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This study investigates contributors to social well-being from the perspective of older migrants in Australia. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews with 33 participants in the 66–91-year age group, from Chinese, Vietnamese, Dutch, and German heritage backgrounds. At the time of the study, they were clients of a community service provider in Brisbane, Australia, and participated in the monthly social activities organised by the agency. Many of them also engaged in other social activities not organised by this agency. Thematic analysis of the interview transcripts identified three main contributors to participants' social well-being: social integration through building strong connections with the ethnic community, social contribution through giving back to society, and social acceptance through assimilating into Australian society. However, the emphasis placed on these contributors was shaped by the participants' age at migration, English language ability, and reasons for migration, as well as heritage cultural backgrounds. These findings highlight the need for tailored support to enhance social well-being among older people from diverse cultural backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses impact of COVID-19 pandemic on communication and social psychology. Topics discussed include need for balance between containing the epidemic and salvaging economies; lack of culture-based understanding of behavioural drivers among diverse population cohorts during pandemic; and rise in conspiracy theories, fake news, and misinformation.

Objective: There is substantial evidence that refugees' employment experiences are marred by a range of hurdles as they settle in their host country. This study investigated the relationship between a range of independent variables such as, demographic factors, acculturation, acculturative stress, and resilience and the dependent variable that is the employment status of former refugees. Method: Questionnaire data were gathered from 169 participants from the Ethiopian, Congolese, and Myanmar communities settled in Brisbane, Australia. Hierarchical logistic regression was used to investigate the factors that predicted employment status. Results: Resilience and demographic variables such as age, education, gender, and country of origin were not associated with being employed. Length of stay and English proficiency increased the likelihood of being employed. Surprisingly, an increase in acculturation was associated with the likelihood of being unemployed, while an increase in acculturative stress was associated with the likelihood of being employed. Conclusions: These findings indicate that unemployed participants perceived themselves to be acculturated and integrated, while those who were employed reported more acculturative stress. Furthermore, employment despite its positive impact can also be stressful. The study has practical and theoretical implications for stakeholders involved in the employment of refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary Western society, the concept of risk is mostly linked related to negative or undesirable outcomes and used to explain unusual or abnormal events that have harmful consequences. Working in a poststructuralist framework, in this article we examine how risk shapes interactions between midwives and pregnant women in the context of public hospitals in Australia. We draw on data from an observational study of clinical encounters in three Australian hospitals between October 2014 and July 2015. The research teams recorded 83 health encounters and in this paper we draw on data from the recordings of 10 clinical consultations between 8 midwives and 10 pregnant women at various stages of gestation. We used these data to explore how a discourse of risk was mobilised through rhetorical strategies and practices of ‘hunting’ for the abnormal and attempts to control the body. Our findings demonstrate how a discourse of pregnancy and birth as risky operates within public hospital midwifery consultations. We found that in the midwifery consultations we recorded, pregnancy was constructed as a period of vulnerability and unpredictability. It was normalised through discursive practices of hunting for the abnormal and rhetorical strategies of attempting to control the body. Within this discourse, midwives occupied conflicting positions. They asserted that women, with the right support, were capable of spontaneous and intervention-free (pregnancy and) birth. Yet, they acted to enable medical professionals to assess a woman’s ability to give birth (un)assisted, or the potential for an adverse event. The women, while positioned as passive within the public health system, were positioned as active in surveilling themselves and responsible for taking steps to mitigate against adverse events. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The study had two goals: First, a 20-item “Refugee Parent-Child Relational Communication Scale ” was developed for parents from refugee backgrounds. Former refugee parents from Ethiopia, Congo, and Burma (= 221) completed this and other questionnaires measuring demographics, acculturation, and acculturative stress. Exploratory factor analysis indicated three factors: “Engagement,” “Hope and Aspirations,” and “Dissonance.” The subscales were internally consistent. Second, this newly developed scale was used to explore whether the parents’ communication and relations with their children were associated with demographics, acculturation, and acculturative stress. Results of multiple regressions indicated that mothers and parents with higher acculturation were more engaged with their children and also encouraged their children to aspire for higher goals in life. Although parents with higher acculturative stress were also developing aspirations and hopes in their children; they reported strained relations with their