The Predictive Power of Horney’s Psychoanalytic Approach: An Empirical Study

This study investigated the construct validity of a measure of Karen Horneys (1945) psychoanalytic theory that postulated three neurotic trends: compliant, aggressive, and detached. Her theory was operationalized by the Horney-Coolidge Type Indicator (HCTI). One hundred seventy-two adults completed the HCTI and the short form of the Coolidge Axis II Inventory, a measure of the three DSM-IV personality disorder clusters. Multiple regression and canonical correlation analyses revealed significant and differential patterns of the three HCTI dimensions with the three clusters. Because Paris (1994) has noted that Horneys neurotic trends may today be conceived of as personality disorders, one implication of the present findings is that Horneys dynamic theory can be valid and useful in the general understanding of personality disorders from a cluster perspective.     

Married Women’s Situational Use of Last Names: An Empirical Study

Situational last name use was examined in a sample of 600 married women who responded to a mail survey. The sample was selected from the faculty and staff of a state university in the Midwest with over-sampling of women whose last name differed from their husband’s last name. Overall, 12% of married women reported situational last name use. Women from all last name choices (e.g., changed to husband’s, kept birth surname) reported situational surname use, but the most common occurrence of this practice was among hyphenators. Situational users were most likely to use their husband’s last name in family situations and their birth surname in professional situations. Factors that increase situational last name use included full-time employment, higher levels of educational attainment, and an older age at marriage. Situational last name use by married women can be seen as a manifestation of ambiguity over identity with family and non-family roles.     

Parental Rearing Behaviors and Adolescent’s Social Trust: Roles of Adolescent Self-esteem and Class Justice Climate

Research on the antecedents and underlying mechanisms of the formation of adolescent social trust is scant. Family and school are two major environments in which adolescents become socialized. The current study examined the effect of parental rearing behaviors (rejection, emotional warmth and overprotection) on adolescent social trust, exploring the mediating role of adolescent self-esteem and the multilevel moderated role of the Level 2 variable class justice climate. The sample included 612 (12–16 years old) middle school students in China. Participants completed the s-EMBU, the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, Rosenberg’s Faith in People Scale and the perceptions of class justice scale, along with other control variables. The results suggested that parental rearing behaviors significantly predicted adolescent social trust, regardless of adolescent gender or age. Additional mediation analysis suggested that parental rearing behaviors had both direct effects on adolescent social trust and indirect effects through adolescent self-esteem. Further multilevel structural equation modeling indicated that class justice climate moderated the effect of parental rejection on adolescent self-esteem. The findings suggest that family and school practice jointly shape adolescents’ social trust. How parents treat their children has a huge influence on the degree to which their children trust other people. In addition, perceived class justice could buffer the harmfulness of negative parental rearing behaviors.     

Women’s Precollege Sports Participation, Enjoyment of Sports, and Self-esteem

This study tested a model that specifies that the psychosocial impact of women’s precollege sports participation depends on the quality of their sports experience, that is, on participants’ enjoyment of sports and the benefits derived from athletic pursuits. A sample of 245 college women (mean age?=?19.9 years) provided retrospective reports of their precollege sports involvement as well as assessments of their enjoyment of sports, perceived physical competence, body image, gender role orientation, and self-esteem. Consistent with past research, women students’ precollege sport participation was a modest predictor of their self-esteem in bivariate analyses. Follow-up analyses revealed that enjoyment of sports mediated the sports participation/self-esteem relationship and implied that female participants who find sports less enjoyable may be at risk of experiencing declining self-esteem. However, enjoyment of sports explained little unique variance in global self-esteem after we controlled for the influence of other sports-related benefits (e.g., improved physical competence). Implications for those who hope to help more girls reap psychosocial benefits from sporting activities are discussed.     

Effects of Parental Acceptance-Rejection on Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors: A Longitudinal,Multicultural Study

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Grounded in Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Theory, this study assessed children’s (N?=?1315) perceptions of maternal and paternal...     

Iranian Psychotherapists’ Behaviors and Beliefs Toward Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

The aim of this study is to investigate Iranian psychotherapists’ behaviors and beliefs toward sexual orientation and gender identity. The sample consisted of 358 Iranian psychotherapists, of whom 29.3% (n = 105) were male and 67% (n = 24) were female. Results from the chi-square analyses showed that more male participants reported accepting homosexual clients and treating them as having a pathological disorder than their female counterparts; and licensed respondents reported engaging more in accepting only male or female clients, accepting more homosexual and transgender clients for treatment, and treating them as having a pathological disorder when compared with their unlicensed counterparts. Furthermore supervised respondents reported accepting more homosexual clients than their unsupervised counterparts. However results from the multivariate analysis of variance has indicated that the female participants reported “accepting homosexuals or transgender clients for treatment” more often than the male participants; unsupervised participants reported “accepting homosexual or transgender clients for treatment” and “treating homosexuality per se as a pathological disorder” more often than their supervised counterparts.     

