Category: Men and Boys

Ferguson: One Year Later

Amy Novotney1 Comment

Sunday marked exactly one year since 18-year-old Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown’s death ignited protests and demonstrations in the St. Louis suburb, and launched a national conversation about racism and police brutality in the United States. Research conducted at the Center for Trauma Recovery at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) has shown that members of the Ferguson community still have hope for change and progress.

Five months after Brown’s shooting, while many protests continued, the researchers collected questionnaires filled out by 287 residents of Ferguson and surrounding communities as well as 261 police officers involved in responding to the riots. UMSL psychologist Zoe Peterson shared the study’s initial results at a symposium Sunday on hope and growth in trauma recovery.

Overall, findings showed that both groups experienced significant distress from watching news coverage of the events. In addition, 25 percent of participants met DSM-5 criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder and 38 percent exceeded clinical cutoff levels for depression.

Despite the trauma, more than 80 percent of Ferguson community members were somewhat or extremely hopeful that change was possible, that the situation in their community would improve, and that these positive changes would be meaningful and enduring. Law enforcement officers, however, reported significantly less hope — only about 50 percent felt that positive change was possible and would endure. The team is now conducting additional follow-up with both groups to see how things fare a year after the event.

“What happens in the aftermath of trauma is really important to promoting growth,” said Richard Tedeschi, PhD, psychology professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the symposium’s discussant. “Helping this community process this trauma and develop some kind of meaning from it is very much needed to ensure positive change endures.”

 

Psychologists Can Help Reduce Racial Profiling in Policing

Amy NovotneyLeave a comment

Psychologists know the statistic well: Although blacks constitute only 12 percent of America’s population, they represent 40 percent of the nation’s prison inmates. Stanford University social psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, PhD, has been studying the consequences of the psychological association between race and crime for more than a decade. Her findings, which she shared Saturday during a plenary address on race and policing in America, reveal the startling ways that race influences us, even when we don’t think it does.

In one seminal study, for example, participants were subliminally primed with a series of black or white faces on a computer screen, and then watched as blurry pictures of guns and knives came into focus. Eberhardt found that participants — no matter their race — tended to recognize the weapons quicker when exposed to black faces in the primer versus white faces.

More recently, her research has shown that informing white people about the disproportionate incarceration rate of blacks makes them likely to support the expansion of harsh punitive policies, such as California’s Three Strikes Law and similar measures in other states.

Despite the pervasiveness of society’s association between blacks and crime, our behavior in response to those unconscious racial biases can be changed, Eberhardt said. Research has shown, for example, that more training — particularly in the use of firearms — can help police officers overcome racial biases.

She also pointed to the potential role of technology in addressing racial biases, noting that mandating police officer use of body cameras can help improve police relations with the public.

“We need to begin to think about this footage as data, not just as courtroom evidence,” she said. “We can look across the thousands of these videotapes to examine, in the aggregate, whether officers do indeed approach African-Americans in a different way than other groups — whether there’s a more negative tone or pitch to the voice, and whether that can predict whether the interaction is going to escalate. The footage can also be used to more fully appreciate the interactions where things go right and where officers have been able to skillfully de-escalate conflict.”

 

Identity-Based Bullying Is a Social Justice Issue

britneybrinkmanLeave a comment

Most psychologists are likely familiar with bullying and its detrimental effects. However, they may not be familiar with the term “identity-based bullying,” which includes any form of bullying related to the characteristics considered particular to a child’s actual or perceived social identity. Identity-based bullying is one form of discrimination, and it is also a
method through which children learn prejudicial attitudes and stereotypes.

Identity-based bullying can include:

  • Ostracizing a student with a disability
  • Teasing a black student by saying he or she is “acting white”
  • Calling a girl a “slut” or shaming her about sexual activity or her body
  • Teasing an overweight teen about her/his body
  • Using anti-gay terms or teasing adolescents who identify as LGB

Participants had the opportunity to learn about these types of bullying during a session organized by Mindy J. Erchull, PhD, and Michelle M. Perfect, PhD. I had the privilege of opening the session with a presentation describing why psychologists should address identity-based bullying as a social justice issue.

anti- bullying

Identity-based bullying includes behaviors that are rooted in discrimination. Unfortunately, most discourse within schools about bullying minimizes power relations based on social identities. Some schools intentionally avoid discussing issues of identity out of fear that the conversations will be too controversial. In these cases, the term bullying may be used in place of terms such as sexism, racism and homophobia to minimize discussions about systemic problems rooted in cultural stereotypes and oppression.

