Counselor Confidence and Accuracy of Prognoses of Success or Failure

This study assessed the accuracy of predictions of freshman and overall college scholastic performance made by groups of high school counselors, college advisors, and counseling psychologists from a university counseling center in relation to the confidence of these judges that their prognoses were accurate. Predictions were made from three sets of case information. The results revealed that: (1) the degree of confidence counselors indicated in their freshman and overall college “pass” predictions was appropriately related to accuracy; (2) counselor confidence in freshman “fail” predictions was not related to accuracy although the “fail” judgments tended to be more accurate than the “pass” prognoses; (3) counselor confidence in their overall “fail” predictions was not significantly related to accuracy and, unlike the results for the freshman judgments, the overall “fail” predictions were not more accurate than the “pass” predictions; (4) the amount of case data available was not related to counselor predictive accuracy.     

Why achievement motivation predicts success in business but failure in politics: the importance of personal control

Several decades of research have established that implicit achievement motivation (n Achievement) is associated with success in business, particularly in entrepreneurial or sales roles. However, several political psychology studies have shown that achievement motivation is not associated with success in politics; rather, implicit power motivation often predicts political success. Having versus lacking control may be a key difference between business and politics. Case studies suggest that achievement-motivated U.S. presidents and other world leaders often become frustrated and thereby fail because of lack of control, whereas power-motivated presidents develop ways to work with this inherent feature of politics. A reevaluation of previous research suggests that, in fact, relationships between achievement motivation and business success only occur when control is high. The theme of control is also prominent in the development of achievement motivation. Cross-national data are also consistent with this analysis: In democratic industrialized countries, national levels of achievement motivation are associated with strong executive control. In countries with low opportunity for education (thus fewer opportunities to develop a sense of personal control), achievement motivation is associated with internal violence. Many of these manifestations of frustrated achievement motivation in politics resemble authoritarianism. This conclusion is tested by data from a longitudinal study of 113 male college students, showing that high initial achievement motivation combined with frustrated desires for control is related to increases in authoritarianism (F-scale scores) during the college years. Implications for the psychology of leadership and practical politics are discussed.     

Private wishes: Gender similarities and differences

Preference for a variety of “private wishes” were investigated in two studies. In Study 1, two college samples and two samples of pedestrians selected 10 out of a list of 48 wishes. In Study 2, two college samples rated 20 wishes. Although ethnicity data were not gathered, the populations from which the samples were drawn are ethnically diverse. Correlations of preferences between women and men within samples averaged .86 in Study 1 and .85 in Study 2, indicating a great deal of similarity between genders in their overall wish preferences. By far, the largest gender difference was for the wish “To have sex with anyone I choose.” Men consistently preferred this wish across all samples and age groups. These results point to sexuality in its interpersonal context as a primary focus of difference in the inner emotional lives of women and men.     

Reminiscence bump in autobiographical memory: Unexplained by novelty,emotionality, valence,or importance of personal events

People tend to recall a disproportionately large number of personal events from their adolescence and early adulthood. This “reminiscence bump” has been examined extensively, but its causes remain unclear. In this Internet-based experiment, nearly 3,500 participants were given 10 cue words and were asked to describe the personal events that came to mind. Furthermore, they were asked to date each event and to indicate whether it was a first-time experience. Finally, the participants were asked to rate the strength of the emotional reaction to the event or the valence or the importance of the event. Surprisingly, the reminiscence bump consisted of relatively fewer novel, emotional, important positive or negative events. This result increases the likelihood of an alternative explanation—namely, that memory is generally enhanced in adolescence and early adulthood. However, this account has not been tested directly.     

A Confirmatory Factor Analytic Investigation of the TAS–20: Corroboration of a Five-Factor Model and Suggestions for Improvement

Two studies conducted around 1950 provided aggregate data on college students' attribution of characteristics to men or women (sex-role stereotype). Seeman (1950) provided data for three attributes clearly sex-role identified. Fernberger (1948) used a “story” with 16 blank spaces for response of “men” or “women” to assess sex-role stereotypes. Replications of these studies were conducted in undergraduate psychology classes during the 1970–71 school year to assess changes in sex-role stereotypes and in personal preferences. Results for stereotypes indicated either no change for the Seeman data or even more polarized stereotypes for the Fernberger data. No evidence for role convergence was found for stereotypes. Ss personal preferences were markedly discrepant from their stereotypic responses, as the literature would predict.     

