Testing Underlying Assumptions of the Family Empowerment Perspective

We examined two underlying assumptions of the family empowerment perspective. The first assumption is that a well-validated family-based treatment that explicitly aims to empower caregivers can do so. The second assumption is that increased caregiver empowerment should be associated with improved youth and family functioning. The data used to examine these assumptions are based on a randomized trial of multisystemic therapy versus usual community services for 118 substance abusing and dependent juvenile offenders. Results provided partial support for the underlying assumptions of the family empowerment perspective. The family-based treatment in comparison with usual services increased caregiver perceptions of empowerment at the service system level, but not at the family level. In addition, increased empowerment at the family and service system levels were associated with improved family relations, but not with decreased youth behavior problems. The conceptual implications and limitations of the findings are discussed.     

领导—成员关系、组织支持感、心理授权与情感承诺的关系研究

领导在组织中发挥着至关重要的作用。本研究探讨LMX对员工组织情感承诺的影响。引入心理授权作为中介变量,组织支持感作为调节变量。对于四个企业的423名员工进行问卷调查,运用相关、回归等统计方法对数据进行分析。结果显示:心理授权对于LMX影响情感承诺的中介作用显著,POS对于LMX影响情感承诺的调节作用不显著。领导作为组织与员工的纽带,对于增加员工对组织的情感依赖有着重要的作用。     

Engaged,Committed and Helpful Employees: The Role of Psychological Empowerment

Although previous research has been focused on the relationship among personality, empowerment, and outcomes, little is known about the incremental effect of empowerment on positive work outcomes. This article aims at exploring the relation between personality factors (i.e., extraversion and conscientiousness) and positive work outcomes (i.e., work engagement, affective organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior), and at determining the incremental effect of psychological empowerment on these outcomes. A convenience sample from three organizations has been used for data collection (N = 258; 52% women, mean age 38.55 years, SD = 10.21). Hierarchical multiple regressions indicate that personality and psychological empowerment explain a significant amount of the variance in the positive organizational outcomes, and that psychological empowerment has a significant incremental value over demographics and personality for the studied outcomes.     

Mechanisms of Empowerment: Psychological Processes for Members of Power-based Community Organizations

The paper reports a study of participatory experiences among members of power-based community organizations. A path model of psychological empowerment was tested. Perceived relational characteristics of the community organization were hypothesized as exogenous to participation, perceived organizational power and psychological empowerment. An alternative model was reproduced with the strongest relationships between perceived organizational intimacy and psychological empowerment and an inverse relationship between perceived organizational regulation and perceptions of organizational power.     

组织支持理论及其研究

该文介绍了Eisenberger等人1986年提出的组织支持理论的诞生背景,并对组织支持感受这一独立建构的概念,及其与领导一成员交换、心理契约概念的关系进行了总结。文章还分析了有关组织支持感受研究中的前因变量、结果变量和调节变量。最后归纳了我国开展组织支持理论研究的现状,并对组织支持理论未来的研究方向提出了建议。     

The Person/Environment Dynamics of Employee Empowerment: An Organizational Culture Analysis

Using an organizational culture framework, this case study examines the critical preconditions necessary for employee empowerment and highlights how the multiple cultures within one public bureaucracy differently impacted their implementation. SERVE, a large human service organization, initiated an employee empowerment program that contradicted and thus collided with many elements of its overall organizational culture. Despite the best intentions of the organizational leaders, upper management support, and opportunities for participatory decision making, the organization could not foster the critical preconditions needed for employee empowerment. Leaders had difficulty expanding the employees' power and promoting member inclusion. Concurrently, most employees rejected these new opportunities for control and distrusted the leader's intentions. Yet, despite the widespread rejection of these empowerment initiatives, most employees described their work lives as empowering. The role the local site subculture played in promoting employee empowerment is examined. We discuss how a localized (vs. system-wide) empowerment endeavor may be a more appropriate and feasible focus for public bureaucracies seeking to initiate greater staff empowerment. Particular attention is paid to the interaction between individuals and their environments, and how this interaction affects the empowerment process.     

