CODEPENDENCY, LOSS OF SELF, AND POWER

The feminist critique that codependency and loss of self are related to power was tested in a sample of 122 college women and men in committed relationships. Participants completed two codependency measures, a loss of self scale, and three indices of power: perceived power, use of specific influence strategies, and decision making. Among both women and men, codependency and loss of self were positively related to the use of indirect strategies and negatively related to perceived power, and loss of self was negatively related to use of the direct strategies. Among women alone, codependency was also negatively related to use of direct strategies and loss of self negatively related to decision making. These correlational data provide support for a feminist critique of codependency as related to power; however, gender similarities suggest that the relations between power, loss of self, and codependency hold for college men as well as college women.     

Influence of self‐esteem,locus of control,and organizational climate on psychological empowerment in a sample of Chinese teachers

This study examined the effects of locus of control, self‐esteem, and organizational climate on psychological empowerment in a sample of Chinese teachers. Participants were 1,272 Chinese teachers (460 men and 821 women) residing in six provinces in China. Results indicated that self‐esteem was a positive predictor of psychological empowerment. Several dimensions of organizational climate, namely professional communication, decision‐making, appraisal and recognition, supportive leadership, and professional growth, were also positive predictors of teachers’ psychological empowerment. Locus of control, although related to psychological empowerment, had no predictive effects when other factors related to empowerment were considered.     

Spirituality Among College Freshmen: Relationships to Self‐Esteem,Body Image,and Stress

The authors investigated the relationships between spirituality, body image, self‐esteem, and stress in 204 college freshmen who identified themselves as being highly spiritual. A positive relationship was found between spirituality and self‐esteem. Although self‐esteem was found to be negatively related to stress, spirituality served as a buffer in this relationship. When gender of participants was examined, men and women did not differ in spirituality. Greater spirituality was related to lower body surveillance, an aspect of body image, for men, but it was not related to body image for women. Overall, however, women experienced greater body image dissatisfaction than did men.     

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Objective: An enhanced stress and coping model was used to explain depression among HIV‐positive women in healthcare and community settings where highly active anti‐retroviral treatment (HAART) was commonplace. Method: HIV‐infected women in four cities (N=978) were assessed, cross‐sectionally, for mental and physical health, stress, social support, and other background factors. Results: Self‐reported level of depressive symptomatology was high. Number of physical symptoms, illness intrusiveness, and perceived stress were positively associated with depressed mood, while coping self‐efficacy and social support were negatively associated. Stress mediated the effect of health status on depression and coping self‐efficacy mediated the effect of psychosocial resources on depression. Our enhanced stress and coping model accounted for 52% of variance in depressive symtpomatology. Conclusions: Interventions focused on improving coping self‐efficacy, bolstering social supports, and decreasing stress in the lives of HIV‐positive women may help to reduce the negative effects of HIV disease on mood.     

Social connectedness, discrimination, and social status as mediators of acculturation/enculturation and well-being

The present study proposed and tested a conceptual model of acculturation/enculturation and subjective well-being (SWB) by including social connectedness in mainstream society, social connectedness in the ethnic community, perceived discrimination, and expected social status as mediators. Survey data from 273 Asian American college students in the midwest were analyzed by using structural equation modeling. Results indicated that the effect of acculturation on SWB was mediated by social connectedness in mainstream and ethnic communities and expected social status, whereas the effect of enculturation on SWB was mediated by social connectedness in the ethnic community and expected social status. Contrary to the authors' hypothesis, perceived discrimination did not mediate the relation of acculturation and SWB, but indirectly influenced SWB via a lowered sense of connectedness to mainstream society. Approximately 46% of the variance in SWB was accounted for by the variables included in this model. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.     

认知评价、心理控制感、社会支持与高考压力关系的研究

采用问卷法,随机选取河北省三类中学(重点、普通、私立)324名高三考生为被试,考察了学生对高考的认知评价、心理控制感、社会支持与高考压力的关系.结果表明:(1)重点中学、普通中学学生心理控制感显著高于私立中学学生,女生在社会支持的寻求上显著高于男生;(2)积极认知评价、心理控制感和社会支持与高考压力有显著负相关,而消极认知评价与高考压力有显著的正相关;(3)消极认知评价、心理控制感和社会支持对高考压力有直接影响;而积极认知评价通过心理控制感和社会支持间接影响高考压力.     