children. Parents from the Congo scored higher on dissonance, indicating some problematic communication with their children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the authors in this study was to determine if prior visits to a complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioner were associated with CAM use during pregnancy. The study sample comprised the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health. Women were surveyed prior to pregnancy in 2006, and then again in 2010 if they were pregnant or had recently given birth, and asked a range of questions relating to demographic variables, health status, and use of CAM. A multivariable analysis identified significant covariates associated with visits to specific CAM practitioner modalities during pregnancy. Of the 447 women who consulted a CAM practitioner prior to pregnancy, 62.4% (n = 279) continued this use during pregnancy. Prior use of massage therapy, acupuncture, herbalist/naturopath, or chiropractor was related to use of the same service during pregnancy. Higher income and working full-time were associated with the continued use of massage, while continued visits to a chiropractor were associated with having depressive symptoms, a urinary tract infection, and living in a rural community. Prior use of CAM was highly related to continuing use during pregnancy. Further research is required to elucidate the benefits women attain from a CAM-model of care that they do not get from their conventional maternity care providers alone. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Midwives and doctors require effective information-sharing strategies to provide safe and evidence-based care for women and infants, but this can be difficult to achieve. This article describes maternity care professionals’ perceptions of communication in their current workplace in Australia. We invoke social identity theory (SIT) to explore how these perceptions affect interprofessional practice. A survey was conducted with 337 participants (281 midwives and 56 doctors). Using exploratory factor analysis we developed three scales that measured interprofessional workplace practice collaboration. Results indicated an intergroup environment in maternity care in which the professionals found exchange of ideas difficult, and where differences with respect to decision making and professional skills were apparent. Although scores on some measures of collaboration were high, the two professions differed on their ratings of the importance of team behaviors, information sharing, and interprofessional socialization as indicators of collaborative practice. These results highlight the complexities among maternity care providers with different professional identities, and demonstrate the impact of professional identity on interprofessional communication. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this study, 3,531 Queensland women, who had recently given birth, completed a questionnaire that included questions about their participation in decision making during pregnancy, their ratings of client-centered care, and perceived quality of care. These data tested a version of the Linguistic Model of Patient Participation in Care, adapted to the maternity context. The authors investigated how age and education influenced women's perceptions of their participation and quality of care. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that women's perceived ability to make decisions, and the extent of client-centered communication with maternity care providers, were the most influential predictors of participation and perceived quality of care. Participation in care predicted perceived quality of care, but the influence of client-centered communication by a care provider and a woman's confidence in decision making were stronger predictors of perceived quality of care. Age and education level were not important predictors. These findings extend and support the use of Linguistic Model of Patient Participation in Care in the maternity context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to explore the determinants that are related to women’s likelihood to consult with a complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioner during pregnancy. Primary data were collected as a sub-study of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH) in 2010. We completed a cross-sectional survey of 2,445 women from the ALSWH “younger” cohort (n = 8,012), who had identified as being pregnant or had recently given birth in 2009. Independent Poisson backwards stepwise regression models were applied to four CAM practitioner outcome categories: acupuncturist, chiropractor, massage therapist, and naturopath. The survey was completed by 1,835 women (79.2%). The factors associated with women’s consultation with a CAM practitioner differed by practitioner groups. A range of demographic factors were related, including employment status, financial status, and level of education. Women’s health insurance coverage, health status, and perceptions toward both conventional maternity care and CAM were also associated with their likelihood of consultations with all practitioner groups, but in diverse ways. Determinants for women’s consultations with a CAM practitioner varied across practitioner groups. Stakeholders and researchers would benefit from giving attention to specific individual modalities when considering CAM use in maternity care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses intergroup contact as a communication phenomenon in interpersonal and mediated communication. The idea of the existence of conditions for intergroup contact that mitigate perceptions across issues such as gender, generation and race is explored. The systematic approach of the contact hypothesis is brought forward to a more comprehensive theory of intergroup contact. Mediated communication is also examined through concepts such as extended contact and imaginary contact.

