Factors influencing career maturity in the South African National Defence Force: A diagnostic approach

This study investigated factors influencing the career maturity of young members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). A sample of 310 young SANDF members (females=35%, blacks=90%) completed the following measures: career maturity inventory-revised, the career decision self-efficacy scale, the military hardiness scale, and the seven habits profile. They also completed a biographical information form. Data were analysed using multiple regression to predict career maturity from career decision self-efficacy, self-appraisal, occupational information, goal selection, planning, problem solving, hardiness, control, challenge, commitment, conscientiousness, life balance, pro-active behaviour, life goals, self-management, mutual-benefit thinking, listening, teamwork, continuous improvement and life skills. Findings suggest self-efficacy, occupational information, self-appraisal, commitment, challenge, emotional intelligence and continuous improvement have the strongest influence on career maturity. The results indicated that self-efficacy, life skills and personal drive empower young members to seek employment.     

The Italian version of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems Personality Disorders Scales (IIP-47): psychometric properties and clinical usefulness as a screening measure

The Inventory of Interpersonal Problems-47 (IIP-47) is a brief and valid self-report measure for screening Personality Disorders (PDs). This study examined internal consistency, factor structure, criterion validity, temporal stability, and operating characteristics of the Italian version of the IIP-47 in two independent samples: PD subjects (n = 120) and nonclinical subjects (n = 475). Alpha coefficients ranged from .70 to .90. Multiple-Group Confirmatory Factor Analyses showed that the five-correlated-factor model reported in literature had the highest measurement invariance across the two groups. Criterion validity was supported by correlations among IIP-47 scale scores and scores on established measures of personality dimensions and pathology. Test-retest indices ranged from .71 to .95. PD subjects scored significantly higher than nonclinical subjects on all IIP-47 scales and cut-off scores for different levels of specificity and sensibility are reported. It is concluded that the psychometric properties of the original IIP-47 were preserved in its Italian version.     

Developing an instrument to measure physical activity related self-worth in women: Rasch analysis of the Women's Physical Activity Self-Worth Inventory (WPASWI)

ObjectivesThe objective of this study is to report on the development of an instrument to assess non-physical aspects of physical activity (PA)-related self-worth (SW).MethodsThree hundred thirty five women (mean age = 36.69 ± 15.94 yrs, BMI = 24.87 ± 4.56) completed the Women's Physical Activity Self-Worth Inventory (WPASWI), General SW Scale, and a PA Questionnaire. Rasch analysis was used to evaluate the WPASWI.ResultsThree PA-related SW subscales were identified: PA Knowledge (16 items), PA Emotional (13 items), and PA Social (8 items). Rasch analysis supported construct validity, and items demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.90, 0.87 and 0.72) and test-re-test reliability (r = 0.79, 0.70, 0.81). Women who reported regular PA participation had higher PA Knowledge, PA Emotional, PA Social, and General SW than those who reported some or no PA (p < 0.01) and correlations between Knowledge, Emotional, and Social SW subscales and General SW were 0.207, 0.130, and 0.220, respectively. PA Knowledge and PA Emotional SW had stronger correlations with PA (r = 0.344, 0.273, respectively) than did General SW (r = 0.133).ConclusionsThe WPASWI demonstrated good internal consistency, reliability, construct validity and a stronger relationship with PA than a General SW instrument.     

Career commitment processes in the young adult years: An illustration from the ROTC/Army career path

This paper presents and tests a model of career commitment in the young adult years. Data for the study were collected from nationwide stratified random samples of approximately 1000 high school seniors, 1600 college students, and 600 ROTC-graduate Army officers. It was found that the model could predict membership in ROTC and the strength of the individual's commitment to a military career and that hypotheses that had been made about the career commitment process were generally confirmed. Many of the specific findings, differences in the demographic, aptitude, and sociopsychological profile of participants and nonparticipants in a career path, the widening of these differences with the passage of time, the importance of early exposure to the career eventually chosen, the relationship between initial motivation in exploring a career path and subsequent commitment to the career, and the changes in the nature of influential factors as an individual matures, may be generalizable to other types of careers.     

