Clinical Commentary

This commentary is slightly different from previous ones in that the clinical work presented took place some 20 years ago. This gave an opportunity, for those commentators who wished to, to take up how they think the work of a child psychotherapist might have changed in the intervening years.     

Unauthorized Uses of a Coauthored Work and a Doctoral Dissertation

This article describes the unauthorized uses of a coauthored work and a copyrighted U.S. dissertation by European scientists. The case involves alleged infringements of copyright and plagiarism in 6 works that were published up to 19 years after completion of the dissertation and up to 11 years after publication of the coauthored work. Relevant copyright laws, international copyright agreements, and professional psychology ethics and definitions of scientific misconduct are presented. Graduate students and professionals are advised to protect themselves from copyright infringement and recognize that the responsibility for detecting and correcting misappropriated work usually lies with them, not journal editors.     

Practical work in physiotherapy students’ professional development

Learning practical work through cooperation between school and working life is part of physiotherapy higher education. Students learn practical work through the integration of theoretical, practical, tacit and situational knowledge in a socialization process. Workplace practices and habits direct students’ learning. This study answers the question: What kind of conceptions of learning practical work do physiotherapy students have? Longitudinal data written by 21 volunteer students (mean age 25 years) was collected over three and a half years. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Learning practical work proceeds in five phases: (1) the basis of practical work, human movement and action and therapeutic tools is learned at school; (2) the meaning of the profession and practical work takes shape in an interaction with clients and observing how professionals work in real workplaces; (3) the wholeness of the practical work takes shape by gradually participating in the work processes; (4) critical reflection of the work processes – thinking, construction, evaluation and reasoning – develops; and (5) the conception of practical work widens. This study brings new information about learning practical work for developing healthcare education and its curricula. The role of workplaces is huge in learning tacit knowledge of the profession.     

Social strategies during university studies predict early career work burnout and engagement: 18-year longitudinal study

This longitudinal study spanning 18 years examined the role of social strategies in early career adaptation. The aim was to find out whether individuals' social strategies measured during their university studies had an impact on work burnout and work engagement measured 10–18 years later. A sample of 292 university students completed the SAQ questionnaire three times while at university and the work burnout inventory three times and the work engagement inventory twice during their early career. According to the results, the higher the initial level of social optimism and the more it increased during university studies, and the lower the initial levels of social withdrawal and social handicapping and the more they decreased, the lower was the level of work burnout and the higher the level of work engagement in the early career. The effects of the level of social strategies were stronger on the professional efficacy subscale of burnout.     

The problem of predestination: as a prelude to A. N. Prior’s tense logic

Arthur Norman Prior??s early theological writings have been relatively neglected for many years. Moreover, to the extent that they have been discussed at all they have been treated mainly as youthful work quite separate from Prior??s later work as a philosopher and logician. However, as interest in Prior??s achievements has been growing significantly in recent years it has become more important to investigate the development with his overall work. In fact, Prior??s putatively ??youthful?? theological work overlapped his work as a philosopher and logician for many years, as is richly documented by examples discussed in this paper. A particularly important theme is the problem of predestination. This paper presents comprehensive evidence that this theme, which was Prior??s most important single preoccupation as a theological writer, was a most important source of inspiration for his development of tense logic. Via questions regarding divine foreknowledge and human free will, predestination was to motivate Prior as a logician to focus on time and tense. Whilst investigating this development, the paper also traces Prior??s parallel development from Calvinist Christian believer to a more agnostic position.     

Returning to Work Following Childbirth: The Relationship Between Intentions and Behavior

College women's intentions to return to work following childbirth were compared to behavior 10 years later. Using an Ajzen-Fishbein model, college intentions were significantly related to how soon a mother returned to work after the birth of her first child. The amount of variance explained was significant for intentions and behavior. College intentions were influenced by perceived consequences, approval of significant referents, and personal control. Return to work was predicted by intention to do so, even though the behavior occurred an average of seven years after the intention was declared. This behavior was more likely to occur among those who had a sense of personal control.     

Linking parents' work pressure and adolescents' well-being: insights into dynamics in dual-earner families

This study focused on the connections between mothers' and fathers' work pressure and the psychological adjustment of their older (M = 15 years) and younger (M = 12.5 years) adolescent offspring in a sample of 190 dual-earner families. Structural equation models revealed that the effects of work pressure on adolescent well-being were mediated by parental role overload and parent-adolescent conflict. Work-family linkages were similar for mothers and fathers with one exception: Fathers' work pressure predicted both parents' feelings of role overload, whereas mothers' work pressure predicted only their own overload, not their spouses'. The patterns of association were consistent for older and younger adolescent siblings.     

