Feedback seeking as a means of self-assessment and affect optimization

Previous research on feedback choice found considerable inter- and intraindividual differences. It is proposed here that these differences can in part be explained by personality factors (i.e., anxiety and competence) that influence the informational value of external feedback and the congruence between internally generated and externally provided feedback. Feedback seeking was analyzed in two studies in which subjects, working on long series of tasks, had the opportunity to request various forms of achievement feedback. Since complex tasks were used, feedback only marginally affected learning. Anxiety, competence, and expenses for obtaining feedback served as independent variables. Results showed that subjects intending to optimize their affective state (i.e., reduce anxiety) have a strong preference for external feedback, and use such feedback mainly to neutralize aversive internal feedback. In contrast, persons who tried to use feedback as a means to enhance or assess performance suffered from an increased affective load.     

The impact of help seeking on individual task performance: the moderating effect of help seekers' logics of action

Drawing from achievement-goal theory and the social psychological literature on help seeking, we propose that it is the variance in the logic underpinning employees' help seeking that explains divergent findings regarding the relationship between help seeking and task performance. Using a sample of 110 newly hired customer contact employees, a prospective study design, and archival performance data, we found no evidence of a hypothesized main effect of help seeking on performance. However, we did find that the help seeking-performance relationship was conditioned by the degree to which help seekers endorse 2 alternative help-seeking logics (autonomous vs. dependent logic) such that the level of help seeking is more strongly related to performance among those either more strongly endorsing an autonomous help-seeking logic or more weakly endorsing a dependent help-seeking logic.     

Race differences in professional help seeking

Using data from two national surveys, findings from this research indicated that blacks were more likely than whites to seek help from mental health professionals, particularly for economic and physical health problems. Blacks also sought help more often than whites from other sources of professional help, such as teachers, lawyers, social workers and emergency rooms. On the other hand, whites were more likely to seek help from medical sources for all types of problems, and from clergy members.     

Why seeking help from teammates is a blessing and a curse: a theory of help seeking and individual creativity in team contexts

Research has not explored the extent to which seeking help from teammates positively relates to a person's own creativity. This question is important to explore as help seeking is commonly enacted in organizations and may come with reciprocation costs that may also diminish creativity. Results based on 291 employees in a single division of a large multinational organization revealed that seeking help predicted creativity and mediated the relationship between intrinsic motivation and creativity. However, help seekers also incurred reciprocation costs in that they tended to give more help to teammates, and giving help to teammates was negatively related to creativity. In general, giving higher levels of help attenuated the positive relationship between help seeking and creativity. We also tested an integrated model to show that help giving moderated the mediated relationship between intrinsic motivation and creativity via help seeking, such that higher levels of help giving attenuated this mediated effect. We discuss theoretical and practical implications recommending additional research regarding the interpersonal creative process in team contexts.     

Men,masculinity, and the contexts of help seeking

Research on men's help seeking yields strategies for enhancing men's use of mental and physical health resources. Analysis of the assumptions underlying existing theory and research also provides a context for evaluating the psychology of men and masculinity as an evolving area of social scientific inquiry. The authors identify several theoretical and methodological obstacles that limit understanding of the variable ways that men do or do not seek help from mental and physical health care professionals. A contextual framework is developed by exploring how the socialization and social construction of masculinities transact with social psychological processes common to a variety of potential help-seeking contexts. This approach begins to integrate the psychology of men and masculinity with theory and methodology from other disciplines and suggests innovative ways to facilitate adaptive help seeking.     

Asian Australian acculturation and attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help

Research with 112 Asian Australian university students found that adherence to Asian cultural values inversely predicted attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. Students completed demographic questions, the Asian Values Scale, the Suinn – Lew Asian Self‐Identity Scale, (which is a measure of acculturation), and the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale. There was a significant positive relationship between the Asian Australian students' level of behavioural acculturation and their attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. Significant differences were found between male and female participants in their attitudes, with female participants indicating greater willingness to seek help. Results also demonstrated a significant difference in gender on acculturation level as well as a significant difference in generational status and acculturation level.     