Microanalysis of Smokers' Beliefs about the Consequences of Quitting: Results from a Large Population Sample1

Using an expectancy-value approach, personal beliefs about the consequences of quitting were studied in a sample of 1,305 cigarette smokers derived from a representative sample of the United Kingdom population. Subjects evaluated 32 outcomes of continuing to smoke or stopping smoking in terms of how much they “wanted” or “feared” them (outcome evaluation, or OE) and then rated the likelihood of each outcome occurring under the two alternatives, yielding a likelihood difference (LD) score for each outcome. Subjects with relatively strong and relatively weak intentions to try to quit were compared with respect to their OE, LD, and OE × LD scores. The results showed consistent differences between intenders and nonintenders. Intenders rated every positive outcome as more desirable and every negative outcome as more undesirable. Intenders also believed that stopping smoking would lead to a larger increase in their chances of obtaining the benefits (health, financial, social, self-esteem) and a smaller increase in their chances of incurring the costs (negative affect, loss of enjoyment), compared with nonintenders. The product scores showing the largest relationships with intention were for the outcomes “feel proud of yourself”, “feel a sense of achievement”, “enjoy yourself”, “feel energetic”, and “set a good example to children”. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for efforts to encourage more smokers to try to quit.     

Exploring the Structure of Adolescent Problem Behaviors and the Associated Adult Outcomes

This study expands on previous research on adolescent problem behaviors by examining whether different constellations of problem behavior in adolescence differentially impact outcomes during emerging adulthood. Data from the in-home interviews of waves 2 and 3 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) were used to examine these relationships. Latent class analysis, using nineteen problem behaviors measured at wave 2, identified three classes of adolescents representing “low risk, abstainers,” “sexually-active, experimenters,” and a “high risk, diverse behavior” group. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were then used to identify class differences (measured at wave 3) in social stability, general health and service utilization, and criminal justice system involvement during emerging adulthood. Important class differences in the likelihood of negative outcomes during early adulthood were identified. The implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Frühe Störungen aus der Sicht zunehmender Mentalisierung

The term “mentalization” describes the capacity to judge other humans in terms of their mental activities such as wishes, hopes, beliefs and intentions, as well as the ability to think about one’s own thinking. Mentalization and reflective function are equivalent to each other. They play an important role in selforganization, impulse control, and affect regulation. Mentalization develops during approximately the first five years of life on the basis of attachment in Bowlby’s sense. Around the 9th month of life the child begins to understand her mother as an intentional agent. Mirroring by the mother, in a way of reproducing the child’s state of mind but in a slightly different “marked” manner, enables the child to establish a second “objectified” representation of her condition besides her primary unreflected one. Consequences of lacking, unmarked, or distorted mirroring for later narcissistic or borderline personality are discussed. The child begins now thinking, i.e. playing with representations, but the state of brain development allows to conceive of only one reality. Internal world and external reality appear undistinguishably identical. This is called the “equivalence mode” of psychic functioning. As-if-games open, in a further developmental step, the possibility of including a second reality, namely a pretended one. This is called the “pretend mode” of psychic functioning. At age four to five the child has reached the capacity to take multiple realities into consideration, to take the perspective of an other and to decentrate. She now has a “theory of mind”. Patients with early disturbances have reached this stage only partially. They may also regress to one of the earlier modes of psychic functioning as a consequence of stress or trauma. The knowledge of these early mechanisms helps to identify and understand them when they appear in our clinical practice.     

Object specificity and personal relevance in long-term visual remembering

The personal relevance of an object is multi-faceted, each facet being capable of contributing to the effects on object memory attributed to personal relevance. An object's status as an individual object (object specificity), rather than just a category of object, is one such facet and its impact on the long-term visual remembering of everyday objects is assessed in two experiments. Images and drawings were produced under generic (e.g., “Please draw a bed”) and personal exemplar (e.g., “Please draw your bed”) instructions, and participants indicated the degree to which the image on which their drawing was based was of a specific object or a generic object. Object specificity induced a sense of time and place for a remembered object, the most recent encounter with the object being most salient. Other aspects of personal relevance collectively facilitated the retrieval of an object's category-irrelevant features (thereby increasing the vividness of the object image), the other objects with which it was seen, and a more general episodic sense of place. Against a broader theoretical perspective, it is proposed that visual episodic memory and visual knowledge are primary sources of information for specific personally relevant objects and generic objects, respectively.     