Occupational and life stress and the family: conceptual frameworks and research findings

This article has two objectives: (1) to put research on work and family into a context or setting; and (2) to present recent findings from an ongoing research programme we began several years ago into the ways in which work experiences, and more general life experiences, influence individual well-being and family functioning.     

Maintaining work‐related personal ties following retirement

This study examines the consequences of retirement for the continuation of work‐related personal ties. The hypothesis is that their inclusion in personal networks after retirement has become more likely because these relationships have become less role based in today's social‐cultural context. Data are from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam. Members of two cohorts born during the periods 1928–1937 (N = 109) and 1938–1947 (N = 131) were interviewed in 1992 and 2002, respectively, with a follow‐up 3 years later. Among retirees, the likelihood of having work‐related relationships in their personal network after retirement increased by 19% in 10 years. This suggests that retirement has become less disruptive. Retirees seem more inclined to form intrinsically rewarding work‐related relationships that continue to be important following retirement.     

Job apathy and work engagement: Moderating influence of perceived leader integrity and spiritual intelligence in a Nigerian mass transit company

This study explored the direct and interactive roles of job apathy, perceived leader integrity, and spiritual intelligence on work engagement among 206 Nigerian employees of a leading mass transit company (females = 33%; mean age = 35.81years, SD = 5.04; mean organisational tenure = 6.27 years, SD = 2.26). Results following moderated hierarchical multiple regression showed that work engagement was lower with job apathy and higher with perceived leader integrity and employee spiritual intelligence. Moreover, employees with a high perception of leader integrity reported being more work engaged, regardless of feeling apathetic about their job, compared to those with a low perception of leader integrity. Perceived leader integrity and spiritual intelligence are important for work engagement in Nigeria’s transportation sector setting.     

角色领悟与中学教师职业倦怠

近30年来对中学教师职业倦怠的研究,重点在于探讨中学教师职业倦怠的现状,很少聚焦于寻找解决办法。对于“角色领悟”,这种解决教师职业倦怠的可能途径之一的研究更是稀少。本研究重点在于探讨全面、正确的中学教师角色领悟对缓解中学教师职业倦怠的作用。     

Career Adaptation Wheel to Address Issues Faced by Older Workers

Older workers face increasing challenges in the workplace. Many find that they work more years than anticipated because of changes in social security and uncertain retirement accounts, along with the need for adequate healthcare. Counselors face unique opportunities to assist older workers. This article presents a Career Adaptation Wheel for Older Workers. The model can be used to help identify areas in which older adults are having challenges with job selection, colleagues at work, changes in the workplace, and learning new tasks. Counselors can then begin to consider appropriate interventions to help older workers adapt to changes in the work environment. This model offers a conceptual framework within which one's career can be viewed.     

The meaning of work for South African women: A phenomenological study

This study sought to gain an in-depth understanding of the meaning that women attribute to their work in the South African context. The six women informants were 27–32 years old, all with tertiary education, in senior positions, without children. Data on the meaning of work for South African women were collected using semi-structured interviews. Findings indicate that the meaning of work for South African women changes when they experience work autonomy. Working women also report having a sense of identity and self-worth, meeting instrumental needs, achieving social relatedness, and being of service to others. The meaning of work also comes from intrinsic satisfaction, a sense of power and authority.     

Challenging “Early Competence”: a process oriented analysis of children's classifying

In some circumstances, children of 5 produce identical classifications to 10 year olds when asked to sort a collection of objects. This has been interpreted as meaning that the process of constructing classifications is very similar at 5 and 10 years. But this conclusion rests on a comparison of the product of children's sortings, rather than on a study of their activity in producing sortings. The present paper argues that the process of classifying is in fact very different for 5 and 10 year olds: whereas the older children treat the whole classification as a single unit composed of interrelated classes, the younger children proceed as though each class were independent of the others. At around 7 years, there is evidence for a transitional phase, in which children directly work on the relations between classes and so organize their initially “juxtaposed” procedures into more coherent systems. The tendency to work on the relations between elements in the process of classifying is not, however, simply an age-related phenomenon: evidence for a similar effect can be observed in children throughout the age range of 5 to 10 years, during the course of short experimental sessions. Furthermore, the effect is not merely a response to errors or difficulties: the tendency to work on classifying relations can be seen in 5-year-old children in a task in which they are already successful. It seems that children spontaneously discover and use information about their procedures and the relations between them. This process is an end in itself. It occurs whether or not its results yield more successful performance. The approach taken in this paper is not confined to one area of behavior. This analysis of children's classifying fits closely with work in a very different domain, i.e. Karmiloff-Smith's work on children's language and other representational systems. The analysis has implications for computer models of skill acquisition, as well as for psychological theories of development.     