心理授权研究的现状

心理授权是授权的个体内心体验的综合体,包含意义、自我效能感、自我决定以及影响四个维度。个体心理授权的影响因素方面包括个体特征、工作特征以及团体和组织特征等三个方面。心理授权不仅能作为自变量对相关工作态度、工作行为及绩效发挥积极的作用,也能作为中介变量对某些因素之间的关系起着中介作用。该文最后在对心理授权的相关研究进行总结的基础上,指出未来的研究有必要加强对心理授权的纵向过程研究等四方面问题的考察     

“为癌症患者心理赋能”的临床干预路径

“为患者心理赋能”是近年来医疗健康领域出现的一种新的积极医疗照护理念,其关注点是个体的能力而非缺陷,它强调医疗实践应该为改善健康和生活质量建立患者激励结构。首先梳理了赋能的概念发展与心理结构,随后引证多个实证研究总结出为癌症患者心理赋能的四条临床干预路径,指出医患共同决策、同伴支持、赋能教育以及认知行为压力管理的赋能价值。最后结合已有成果和研究中发现的问题,提出癌症心理赋能干预发展建议,有利于进一步开展临床研究和实践探索。

     

An Empowerment Evaluation Model for Sexual Assault Programs: Empirical Evidence of Effectiveness

Using an empowerment evaluation approach, the Sexual Assault and Rape Prevention (SARP) Evaluation Project brought together university researchers, public health evaluators, state funders, and program staff to provide evaluation training and consultation to all state-funded rape prevention and victim services programs in Michigan. In this paper, the specific activities of the SARP project are described, and process and outcome data are presented that address the effectiveness of this empowerment evaluation approach. Based on subjective reports from program staff and objective data obtained from state funders, results suggest that this evaluation model was successful in helping 90% of the prevention programs and 75% of the victim services programs successfully develop and launch program evaluations. One-year follow-up data indicate that 90% of the programs had sustained their evaluation efforts after the formal work of the SARP project had ended.     

Empowerment meets narrative: Listening to stories and creating settings

Comments on and summarizes some of the themes of a special issue on empowerment. Extends empowerment theory with the suggestion that both research and practice would benefit from a narrative approach that links process to practice and attends to the voices of the people of interest. Narrative theory and method tends to open the field to a more inclusive attitude as to what counts as data and to cross-disciplinary insights as well as citizen collaboration. Communal narratives are defined at various levels of analysis, including the community, the organizational, and the cultural. A definition of empowerment that includes a concern with resources calls attention to the fact that communal narratives and personal stories are resources. Implications for personal and social change are suggested.     

中小学教师心理授权的测量

本研究旨在编制适合我国实际教育情境的中小学教师心理授权问卷。在文献分析的基础上,结合开放式和半开放式问卷调查、教师访谈、专家访谈,采用分问卷开发技术,对1272份有效问卷进行了分析,结果表明中小学教师心理授权由心理授权体验、心理授权技能和心理授权行为三个分问卷构成。其中,心理授权体验包括自我效能、影响力、地位和自主性4个因素;心理授权技能包括决策参与技能和沟通交流技能2个因素;心理授权行为包括影响教学行为和决策参与行为2个因素。本研究编制的心理授权问卷共44个题项,信效度均达到了心理测量学要求,可以用作教师心理授权的测量。     

The promise of qualitative inquiry for positive psychology: Diversifying methods

Abstract

This article offers a corrective for positive psychology, viewing qualitative methods as a paradigm of equal value to quantitative methods for psychologists interested in better understanding human strengths. Gergen, Josselson, and Freeman’s framework for qualitative psychology in general, along with other qualitative theory, will be utilized as a basis for application to positive psychology in particular. Qualitative inquiry’s potential for enriching positive psychology will be described, noting several qualitative research approaches. Then, the role of qualitative psychology in promoting the flourishing of positive psychology will be examined, discussing implications for theoretical advancements, building community, and enhancing psychology through interdisciplinarity. Finally, the possibility for qualitative methods in positive psychology to build relationships between academia and society will be explored; in particular, the nature of this collaboration, and the communication of positive psychology to the public will be noted. The conclusion notes how such potentials may be realized given current realities.     

