Relations Between Minuchin's Structural Family Model and Kohut's Self-Psychology Constructs

This study examined the relations between S. Minuchin's (1974) structural family model and H. Kohut's (1971) self-psychology constructs. A total of 164 college women completed the Structural Family Interaction Scale-Revised (SFIS-R), the Parental Relations Inventory (PRI), and the Goal Instability and Superiority scales from the Self-Expression Inventory. Two factors, Proximity-Differentiation and Generational Hierarchy-Differentiation, accounting for 90% of the variance, emerged from an exploratory factor analysis of the SFIS-R and PRI. The results of canonical correlation analysis, with the 2 factors included as predictor variables and the 2 scales measuring self-expression as the dependent variables, indicated that women raised in families with strong cross-generational alliances are likely to display narcissistic personality traits and to have difficulty setting goals. Implications for counseling are presented.     

The Effect Of Religiousness On Marital Satisfaction: Testing The Mediator Role Of Marital Problem Solving Between Religiousness And Marital Satisfaction Relationship

This study was focused on revealing the effects of religiousness on marital satisfaction, and also to test the mediator role of perceived marital problem solving between religiousness and marital satisfaction relationship in a Turkish sample. Subjects were 92 married couples, or a total of 184 participants. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that after controlling for the variance accounted for by the control variables, namely duration of marriage, marital style, educational level, hopelessness, and submissive acts; religiousness had a major effect on marital satisfaction, but a mediator role of problem solving was not observed.     

An Analysis of the Relationship Between Religiosity and Psychological Well-Being in Chilean Older People Using Structural Equation Modeling

Journal of Religion and Health - Using a representative sample, we explored the relationship of organizational (ORA), non-organizational (NORA), and intrinsic religiosity (IR) with depressive and...     

Understanding the Relationship Between Religiousness, Spirituality, and Underage Drinking: The Role of Positive Alcohol Expectancies

Research has consistently found that religiousness and spirituality are negatively associated with underage drinking. However, there is a paucity of research exploring the mechanisms by which these variables influence this important outcome. With 344 underage young adults (ages 18–20; 61 % women), we investigated positive alcohol expectancies as a mediator between religiousness and spirituality (measured separately) and underage alcohol use. Participants completed the Religious Commitment Inventory-10, Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale, Alcohol Expectancies Questionnaire, and Drinking Styles Questionnaire. Results indicate less positive alcohol expectancies partially mediate the relationship between both religiousness and spirituality and underage alcohol use. This suggests religiousness and spirituality’s protective influence on underage drinking is partly due to their influence on expectations about alcohol’s positive effects. Since underage drinking predicts problem drinking later in life and places one at risk for serious physical and mental health problems, it is important to identify specific points of intervention, including expectations about alcohol that rise from religious and spiritual factors.     

The Relationship Between Religious Orientation,Right-Wing Authoritarianism,and Implicit Sexual Prejudice

The relationship between intrinsic, extrinsic, and quest religious orientations, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), and implicit and explicit attitudes toward homosexual individuals were examined within a sample of predominantly Protestant college students in the United States. Implicit attitudes were measured with the Implicit Association Test, a computer program that recorded reaction times as participants categorized symbols (of heterosexual and homosexual individuals) and adjectives (good or bad words). Participants displayed fairly negative implicit and explicit attitudes toward homosexual individuals (i.e., sexual prejudice). Intrinsic religious orientation uniquely predicted increased explicit sexual prejudice (when extrinsic, quest, and impression management were statistically controlled), and RWA appeared to mediate this effect. In contrast, the positive relationship between intrinsic religion and implicit sexual prejudice did not disappear when controlling for RWA. Although RWA seemed to be related to self-reports of prejudice, intrinsic religious orientation was uniquely related to automatic negative attitudes toward homosexual individuals.     

The Mediating Effect of Religiousness in the Relationship Between Psychological Resilience and Fear of COVID-19 in Turkey

Journal of Religion and Health - The purpose of this study was to examine if religiousness has a mediation influence on the link between psychological resilience and fear of COVID-19. Data were...     

Receiving Online Psychological Counseling and its Causes: A Structural Equation Model

In this study, it is aimed at measuring the university students’ behaviors of receiving online counseling services and determining the causes which have a causal relationship with these behaviors. University students’ behaviors of receiving online counseling services and the causes of those behaviors are investigated through structural equation model based on Theory of Planned Behavior. In this study, four different data collection tools were developed to measure subjective norm about the online counseling, perceived behavioral control, intention and behavior. The attitude towards online counseling was measured using Online Counseling Attitude Scale, which was developed by Rochlen et al. (Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development 37(2):95, 2004) and adapted into Turkish by Demirci et al. (International Journal of Psychology and Educational Studies 1(1):15–22, 2014). Internet anxiety was measured using Internet Anxiety Scale, which was developed by Joiner et al. (Computers in Human Behavior 23(3):1408–1420, 2007) and adapted into Turkish by Ak?n (2012). The data of this study were collected from participants in two steps. In the first step which is the development of the scale, the data were collected from 150 students studying at faculty of education of a university in Central Black Sea Region during 2014–2015 academic year. In the second step which is the testing of the proposed model, the data were collected from a total of 480 students [319 (66.46%) female, 161 (33.54%) male] studying at faculty of education of the same university, but they are different from the participants in the first step. According the results, the proposed model estimated the variance on the intention and behavior of receiving online counseling. The variance on the intention of receiving online counseling was affected by the internet anxiety most. In contrast with the argument of TPB, perceived behavioral control has no impact on intention, but has a direct and significant impact on behavior.     