This study examined the ways in which health care providers (general practitioners and specialists) and patients communicate with each other about managing musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders, a major cause of long-term pain and physical disability. In managing their illness, patients must interact closely with health care providers, who play a large role in transferring knowledge to them. In-depth interviews with patients, general practitioners, and specialist rheumatologists in Australia and Canada were analyzed using Leximancer (a text-mining tool). Results indicated that, in their communication, doctors subtly emphasized accepting and adjusting to the illness ('new normal'), whereas patients emphasized pain relief and getting 'back to normal.' These results suggest that doctors and patients should accommodate in their communication across subtle and often unexpressed differences in the priorities of provider and patient, or they are likely to be at cross purposes and thus less effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to a series of articles about communication is presented. One article discusses the synthesis of terror management theory (TMT) with work for fear appeals. Another article offers a critical review of the attribution theory as well as the incorporation of social psychology. One article explores the practice of deception.

Although the media are regularly charged with bias, empirical evidence of media bias is variable. The aim of the current research was to explore the utility of an intergroup perspective to understanding media bias as it emerges in the context of intergroup conflict. Content analysis was conducted on accounts of ongoing Christian-Muslim conflict in Ambon, Indonesia, as reported in both Christian and Muslim newspapers. This revealed the operation of a 'naming bias', whereby both Christian and Muslim newspapers were more likely to explicitly name the religious outgroup as perpetrators of intergroup conflict than they were to attribute responsibility to their own group. The prevalence of this bias was, however, asymmetrical across the two groups: it was pronounced in the Muslim newspaper but minimised in the Christian one. This pattern was evident in a general sample of media reports, and in a sample of matched reports in which the same incident was covered by both papers. The naming bias and its variable operation is explained with reference to social psychological theorising about intergroup dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of social group processes in perceptions of effective communication in Australian Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs). Communication professionals in 25 CRCs discussed the barriers and opportunities for communication in their diverse networked organizations. Thematic analysis of the transcripts highlighted the contribution of social group processes to both barriers and opportunities. Communication challenges implicated the social identity of organizational members, many of which were associated with distinct structural aspects of these organizations. Opportunities for communication frequently involved features that implicated social identity, including taking advantage of existing organizational or industry identities, preventing conflicting identities from becoming salient, and promoting a collective CRC identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the perceptions of young adults in Japan and Australia about their own age group, as well as middle-aged and older adults. Using a self-administered questionnaire, 155 Japanese and 171 Australian students rated people in the three age groups on traits of personal vitality and benevolence, and also rated their age group vitalities. Results indicated that Australians perceived both middle-aged and older adults in more positive terms than did Japanese and also perceived the vitality of these age groups as higher. On the other hand, both Japanese and Australian young people judged the vitality of their own group as lower than that of middle-aged adults. These results suggest that norms of filial piety, especially its respect dimension, in Japan may be eroding, whereas older Australians may be gaining in social stature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Over and above the risks associated with ageing, older migrants are also at risk of social isolation. The social identity approach, and the Social Identity Model of Identity Change (SIMIC) in particular, provides a theoretical basis from which to understand the factors contributing to social isolation and how this then impacts on older migrants' capacity to age well in a foreign land. Building on the recognition that migration involves a major life change, we explore this transition qualitatively focusing specifically on social connectedness and adjustment. Methods: In semi-structured interviews with 29 older migrants in Australia, we examined participants' experiences of migration and perceptions of identity and identity change. We also considered in more detail experiences of the most and least socially isolated individuals to understand adjustment trajectories. Results: We found evidence supporting the key processes described in SIMIC (relating to social identity continuity, social identity gain, and perceived identity compatibility), suggesting that where adjustment was positive it was experienced as a process of successfully adapting to identity change. Conclusion: We emphasise the importance of identity resources as substantial and concrete assets that can enhance the well-being among older adults aging in a foreign land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the existing academic solidarity and interchange between Australian and New Zealand psychologists as of July 2006. Efforts made by the two countries to strengthen their connection; Commonality between Australia and New Zealand; Effect of each country's social and health policy on the practice of psychology.