A mixed‐method approach to sense of coherence,health behaviors,self‐efficacy and optimism: Towards the operationalization of positive health attitudes

Posadzki, P., Stockl, A., Musonda, P. & Tsouroufli, M. (2010). A mixed‐method approach to sense of coherence, health behaviors, self‐efficacy and optimism: Towards the operationalization of positive health attitudes. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 246–252. This study discusses the results of a cross‐sectional survey of healthy college students in Poland. More specifically, it describes, explores, and explains the relationships between psychological variables/models such as health behaviors (HB), sense of coherence (SOC), level of optimism (LOO), and self‐efficacy (SE) among college students. These separate constructs have also been used to operationalize a positive health attitude (PHA) as a novel construct. The social survey was carried out at three higher education institutions in Poland in January 2006. The random sample of 455 undergraduate students was taken from five different faculties: Physiotherapy, Physical Education, Tourism and Recreation, English Philology and Polish Philology. Four reliable and validated research tools were used to collect the data: Juczynsky’s Health Behaviour Inventory (HBI); Antonovsky’s Sense of Coherence Questionnaire (SOC‐29); Schwarzer & Jerusalem’s Generalized Self‐Efficacy Scale (GSES); and Seligman’s Scale (SS). The results indicate statistically significant differences (p < 0.001) between these four variables: for example, the healthier health behaviors the stronger the sense of coherence, level of optimism and self‐efficacy. It was also demonstrated that LOO, SOC, SE, and HB correlate with one another. Finally, these variables create an explicit empirical‐theoretical pattern. All the research results from REGWQ tests, Pearson’s correlation coefficient and cluster analysis suggest the existence of conceptual similarities between these four variables and/or the existence of some broader scientific construct such as PHA. However, this needs to be examined further. These results could be a good indicator for future research among different faculties or age groups.     

Extending self‐leadership research to the East: Measurement equivalence of the Chinese and English versions of the MSLQ

In response to calls regarding the applicability of self‐leadership measurement in Eastern (collectivistic) and Western (individualistic) cultures, this study examined the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the modified self‐leadership questionnaire (MSLQ). The sample consisted of 395 Chinese students and 241 Australian students. Results revealed that the modified self‐leadership questionnaire exhibited a satisfactory condition of psychometric properties across cultures. A series of multi‐sample confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated the cross‐cultural similarity of an 11‐factor model across the Chinese and Australian samples. The modified self‐leadership questionnaire was also found to possess measurement invariance, suggesting that it is appropriate for cross‐cultural research assessing differences of self‐leadership behaviour across Chinese and Western cultures. Implications for future research are also discussed.     

Reliability and validity of the self‐perception profile for adolescents: An Australian sample

In this study, we explored the psychometric properties and factorial validity of Harter's Self‐Perception Profile for Adolescents (SPPA) with an Australian sample drawn from the Raine study 14‐year follow‐up. Participants, boys (n = 795) and girls (n = 758) from Grades 8, 9, and 10, completed the SPPA. Cronbach's alpha showed good internal reliabilities for seven of the eight subscales and global self‐worth. Boys had significantly higher athletic (p < .001), physical appearance (p < .001), and romantic (p < .05) self‐perceptions, while the girls perceived significantly higher behavioural conduct (p < .001) and close friendships (p < .001). Exploratory factor analysis yielded similar factors to those reported by Harter with North American adolescents, although cross loadings resulted in one additional factor. Our findings generally supported Harter's conceptualisation of the self as a multidimensional construct, and with minor modifications, the use of the SPPA with Australian adolescents.     

Choosing words at the study phase: The self‐choice effect on memory from the viewpoint of connective processing1

Abstract: The self‐choice effect, that is the superior memory performance observed when participants are allowed to choose the item at the study phase than when they are not (lack of choice), has been explained by the encoding‐strategy hypothesis ( Takahashi, 1997 ). This hypothesis distinguishes between organizational processing, which focuses upon the relationship between chosen items, and item‐speci?c processing, which itself focuses on the elements that make the chosen item distinctive. The encoding‐strategy hypothesis predicts that the ability for the successive recall of chosen items can be affected by organized list (Experiment 1). The results of our experiments ran counter to the prediction and were interpreted by a new concept called connective processing, which would emphasize the relationship of paired items. Connective processing was examined through orienting tasks (Experiment 2). The results were more suitably interpreted by connective than organizational processing.     