The Specific Analysis of Structural Equation Models

Conventional structural equation modeling fits a covariance structure implied by the equations of the model. This treatment of the model often gives misleading results because overall goodness of fit tests do not focus on the specific constraints implied by the model. An alternative treatment arising from Pearl's directed acyclic graph theory checks identifiability and lists and tests the implied constraints. This approach is complete for Markov models, but has remained incomplete for models with correlated disturbances. Some new algebraic results overcome the limitations of DAG theory and give a specific form of structural equation analysis that checks identifiability, tests the implied constraints, equation by equation, and gives consistent estimators of the parameters in closed form from the equations. At present the method is limited to recursive models subject to exclusion conditions. With further work, specific structural equation modeling may yield a complete alternative to the present, rather unsatisfactory, global covariance structure analysis.     

Perturbation Selection and Local Influence Analysis for Nonlinear Structural Equation Model

Local influence analysis is an important statistical method for studying the sensitivity of a proposed model to model inputs. One of its important issues is related to the appropriate choice of a perturbation vector. In this paper, we develop a general method to select an appropriate perturbation vector and a second-order local influence measure to address this issue in the context of latent variable models. An application to nonlinear structural equation models is considered. Six perturbation schemes are investigated, including three schemes under which simultaneous perturbations are made on components of latent vectors to assess the influence of these components and pinpoint the influential ones. The proposed procedure is illustrated by artificial examples and a simulation study as well as a real example.     

The Relationship Between the Five-Factor Model of Personality and Symptoms of Clinical Disorders: A Meta-Analysis

This paper describes a meta-analysis of 33 studies that examined the relationship between the Five-Factor Model and symptoms of clinical disorders. The typical pattern found associated with clinical disorders or measures of clinical disorders was high Neuroticism, low Conscientiousness, low Agreeableness, and low Extraversion. Comparisons of diagnostic groups and norm groups showed higher levels of Neuroticism and lower levels of Extraversion than did studies of correlations between measures of the level of a disorder and measures of the five factors. Studies of observer ratings of the five factors showed lower levels of Neuroticism and Openness than did studies of self-report ratings. These and other findings relating to type of scale and type of comparison group have possible clinical implications and raise several questions worthy of further research.     

Religion, Forgiveness, Hostility and Health: A Structural Equation Analysis

Religious participation has been shown to increase certain factors thought to be protective of health, including social support and positive health habits. The current study considers whether religious participation may likewise have a positive influence on health by increasing forgiveness and diminishing hostility. A structural equation analysis of data collected from a national survey of 1,629 participants supported the hypothesized model that (a) religiosity is related to greater forgiveness, (b) greater forgiveness, in turn, is related to reduced hostility and finally, (c) reduced hostility is related to better subjective health.     

A Structural Equation Model for the School Reinforcement Survey Schedule: Italian and American Early Adolescents

The School Reinforcement Survey Schedule (SRSS) was administered to 2,828 boys and girls in middle schools in the United States and an Italian translation was administered to 342 boys and girls in middle schools in Northern Italy. An exploratory factor analysis using half the American data set was performed using maximum likelihood estimation with a promax rotation. This analysis produced a structural equation model with six interpretable latent variables. This analysis was confirmed by results demonstrating a good fit with the other half of the American sample and separately with the Italian sample. Scores for the six latent variables were constructed and information about the distribution of scores was obtained. Multiple comparisons of the means were performed by gender, within each national sample, for each of the six latent variables. American and Italian girls report obtaining greater enjoyment from a wider variety of school activities compared to American and Italian boys.     

Cognitive Indicators of Social Anxiety in Youth: A Structural Equation Analysis

Previous studies have demonstrated significant relationships among various cognitive variables such as negative cognition, self-efficacy, and social anxiety. Unfortunately, few studies focus on the role of cognition among youth, and researchers often fail to use domain-specific measures when examining cognitive variables. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine domain-specific cognitive variables (i.e., socially oriented negative self-referent cognition and social self-efficacy) and their relationships to social anxiety in children and adolescents using structural equation modeling techniques. A community sample of children and adolescents (n = 245; 55.9% female; 83.3% Caucasian, 9.4% African American, 2% Asian, 2% Hispanic, 2% “other,” and 1.2% not reported) completed questionnaires assessing social cognition and social anxiety symptomology. Three latent variables were created to examine the constructs of socially oriented negative self-referent cognition (as measured by the SONAS scale), social self-efficacy (as measured by the SEQSS-C), and social anxiety (as measured by the SPAI-C and the Brief SA). The resulting measurement model of latent variables fit the data well. Additionally, consistent with the study hypothesis, results indicated that social self-efficacy likely mediates the relationship between socially oriented negative self-referent cognition and social anxiety, and socially oriented negative self-referent cognition yields significant direct and indirect effects on social anxiety. These findings indicate that socially oriented negative cognitions are associated with youth's beliefs about social abilities and the experience of social anxiety. Future directions for research and study limitations, including use of cross-sectional data, are discussed.     