Individual differences in responses to workplace stress: the contribution of attachment theory

Work stress is a major cause of physical and psychological distress, and both theory and research highlight the importance of individual differences in coping efforts. The present research clarifies the mechanisms linking attachment insecurities (anxiety and avoidance) to maladaptive coping; specifically, we tested an integrative model assessing stress appraisals as a mediator between attachment insecurities and coping strategies, together with mediating and moderating effects of coping resources (perceived self‐efficacy and social support). A community sample of 113 men and 115 women completed an online survey which incorporated a standardized vignette depicting workplace stress. The results supported stress appraisal as a mediator between attachment anxiety and less adaptive coping, and established both mediating and moderating effects of perceived coping resources. The effects support the relevance of attachment theory to the study of workplace stress.     

Subjective Social Standing and Conflict Tactics Among Young Kenyan Men

Efforts to reduce intimate partner violence in sub‐Saharan Africa generally approach the issue through the lens of women's empowerment. These efforts include foci on women's relative power in the relationship, educational background, and earning potential. The social status of men has largely been ignored, reducing the potential to involve them in efforts to demote intimate partner violence. In this study we consider whether a man's perceived social status predicts conflict tactics, and whether these tactics are mediated by loneliness and collective self‐esteem from a community‐based sample in semi‐rural Kenya (n = 263). We find that men who reported lower perceived social status also reported significantly more frequent violent conflicts with their intimate partners. This association was significantly, and completely, mediated by lower collective self‐esteem and higher loneliness. There was no direct association between subjective social status and negotiation‐based conflict tactics, although there was an indirect association. Men with higher perceived social status reported higher collective self‐esteem, and men with higher collective self‐esteem reported more negotiation‐based conflict tactics. These findings inform efforts to reduce intimate partner violence by involving men, showing potential to reduce violence by building self‐esteem among men—particularly those with lower perceived social status.     

Understanding Social Connectedness in College Women and Men

A sense of connectedness for men was hypothesized to be based on relationships that emphasize forms of social comparison, whereas a sense of connectedness for women was hypothesized to be based on relationships that emphasize forms of intimacy and physical proximity. The results from this study generally supported the hypotheses for both women and men. For women, relationships that emphasized reliable alliance and not guidance contributed to social connectedness. For men, relationships that emphasized reassurance of worth but not reliable alliance or opportunity for nurturance contributed to social connectedness. Differences in how women and men construct social connectedness are discussed in terms of counseling implications and future research.     

Effects of social anxiety and depressive symptoms on the frequency and quality of sexual activity: a daily process approach

Diminished positive experiences and events might be part of the phenomenology of social anxiety; however, much of this research is cross-sectional by design, limiting our understanding of the everyday lives of socially anxious people. Sexuality is a primary source of positive experiences. We theorized that people with elevated social anxiety would have relatively less satisfying sexual experiences compared to those who were not anxious. For 21 days, 150 college students described their daily sexual episodes. Social anxiety was negatively related to the pleasure and feelings of connectedness experienced when sexually intimate. The relationship between social anxiety and the amount of sexual contact differed between men and women—it was negative for women and negligible for men. Being in a close, intimate relationship enhanced the feelings of connectedness during sexual episodes for only individuals low in social anxiety. Depressive symptoms were negatively related to the amount of sexual contact, and the pleasure and feelings of connectedness experienced when sexually intimate. Controlling for depressive symptoms did not meaningfully change the social anxiety effects on daily sexuality. Our findings suggest that fulfilling sexual activity is often compromised by social anxiety.     

