Identifying as a Survivor Versus a Victim After Sexual Violence Predicts Divergent Posttrauma Pathways.

The present study investigated social identification with "survivors" versus "victims" following sexual violence and the degree to which this predicted posttraumatic growth versus posttraumatic stress. Participants (= 290) were adult women who had experienced sexual violence. As predicted, cumulative sexual trauma was positively associated with symptoms of posttraumatic stress and posttraumatic growth.

More than sport: A social-identity intervention to support transitions out of elite sport.

Elite athletes often make large personal sacrifices to pursue excellence, but there is insufficient support for them when they leave elite sport. Identity loss is central to athletes' transition trajectories and hence the management of identity change is a crucial area for support. The More Than Sport (MTS) program is a novel digital intervention that aims to provide this support-helping athletes manage identity change in the process of leaving elite sport.

Listening quality leads to greater working alliance and well-being: Testing a social identity model of working alliance.

Objectives: Characterization of psychotherapy as the "talking cure" de-emphasizes the importance of an active listener on the curative effect of talking. We test whether the working alliance and its benefits emerge from expression of voice, per se, or whether active listening is needed. We examine the role of listening in a social identity model of working alliance.

A controlled evaluation of social prescribing on loneliness for adults in Queensland: 8-week outcomes.

Introduction: There have been few controlled evaluations of Social Prescribing (SP), in which link workers support lonely individuals to engage with community-based social activities. This study reports early outcomes of a trial comparing General Practitioner treatment-as-usual (TAU) with TAU combined with Social Prescribing (SP) in adults experiencing loneliness in Queensland.

Methods: Participants were 114 individuals who were non-randomly assigned to one of two conditions (SP,  = 63; TAU,  = 51) and assessed at baseline and 8 weeks, on primary outcomes (loneliness, well-being, health service use in past 2 months) and secondary outcomes (social anxiety, psychological distress, social trust).

"I'm more than my sport": Exploring the dynamic processes of identity change in athletic retirement.

Retirement is one of the most impactful career transitions athletes face. Researchers recognise the role that athletic identity plays in this, but analysis of identity content and change processes is limited. Addressing this gap, we conducted a qualitative study exploring the experience of identity change in 21 competitive and successful elite athletes who had retired from sport.

Understanding and Improving Athlete Mental Health: A Social Identity Approach.

Understanding and positively influencing athlete mental health have become key goals for researchers and sporting stakeholders (e.g. coaches, support staff, clubs and governing bodies).

Discrimination and social identity processes predict impairment and dysfunction among heavy drinkers.

Background: Previous research has linked discrimination to poorer health. Yet health risk behaviours such as heavy alcohol consumption are often targeted with stigmatising public health campaigns. The current study sought to establish the link between experiencing discrimination and health outcomes among heavy drinkers, with a focus on exploring the multiple social identity processes that might underpin this relationship.

Connecting to Community: A Social Identity Approach to Neighborhood Mental Health.

Academic Abstract: Integrative theorizing is needed to advance our understanding of the relationship between where a person lives and their mental health. To this end, we introduce a social identity model that provides an integrated explanation of the ways in which social-psychological processes mediate and moderate the links between neighborhood and mental health. In developing this model, we first review existing models that are derived primarily from a resource-availability perspective informed by research in social epidemiology, health geography, and urban sociology.

Street soccer and homelessness: Exploring social identities, health, and well-being.

Membership in social and physical activity groups has the potential to help people with a range of physical and mental health challenges. The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of members of a unique physical activity group: people who were formerly or currently homeless participating in a street soccer program in Western Canada. Ten participants in the Vancouver Street Soccer League (VSSL) were interviewed about the extent to which this program fostered a sense of community, social connectivity, and quality of life among people with experience of homelessness.

Psychosocial interventions and strategies to support young people at mass gathering events: a scoping review.

Objectives: To improve health and safety outcomes at mass gathering events (MGEs) for young attendees, it is essential to understand the psychosocial factors that may influence behaviour so that the implementation of support strategies before, during and after MGEs can be developed to enhance outcomes. This review identifies the psychosocial outcomes that may occur at MGEs, including social connection, substance use, risky behaviours and psychological distress and examines what interventions have been implemented to target these outcomes.

Study Design: Scoping review.

A longitudinal examination of the role of social identity in supporting health and well-being in retirement.

Social factors are major determinants of the success of retirement transitions. However, we do not yet fully understand the nature and basis of this impact, particularly as it relates to social group belonging. To address this issue the present article investigated the role that social group memberships play in supporting people's health and well-being in the early phase of transitioning to retirement.

Predictors of individual mental health and psychological resilience after Australia's 2019-2020 bushfires.