Religious Values and the Development of Trait Hope and Self‐Esteem in Adolescents

Many studies have noted significant relationships between religious sentiment and psychological adjustment, but few have been able to comment on the direction of influence. We assessed the relationships between religious values, self‐esteem, and trait hope when participants were in grades 11 and 12. The variables showed moderate levels of rank‐order stability. Structural equation modeling revealed that religious values in grade 11 did not predict improvements in self‐esteem in grade 12, but they did predict improvements in hope. In contrast, hope did not lead to increase in religious values. These results held after controlling for personality (Big Five factors and Eysenck's psychoticism factor). Results are discussed with reference to the beneficial effects of religious values in adolescence.     

Exploring how people respond to conflicts between self‐interest and fairness: Influence of threats to the self on affective reactions to advantageous inequity

Two studies examined how people deal with conflicts between their self‐interest concerns and their striving for fairness. Specifically, the affective reactions to outcome arrangements in which people receive better outcomes than comparable other persons, were studied. These arrangements of advantageous inequity constitute situations in which fairness and self‐interest concerns are in conflict. Building on the social psychology of the self, it was predicted, and found, in both field and lab experiments that when people experience a self‐threat, they react more positively to arrangements of advantageous inequity than when not experiencing this threat. This supports the view that people's need for positive information about their selves is an important factor in the underlying psychological processes of the way that people deal with conflicts between their fairness and self‐interest concerns.     

Enhancing Cognitive‐Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Skill Acquisition Through Experiential and Reflective Learning: A Commentary on Studies Examining the Impact of Self‐Practice and Self‐Reflection in CBT

Self‐practice and self‐reflection (SP/SR) is a targeted training tool that is intended to increase CBT competency in therapists. The four articles reviewed in this commentary examine the benefits of SP/SR with various types of therapists, and survey the significant obstacles faced in implementing this tool with clinicians. Collectively, these articles conclude that SP/SR is a valuable tool in improving CBT skill acquisition and preventing burnout, particularly with difficult patients, but that most therapists elect not to use it largely because of the time involved in engaging in it. In this commentary, I suggest that empirical studies with larger samples and controlled designs are needed to build on the wealth of qualitative data collected to date in order to assess the value added by SP/SR compared with other training methods, and in order to determine its impact on a range of therapeutic outcomes. I also suggest that future studies should examine the efficacy of required SP/SR engagement, isolate its critical ingredients, and assess if there are clients and therapists for whom SP/SR is comparably more effective.     

Working with chronic and relentless self‐hatred,self‐harm,and existential shame: a clinical study and reflections (Paper 2 of 2)

This second of two papers focuses on the shame which emerged in the first 14 years of analysis of a woman who was bulimic, self‐harmed, and repeatedly described herself as ‘feeling like a piece of shit’. To explore this intense and pervasive shame I draw on Jung's and Laplanche's emphasis on experiences of unresolvable, non‐pathological ‘foreignness’ or ‘otherness’ at the heart of the psyche. Images, metaphors, elements of clinical experience, and working hypotheses from a number of analytic traditions are used to flesh out this exploration. These include Kilborne's use of Pirandello's image of shame as like a ‘hole in the paper sky’ which, I suggest, points to a crack in subjectivity, and reveals our belief in the efficacy of the self to be illusory. Hultberg's observations on shame as having an existential mode (function) are also explored, as is the nature of analytic truth. Using these ideas I describe my patient's process of finding some small but freeing space in relation to her shame and self‐hatred. Through enduring and learning from her shame in analysis she realized that it was part of a desperate unconscious attempt to draw close to her troubled father and so to ‘love him better’.     

Lutherans in Need of Self‐Discipline: Japanese Shugyō and the Art of Sanctification

Abstract : Lutherans have a reputation for not attending well to the life of sanctification. Whether or not this is deserved, it is clear that all believers should make greater efforts to live in conformity with the will of God. Distinctly lacking in the Lutheran heritage, however, are disciplines of self‐cultivation. Such methods could play a larger role in the spiritual lives of believers, not for the sake of one's own salvation, but for the benefit of others. With that in mind, this article considers the practice of shugyō in Japanese Buddhism. This concept of self‐cultivation can form a model for how we in the West might seek to attend to our own maturing in the Christian life, attending to a greater stewardship of our bodies and minds.