The health of employed women and men: work,family, and community correlates

Research into clarifying the relationship between social roles and health has increasingly focused on studying the particular circumstances in which occupying multiple roles may enhance or diminish well‐being. This study examined the association between a general measure of well‐being—self‐rated health—and the perceived quality of work, family and community in a sample of employed urban‐dwelling Canadians in a mid‐size city, and whether the nature of the association differed for men and women. Few gender differences were found in the perceived quality of work, family and community. However, men and women differed significantly in the specific type of quality measures associated with general health. For women, satisfaction with one's partner/spouse and in the money available to meet basic family needs had a stronger association with self‐rated health. For men, the significant correlates were satisfaction with family relationships (other than one's partner) and the community physical environment. For both women and men, a more socially cohesive community was associated with better self‐rated health. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Between Avoidance and Problem Solving: Resilience,Self‐Efficacy,and Social Support Seeking

The authors explored resilience, self‐efficacy, and social support seeking as (a) mediators between stress and problem solving and (b) moderators buffering the effect of stress on avoidance. Participants were 220 college students. Structural equation modeling showed that resilience and self‐efficacy positively influenced problem solving but could not buffer stress's effect on avoidance. Social support seeking played a more important role than resilience and self‐efficacy in reducing avoidance when individuals intentionally used social support seeking as a source for problem solving instead of avoidance.     

Positive Events and Social Supports as Buffers of Life Change Stress1

A perceived availability of social support measure (the ISEL) was designed with independent subscales measuring four separate support functions. In a sample of college students, both perceived availability of social support and number of positive events moderated the relationship between negative life stress and depressive and physical symptomatology. In the case of depressive symptoms, the data fit a “buffering” hypothesis pattern, i.e., they suggest that both social support and positive events protect one from the pathogenic effects of high levels of life stress but are relatively unimportant for those with low levels of stress. In the case of physical symptoms, the data only partially support the buffering hypothesis. Particularly, the data suggest that both social support and positive events protect one from the pathogenic effects of high levels of stress but harm those (i.e., are associated with increased symptomatology) with low levels of stress. Further analyses suggest that self-esteem and appraisal support were primarily responsible for the reported interactions between negative life stress and social support. In contrast, frequency of past social support was not an effective life stress buffer in either the case of depressive or physical symptomatology. Moreover, past support frequency was positively related to physical symptoms and unrelated to depressive symptoms, while perceived availability of support was negatively related to depressive symptoms and unrelated to physical symptoms.     

The Effects of Social Support on Self‐Esteem,Self‐Efficacy,and Job Search Efficacy in the Unemployed

This study attempted to determine the effects of family and social support on the self‐esteem, self‐efficacy, and job search self‐efficacy of the unemployed. A total of 117 surveys were collected in Nevada, Idaho, and Oregon measuring self‐esteem, general self‐efficacy, and job search self‐efficacy and social support. Pearson correlation coefficients demonstrated moderately strong positive relationships between social support and self‐esteem, general self‐efficacy, and job search self‐efficacy. Social and family support had a stronger influence on the self‐perceptions of men than women.     

Social support at university scale, a brief index

A brief, 3-item index of social support among college students, the Social Support at University Scale, is introduced. Its psychometric properties are examined in a sample of 90 college students (51 women, 39 men) and compared with those of an equivalent scale distributed among 100 university staff (67 women, 33 men). The Short-Form Social Support Questionnaire, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale were also administered to each participant. The data suggest that the Social Support at University Scale possesses internal consistency reliability suitable for research (alpha = .68), external validity as indicated by comparisons between the student and staff samples, concurrent validity as indicated by correlations with measures of generic social support, and criterion validity as indicated by associations with known correlates of social support, namely, perceived stress, anxiety, and depression.     