Concurrent validity of the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory as a measure of depression in hospitalized adolescents.

This study examined the concurrent validity of the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI; Millon 1993) in the assessment of depression among 88 adolescent inpatients. Doleful Personality and Depressive Affect scales were moderately predictive of a clinical diagnosis of depression, but both scales were strongly associated with scores on the Children's Depression Inventory (Kovacs, 1992). The Suicidal Tendencies scale was weakly associated with placement on suicide precautions. Overall, these results provide moderate support for the use of the MACI in the assessment of hospitalized adolescents.     

Development and validation of a measure for emotion regulation at work: Introducing the Workplace Emotion Regulation Preference Inventory (WERPI)

Emotion regulation preference varies from person to person. However, the emotion regulation literature has mostly dichotomized preference to cognitive change and response modulation. The current investigation focused on development and validation of a comprehensive measure of workplace emotion regulation and examined the relationship between all emotion regulation strategies using a well-known taxonomy (Gross, 1998) and customer service performance. Preliminary evidence supports the validity of the new measure. The four groups identified in this analysis showed significant differences on customer service performance, suggesting that individual differences in regulation preference may be important to consider. Theoretical and practical implications of findings are discussed.     

The Inventory of Altered Self-Capacities (IASC): a standardized measure of identity,affect regulation,and relationship disturbance

This article describes the Inventory of Altered Self-Capacities (IASC), a 63-item standardized measure of disturbed functioning in relation to self and others. The seven scales of the IASC are Interpersonal Conflicts, Idealization-Disillusionment, Abandonment Concerns, Identity Impairment, Susceptibility to Influence, Affect Dysregulation, and Tension Reduction Activities. The psychometric properties of the IASC were examined in general population, clinical, and university samples. The IASC was found to have internal consistency/reliability and validity in all three samples. Generally as predicted, IASC scales were associated with existing measures tapping borderline and antisocial personality features, depression, suicidality, substance abuse, somatization, and dysfunctional sexual behavior     

Relationship Between the Holden Psychological Screening Inventory (HPSI) and the Basic Personality Inventory (BPI) in a Community Sample

Using a sample of 144 mature students, aged 18–53 years, attending a high school upgrading program, the screening properties of the Holden Psychological Screening Inventory (HPSI) and the correspondence of the HPSI to the Basic Personality Inventory (BPI) were evaluated. Correlations between the HPSI and the BPI scales and joint factor analysis of these two inventories demonstrated the validity of HPSI scales and their sampling adequacy from the major components of psychopathology measured by the BPI. Using the BPI as the Gold Standard, the HPSI has almost perfect specificity but the sensitivity of the HPSI is only about 50% at a T-score of 60, whereas at T = 55, the sensitivity is 70%, with a specificity of almost 80%. Overall, results indicated that the three HPSI scales distinctly measure the three major factors of the BPI, and the HPSI has considerable utility as a screening tool.     

The Five-factor Personality Inventory as a measure of the Five-factor Model: Belgian, American, and Hungarian comparisons with the NEO-PI-R

The lexically based Five-Factor Personality Inventory (FFPI) was correlated with the factors and facets of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) in Belgian (N = 265), American (N = 116), and Hungarian (N = 320) samples. Results were similar across the three cultures. Analysis of orthogonalized FFPI factors showed that three of them--emotional stability, extraversion, and agreeableness--showed a direct correspondence to their NEO-PI-R counterparts. Autonomy, however, was not clearly related to openness, and facet analysis suggested that it might be interpreted as a dominance factor Better matches to NEO-PI-R conscientiousness and openness could be obtained by using vectors rotated 30 degrees from the FFPI positions. Raw scale scores showed similar results. Researchers should not assume that all measures of the Five-Factor Model are qualitatively similar     

Freedom in responsibility: on the relevance of "sin" as a hermeneutic guiding principle in bioethical decision making.