Assimilation in American Life: An Empirical Assessment of Milton Gordon’s Multi-dimensional Theory

This study empirically assesses Milton Gordon's theory of interrelated stages of assimilation. I focus on one small but salient religious minority—American Jews—to show how structural assimilation is associated with other dimensions of assimilation: marital, identification, and behavior reception. Findings from multivariate analyses suggest that structural assimilation encourages Jews to marry non-Jews. Such a marriage composition has become a major determinant of identificational assimilation, with non-Jewish social relationships having important if somewhat weaker association with group identification. Social and economic attainments are moderate factors of identificational behavior that may sometimes strengthen, rather than weaken, religio-ethnic identification. The various components of structural assimilation are not significant for reception assimilation. The findings are discussed in relation to the functionalism concept, in connection with the more recent literature on immigration and assimilation and in view of the changing social context of America in the second half of the twentieth century from the dominance of the melting pot ethos to cultural pluralism.     

Is It Lonely at the Top? An Empirical Study of Managers’ and Nonmanagers’ Loneliness in Organizations

Loneliness is often assumed to be an occupational hazard for senior-ranked members of an organization. However, most of what researchers hear about being "lonely at the top" is anecdote. This article provides empirical evidence from three separate studies assessing loneliness in managers and nonmanagers. Across all three studies, loneliness did not differ by managerial status. Managers were no more or less lonely than their nonmanager counterparts. This suggests that factors beyond seniority may be contributing to loneliness in organizational settings. Ideas for future research are discussed.     

When Clients No-Show: An Empirical Analogue Study of Psychologists’ Response Strategies

Empirical studies of psychotherapists’ responses to clients who no-show, i.e., fail to attend appointments without notification or follow-up, are notably absent from the literature. The current study surveyed licensed psychologists to assess their responses to outpatient no-show situations. Participants responded to one of two vignettes depicting a client diagnosed with either major depression with a history of suicidality or generalized anxiety disorder. Results indicated that across conditions, the majority of psychotherapists would attempt to contact the client who no-showed; would make their first attempt within a few days of the no-show; would make repeat attempts if necessary; and would rely primarily on phone calls to the client’s cell and home numbers as methods of contact. Compared to those who responded to the vignette featuring the anxious client, participants who responded to the vignette featuring the depressed client reported a significantly shorter wait between the no-show and the contact attempt and a significantly greater number of contact attempts. Implications and clinical relevance are discussed.     

An Empirical Study of Future Professionals’ Intentions to Engage in Unethical Business Practices

This paper sought to test whether student demographics (gender, age, religion, type of degree and number of courses done containing ethics) influenced the likelihood of engaging in unethical business practices. The study involved the use of a questionnaire being administered to a sample of 231 undergraduate students in Barbados. It was found that gender, religiousness, type of degree and number of courses taken containing ethics significantly impacted on the intentions to engage in unethical behaviour. It was also found that the impact of age was not conclusive. The study has several limitations including low generalisability due to the use of a non-probability sampling method, and the possibility of social desirability bias. The study informs educators about the need to integrate ethics into the curriculum as an essential component of professional training for future managers and business people. This study makes an important contribution to the ethics literature on small island developing states, since the study was done in the country of Barbados.     

Play Profile Constructions: An Empirical Assessment of Children’s Play in Psychodynamic Play Therapy

Play assessment can be used therapeutically to determine whether and how play would be an appropriate intervention mode for children with clinical diagnoses, and to track their therapeutic progress. However, detailed and standardized play protocols that can catalogue children’s play behaviors in psychodynamic therapy are not widely available. The aim of this study was to empirically construct profiles of play using items selected from the Children’s Play Therapy Instrument (CPTI), reflecting the complex play patterns of children with mental health difficulties. These constructed play profiles integrate quantitative items associated with cognitive, affective, social qualities of play, as well as children’s coping strategies. The initial session of 62 children in psychodynamic play therapy was recorded, transcribed and coded using the CPTI, and children’s play profiles were computed. The reliability of the play profiles, and their preliminary associations with children’s symptomatic and behavioral functioning were tested. Results showed that the play profiles showed good inter-rater reliability, internal consistency and their associations were in expected directions with the majority of the criterion measures. Given the limitations of the current empirical play measures in clinical settings, the preliminary validation provided in this study of the play profiles add a significant contribution to existing literature.     