Effects of felt adequacy and opportunity to reciprocate on help seeking

This experiment was prompted by the belief that felt inadequacy and lack of opportunity to reciprocate act as deterrents to help seeking when help is needed. The experiment was conducted on 56 freshmen by modifying Greenberg and Shapiro's physical disability paradigm. Subjects were told that they could not meet the quota on a manual task but had done well (poorly) for persons similarly handicapped (by arm in sling). Later they learned that the electricity would be shut off in 2 hr (15 min), making it possible (impossible) to help the visually handicapped fellow worker later on a visual task. The hypothesis that felt inadequacy inhibits help seeking was fully supported, while the corresponding hypothesis regarding lack of opportunity to reciprocate received only partial support. There were no sex differences. The relevance of these data for embarrassment theory is discussed.     

Sex differences in professional help seeking among adult black Americans

This paper provides baseline data on sex differences in the use of professional help for serious personal problems in a nationally representative sample of adult black Americans. Bivariate analyses revealed that women had higher levels of psychological distress and were significantly more likely to seek professional help than were men. They were also more likely to utilize physicians and social service agencies. The relationship of gender to these help resources remained significant even when the effects of problem severity and differential problem definition were taken into account. Controlling for income, however, eliminated the sex difference for social services use but not for physician use.     

United States and Japanese college students' attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help

The purpose of the study was to find how nationality, sex, and past experience of seeking professional psychological services are related to attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. Three hundred Japanese college students and 300 US college students responded to the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help (ATSPPH) questionnaire. The ATSPPH consists of four subscales: Need (recognition of need), Stigma Tolerance (the degree of tolerance against stigma associated with help‐seeking action), Openness (interpersonal openness), and Confidence (confidence in mental health professionals). As predicted, past experience of seeking professional psychological service and sex were important predictor variables of performance on the ATSPPH scales. Those who had past experience of seeking professional psychological help had more favourable attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help than those who never consulted psychological professionals. Similarly, in testing the past experience separately with the two nation groups, past experience with seeking professional psychological services was found to be a predictor of the overall attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help among Japanese and US participants. Furthermore, Japanese participants with past experience also showed greater recognition of need for professional psychological help and confidence in psychological health professions than Japanese without past experience. The degree of stigma tolerance associated with help‐seeking behaviour and the tendency of interpersonal openness, however, did not differ between Japanese participants with and without the past experience of seeking professional psychological services. The same results were also found among the US participants. In terms of sex as a predictor variable, females tended to have more positive attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help than males. There was a significant nationality by sex interaction effect. US females had significantly more favourable attitudes than the other three groups, indicating that there was sex difference in help‐seeking attitudes in the US group, but not in the Japanese group. If the sex variable is ignored, Japanese students have less favourable overall attitudes toward seeking professional psychological services than US students. Other results and limitations of the study are discussed.     

The sociocultural conceptualisations of schizophrenia and patterns of help seeking in south-east Nigeria

Socioculturally influenced interpretations of mental illness play decisive roles on the time and choice of treatment. These often result in significant delays before patients present at the psychiatric services, with consequent worsening of the prognosis. The aim was to assess the association between sociocultural factors, choice of treatment and treatment delay among patients with schizophrenia. A cross-sectional study of 360 patients with schizophrenia, without previous contact with any statutory psychiatric services, was done. Of this, 75.8% of the participants had visited traditional/faith healers as the first treatment option and have attributed schizophrenia to magico-supernatural causation, despite 70.0% of the participants being educated, while 24.2% of them believed in the natural causation of the illness and presented early to psychiatric hospital. There is a need for community-based psychiatric services that would have mental health education as one of their core mandates; and collaborations with traditional and faith-based healers aimed to reduce delay in their facilities.     

Case studies of help seeking behaviour among Asian single parents in Singapore

Using structured interviews, we examined patterns of help seeking behaviour for Chinese, Malay and Indian single parents living in Singapore, Four sources of social support-Family, Neighbours/Friends, Professionals and Religion-were identified and related to four problem areas-Financial, Practical, Emotional and Information. As expected, support for our sample of Asian single parents was most likely to come from the family, and least likely to come from friends and neighbours. However, there were differences between the three ethnic groups across problem areas in the type of support they were most likely to receive. The generalizability of our results is limited by the small sample size, but a framework for understanding help seeking behaviour of Singaporean Asians is proposed.     

