The Effect of Perceived Advantage and Disadvantage on Performance: The Role of External Efficacy

This experiment examined how perceptions of advantage and disadvantage determine performance in a competitive context. We distinguished between internal and external efficacy, and manipulated external efficacy by inducing perceptions of advantaged or disadvantaged starting positions in a competition, keeping the actual positions equal. The treatment increased the performance of the advantaged party and decreased the performance of the disadvantaged party. In addition, measured external and internal efficacy had qualitatively different effects on performance. The results are explained by the idea that losses loom larger than gains.     

Factors Related to Inconsistent Career Preferences

A sample of entering college freshmen was divided into 2 groups on the basis of the consistency or inconsistency of their first and second career preferences. The two groups were compared on several family and personal factors in order to identify variables that are related to inconsistencies in career preferences. The groups were observed to be somewhat different in the general level of their academic ability and the degree to which their interests were supported by SVIB results. No significant family differences between the two groups were observed. These findings were tentatively interpreted as implying that the inconsistency of career preference was more likely to be the result of the student's recognition of his limited abilities than the other variables examined in this study.     

Factors Related to the Social Adjustment of College Girls

Summary

In three experiments (N = 271), involving three different sets of nouns and adjectives, and one set of CVC trigrams, women consistently made significantly more extreme positive ratings than men. There were no significant differences in the use of extreme negative responses. The results suggested the hypothesis that relatively mild, positive stimuli evoke a greater, more differentiated range of reactions in women than in men. The hypothesis received support from a comparison of the relative consistency of men and women in rating positive and negative CVC trigrams and Rorschach cards. A fourth experiment (N = 196) found that women did better than men on a paired comparisons task of positive stimuli, thus adding further support to the hypothesis.     

Factors Related to Reported Problems of Adolescents

A randomly selected group of 720 adolescents responded to the Mooney Problem Check List. The relationship between the problems reported for each of the 11 problem areas of the MPCL (dependent variables) and the 14 independent variables was analyzed statistically by employing the least-squares analysis of variance technique. This analysis yielded significant differences for 7 of the 14 independent variables. Possible implications of the findings of this study for educational planning are discussed, and recommendations made for a more comprehensive study of the problems of adolescents at the local level.     

The Efficacy of Group Counseling with Older Adults

This article argues that group counseling is more conducive to coaching older adults than is the traditional one-to-one approach.     

The Impact of Group Formation and Perceptions of Fairness on Organizational Citizenship Behaviors1

An experimental design was used to assess the impact of group formation and perceptions of fairness on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Several mediators were also considered. First, when groups were established, social comparison and competition among those groups was expected to reduce the number of OCBs that would occur between the groups. Second, perceptions of unfair procedures were expected to result in negative affective and cognitive reactions, which would also decrease OCBs. It was also hypothesized that group formation and perceptions of fairness would interact to more strongly affect OCBs. Results indicated that group formation had a substantial impact on the frequency of OCBs, and that social competition was a significant mediator of that relationship. On the other hand, this study found little evidence for the negative impact of unjust procedures on OCBs. The interaction between group formation and unjust procedures was not significant. Implications for organizations are discussed.     

An Analysis of Factors Related to Educational Achievement

Piaget treats compensatory answers to the water jar problem by assuming that the child multiplies proportions in two dimensions (e.g., half the width by twice the height). Since the problem is three dimensional, a two dimensional analysis will not work to produce conservation. In an empirical test of related hypotheses using a prediction of height of water as an independent index of compensatory ability (N = 118 boys and girls from kindergarten through fifth grade), it was shown that many children compensate who do not conserve, a few children conserve who do not compensate, and conserving children who compensate incorrectly (as almost all do) will reject their compensation-based prediction in favor of the conservation judgment. It is concluded that while a loosely construed theory of compensation might help explain the development of conservation ability in the water jar problem, Piaget's tightly organized theory is at best questionable.     

家庭功能及其相关因素研究

采用家庭亲密度和适应性量表(FACESⅡ)调查了304个城市家庭的家庭功能状况和影响因素。结果表明：(1)平衡型家庭所占比例最大,为58．0％,中间型占25．9％,极端型只有16．1％;(2)家庭功能随婚姻发展历程发生变化;(3)家庭亲密度受经济收入水平影响,但与受试者年龄、性别、受教育水平等变量无关。     

The Contribution of Group Supervision Processes to the Formation of Professional Identity among Novice Psychotherapists

ABSTRACT

Group supervision is a commonly employed method in graduate psychology training. The present study examines the role of group processes in the formation of professional identity among 129 Israeli graduate students following the conclusion of their supervision process. The following three identity statuses were identified: achievement, diffusion, and moratorium. Working alliance and group engagement were significantly higher for achievement students and differentiated between achievement and moratorium students. Cohesion was significantly lower for moratorium students than for students at each of the other two identity statuses. All differences were maintained when controlling for anxiety. Finally, working alliance was found to be the dominant process in predicting committed professional identity status. The findings stress the links between group processes in group supervision and a committed professional identity.     