This essay deals with questions of responsibility concerning technology, in particular, gene technology and the special problem of research on embryos. I raise issues concerning the extent of humans' authority to act and the limits of human freedom. In what way is that freedom given, and what kind of responsibility results from it? By discussing various concepts of human freedom in the tradition of European philosophy, as juxtaposed to the Protestant understanding of freedom, this essay discusses the restricting limits, and the obligation to take responsibility. It will turn out that the question concerning freedom cannot be answered without understanding what being human involves. From a Christian perspective, this implies that the foundational relationship between human freedom and sin will be central to an assessment of the human ability to take responsibility. By obliterating the limits of human freedom, sin jeopardizes the very essence of that freedom. The project of taking into account the sinful state of the human condition thus aims at developing a realistic picture of the authority of humans in action, even in view of the human tasks of promoting science and research.     

Maximum key-profile correlation (MKC) as a measure of tonal structure in music

Tonal structure is musical organization on the basis of pitch, in which pitches vary in importance and rate of occurrence according to their relationship to a tonal center. Experiment 1 evaluated the maximum key-profile correlation (MKC), a product of Krumhansl and Schmuckler’s key-finding algorithm (Krumhansl, 1990), as a measure of tonal structure. The MKC is the maximum correlation coefficient between the pitch class distribution in a musical sample and key profiles,which indicate the stability of pitches with respect to particular tonal centers. The MKC values of melodies correlated strongly with listeners’ ratings of tonal structure. To measure the influence of the temporal order of pitches on perceived tonal structure, three measures (fifth span, semitone span, and pitch contour) taken from previous studies of melody perception were also correlated with tonal structure ratings. None of the temporal measures correlated as strongly or as consistently with tonal structure ratings as did the MKC, and nor did combining them with the MKC improve prediction of tonal structure ratings. In Experiment 2, the MKC did not correlate with recognition memory of melodies. However, melodies with very low MKC values were recognized less accurately than melodies with very high MKC values. Although it does not incorporate temporal, rhythmic, or harmonic factors that may influence perceived tonal structure, the MKC can be interpreted as a measure of tonal structure, at least for brief melodies.     

Some comments on Shettel-Neuber and O'Reilly's "handedness and career choice: another look at supposed left/right differences" (1983)

A property of attitudes, namely, the fact that attitudes select facts, is used to comment upon a paper on handedness and career choice.     

Confirmatory factor analysis of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) in a clinical sample.

Evidence for the validity of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF; Gioia, Isquith, Guy, & Kenworthy, 2000) based on internal structure was examined in a sample of children with mixed clinical diagnoses via maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis. Four alternative factor models of children's executive function, based on current theories that posit a unidimensional versus fractionated model (Rabbitt, 1997; Shallice & Burgess, 1991), using the revised 9-scale BRIEF configuration that separates two components of the Monitor scale, were examined for model fit. A 3-factor structure best modeled the data when compared directly with 1-, 2-, and 4-factor models. The 3-factor model was defined by a Behavior Regulation factor consisting of the BRIEF Inhibit and Self-Monitor scales, an Emotional Regulation factor consisting of the Emotional Control and Shift scales, and a Metacognition factor composed of the Working Memory, Initiate, Plan/Organize, Organization of Materials, and Task-Monitor scales. The findings support a fractionated, multi-component view of executive function as measured by the BRIEF.     

Criterion and construct validity of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) to measure depression in patients with cancer: The contribution of somatic items