The Many Meanings of Religiousness: A Policy-Capturing Approach

ABSTRACT This article reports the results of two policy-capturing studies that investigated individual differences in the meaning of religiousness. Policy capturing requires judges to respond to a large number of hypothetical scenarios or profiles that differ along a number of potentially relevant cues or attributes. Multiple regression analyses are then conducted to ascertain which cues are influencing each judge's responses. For both studies, 100 profiles were developed describing hypothetical individuals who differed on 10 cues thought to influence perceptions of religiousness (e.g., church attendance, doctrinal orthodoxy), and judges rated each profile on a 9-point religiousness scale. Judges in Study 1 were 27 Roman Catholic and Protestant college students. Policy-capturing analyses identified clear individual differences in the cues that afifected judgments of religiousness, and in the self-insight of the students into their personal policies. To test whether these findings reflected the youth or religious maturity of the sample, the study was replicated with a sample of 22 Catholic and Protestant clergy. Similar results were found in Study 2. In both samples, individual policy capturing did a significantly better job of predicting judgments of religiousness than did self-described policies or policies created by averaging across judges. Together these findings underscore the diversity of religious meanings and the need for further idiographic investigations in the psychology of religion.     

Analysis of the Mediating Effect of Personal-Psychological Variables on the Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status and Political Participation: A Structural Equations Framework

The goal of this research was to test whether the relationship between socioeconomic status and political participation is direct or mediated by personal variables such as self-esteem, locus of control, and political efficacy, and to detect how such a mediating process might operate if it exists. Two forms of participation, namely active political participation and the more passive psychological involvement of citizens in the democratic process, were treated as separate but related facets of participation. Four competing models were advanced and tested. The data were collected from 434 citizens in the north of Israel who were interviewed by questionnaire. The analysis was performed by structural equations modeling with LISREL VIII. The findings show that the relationship between socioeconomic status and political participation can be better understood as being mediated by personal variables rather than direct. This is demonstrated by the many nonsignificant paths in the direct model. The findings also reveal that active political participation and psychological involvement are distinct but related constructs, where involvement leads to active participation. In addition, all research variables were related more strongly to psychological involvement than to active political participation. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for future research on political participation.     

Between Past and Present: The Sociopsychological Constructs of Colonialism,Coloniality and Postcolonialism

If one of the major aspirations of postcolonial theory is to re-establish a balance in the relationship between the (former) colonizer and the colonized by engaging the voices of the “subaltern”, and on the other hand to illuminate how power relations of the present are embedded in history (Mills 2007), we argue that important theoretical insights might inform research by anchoring post-colonial theory within a sociopsychological framework. While there is a growing corpus of sociopsychological research articles focusing on how major geopolitical events and historical processes bear on people’s lives, we aim to investigate the theoretical potential of postcolonial theory within the disciplines aiming at a sociopsychological approach. By focusing on the social dynamics of power imbalances, post-colonial theory finds its operational meaning: the feelings stemming from actions committed in the past are indeed crucial in determining reparatory attitudes and policies towards members of former colonized groups. Firstly, drawing from the sociopsychological scientific production related to consequences of colonial past, seen in recent years as a growing research interest in the field, we will explore patterns and trends through a thematic analysis of literature. Social Psychology as well as adjacent disciplines can greatly benefit from this theoretical fertilization, especially in the way post-colonial ideologies relate to the symbolic promotion versus exclusion of indigenous culture (Sengupta et al., International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 36(4), 506–517, 2012). Furthermore, by comparing and contrasting the ideological cosmologies relating to this particular topic, this study aims to establish the state of knowledge in the field, to identify how research methods and thematic fields are paired, to find “gaps” and create spaces for research that become integrative of postcolonial theory. While focusing on academic production, we also hope to contribute to develop the idea of cosmopolitism within academia but also beyond academic doors.     

在亚健康状态研究中运用结构方程模型的合理性

亚健康状态是处于健康与疾病之间的一种“非病但非健康”的中间状态,主要表现为躯体、心理和社会适应等方面的不适,目前尚没有公认的概念和测量诊断工具。由于亚健康状态研究数据中含有潜变量、测量误差以及变量间关系需要确定等因素,不能使用传统的统计学方法进行处理。结构方程模型能够同时处理观测变量、潜变量、测量误差及变量间的关系,应用结构方程模型验证亚健康状况测量量表的结构效度和亚健康状态理论模型是非常合理的。