The Efficacy of an Integrated Theoretical Approach to Group Psychotherapy for Male Inmates

To assess the efficacy of an interpersonal process-oriented and cognitive-behavioral group psychotherapy program, 36 incarcerated male adults were assigned to either a treatment group (n = 20) or a no treatment control group (n = 16). Outcome measures consisted of paper-pencil self-report instruments, institutional behavioral data, and structured interviews with the group therapists (n = 3). Results indicated no significant changes in inmates' level of defensiveness, empathy, or institutional behavior; however, the inmates reported universally positive reactions to the treatment program. The group therapists also perceived the treatment program as efficacious, particularly in fostering a cohesive group atmosphere and increasing inmate responsibility for group leadership. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Factors Related to the Use of Condoms Among French-Canadian University Students

Abstract

During the Persian Gulf War, 151 American college students (including 47 minority students and 104 nonminority students) completed a survey about their attitudes toward such subjects as war-related patriotism and nationalism. Compared with nonminority college students, American minority college students displayed much less patriotism and nationalism and were less supportive of President Bush and more supportive of a peaceful solution to the Gulf crisis. These findings support the group formation model (Worchel, Coutant-Sassic, &; Grossman, 1992).     

Some Factors Related to Social Success in College

Abstract

Preferences for age of partners of heterosexual and homosexual men and women were investigated. Personal advertisements were collected from newspapers in the United States and analyzed for the difference between the age of the advertiser and the age of the preferred partner. Heterosexual men tended to seek women younger than themselves, whereas women sought partners near their own age or older. The preferences of homosexual men and women were similar to those of heterosexuals, although more homosexuals stated a preference for a partner younger than themselves.     

Contributions of Family Relationship Factors to the Identity Formation Process

This study tested the proposition that family relationship variables would be related in predictable ways to ego identity status. The authors administered measures of parental attachment, psychological separation, and ego identity status to 174 students from a large northeastern state university. The results indicated that women who experience greater parental attitudinal dependence and attachment and a modest degree of conflictual independence from mother tend to evidence more identity foreclosure and identity achievement and less diffusion. In addition, women who experience some degree of attachment to mother and attitudinal independence from mother are most likely to avoid diffusion, foreclosure, and moratorium. Men who experience parental attitudinal independence are likely to be in the diffusion or moratorium statuses and not in the identity-achieved and foreclosure statuses.     

儿童情绪伪装能力的发展和影响因素

情绪伪装体现了情绪的社会性和适应功能,是情绪的一种调节策略。该文综述了有关儿童情绪伪装的研究,分析了影响情绪伪装的家庭、同伴、文化等外部因素和言语能力、性别角色、气质特点等内部因素,探讨了儿童情绪伪装研究的未来方向     

集体效能：一种团体研究的主体性视角

班杜拉于20世纪80年代中期将个体效能研究拓展到集体效能研究,吸引了相当数量研究者的注意。研究发现,集体效能信念在集体活动的因果结构中起着关键的作用,它不但能直接影响集体行为,而且还能作用于其它决定集体行为的因素,如目标设定、抱负水平、结果预期、情感倾向、对社会机遇和社会阻力的知觉等等。该文对近年来的集体效能研究进行梳理,考察不同领域的集体效能研究状况,并初步总结出相应的理论共识,指出该研究的贡献和局限。     

Retracted: Formation of Entrepreneurial Career Intentions: The Role of Sociocognitive Factors

An individual's intention to enter into an entrepreneurial career in the future is a complex phenomenon. Existing cognitive models of entrepreneurial intention ignore the significant role of social conditions of an individual. In this article, the author incorporates social capital into a cognitive entrepreneurial intention model based on the theory of planned behavior. Using a sample of 636 Turkish and Pakistani undergraduate business students, the author finds that social capital shapes the entrepreneurial intentions of young people through the cognitive infrastructure. This study contributes to determining the influences of social and cognitive factors on the entrepreneurial intention process.     

Cognitive Factors in Fibromyalgia: The Role of Self-Concept and Identity Related Conflicts

Fibromyalgia is a syndrome characterized by the presence of diffuse and chronic musculoskeletal pain of unknown etiology. Clinical diagnosis and the merely palliative treatments considerably affect the patient's experience and the chronic course of the disease. Therefore, several authors have emphasized the need to explore issues related to self in these patients. The repertory grid technique (RGT), derived from personal construct theory, is a method designed to assess the patient's construction of self and others. A group of women with fibromyalgia (n = 30) and a control group (n = 30) were assessed using RGT. Women with fibromyalgia also completed the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire and a visual-analogue scale for pain, and painful tender points were explored. Results suggest that these women had a higher present self–ideal self discrepancy and a lower perceived adequacy of others, and it was more likely to find implicative dilemmas among them compared to controls. These dilemmas are a type of cognitive conflict in which the symptom is construed as “enmeshed” with positive characteristics of the self. Finally, implications of these results for the psychological treatment of fibromyalgia are suggested to give a more central role to self-identity issues and to the related cognitive conflicts.