Why dieters fail: Testing the goal conflict model of eating

A new theory of eating regulation is presented to account for the over-responsiveness of restrained eaters to external food-relevant cues. According to this theory, the food intake of restrained eaters is characterized by a conflict between two chronically accessible incentives or goals: eating enjoyment and weight control. Their difficulty in weight control is due to their behavioral sensitivity to eating enjoyment and its incompatibility with the eating control goal. Accordingly, exposure to food-relevant stimuli primes the goal of eating enjoyment in restrained (but not unrestrained) eaters, resulting in an inhibition of weight control thoughts. Three studies are reported that support these assumptions. Study 1 demonstrates a substantial relation between Eating Restraint and measures of ambivalence towards eating. Studies 2 and 3 show that priming eating enjoyment decreases the accessibility of eating control concepts. The results are discussed in the context of current research on the psychology of obesity and restrained eating.     

Examining adversarial growth in illness: The factor structure of the silver lining questionnaire (SLQ-38)

The Silver Lining Questionnaire (SLQ-38) is purported to measure 10 aspects of adversarial growth in illness. To date however, no empirical evidence exists to support this claim. Hence the aim of this study was to investigate the factor structure of the SLQ-38 in a sample of 560 individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS), cancer, cardiac, and renal disease. The results demonstrate that 24 SLQ-38 items can be factored into five subscales: improved personal relationships, greater appreciation for life, positive influence on others, personal inner strength and changes in life philosophy, all of which are in accordance with the literature on adversarial growth. Individuals with MS experienced lower adversarial growth compared to other illness groups. Gender, age and time since diagnosis were unrelated to adversarial growth in illness. The utility of the revised SLQ-38 is discussed along with suggestions for future research on the convergent and divergent validity of this revised instrument.     

Family Therapy With Irish-Americans

This paper presents a paradigm for understanding the cultural values and family patterns of Irish-American families and offers suggestions for clinical intervention. Families' correspondence to the model described will depend upon their level of acculturation, socioeconomic status, and other contextual factors. The paradigm suggests a number of issues that may create difficulties for the therapist and for the family in therapy. In general, behavioral techniques, Bowen systems therapy, and strategic interventions may be more useful than techniques emphasizing expression of emotions in therapy or direct attempts to alter communication or family behavior in therapy sessions, as used in structural therapy.     

MEASUREMENT ERROR IN RESEARCH ON HUMAN RESOURCES and FIRM PERFORMANCE: HOW MUCH ERROR IS THERE AND HOW DOES IT INFLUENCE EFFECT SIZE ESTIMATES?

Studies of the relationship between human resource (HR) practices and firm performance typically use a single respondent to assess firm level HR practices or HR effectiveness. However, previous research in other substantive areas suggests that rater differences are a potentially important source of measurement error. We demonstrate analytically the potential consequences of both random and systematic measurement error in research on HR and firm performance. However, our main focus is on random error and we show how generalizability theory can be applied to obtain better estimates of reliability by simultaneously recognizing multiple sources (e.g., items, raters) of random measurement error. These more inclusive reliability estimates, in turn, offer the possibility of more precisely quantifying substantive relationships in the HR and firm performance literature. In our sample, reliabilities (as estimated by generalizability coefficients) for single-rater assessments of HR variables were generally below .50. This degree of measurement error, if present in substantive studies on HR and firm performance, could lead to considerable bias, given that an unstandardized regression coefficient is corrected for measurement error in the independent variable by dividing by its reliability coefficient (not its square root). We also found only limited convergent validity between HR and line managers ratings of a second type of HR measure, HR effectiveness. In general, our findings suggest that future researchers need to devote greater attention to measurement error and construct validity issues. Our study provides an example of how generalizability theory can be useful in this pursuit.