Sigmund Freud and B. F. Skinner are often seen as psychology's polar opposites. It seems this view is fallacious. Indeed, Freud and Skinner had many things in common, including basic assumptions shaped by positivism and determinism. More important, Skinner took a clear interest in psychoanalysis and wanted to be analyzed but was turned down. His…

The study examined the role of defense mechanisms in homophobic attitudes of older male adolescents aged 17-18 years. A cross-sectional survey collected data from final year high school students (N = 86) attending an all male school in a regional centre in Victoria, Australia. The school was identified by teachers as having a problematic culture…

Youth and adolescence are associated with significant changes in a person's life. According to risk theory, the changes experienced by young people today are fundamentally different from those experienced by previous generations and entail a greater degree of uncertainty. In this paper, survey and interview data are used to describe how…

This article introduces 3 major factors of K. Wilber's (1999b) "all-quadrants, all-levels" model of defenses: the category of defense, the level of self development and defense, and the threat zone against which the self is defending. Through theoretical discussion and select clinical examples differentiating healthy and unhealthy expressions of…

The purpose of this study was to examine the roles of university students' cognitive distortions in their sense of autonomy. One hundred and three third-year university students from Shanghai, The People's Republic of China, responded to the Cognitive Distortion Scales [Briere, J. (2000). "Cognitive Distortion Scales: Professional…

Shifts in the demographics in North American colleges and universities over the past decades have created much more diverse and multiethnic campuses. Some praise these trends for creating more dynamic environments. However, not all are happy with the "infiltration" of traditionally white, male enclaves, such that newcomers are met with…

This article reviews findings from a related study of 15 White racial justice allies, which highlighted the importance of re-articulating a sense of Whiteness. The author explores how the rearticulated sense of Whiteness demonstrated by these students may assist others to mitigate some of the defense mechanism discussed in the Watt (2007)…

This paper presents the results of an interview study of 104 12-year old children. The aim was to learn more about how children use the Internet, what they find negative on the Internet and what coping strategies they use. The media debate seems to display consensus regarding what threats the Internet poses to young people. However, this study…

This study explored the process of White attitude change around the notion of White privilege spanning the duration of a multicultural education course. Making use of constructivist grounded theory, nineteen intensive, semi-structured interviews were completed with 5 White undergraduate students enrolled in one of two sections of a multicultural…

Does trauma exposure impair retrieval of autobiographical memories? Many theorists have suggested that the reduced ability to access specific memories of life events, termed overgenerality, is a protective mechanism helping attenuate painful emotions associated with trauma. The authors addressed this question by reviewing 24 studies that assessed…

There is now general acceptance that the traditional "nonnative speaker" label for teachers of English is problematic on sociolinguistic grounds and can be the source of employment discrimination. However, there continues to be disagreement regarding how far there is a prejudice against "nonnative speaker" teachers which is deep and sustained and…

In this study, defensive pessimism is reviewed in relation to anxiety, self-esteem, expectations, self-regulation, and self-handicapping. Then, two case studies of American pre-service teachers in a mathematics classroom are provided that move the research beyond survey and correlational studies. In the case analyses, defensive pessimists'…

The study examines the issue of ego identity among adolescent sons of alcoholic fathers. Forty-four adolescent sons of alcoholic fathers, age of 15-18, constituted the sample. They were drawn from public alcohol treatment center in Israel. The control group included 60 adolescents none of their parents is known as an alcoholic, sampled from…

This article is a personal faculty perspective regarding academic accreditation. It describes the psychological process and consequences of losing accreditation. Compton Community College was one of the oldest community colleges in California and has served a diverse population of students for over 50 years. As a result of severe administrative…

This article is concerned with a specific type of hate speech: Holocaust denial. It is concerned with the expression of this idea by educators. Should we allow Holocaust deniers to teach in schools? This article attempts to answer this question through a close look at the Canadian experience. First, I will establish that Holocaust denial is a…