Personal mastery predicts pain,stress, fatigue,and blood pressure in adults with rheumatoid arthritis

Among individuals with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), stress-associated disease flare can severely impact well-being. Psychological factors such as personal mastery may buffer an individual from the negative effects of those flares. We tested the hypothesis that a high sense of personal mastery would prospectively predict stress reactivity. Measures of pain, perceived stress, fatigue, and mean arterial pressure (MAP) were collected before, during, and after two interpersonal stressors conducted on 73 individuals with RA. Factor analysis of the personal mastery scale yielded two independent factors: a 5-item “fatalism” component and a 2-item “control” component. Individuals with high fatalism scores reported overall greater joint pain at baseline and those scoring high on control exhibited lower MAP, and reported less stress and fatigue at baseline. After controlling for baseline differences, those high in control exhibited greater MAP increase during stress, and less drop in pain when compared to those low in control. These results suggest that individuals high in control may be more susceptible to the effects of acute stress; however, the overall beneficial aspects of high control outweigh the acute negative effects. Personal mastery may play a role in the experience of pain, stress, and fatigue for people with RA.     

Examining Trajectories of Early Adolescents’ Life Satisfaction in South Korea Using a Growth Mixture Model

Various aspects of early adolescence can have a key impact on adult life satisfaction. This study applied a growth mixture model to examine the trajectories of early adolescents’ life satisfaction and test the effects of individual (sex, subjective achievement, and self-esteem) and social factors (school adjustment and peer attachment) thereon. For this purpose, a growth mixture model was used on the fifth- (grade five), sixth- (grade six), and seventh- (grade seven) year panel data of 1917 grade one students from the Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey (2010–2016, National Youth Policy Institute), excluding missing samples. Participants were 990 boys (51.6%) and 927 girls (48.4%). The results indicated that the trajectories of life satisfaction could be categorized into three groups: “High Level-decreasing” (57.19%), “Moderate Level-stable” (37.62%), and “Low Level-increasing” (5.19%). Predictors for each class exhibited that female students and individuals with higher levels of self-esteem and school adjustment were more likely to be in the “Low Level-increasing” and “Moderate Level-stable” groups compared to male students and those reporting lower levels of self-esteem and school adjustment. Moreover, students with higher peer attachment were more likely to be in the “Low Level-increasing” group compared to the “High Level-decreasing” group. Educational implications to achieve positive life satisfaction by determining the influence of the predictors for each trajectory are outlined.

     

The interaction of cognitive styles and classroom environment in determining first-graders' behavior

This study investigates the importance of two “person” variables, reflection impulsivity and divergent thinking, and one “situation” variable, the classroom climate of first-grade classrooms, for the classroom adaptation of first-graders. Three types of classrooms differing in classroom climate were selected: open, intermediate, and traditional. Subjects were the children (n = 189) in these classrooms. Classroom adaptation variables included self concept, school attendance, and teacher ratings of classroom behavior, overall academic rank, and personal preference. Both main effect and interactional relationships between “person” and “situation” variables and classroom adaptation were hypothesized. Classroom environment was found to affect degree of classroom disturbance manifested by the children with students in open classrooms exhibiting most and students in the intermediate classrooms exhibiting least. Boys in the open classrooms had higher achievement anxiety and lower teacher preference ratings than boys in traditional or intermediate classrooms. Reflective children obtained higher ratings as self-reliant learners and, for boys, reflection was related to low classroom disturbance and high achievement anxiety. Interactional relationships between classroom environment and reflection-impulsivity were also found for boys. Divergent thinking was not related to classroom adjustment for boys. Girls high in divergent thinking were higher in school involvement and achievement anxiety and more preferred by teachers.     

Development of comprehension of “or”: Evidence for a sequence of competencies

Comprehension of various usages of “or” was investigated in children 5–6, 7–8, and 9–10 years old, and in college students. One task used imperatives containing “or.” and investigated the set union interpretation. In a second task, one puppet asserted a statement and another puppet contradicted it: subjects were asked whether both could be right, and whether one had to be right. A third task investigated the truth conditions for disjunctions. The fourth task presented reasoning problems that tested principles of inference involving “or.” It was found that all age groups, even the youngest, could make the logical inferences involving “or.” All age groups could also perceive contradictions, but subjects were less than unanimous that one of the puppets contradicting each other had to be right. Sensible truth judgments for disjunctions began to develop around 7–8 years. Set union was elicited in only a few adults. In general, except when it indicates set union, “or” is understood substantially earlier than the current literature suggests. Logical inference is one of the first uses in which children become competent, suggesting that the basic meaning of “or” is given by inference forms for reasoning with alternatives, not by truth conditions.     

Older, wiser, and happier? Comparing older adults' and college students' self-defining memories

The present study compared self-defining memories in adults 50 years of age and older to the self-defining memories of college students. Findings are largely congruent with previous memory and ageing research, but shed additional light on how personal memories are employed to achieve a sense of identity and continuity in older adults. Older adults' self-defining memories, compared to those of younger adults, were more positive in emotional tone, more summarised and less detailed, and more likely to contain integrative meaning. The implications of these findings for assessing normative personal memory in older adults are discussed along with more general observations about narrative identity in older adulthood.     

