Age Differences in Coping Resources and Satisfaction With Life Among Middle-Aged,Young-Old,and Oldest-Old Adults

The authors examined age differences in perceived coping resources and satisfaction with life across 3 older-adult age groups (45-64, 65-74, and 75 years and older). The 98 participants represented healthy, socially active, community-residing adults. Group comparisons were made on 12 individual coping scales, and an overall coping resource effectiveness score was computed. No significant differences were found for 11 of the coping resources or for overall coping resource effectiveness. Similar consistencies in life satisfaction were found across the 3 age groups. The findings indicate that (a) for healthy adults, the oldest old cope at least as effectively as their younger counterparts, despite their likelihood of encountering increased levels of stress; and (b) psychologically, old age may be viewed as a time of resilience and fortitude.     

Forgiveness in Younger,Middle-Aged and Older Adults: Age and Gender Matters

The present study investigated age and gender differences in forgiveness of real-life transgressions. Emerging and young, middle-aged, and older adults recalled the most recent and serious interpersonal transgression and then completed the Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory (TRIM-18), which measured their avoidance, revenge, and benevolence motivation toward an offender and indicated to what extent they are generally concerned with the subject of forgiveness. The results revealed a trend among middle-aged adults to express more avoidance than younger adults. Moreover, young men had a greater motivation to seek revenge than middle-aged and older men. No such age differences were apparent for women. Additionally, forgiveness was a more manifest subject in everyday life for middle-aged adults and women. These findings emphasize the importance of age and gender when investigating forgiveness.     

Clarifying Construct Validity: Definitions,Processes, and Models

Despite definitions in standard sources, personnel managers, psychologists, and psychometricians persistently encounter problems that are best referred to as the ambiguous nature of validity. The purpose of this article is to pro- vide an overview of construct validity and personnel testing, to demonstrate its practical utility, and to clarify with concrete examples certain theories and models, as well as to illustrate the meaning of the terminology used by com- mentators on the topic. A brief historical overview of testing and validation is presented; the progress of construct validity and its acceptance by various sec- tors of society is discussed parsimoniously in the section The Seven Wonders of Personnel Psychology. In the past, personnel psychologists have not done a very good job of understanding the constructs that underlie test perform- ance. Some new approaches can help to correct this. A process should be rou- tinely used on all tests in order to develop an understanding of the constructs that underlie performance on an employment test; only by knowing the cor- rect criterion and method of measuring it can we ascertain the intrinsic valid- ity of our measures.     

The Romanian Translation of the Francis Scale of Attitude Toward Christianity: Internal Consistency Reliability,Re-test Reliability and Construct Validity Among Undergraduate Students Within a Greek Orthodox Culture

In order to contribute to a growing international research programme concerned with the correlates, antecedents and consequences of individual differences in attitude toward religion, the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity was translated into Romanian and applied within a cultural context shaped by the Greek Orthodox tradition. Data provided by a sample of 158 students (mainly in their late teens and early twenties) supported the internal consistency reliability, re-test reliability and construct validity of this instrument and commended it for further use in studies conducted in Romania. Portions of this research were conducted while the second author was at the “A.D. Xenopol” Public Library, Arad, Romania. Partial financial support was provided to the second author by the Arad County Council through the Arad County Cultural Centre. We thank Mihaela Blaga, and Carmen Ispas for their assistance in data collection and translation.     

Values,Beliefs, and Proenvironmental Action: Attitude Formation Toward Emergent Attitude Objects1

Discoveries in environmental science become the raw material for constructing social attitude objects, individual attitudes, and broad public concerns. We explored a model in which individuals construct attitudes to new or emergent attitude objects by referencing personal values and beliefs about the consequences of the objects for their values. We found that a subset of the major clusters identified in value theory is associated with willingness to take proenvironmental action; that a biospheric value orientation cannot yet be discerned in a general population sample; that willingness to take proenvironmental action is a function of both values and beliefs, with values also predicting beliefs; and that gender differences can be attributed to both beliefs and values. Our model has promise for explicating the factors determining public concern with environmental conditions.     

