerts the highest contribution, followed by place attachment. The predictors of community resilience with the largest effect sizes are the three sub-dimensions of family resilience. The policies geared towards increasing community resilience might not be able to address the most important factors, at least in the case of Romania, because they pertain to informal group interaction, and lie outside the reach of formal administrative authority.