Acculturation of Greek Americans: Change and continuity in cognitive schemas guiding intimate relationships

The study compares Greek Americans to Greeks and to third‐generation white Americans in their endorsement of two cognitive schemas guiding intimate relationships. Greek Americans were more rejecting of low self‐disclosure in intimate relationships than were Greeks but did not differ from them on how strongly they advocated sacrificing the self for one's partner. By contrast, Greek Americans did not differ from Americans in their rejection of low self‐disclosure and more strongly endorsed self‐sacrifice in intimate relationships than did Americans. These findings were interpreted as indicating that Greek Americans have acculturated to a more individualistic orientation in terms of self‐disclosure while maintaining a collectivistic orientation regarding self‐sacrifice in intimate relationships. Respondents' age, cultural group, and whether they were college students or professionals interacted with how strongly individuals rejected low self‐disclosure and showed that age and status differences were more pronounced between rather than within the three cultural groups. It revealed that the initial finding, showing that Greeks and Americans differed, was based on the scores of students; professionals, with one exception, did not differ in their disagreement with low self‐disclosure, regardless of their age and cultural group. The exception was the older Greek American professional subgroup, whose stronger disagreement with low self‐disclosure may be an overreaction to the acculturation process. Age and status differences were not significant in the American group, while there was a pattern in Greece for professionals to reject low self‐disclosure more strongly than did students. Women were more rejecting of both low self‐disclosure and self‐sacrifice in intimate relationships than were men. Older women most strongly disagreed with the self‐sacrifice principle and older men adhered to it more strongly with increasing age.     

The Protestant Work Ethic and Just World Beliefs in Great Britain and India

This study examined Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) and Just World Beliefs (JWB) in Great Britain and India. Secondary school children, university students and adults completed seven PWE questionnaires and the JWB questionnaire. A three-way (sex × occupational status × nationality) ANOVA showed highly significant main effects, particularly for nationality, but few significant interactions. Generally females more than males, Indians more than Britons, and schoolchildren more than adults endorse the PWE and JWB. Possible experimental artifacts and moderator variables are considered along with the possibility that genuine cultural differences were found. These results are discussed in terms of the relevant literature on cross-cultural studies of the PWE and BJW.     

The Bernreuter Personality Inventory as a Measure of Student Adjustment

Abstract

In this study salience, importance, and multidimensional aspects of spontaneous social identities were examined. A Social Identity Survey was developed and administered to an ethnically diverse sample of American undergraduate students. Freely generated, social identities were rank ordered for importance and rated along four conceptually-derived dimensions: emotion, evaluation, importance, and stability. Results showed pattern differences among three groups of highly salient social identities: (a) gender, religion, and ethnicity; (b) academic major and student; and (c) hobbies and athletics. Ethnic differences suggest that mainstream Americans attributed less importance to the gender and ethnic identities in comparison with Asians and Hispanics.     

Internal external control of reinforcement as a determinant of study habits and academic attitudes

This study tested Rotter's hypothesis that internals would show more achievement-striving behaviors than externals using a direct measure of such behavior. Rotter's I-E scale and the Survey of Study Habits and Attitudes (SSHA) were administered to 123 male and 130 female undergraduate subjects. Significant sex differences were found on the SSHA scales but not on the I-E scale. Results indicated significant differences between internals and externals within each sex in terms of the average SSHA profiles and the individual SSHA scales. Using H. L. Mirels' (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1970, 34, 226–228) I-E subscales, similar results were obtained with the personal-control scale but not the political-control scale. Results provide additional evidence supporting the multidimensional interpretation of the I-E scale.     

Filler items and social desirability in Rotter's locus of control scale

Three experiments were conducted to determine whether the use of filler items in Rotter's I-E scale fulfills its stated objective of obscuring the purpose of the scale. Subjects were undergraduate psychology students. Experiment 1 compared the effects of filler items and sex of subject on 145 subjects I-E scores. Experiment 2 examined effects of filler items and sex on I-E responses of 210 subjects under standard and fake good instructions. Experiment 3 examined subjects' ability to discern the purpose of the I-E scale, with and without the filler items. Filler items did not affect I-E score, impede subjects from faking good, or obscure knowledge of the purpose of the I-E scale. Sex differences occurred in faking good, knowledge and certainty of correctness of knowledge.     

The Reverse Double Standard in Perceptions of Student-Teacher Sexual Relationships: The Role of Gender,Initiation, and Power

ABSTRACT

The present study tested the prediction that male teachers are judged more harshly than female teachers for engaging in heterosexual intercourse with a student. One-hundred and eighty-seven adults (116 women, 71 men) evaluated a hypothetical newspaper article describing an alleged student-teacher relationship as part of a 2 (Gender Dyad: Male Teacher/Female Student or Female Teacher/Male Student) × 2 (Initiator: Student or Teacher) between-subjects design. As expected, a reverse sexual double standard was revealed, in which participants judged situations involving male teachers more harshly than they judged situations involving female teachers, but only when the sexual contact was teacher-initiated. Participants also believed that male students received more social benefits from the sexual contact than did female students.     