Aims: We assessed the mental health effects of Australia's 2019-2020 bushfires 12-18 months later, predicting psychological distress and positive psychological outcomes from bushfire exposure and a range of demographic variables, and seeking insights to enhance disaster preparedness and resilience planning for different profiles of people.

Methods: We surveyed 3083 bushfire-affected and non-affected Australian residents about their experiences of bushfire, COVID-19, psychological distress (depression, anxiety, stress, post-traumatic stress disorder) and positive psychological outcomes (resilient coping, wellbeing).

Results: We found high rates of distress across all participants, exacerbated by severity of bushfire exposure.

Therapists who foster social identification build stronger therapeutic working alliance and have better client outcomes.

Background: For decades we have known that therapeutic working alliance is a key contributor to client engagement and positive outcomes in therapy. However, we have made little progress in narrowing down its determinants, which is critical in supporting trainees to optimize such alliance. We make a case for the value of incorporating social psychological frameworks into models of alliance and explore the role of social identity processes in the development of therapeutic alliance.

Measuring civilian moral injury: Adaptation and validation of the Moral Injury Events Scale (Civilian) and Expressions of Moral Injury Scale (Civilian).

Objective: Moral injury (MI) research has been expanded to populations beyond the military in recent years. A key barrier to further research into MI in civilian populations is the lack of valid, reliable measures of the construct appropriate for general civilian use. This article addresses this barrier by adapting two existing military measures and exploring their psychometrics in a general civilian sample: the Moral Injury Events Scale-Civilian (MIES-C) and Expressions of Moral Injury Scale-Military (EMIS-C).

Interest in Digital Peer-Delivered Interventions and Preferences to Improve Pain Self-efficacy and Reduce Loneliness Among Patients With Chronic Pain: Mixed Methods Co-design Study.

Background: Two important factors that prolong and exacerbate chronic noncancer pain (CNCP) and disability are low pain self-efficacy and loneliness. Yet, few interventions have shown long-term sustained improvements in pain self-efficacy, and there are no evidence-based treatments that target social connectedness in people living with CNCP. More effective and accessible interventions designed to target self-efficacy and social connectedness could ease the burden of CNCP.

The reciprocal relationship between social identity and adherence to group norms.

Previous research has focused on how social identification influences people's adherence to group norms, but has rarely considered how norm adherence might in turn influence how strongly people identify with the group. We proposed a reciprocal relationship between social identification and norm adherence that is shaped by the salience of the social identity in question. Drawing on data from a longitudinal field study of young people attending a mass gathering (N = 661, 1239 unique observations), we used cross-lagged panel modelling across five timepoints to test the reciprocal relationship between social identification with friends and anticipated adherence to perceived drinking norms among friends before (T0), during (T1-T3), and after (T4) the event.

'They don't really know why they're here' mental health professionals' perspectives of consumer representatives.

There are several barriers to meaningful, non-tokenistic consumer representation in mental health, including stigma and negative attitudes towards consumers. The aim of this study was to examine mental health professionals' perspectives about collaborating with consumer representatives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 mental health professionals across Australia.

A community-led intervention to build neighbourhood identification predicts better wellbeing following prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns.

Introduction: A growing body of research supports the importance of social cohesion for population wellbeing. However, the majority of this research has been correlational, and rarely have interventions been evaluated.

Method: We conducted a two-timepoint study investigating the role of Neighbour Day, a grass-roots, community-led intervention that seeks to build social cohesion across the population.

Aspirational leaders help us change: Ingroup prototypicality enables effective group psychotherapy leadership.

Objectives: Research suggests that leaders are effective when they are ingroup prototypical (represent the identity of the group they seek to lead). However, it is unclear whether leaders should represent the group's current identity ("who we are") or aspired identity ("who we want to be"). This study investigated which of these forms of prototypicality best predicted leadership effectiveness in group psychotherapy.

Group memberships and post-traumatic growth: How we connect determines how we recover.

This paper examines key processes from the social identity model of traumatic identity change in the context of the aftermath of a natural disaster. It focuses on the roles of (i) group membership gain, (ii) group membership continuity, (iii) social identity revitalisation, and (iv) the severity of natural disaster exposure on post-traumatic growth (PTG) and post-traumatic stress (PTS). PARTICIPANTS: (N = 410, M = 53.

Misery loves company: Predictors of treatment response to a loneliness intervention.

Objective: The last 10 years have seen a surge of interest in loneliness and interventions to reduce it. However, there is little evidence regarding differential treatment effectiveness and predictors of treatment outcome. This paper aimed to investigate possible predictors of treatment response.