Social Status: Construct and External Validity

Abstract

The present study examined the construct and external validity of social status based on data covering various aspects of the construct, and collected from adolescent samples in Sweden, Australia, and the United States. Using correlation and factor analytic techniques it was found that (a) the various social status variables were, in general, only moderately related within the different countries, (b) the relations among variables were not congruent between countries, (c) two social status factors were revealed in all countries, separating educational-occupational status from social-economic status, and (d) only the educational-occupational factor showed high congruence between all of the countries.     

Changing Attitudes Toward Older Adults Through a Simulated Aging Exercise: Implications for Family Therapy

Past research suggests that many young people hold negative attitudes toward the elderly. Simulated aging is one method to reduce aging that had been successfully applied with those individuals working in the helping professions. However, it has not yet been applied to ordinary young adults. The current study examined whether a simulated aging activity would cause more positive attitudes toward the aged, an increased desire to help, and higher satisfaction with life. Seventy-eight college students participated; half were randomly assigned to complete three tasks with sensory deficits designed to simulate aging (i.e., wearing non-magnified glasses covered with petroleum jelly, wearing foam earplugs, and wearing cloth gloves), and half served as the control. Three questionnaires were completed that measured attitudes toward older adults, prosocial desires, and satisfaction with life. Results showed that young adults who experienced simulated aging had more favorable attitudes toward older adults than did individuals in the control condition. These results suggest that simulated aging activities may be an effective method to reduce ageism. This has potential implications for multigenerational family therapy, such as to assist younger people to understand what their grandparents may be experiencing.     

Reliability and Validity of a French Translation of a Short Scale of Attitude Toward Christianity

The reliability and validity of a French translation of the 7-item short form of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity was examined among a sample of 462 female French university students. Analysis supports the reliability and validity of the scale and commends it for further use among French speaking samples.     

Victim Blaming in Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Adults: Variations on the Severity Effect

It has been long known that people blame victims for the bad things that happen to them, and that people blame victims more when the victims experience severe difficulties than when they experience minor difficulties, even if the victims were not particularly irresponsible. Little previous research has examined victim blaming in middle-age and older adults. One hundred and forty-five adults in 3 age groups (18–34, 35–59, and 60–84) read 4 scenarios (2 accidents, 1 crime, and 1 fire) imbedded in other scenarios. The scenarios were varied so that the victim is either very irresponsible or not very irresponsible, and the outcome is mild or severe. The oldest group of participants blamed the victims more than the other groups. However, in contrast to the typical severity effect, the oldest group blamed the very irresponsible victim more when the outcome was mild than they did when the outcome was severe.     

Situational Tests in Student Selection: An Examination of Predictive Validity,Adverse Impact,and Construct Validity

The Flemish Admission Exam ‘Medical and Dental Studies’ is comprised of four cognitive ability tests and four situational tests, namely two work samples (i.e., a lecture and a medical text) and two video‐based situational judgement tests (i.e., a physician–patient interaction and a medical expert discussion). On the basis of the Admission Exam scores of 941 candidates (359 men, 582 women) this study shows that situational tests significantly can predict better than cognitive ability tests, with lecture and text emerging as significant predictors. When situational tests are combined with cognitive ability tests, there are no mean gender differences. Situational tests also enable us to measure a broader range of constructs. For example, in this study, the personality factor Openness is related to better situational test performance. Overall, this study demonstrates that situational tests may be a useful complement to traditional student selection procedures.     

Construct Validity of ADHD-IN,ADHD-HI,ODD toward Adults,Academic and Social Competence Dimensions with Teacher Ratings of Thai Adolescents: Additional Validity for the Child and Adolescent Disruptive Behavior Inventory

Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the construct validity of an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder-inattention, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder-hyperactivity/impulsivity, oppositional defiant disorder toward adults, academic and social competence factor model with teacher ratings of Thai adolescents (n = 872) with the Child and Adolescent Disruptive Behavior Inventory. The five-factor model resulted in an adequate fit in an absolute sense (i.e., CFI = .960; TLI = .985; RMSEA = .065; and WRMR = .883). All the items had significant and substantial loadings on their respective factors (i.e., > .78) with the five-factors showing discriminant validity. The five-factor model also resulted in similar results for boys and girls separately as well as younger and older adolescents. The current findings with the teacher version of the measure in conjunction with earlier research with mothers’ and fathers’ ratings of Brazilian, Thai, and American children (Burns et al., Psychological Assessment, 20, 121-130, 2008) and Thai adolescents (Burns et al., Psychological Assessment, 21, 635-641, 2009) provide increasing support for the construct validity of Child and Adolescent Disruptive Behavior Inventory within multiple cultures. Procedures are also outlined to improve the content validity as well as test the construct validity of forthcoming parent and teacher DSM-V ADHD/ODD rating scales.     