A REEXAMINATION OF SEX DIFFERENCES IN INTERPERSONAL VERBS

A study by Thompson, Hatchett, and Phillips (1981) found that males and females differed in their judgment of interpersonal verbs (IPVs). Females were said to give more extreme affect ratings and less extreme control ratings to IPVs than did males. The present study re–examined these findings utilizing multidimensional scaling techniques. Similarity/dissimilarity ratings of 105 combinations of 15 paired IPVs were made by 43 female and 39 male students. Analysis via COSPA yielded two dimensions of meaning underlying IPVs which were similar to those used by Thompson et al.: Affect and Control. Analyses of the data using three different approaches failed, however, to bear out Thompson et al.'s findings of sex differences in the judgment of IPVs.     

The moderating role of ethnicity in the relation between religiousness and mental health among ethnically diverse college students

Many studies have documented the links between dimensions of religiousness with mental health (e.g., Hackney and Sanders 2003; Mofidi et al. 2006). However, very little is known about whether these links differ across ethnic groups. This study examined the contribution of dimensions of religiousness to the prediction of mental health in an ethnically diverse sample of 413 college students (167 European Americans, 83 African Americans, 81 Asian Americans, and 82 Latino Americans). Results indicated significant ethnic differences across dimensions of religiousness. African Americans were significantly higher on religious engagement and religious conservatism than the other ethnic groups and significantly lower on religious struggle than European Americans. Moderated multiple regressions revealed that increases in religious struggle was associated with poorer mental health for African Americans and Latino Americans, while increases in religious engagement and ecumenical worldview were associated with better mental health for African Americans. The findings indicate that ethnicity is an important factor to consider when examining the link between religiousness and mental health.     

The positive role of hope on the relationship between loneliness and unhappy conditions in Hungarian young adults: How pathways thinking matters!

ABSTRACT

In this study, we examined loneliness and hope components as predictors of unhappy conditions (viz., anxious symptoms, depressive symptoms, & suicidal ideation) in young adults. The sample was comprised of 489 Hungarian college students. Results of conducting hierarchical regression analyses indicated that loneliness and hope pathways (but not hope agency) were important unique predictors of anxious symptoms, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation. Moreover, in part, consistent with the notion that hope might buffer the negative effects of loneliness on unhappy conditions, evidence for a significant Loneliness × Hope Pathways interaction effect in predicting each of the three indices of unhappy conditions was found. In contrast, the Loneliness × Hope Agency interaction effect was not found to be significant. Some implications of the present findings for the study and treatment of unhappy conditions in adults are discussed.     

Further exploration of Filipino personality structure using the lexical approach: do the big-five or big-seven dimensions emerge?

Filipino college students (N=740) rated their personalities using 502 reasonably familiar terms from a comprehensive taxonomy of Filipino trait adjectives. Using factor analysis, we replicated the seven Filipino personality dimensions identified in a previous study (Church, Reyes, Katigbak and Grimm, 1997). At least seven factors are needed to identify dimensions resembling all of the Big Five. When positive- and negative-evaluation terms are included a Negative-Valence dimension is found, but positive-evaluation terms blend with Intellect terms rather than identifying a distinct dimension. Thus, the cross-cultural generalizability of the Big-Seven model (Tellegen and Waller, 1997) is not completely supported. Correlational analyses consistently show good one-to-one correspondence between the Filipino Gregariousness, Concern for Others versus Egotism, Conscientiousness, and Intellect dimensions and Big-Five Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Intellect, respectively. The Filipino Temperamentalness and Self-assurance dimensions, although moderately correlated with Neuroticism, are multidimensional in terms of the Big Five. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Facilitating cognitive performance in children: A comparison of strategy modeling and strategy modeling with overt self-verbalization

Children, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 10 years old, were randomly divided into three training conditions—a strategy modeling condition, a strategy modeling with overt self-verbalization condition, and a control condition. The subjects in the two modeling conditions were given training on four cognitive tasks, a signal task, a match-to-standard task, a paired-associates task, and a twenty-questions task. A 6 (age) × 2 (sex) × 3 (treatment) × 2 (trial) analysis of variance was performed on each of the dependent variables associated with each of the four tasks. The results of these analyses indicate that both modeling conditions facilitated performance on the signal and match-to-standard tasks for all six age groups. However, the two modeling procedures facilitated performance on the paired-associates and twenty-questions tasks only in the three older age groups. Since the two modeling procedures did not differ in effectiveness, it was suggested that strategy modeling without overt self-verbalization is the more practical and efficient procedure for facilitating cognitive performance in normal children.     

Symptoms of Depression and Psychological Distress in United States and Japanese College Students

Abstract

We compared United States and Japanese university students on self-report measures of depression (Beck Depression Inventory; BDI) and psychological distress (General Weil-Being Scale; GWB). In addition, we reassessed sex differences on these measures for students in the United States and examined sex differences for Japanese students. We found that (a) Japanese students had significantly higher scores than their U.S. counterparts on the BDI but not on the GWB scale and that (b) male and female college students in the U.S. and Japan did not differ in scores on the BDI or the GWB scale.     