A longitudinal person-centred approach to the job demands-control model

We used a longitudinal design and a person-centred methodology to test the strain and learning hypotheses of the job demands–control model among Finnish employees (n = 926), who were followed-up at three time points covering a period of 2 years (2008–2010). First, we identified longitudinal subgroups in demands and control across three measurement points. Second, we examined how these subgroups differed in strain (job exhaustion) and motivation-related outcomes (vigour at work, work–family enrichment). Growth mixture modelling revealed four subgroups: “stable high strain”, “stable low strain”, “increasing control”, and “decreasing control”. The stable high- and low-strain subgroups also differed in the outcomes studied (exhaustion, work–family enrichment) as suggested by the demands–control model. The findings also suggest that job control is subject to changes over time and that these changes are likely to be associated with changes in employee outcomes. Malleability of job control should be kept in mind in job stress interventions, likewise the fact that some employees suffer from chronic job stress.     

Motives and Values to Achieve: Different Constructs With Different Effects

ABSTRACT Motives to achieve and values associated with achievement were conceptualized as distinct and independent personality constructs, one nonconscious, the other conscious, each predictive of a different type of achievement-related behavior It was hypothesized that (a) motive and value measures would be uncorrelated, (b) motives would predict “operant” or spontaneous behaviors while values would predict “respondent” or stimulus-driven behaviors, and (c) motives and values would interact such that subjects with high values relating to achievement would perform better than those with low values, but only when their motives were also high Hypotheses (a) and (b) were strongly supported m two studies, and Hypothesis (c) was supported in Study 2 In that study, the motive for achievement was a particularly strong predictor of operant math performance among those subjects who valued achievement as opposed to affiliation The findings suggest that nonconscious (motive) and conscious (value) measures are both useful in different cases–the former for predicting “real” (doing) activity, the latter for predicting self-report (thinking) responses Questions concerning how motives and values might combine to predict different kinds of behavior are addressed     

意义治疗的团体辅导对于戒毒者复吸倾向的影响

摘 要: 考察意义治疗的团体辅导对于戒毒者复吸倾向的干预效果。选择生命意义感较低的被试18名进入实验组,并选择与其分数匹配的18名被试组成对照组。后测结果表明,与控制组相比,实验组被试的价值感、效能感、成就感和生命意义感均有显著提升,复吸倾向显著降低。结论: 意义治疗的团体辅导能够显著提高戒毒人员的创造性价值类生命意义源和生命意义感,显著降低其复吸倾向。提升创造价值与对苦难的理解是提高生命意义感的有效途径。     

Racism,stress, and sense of personal control among Aboriginal Australian pregnant women

Objectives

To characterise racism experiences in the past year and to investigate a causal association between racism, stress, and sense of personal control in a sample of pregnant South Australian Aboriginal women.

Methods

Data was from the baseline sample of 369 Aboriginal women participating in a randomised controlled trial to prevent early caries in children. Data on demographics, racism experiences, stress, sense of personal control, and health behaviours were collected through interview-guided questionnaires. Linear regression modelling was used to test the association between racism and stress and sense of personal control in separate models. The final models presented were adjusted for confounding.

Results

Participant mean age was 24.7 years (SD ±0.30; Min–Max: 14–43 years). Almost two-thirds (64.7%) resided in rural and regional areas and the highest educational attainment for almost three-quarters (73.7%) was high school or less. Nearly half (48.3%) reported at least one experience of racism in the previous year and almost one third (31.8%) reported racism occurring in a public setting. The adjusted regression coefficients for the effect of racism on stress and sense of personal control were respectively 0.61 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.28, 0.93) and −0.36 (95% CI −0.68, −0.04).

Conclusions

Our findings contribute with evidence that racism is one of the psychosocial causes of poor mental health among Aboriginal Australians. Culturally sensitive and safe mental health interventions may be beneficial in buffering racism effects during pregnancy. Societal-level policies aimed at both naming and reducing institutionalised racism against Aboriginal Australian Aboriginals are necessary.

     

Older,wiser, and happier? Comparing older adults’ and college students’ self-defining memories

The present study compared self-defining memories in adults 50 years of age and older to the self-defining memories of college students. Findings are largely congruent with previous memory and ageing research, but shed additional light on how personal memories are employed to achieve a sense of identity and continuity in older adults. Older adults’ self-defining memories, compared to those of younger adults, were more positive in emotional tone, more summarised and less detailed, and more likely to contain integrative meaning. The implications of these findings for assessing normative personal memory in older adults are discussed along with more general observations about narrative identity in older adulthood.