Exploring the bullying behaviours experienced by South African domestic workers

This article phenomenologically explores the nature of bullying behaviours as experienced by domestic workers in South Africa. Participants were a convenience sample of 10 black female domestic workers (age range = 27 to 53 years, work experience = 3 to 26 years). The domestic workers responded to an unstructured interview on their experience of work place bullying. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings suggest that bullying is prevalent in domestic work and is perpetrated by both sexes and all races. Bullying behaviours were categorised into verbal bullying (belittlement, deception and false accusations) and non-verbal bullying (intimidation and excessive control, disregard for basic needs and wellbeing, disregard for employment legislation). Bullying behaviours towards domestic workers are explained by the historical socioeconomic disempowerment of domestic workers and a socio-legal system inaccessible to those with disadvantages.     

Negligent Endangerment:

The increase in clinical social work malpractice over the past several years has not kept pace with the corresponding increase in malpractice claims in other professional fields such as accountancy, law and medicine. However, there has been a trend to litigate perceived wrongdoings in social work clinical practice in such areas as sexual impropriety, incorrect treatment, breach of confidentiality and diagnostic errors. This article updales the recent trends in malpractice litigation and suggests certain risk management techniques clinicians may wish to consider in an effort to keep clinical social work within a "low profile" malpractice configuration.     

Focus on opportunities as a mediator of the relationships between age, job complexity, and work performance

Focus on opportunities is a cognitive-motivational facet of occupational future time perspective that describes how many new goals, options, and possibilities individuals expect to have in their personal work-related futures. This study examined focus on opportunities as a mediator of the relationships between age and work performance and between job complexity and work performance. In addition, it was expected that job complexity buffers the negative relationship between age and focus on opportunities and weakens the negative indirect effect of age on work performance. Results of mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation analyses with data collected from 168 employees in 41 organizations (mean age = 40.22 years, SD = 10.43, range = 19–64 years) as well as 168 peers providing work performance ratings supported the assumptions. The findings suggest that future studies on the role of age for work design and performance should take employees’ focus on opportunities into account.     

Social class and the experience of work-family conflict during the transition to adulthood

The challenges of juggling work and family responsibilities are well known, but there has been little attention to the distinctive work and family experiences of young adults. This chapter explores how class affects young adults' exposure to work-family conflicts and the strategies they use to manage their work and family responsibilities. Using data from a recent cohort of young adults, we find class and gender variations in work and family roles and work-family conflict. Early family formation, coupled with poor working conditions, lead those with lower educational attainments to experience more years of family-to-work interference. In contrast, young adults with more education have more work-to-family interference, and this is especially true for college-educated women.     

A longitudinal study in a national sample of young farmers in the United States

This study is based on Project TALENT data collected in the last year of high school and five years beyond high school. Young men were classified as persisters in, dropouts from, and recruits to farming as a career. Those groups were compared with each other and with students in general. The most outstanding characteristic of young farmers in the United States is their relatively extensive background in agriculture, including father's occupation, high school curriculum, extracurricular activities in high school, work experience, and college major. Five years after high school, young fanners are more likely than students in general to have embarked on their life work and to have established their family. Differences in college attendance are consistent with this pattern. Despite incomes that are often relatively low, young farmers are not more dissatisfied with their work. The characteristics tapped by psychological tests appear to have few strong relationships to choice, satisfaction, and success in farming as a career.     

特殊教育教师工作家庭冲突、情绪智力与工作投入的关系

在积极心理学视野下探讨特殊教育教师情绪智力对工作家庭冲突与工作投入之间关系的调节作用。采用工作家庭冲突量表、情绪智力量表和工作投入量表,通过整群取样选取河南省7所特殊教育学校共256名教师进行调查。结果表明：（1）特殊教育教师工作家庭冲突和工作投入在性别、有无孩子及年龄方面差异显著。就工作家庭冲突水平而言,女教师显著高于男教师,有孩子的教师显著高于没孩子的教师,30-40岁的教师冲突水平最高,30岁及以下教师次之,41岁及以上教师最低;在工作投入水平上,女教师显著低于男教师,有孩子的教师显著低于没孩子的教师,41岁及以上教师投入水平最高,30岁及以下教师次之,31-40岁教师最低。（2）特殊教育教师工作家庭冲突与情绪智力、工作投入均呈负相关;情绪智力与工作投入呈正相关。（3）特殊教育教师情绪智力对工作家庭冲突与工作投入之间的关系有显著的调节作用。