Different attitudes toward humor between Chinese and American students: evidence from the Implicit Association Test

Although cross-cultural research indicates that Chinese people demonstrate less humor than do Americans, little research addresses the reasons. This cross-cultural difference may be largely due to different implicit attitudes toward humor held by Chinese and Americans, deeply rooted in the two cultural traditions. Both self-report evaluation and the Implicit Association Test (IAT) were used to compare Chinese and American attitudes toward humor. Although 60 Chinese undergraduate students showed no significant difference from 33 American exchange students in explicit attitudes toward humor, the former associated humor more frequently with unpleasant adjectives and seriousness with pleasant adjectives on the IAT; the opposite pattern was found for the American group. This indicated a negative implicit attitude toward humor among the Chinese students.     

Holland in Iceland revisited: an emic approach to evaluating U.S. vocational interest models

An emic approach was used to test the structural validity and applicability of Holland's (1997) RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional) model in Iceland. Archival data from the development of the Icelandic Interest Inventory (Einarsdóttir & Rounds, 2007) were used in the present investigation. The data included an indigenous pool of occupations and work-task items representing Iceland's world of work that had been administered to a sample of 597 upper secondary school students. Multidimensional scaling analysis and property vector fitting using Prediger's (1981) work-task dimensions were applied to the item responses to test if the RIASEC model could be identified. The results indicated that a 4-dimensional solution better explains the interest space in Iceland than Holland's 2-dimensional RIASEC representation. The work-task dimension of People-Things and the Sex-Type and Prestige dimensions were located in the 1st and 2nd dimensions of the multidimensional scaling solution, but Data-Ideas, a dimension critical to the RIASEC model, was not. The 3rd and 4th dimensions did not correspond to any dimensions previously detected in structural studies in the United States and seem to be related to specific ecological, cultural, and political forces in Iceland. These results demonstrate the importance of selecting representative indigenous occupations and work tasks when evaluating the RIASEC model. The present study is an example of the next step in a comprehensive cross-cultural research program on vocational interests, an emic investigation.     

Adult age, gender, and race group differences in images of aging

Younger and older African American and Caucasian American adults, who were matched by age (M age = 40.63 years), completed a survey on perceptions of aging and subjective age. The 2 groups did not differ in the age they considered someone to be old (M age = 74.5 years). However, when asked which age was the happiest age, African Americans chose a significantly younger age (M age = 18.26 years) than did Caucasian Americans (M age = 31.32 years), and this racial group difference interacted with age differences such that older Caucasian Americans named an older age than did younger Caucasian Americans. The authors found no such age difference for African Americans. When asked if old age was a happy time, 60% of Caucasian Americans answered yes, whereas only 2% of African Americans answered yes. These and other differences in images and concerns of old age and subjective age suggest a far more negative view of aging for African Americans and a need for changes in the provision of positive information about aging for this group.     

The Attitudes and Attitude Estimates of Catholic,Protestant, and Jewish Students

Summary

This study was a cross-cultural extension of previous research concerning the relationship between attitudes toward homosexuality, attitudes toward heterosexual sexual practices, personal sex-guilt, and sex stereotyping. One hundred twelve Brazilian male college students completed a series of attitude measures previously administered to a comparable sample of Canadians. As had been previously found in Canada, antihomosexual (Anti-H) Ss were more disapproving of various heterosexual sexual practices and reported greater personal sex-guilt than prohomosexual (Pro-H) Ss. The intercorrelations among the three principle attitude scales were only moderately positive in both samples, suggesting that attitudes toward homosexuality are somewhat independent of more general sexual attitudes. Anti-H Ss also stereotyped the sexes more than did Pro-H respondents and were more willing than Pro-H Ss to label a male as homosexual when he exhibited what they thought was a single feminine characteristic. In these respects the Brazilian and Canadian results were strikingly similar.

More antihomosexual prejudice was found in the Brazilians. They also assigned much higher probabilities to a “feminine” male being homosexual than did Canadian Ss. The findings of this study provide potent cross-cultural confirmation of Churchill's theory of antihomosexual prejudice within a sex-negative environment.     

The Two Faces of Familism: A Cross-Cultural Research in India and Italy

In the present research, we developed a familism scale comprised of two dimensions, namely support obligations and traditional norms, in order to examine cross-cultural and gender differences in a group of Indian (n = 107) and of Italian students (n = 106). We hypothesised and found that support obligations were judged more important than traditional norms in both groups. Moreover, the Indian participants considered both dimensions of familism more important than did their Italian counterparts. Indian women gave greater importance to traditional norms than Indian men did, while Italian women gave greater importance to support obligations than Italian men did. The social implications of cross-cultural and gender differences in familism are discussed.