Correction to: Effects of Parental Acceptance-Rejection on Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors: A Longitudinal,Multicultural Study

Journal of Child and Family Studies -     

An Empirical Examination of Women’s Empowerment and Transformative Change in the Context of International Development

This paper responds to calls from social scientists in the area of globalization and women’s empowerment to test a model that investigates both structural and individual components of women’s empowerment in the context of globalization. The investigation uses a liberation psychology framework by taking into account the effects of globalization, human rights discourse, and women’s activism within social movements to identify how structural inequities may be related to empowerment. Surveys conducted in rural Nicaragua revealed that land ownership and organizational participation among women were related to more progressive gender ideology, and in turn, women’s power and control within the marital relationship, individual levels of agency, and subjective well-being. The study demonstrates that psychology can bridge the theoretical arguments surrounding human rights with the practical implementation of development interventions, and provide empirical support that has yet to be demonstrated elsewhere. The findings have important implications for strategies and interventions that can improve conditions for women and contribute to the aims of social justice articulated in the Beijing Platform for Action.     

Intrusive Psychological Control and Children’s Behaviors in Chinese Multigenerational Families: Role of Children’s Temperamental Reactivity

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The coparenting between grandparents and parents is increasingly prevalent in Chinese society. Based on the family system theory and the differential...     

Unpacking Links between Fathers’ Antisocial Behaviors and Children’s Behavior Problems: Direct,Indirect, and Interactive Effects

Building upon previous evidence for the intergenerational transmission of antisocial behaviors, this research assessed and compared three models seeking to explain links between fathers’ antisocial behaviors and children’s behavior problems. A representative sample of children from low-income families (N?=?261) was followed from age 3 through age 9. Lagged OLS regression models assessed both short-term (1½?years) and longer-term (5½?years) prospective links between fathers’ antisocial behaviors and children’s behavior problems. Results supported a direct effects model: fathers’ antisocial behaviors predicted growth in children’s externalizing and internalizing behavior problems, with links stronger among resident-father families. Limited evidence of indirect effects emerged, with links between fathers’ antisocial behaviors and children’s behavior problems only slightly attenuated controlling for related risk factors and for parenting quality, showing limited evidence of mediation. A new interactive model was proposed and supported, with high levels of harsh discipline exacerbating negative links between fathers’ antisocial behaviors and children’s internalizing problems. Results suggest caution in policies and programs which seek to universally increase marriage or father involvement without attention to fathers’ behaviors.     

Sexuality and corrections: An administrator’s perspective

Any consideration of human sexuality inevitably refers to fundamental and powerful physical, psychological, behavioral, attitudinal, and social forces that permeate many important aspects of human life and culture. As with many issues impacting society in general, these become magnified within the correctional environment.     

Like Father,like Child: Early Life Family Adversity and Children’s Bullying Behaviors in Elementary School

Family adversity has been associated with children’s bullying behaviors. The evidence is, however, dominated by mothers’ perceptions of the family environment and a focus on mothers’ behaviors. This prospective population-based study examined whether children’s bullying behaviors were associated with mother- and father-reported family adversity, assessed before and after child birth. Peer-nominations were used to assess bullying behaviors of 1298 children in elementary school (mean age 7.5 years). The following paternal risk factors were prospectively associated with children’s bullying behaviors: (1) father-reported prenatal family distress, (2) fathers’ hostility at preschool age, and (3) fathers’ harsh disciplinary practices at preschool age, but effect sizes were relatively small. The effect of maternal risk factors was less consistent, only mother-reported family distress in childhood was associated with children’s bullying behaviors. The associations were independent of background family risk factors (i.e., life stress, contextual factors, and other background factors such as parental education and risk taking record) and early childhood externalizing problems. Moreover, our results indicated that father-reported family adversity predicted children’s bullying behaviors over and above the background family risk factors, early childhood externalizing problems and mother-reported family adversity. We also demonstrated that the association of fathers’ prenatal hostility and family distress with subsequent bullying behavior of their child at school was partly mediated by fathers’ harsh disciplinary practices at preschool age. Our findings highlight the importance of fathers’ behaviors in the development of children’s bullying behaviors.