The Maslach Burnout Inventory: Validating Factorial Structure and Invariance Across Intermediate,Secondary, and University Educators

The purposes of the study were: (a) to test for the factorial validity of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), for 543 teachers at the intermediate (n = 163), secondary (n = 162), and university (n = 218) levels, and (b) to test for the equivalence of factorial measurements and structure across groups. Initial confirmatory factor analysis of the hypothesized 3-factor structure yielded a malfitting model for each group of educators. With a view to improving the MBI for use with educators, subsequent exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses resulted in the deletion of four scale items. Tests for invariance revealed the equivalency of remaining items across intermediate and secondary teachers, and items measuring Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization across all three groups; the structure of burnout was only partially invariant across educators. The study has important implications for substantive studies focusing on multigroup comparisons across teaching panels.     

The Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism: Internal Consistency Reliability and Construct Validity among Female Undergraduate Students in Israel

The Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism was developed to extend to the Jewish community a growing body of international research concerned to map the correlates, antecedents, and consequences of individual differences in attitude toward religion as assessed by the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity. The internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism were supported by data provided by 284 Hebrew-speaking female undergraduate students attending Bar-Ilan University. This instrument is commended for application in further research.     

Construct Validity of the Acquired Capability for Suicide Scale: Factor Structure,Convergent and Discriminant Validity

The Acquired Capability for Suicide Scale (ACSS) assesses one of three main constructs in the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide but evidence of its validity is limited. In two studies (Ns = 287 and 738) validity of the full 20-item ACSS and its shorter versions (ACSS-5, ACSS-8, ACSS-FAD) were examined in terms of factor structure and relation to indices of self-reported suicidal behaviour and self-harm. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) failed to show good fit for one-, two-, or three-factor models of the ACSS in its various versions. Exploratory factor analysis of the 20-item scale in the first study pointed instead to a five-factor structure and this was supported using CFA in the second study. In both studies all scale versions showed moderate negative correlations to fear of death and dying, indicating scale validity for the purpose of assessing fearlessness about death. In the second study, a model in which the five factors were indicators of a latent variable of Capability was found to predict a latent variable of Suicidality as indicated by suicidal behaviours, but the prediction was substantially enhanced by the addition of Item 20 to the model. This single item was also found in the first study to better predict suicidal and self-harming behaviour than the full ACSS or any of its short versions.     

Cognitive and Psychosocial Consequences of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Among Middle-Aged, Older, and Oldest-Old Adults in the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study (LHAS)

This study examined the impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on cognitive and psychosocial functioning among middle-aged (45-64 years), older (65-89 years) and oldest-old adults (90 years and over) in the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study (LHAS). Analyses of pre- and post-disaster cognitive data showed storm-related decrements in working memory for the middle-aged and older adults, but not for the oldest-old adults. Regression analyses confirmed that measures of social engagement and storm-related disruption significantly predicted pre- to post-disaster differences in short-term and working memory performance for the middle-aged and older adults only. These results are consistent with a burden perspective on post-disaster psychological reactions. Implications for current views of disaster reactions are discussed.     

The Interaction Anxiousness Scale: Construct and Criterion-Related Validity

This article presents data regarding the validity and reliability of the Interaction Anxiousness Scale (LAS; Leary 1983c), a self-report measure of dispositional social anxiety. The IAS demonstrates high test-retest and internal reliability. Correlations with measures relevant to social and general anxiety document its convergent and discriminant validity, and it correlates well with measures of anxiety and interpersonal concern in actual interactions.     

The Chinese Translation of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity: Factor Structure, Internal Consistency Reliability, and Construct Validity among Protestant Christians in Shanghai

A sample of 131 Chinese Christians attending a Protestant church in Shanghai completed the Chinese translation of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity developed originally by Francis et al. (North American Journal of Psychology 4, 431–440, 2002) in Hong Kong. The data support the factor structure, internal the internal consistency reliability, and construct validity of this instrument and commend it for further use in studies conducted among Christians in China.