社会认同对流动儿童学业求助的影响

研究基于271名在校流动儿童的问卷调查,分析了社会认同对流动儿童学业求助的影响。结果表明:(1)心理认同对流动儿童学业求助的三个因子均具有显著的影响作用。文化认同只对流动儿童的执行性求助策略具有显著的影响作用。(2)流动儿童的学业求助存在显著的性别主效应,工具性求助得分女生显著高于男生;回避性求助得分男生显著高于女生。(3)流动儿童的执行性求助存在显著的年龄主效应,年龄越大,执行性求助得分越高。因此可以推断:社会认同影响流动儿童的学业求助,在流动儿童学校适应过程中,更应关注其心理认同。     

Teenagers' attitudes about seeking help from telephone crisis services (hotlines)

The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes toward the use of telephone crisis services (hotlines) among 519 adolescents in 9th through 12th grade mandatory health courses in six high schools in New York State. Few adolescents (2.1%) used hotlines and negative attitudes were stronger toward hotlines than they were toward other formal sources of help. The most common reasons for hotline nonuse related to feelings of self-reliance and shame. Objections to hotlines were strongest among students most in need of help by virtue of impaired functioning or feelings of hopelessness. The results underscore needed outreach efforts to youth.     

The impact of gender role conflict and counseling technique on psychological help seeking in men

We hypothesized that men's gender role conflict would predict attitudes towards psychological help-seeking after viewing counseling that focused on either client feelings or client cognitions. The sample was made up of 164 male undergraduates: 115 White, 13 African-American, 13 Hispanic, 18 Asian, 2 Portuguese, and 3 of unspecified ethnicity. Participants completed the Gender Role Conflict Scale (GRCS), viewed a videotape of a 10-minute counseling session that used interventions that were either emotion-focused or cognition-focused, and completed a measure of their attitudes towards seeking psychological help. Results indicated that men scoring high on gender role conflict who viewed the session that focused on feelings were least likely to indicate a willingness to seek psychological help compared to men in each of the three other conditions. We discuss implications for counseling interventions for men who adopt the traditional male gender role.A version of this paper was presented at the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada. We would like to thank Bob Cournoyer and Piet Lammert for portraying the counselor and client in the study.     

Gender and opinions about mental illness as predictors of attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help

Help-seeking attitudes have been an important part of research into the kinds of college students who do and do not seek psychotherapy. The current study investigated the relationship between students' opinions about mental illness and their attitudes toward seeking professional help. By also using gender as a predictor of help-seeking attitudes, the researchers examined the effects of opinions about mental illness on help-seeking attitudes above and beyond well-known gender effects. This is important because opinions about mental illness are the kind of attitudinal variables that should be more modifiable than gender identity. The results indicate that females had more positive attitudes toward seeking help than males, and that people's opinions about mental illness, especially more benevolent, less authoritarian, less socially restrictive and higher mental hygiene ideology perspectives, accounted for a significant percentage of positive help-seeking attitudes beyond the percentage accounted for by gender.     

Attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help among Chinese students at a UK university

Aim: In this study we aimed to investigate whether Chinese international and British home students at a university in the United Kingdom differed in their attitudes towards seeking psychological help. Method: The total sample comprised 323 participants. Participants completed measures to assess their attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help (recognition of need for psychological help, stigma tolerance, interpersonal openness, confidence in mental health practitioners). Results: Chinese students reported significantly less interpersonal openness than that reported by British students. Contrary to prediction, however, no significant group differences were found on any of the other mental health attitudes (i.e. recognition of need for psychological help, confidence in mental health practitioners or stigma tolerance). Within‐group contrasts also showed that Chinese students reported lower scores on interpersonal openness than on stigma tolerance and confidence in mental health practitioners. In contrast, British participants reported less confidence in mental health practitioners and recognition of the need for psychological help than reported for stigma tolerance and interpersonal openness. Conclusion: The findings highlight the need for a greater understanding of students' cultural inclinations toward mental health issues and cultural attitudes that may hinder and/or facilitate students' access and engagement with psychological services in higher education institutions.