Background/ObjectiveScreening for depression in patients with cancer can be difficult due to overlap between symptoms of depression and cancer. We assessed validity of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) in this population.MethodData was obtained in an outpatient neuropsychiatry unit treating patients with and without cancer. Psychometric properties of the BDI-II Portuguese version were assessed separately in 202 patients with cancer, and 376 outpatients with mental health complaints but without cancer.ResultsConfirmatory factor analysis suggested a three-factor structure model (cognitive, affective and somatic) provided best fit to data in both samples. Criterion validity was good for detecting depression in oncological patients, with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.85 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.76–0.91). A cut-off score of 14 had sensitivity of 87% and specificity of 73%. Excluding somatic items did not significantly change the ROC curve for BDI-II (difference AUCs = 0.002, p=0.9). A good criterion validity for BDI-II was also obtained in the non-oncological population (AUC = 0.87; 95% CI 0.81–0.91), with a cut-off of 18 (sensitivity=84%; specificity=73%).ConclusionsThe BDI-II demonstrated good psychometric properties in patients with cancer, comparable to a population without cancer. Exclusion of somatic items did not affect screening accuracy.     

Religious obsessions and compulsions in a non-clinical sample: the Penn Inventory of Scrupulosity (PIOS)

The present investigation reports on the development and psychometric evaluation of the Penn Inventory of Scrupulosity (PIOS), a 19-item self-report scale measuring religious obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Factor analysis yielded a two factor solution with the first subscale measuring fears about having committed sin, and the second measuring fears concerning punishment from God. Using a sample of college students, the PIOS was shown to be internally consistent and possess good convergent and discriminant validity. Highly devout participants evidenced higher scores on both PIOS subscales, but devout Jews evidenced fewer fears of sin and punishment from God compared to devout Protestants or Catholics. The PIOS has utility both as a research and clinical tool.     

Lupus Symptoms Inventory (LSI): Development and Validation of a Self-evaluation Inventory of the Subjective Symptoms of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

The goal of this study was to develop a simple, easy, and quick self-report measure, the Lupus Symptom Inventory (LSI), designed to evaluate subjective symptoms of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE). The internal consistency of the LSI was tested, as well as its concordance with physician reports and serological indicators of disease activity by evaluating the self-reports of 46 patients with SLE who completed the LSI daily for a one-month period. Throughout this one-month period, parameters of serological activity and routine medical check-up were obtained. The results showed a high internal consistency of the LSI, with a Cronbach alpha of .86. Additionally, a contingency analysis showed agreement between medical report and patient self-report on the same day for six of seven lupus symptoms (difficulty breathing (p < .004), joint pain (p < .001), loss of appetite (p < .003), general malaise (p < .005), fatigue (p < .005), and skin rash (p < .018)) but not for abdominal symptoms. Finally, differences were found between LSI scores of patients with high versus low serological activity (χ²(1) = 5.302; p < .021), with the former presenting higher LSI scores than the latter. These results show that the LSI may be a reliable and valid instrument for evaluating the subjective symptoms of the disease as well as its fluctuations.     

Validity evidence of Emotional Quotient Inventory: Youth Version (Short) in a sample of Mexican adolescents / Evidencias de validez del Emotional Quotient Inventory: Youth Version (Short) en una muestra de adolescentes mexicanos

The aim of this study was to obtain evidence on the validity of the Emotional Quotient Inventory Youth Version-Short Form (EQ-i:YV-S) with a sample of Mexican adolescent participants. The sample comprised 375 adolescents, 183 males (48.8%), from years seven to 12 (M_age = 14.80, SD = 1.72). Different tests were carried out to provide evidence of the questionnaire’s validity: (1) reliability and internal consistency analyses; (2) exploratory and confirmatory analyses; and (3) correlational and predictive validity analyses through structural equation modelling. The four EQ-i:YV-S subscales (interpersonal, intrapersonal, stress management and adaptability) provided acceptable indexes of reliability. Exploratory factor analysis supported the multidimensionality of the questionnaire. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the hierarchical model that hypothesized four first-order factors and one second-order factor (social-emotional intelligence) had the best fit for the data. Finally, the positive correlations found between the four specific EQ-i:YV-S subscales, general self-concept and satisfaction with life, supported the convergent validity of the questionnaire; in addition, the questionnaire’s capacity to predict satisfaction with life corroborated its predictive validity. It can therefore be affirmed that the EQ-i:YV-S is a brief questionnaire that is suitable for measuring the emotional intelligence of Mexican adolescents.