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Alcohol is commonly used to cope with social pain, but its effectiveness remains unknown. Existing theories offer diverging predictions. Pain overlap theory predicts that because alcohol numbs physical pain it should also numb people to the negative effects of ostracism. Alcohol myopia predicts that because alcohol intensifies salient emotions it should enhance the negative effects of ostracism. We conducted a field experiment in a bar, exposing individuals to ostracism or inclusion using Cyberball on an iPad. Subjective intoxication, but not blood alcohol concentration, was associated with less distress for participants who were ostracized, and more distress in participants who were included. We conclude that alcohol reduces both the pain of ostracism and the pleasure of inclusion.

AbstractThe threat of disinformation features strongly in public discourse, but scientific findings remain conflicted about disinformation effects and reach. Accordingly, indiscriminate warnings about disinformation risk overestimating its effects and associated dangers. Balanced accounts that document the presence of digital disinformation while accounting for empirically established limits offer a promising alternative. In a preregistered experiment, U.S. respondents were exposed to two treatments designed to resemble typical journalistic contributions discussing disinformation. The treatment emphasizing the dangers of disinformation indiscriminately (T1) raised the perceived dangers of disinformation among recipients. The balanced treatment (T2) lowered the perceived threat level. T1, but not T2, had negative downstream effects, increasing respondent support for heavily restrictive regulation of speech in digital communication environments. Overall, we see a positive correlation among all respondents between the perceived threat of disinformation to societies and dissatisfaction with the current state of democracy.

AbstractThis article links up the disastrous history of fossil fuels with the celebrated ecology of mangroves. Building on ethnographic and historical research in Puerto Rico and St. Croix, it outlines the often neglected but quite consequential place of crude oil in the Caribbean. Following the construction of what became the second largest refinery in the world, I describe how the imperial energy networks of the United States first came to the Caribbean. Troubling a popular origin story of the Caribbean, colonial and industry leaders voiced a robust critique of the plantation in order to justify the introduction of these enclave refineries. Imperial energy networks welcomed an unprecedented problem to the region: coastal oil spills. The scientific and legal response to these spills brought new attention to the vital relationality of mangroves. Rather perversely, the destruction of the mangroves in the Caribbean—in which crude oil played the leading role—opened mangroves up to new forms of knowledge and care. While many claim that fossil fuels helped cultivate a modern disregard for the natural world, I show how the negative ecologies of fossil fuels also instigated new scientific and political appreciations for the liveliness of the natural world. This story of oil in the Caribbean has implications for scholarly debates around the so-called Anthropocene. Against scholarship that looks at the coming disaster of crude oil as an epochal break in thought and politics, this paper instead describes the long history of acknowledging and managing the disastrous qualities of fossil fuels.

Transit migration through Honduras has grown at a time of increasing US border externalization, which raises barriers to mobility through Central America. This research note presents a descriptive analysis of how Hondurans view transit migrants traveling across the country. Honduras is a major migrant-sending country, one that has become an important transit country for migrants of different backgrounds. This article will present results from an original survey of Hondurans asking respondents of their opinions of transit migrants from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba, and other regions. We find that negative attitudes toward transit migrants tend to be concentrated in the exit regions near the border with Guatemala. We argue that border externalization generates bottlenecks to mobility that can prolong exposure to transit migrants. We propose recommendations for future research to better understand how border externalization may lead countries to become new transit zones and how attitudes toward transit migrants vary regionally.

By focusing on negative affects, such as anger, fear and hate, a normative critique of affective politics tends to overlook the ambiguity and situated nature of affective politics. This paper suggests embracing the ambivalences that characterise the emotional dynamics in political arenas; therefore, it emphasises the functionality of affects. The study adopts a post-dualistic understanding of political affects based on the conceptual devices of Sara Ahmed and Kathleen Stewart to analyse the affective practices and performances of the German political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). An ethnographic lens and analytical focus on the affective politics of far-right agents beyond negativity can permit more subtle nuances and highlight potentially overlooked facets of enactment and performance that have contributed to the successes of far-right political organisations in Europe and the US. The paper ultimately argues that the use of 'ordinary' affects produces legitimacy, renders far-right politics appealing and contributes to the normalisation of far-right discourse.

Cyber-sexual violence refers to a form of harmful sexually aggressive behaviors committed with the facilitation of digital technologies. Such harmful behaviors can include non-consensual pornography and other image-based sexual exploitation, online sexual harassment, cyber-stalking, online gender-based hate speech, and the use of a carriage service to arrange/attempt to arrange a victim's sexual assault. This article examines the cyber-sexual violence experiences reported by a sample of women on university campuses in Ontario, Canada. Specifically, this study documented the types and forms of cyber-sexual violence that female university students have experienced, whether they disclosed the incidents and their association with negative health emotional states. This study provided evidence indicating that experiences of cyber-sexual violence are associated with symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and posttraumatic reactions, regardless of individuals' disclosure experiences. In light of these findings it is crucial that service providers and legislative initiative begin to adapt to the changing technological nature of crimes against women.

AbstractThe dialectical self is the belief that one's self‐concept is inconsistent and malleable. This study examined the relations of the dialectical self to both personal well‐being and interpersonal relationships, along with hypothesized mediators of these relations: self‐concept control, self‐concept consistency, and self‐insight. A total of 140 participants completed measures of self‐concept and well‐being; in addition, friends of participants provided their assessment of the participant and their relationship. The results revealed that self‐concept control and self‐concept consistency serially mediated the relation between the dialectical self and (low) personal well‐being. In contrast, having a highly dialectical self was positively related to liking by one's friends, and this relation was mediated by self‐insight into one's own negative attributes.

Background  Hastings, R. P. [American Journal on Mental Retardation (2002) Vol. 107, pp. 455–467] hypothesized that staff negative emotional reactions to challenging behaviour might accumulate over time to affect staff well‐being. Only one previous study (Mitchell, G.& Hastings, R. P. [American Journal on Mental Retardation (2001) Vol. 106, pp. 448–459] has explored this relationship. The present analyses were designed to replicate these findings.Methods  Data were analysed from two samples of staff. In study 1, 101 staff rated their typical emotional reactions to challenging behaviours experienced as a part of their work and completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). In study 2, 99 staff rated their negative emotional reactions to written challenging behaviour vignettes and also completed the MBI.Results  In both studies, significant positive correlations were found between negative emotional reactions to challenging behaviour and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization burnout but no association was found with personal accomplishment scores.Conclusions  These findings replicate previous results, but cannot be used to support the putative causal relationship between emotional reactions to challenging behaviour and staff well‐being. Clinical implications of a focus on staff emotional reactions to challenging behaviour are discussed.

In analogy to political sophistication, it is imperative that citizens have a certain level of economic sophistication, especially in times of heated debates about the economy. This study examines the impact of different influences (media, interpersonal communication and personal experiences) on learning effects about the economy. We conducted a national two-wave panel survey and a media content analysis in Denmark. Media effects were examined through integrating the results of the content analysis (in which articles were coded for the presence of the economic consequences frame) with the panel survey. Results showed that exposure to economic consequences frames in the media and interpersonal communication about the economy had a significant positive influence on learning about the economy. Having negative experiences with the economy exerts significant negative influence on learning. Interestingly, extensive interpersonal communication and negative experiences with the economy dampen media effects on learning about the economy. The study contributes to the literature on the cognitive effects of media and of interpersonal communication, as well as in media dependency theory.