During my presentation, I asserted that psychologists should address identity-based bullying as a social justice issue–examining systemic causes so as to change not only the outcomes for individuals, but to transform the processes that lead to identity-based bullying. Identity-based bullying is both reflected in and influenced by cultural factors including legal and political battles, media messages and social movements. Many societal structures (including schools) often serve to reinforce and reproduce messages about inequality.
However, schools can be sites for intervention. At this session, Susan Swearer, PhD, described school-based approaches for identifying, preventing and intervening in bullying, sharing the promising research findings for a number of programs. She discussed how she has engaged multiple stakeholders, such as school nurses, to be involved in the battle against bullying.

Identity-based bullying is a societal problem and the most effective prevention and intervention strategies extend beyond changing any one individual (or a series of individuals). As scholars and mental health professionals, we have a responsibility to embrace such possibilities because all children deserve to attend schools that provide safe, supportive environments that reinforce equality and teach respect for all people.

Don’t Believe These 7 Bullying Myths

Sara MartinLeave a comment
Two teenage boys bullying their classmate in school hall.
Two teenage boys bullying their classmate in school hall.

Bullying has been a favorite media topic since 2011 when President Obama launched his anti-bullying campaign. But too often, the media’s reports on bullying are just plain wrong, according to Dorothy Espelage, PhD.

“It’s not grounded in science or evidence,” she said at a Friday plenary address on the topic at APA’s Annual Convention.

Espelage, a professor at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, who for 20 years has conducted research on bullying, homophobic teasing, sexual harassment, dating violence and gang violence, listed seven the myths the media are irresponsibly reporting:

Myth #1: Bullying is an epidemic. Wrong. Bullying rates vary from school to school and some kids go to schools where there is no bullying.

Myth #2: Bullying is linked to suicide. No, it’s just one of many predictors of suicide.

Myth #3: Bullies are budding criminals. Research shows bullies have diverse outcomes.

Myth #4: Bullies need to be punished –- the idea of “zero tolerance.” That doesn’t work, she said, because it ignores that bullying is a group phenomenon that starts around fifth grade.

Myth #5: Bullies come from dysfunctional families. Not true. Lots of bullies come from typical families.

Myth #6: Bullying is “hard-wired” in youth. Really wrong -– it’s malleable and it’s environment that matters when it comes to bullying.

Myth #7: Cyberbullying is unique. No, cyberbullying is just one mode of bullying. Bullying usually starts face to face and continues online.

The fact Espelage wishes more people would realize is that 1 out of 3 boys and 1 out 5 girls engage homophobic teasing –- name calling or phrases like, “That’s so gay.” It emerges in middle school, but often teachers don’t address it. The result? “We are setting the groundwork for sexual harassment in our schools,” Espelage said.

Psychologists Address Police Interactions with Boys and Men of Color

britneybrinkman1 Comment

Do you know that feeling when you hear something really meaningful? For me it often involves a pit in my stomach and the chills. It is not an entirely pleasant feeling, but it is a helpful reminder that something important is happening that I don’t want to miss.

Long exposure to capture the full array of police car lights. 12MP camera.

That’s the feeling I got at the beginning of the session “Working with Critical Gate Keepers to Ensure Safety and Justice for Boys and Men of Color.” I was moved right away by Dr. Christopher Liang’s passionate opening in which he described why he and Dr. Helen Neville decided to co-chair the symposium. He shared his reactions to the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, (and other similar incidents) and called on psychologists to do more to address the epidemic of police violence against boys and men of color.

The speakers covered a range of important topics. Warren Spielberg, PhD, discussed the experiences of boys of color in school, including the fact that many are accused of cheating if they do well, are blamed for fights, and are generally described in negative ways. Many boys cope with this treatment through academic dis-identification, where they decide it is better not to care about school than to experience the emotional pain that could accompany these interactions.

Most of the panelists discussed the fact that psychologists can play a larger role in screening and training police officers to reduce bias against boys and men of color. They can work with community members to develop guidelines and use the research on prejudice reduction to train police officers. This work is often challenging and it may take years to develop relationships with police departments. Lorraine Greene, PhD, noted that “strong partnerships between police and males of color require trust and confidence to have legitimacy and justice.”

Nevertheless, the success stories shared during the symposium were inspirational and provided the audience with practical suggestions about how to do this work in our home communities. The symposium ended with a call to action—audience members were given notecards to write down our plans to put what we learned into practice in their own lives.

Change can start with us.