Sex Differences in Judgments of Social Desirability

This study evaluates sex differences in the perceived desirability of personality behaviors and beliefs. Men and women (N = 149, M_age = 18.7) judged the social desirability scale values (SDSVs) of 150 personality statements as applied either to a male target or a female target. For comparison, some estimated SDSVs with no target sex specified. A separate sample of 537 respondents endorsed the 150 items via self‐report. Raters showed a high consensus in their SDSV judgments within conditions (α = .86 to .90) and no sex‐of‐rater effects across conditions. Substantial sex‐of‐target effects (p < .001), however, revealed many behaviors that were viewed as desirable for one sex but not for the other. The behaviors seen as more (less) desirable when applied to men rather than to women were endorsed more (less) by men than by women in the respondent sample. Similar results were found when no target sex was specified for the SDSV ratings, presumably because judges evaluated the behaviors as applied to a target of their own sex. The present results have important implications for the measurement and reporting of SDSVs, the evaluation of substance versus style in self‐reports, and the construction of desirability‐reduced personality inventories.     

Social Identity, Modern Sexism, and Perceptions of Personal and Group Discrimination by Women and Men

Perceptions of gender-related discrimination against the self and group were examined in women and men, with a focus on the predictive utility of modern sexism and 3 dimensions of social identification (ingroup ties, centrality, and ingroup affect). Questionnaires were completed by 321 undergraduates (206 women and 115 men), of whom 78% self-identified as White and 10% as Asian. Higher levels of personal and group discrimination tended to be perceived by high-neosexism men and low-neosexism women. The centrality of gender identification was positively related to men's personal-level perceptions of discrimination, whereas effects of the emotional facets of social identity—ingroup ties and ingroup affect—occurred jointly with both gender and modern sexism. The results are discussed with reference to social identity theory and the personal/group discrimination discrepancy.     

Academic and Social Integration on Campus Among Sexual Minority Students: The Impacts of Psychological and Experiential Campus Climate

A heterosexist campus climate can increase risk for mental health problems for sexual minority students; however, the relationship between campus climate for sexual minorities and academic outcomes remains understudied. Using a sample of sexual minority respondents extracted from a campus climate survey conducted at a large university in the Midwest, we examine relationships between multiple dimensions of psychological and experiential campus climate for sexual minorities with academic integration (academic disengagement, grade‐point average [GPA]) and social integration (institutional satisfaction, acceptance on campus). We also investigate the protective role of engagement with informal academic and peer‐group systems. Findings suggest campus climate affects sexual minority students’ integration. In multivariate analyses, perceptions of whether lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people could be open about their sexual identity was positively associated with acceptance on campus; personal heterosexist harassment was positively associated with academic disengagement and negatively with GPA. Students’ informal academic integration (instructor relations) and informal social integration (LGB friends) demonstrated influential main effects but did not moderate any of the climate‐outcome relationships. Researchers should further explore the relationships between climate and academic outcomes among sexual minority students, both collectively and among specific sub‐groups, and address the role of other protective factors.     

Social support as a moderator of day‐to‐day relationships between daily negative events and daily psychological well‐being

Every day for 3 weeks, a sample of college students described the events that occurred each day and provided measures of their self‐esteem, depressogenic thinking and mood. They also provided measures of depressive symptoms and the social support they perceived from friends and family members. A series of multilevel random coefficient modelling analyses found that daily well‐being was positively related to the number of positive events that occurred each day and was negatively related to the number of negative events. Relationships between well‐being and positive events were stronger for more than for less depressed participants and relationships between well‐being and negative events were weaker for participants who perceived more support from friends than for those who perceived less support. Depression was unrelated to the strength of relationships between negative events and well‐being, and the social support from friends was unrelated to relationships between positive events and well‐being. Surprisingly, relationships between negative events and well‐being were stronger for participants who perceived more support from family members than for those who perceived less support. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relationship between gender,perceived career barriers,and occupational aspirations

The relationships between college student gender, perceived career barriers, and occupational aspirations were examined. Participants were 314 students located in the southeastern United States. Overall, college women reported higher levels of occupational aspirations than college men. While occupational aspirations were not correlated with perceived career barriers for women or men, women reported anticipating more barriers to their career advancement than their male peers. Perceived career barriers and the interaction between gender and perceived career barriers predicted occupational aspirations after controlling for gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and year in school. The relationship between occupational aspirations and the interaction between gender and perceived career barriers in college‐age adults enhances our understanding of occupational aspirations.