A Social-Cognitive Moderated Mediated Model of Psychological Safety and Empowerment

This study examines the indirect role of psychological safety in shaping the four cognitions of psychological empowerment (i.e., meaning, competence, self-determination, impact) through three social mechanisms: authentic interactions, spiritual development, and perceived organizational voice. Data were collected from 229 congregation members of a nondenominational church. Preliminary analyses reveal psychological safety is: (a) linked to all four empowerment cognitions, (b) associated with the three proximal social mechanisms, and (c) indirectly predicts three of the four empowerment cognitions through heightened level of authentic interactions, spiritual development, and perceived organizational voice. Moreover, extraversion moderated the relationship of psychological safety with authentic interactions which, in turn, strengthened the size of the indirect effect for the meaning subcomponent of empowerment. Overall, this study suggests empowerment research can draw upon the potential, but frequently untapped, benefits of cultivating a secure space to facilitate member motivation through sincerity, personal development, and perceived voice.     

Empowerment and threat in response to mass protest shape public support for a social movement and social change: A panel study in the context of the Bersih movement in Malaysia

One path to social change is through sustained collective action. Although such actions often explicitly target the public audience to raise support for a movement's cause, we know little about how the public psychologically responds to protests. To examine this question, a sample of Malaysians was surveyed before and immediately after the occurrence of mass street protests in Malaysia (N = 422) using a two-wave longitudinal design. Analyses revealed that (beyond pre-existing levels of movement identity and support for social change) experiencing empowerment in response to the protests promoted a supportive movement identity and more support for social change after the protests, whereas experiencing threat in response to the protests promoted an oppositional movement identity and less support for social change after the protests. This research suggests that the psychological impact of ongoing protests on the public can determine subsequent public support for the movement and its goals.     

Beyond the Individual: Toward a Nomological Network of Organizational Empowerment

Empowerment research has generally been limited to the individual level of analysis. Efforts to study empowerment beyond the individual require conceptual frameworks suggesting attributes that define the construct and guide its measurement. This paper presents an initial attempt to describe the nomological network of empowerment at the organizational level of analysis--organizational empowerment (OE). Intraorganizational, interorganizational, and extraorganizational components of OE are described. Implications for empowerment theory and practice are discussed.     

团队气氛与团队心理授权：团队信任的中介作用

通过对32家企业156个工作团队568名员工进行问卷调查,采用相关分析、回归分析和结构方程建模等统计分析方法,对中国文化背景下团队气氛与团队心理授权的关系,以及团队信任的作用进行了探讨。结果表明：（1）团队气氛对团队信任、团队心理授权有正向影响;（2）团队信任对团队心理授权有正向影响;③团队信任在团队气氛和团队心理授权之间具有部分中介作用。其中,情感信任在团队气氛和团队心理授权之间具有部分中介作用,认知信任在团队气氛与团队心理授权之间的中介作用不显著。     

Measuring the Intrapersonal Component of Psychological Empowerment: Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Sociopolitical Control Scale

The Sociopolitical Control Scale (SPCS) is a widely used measure of the intrapersonal component of psychological empowerment. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were conducted with data from two samples to test the hypothesized structure of the SPCS, the potential effects of method bias on the measure’s psychometric properties, and whether a revised version of the scale (SPCS-R) yielded improved model fit. Sample 1 included 316 randomly selected community residents of the Midwestern United States. Sample 2 included 750 community residents of the Northeastern U.S. Results indicated that method bias from the use of negatively worded items had a significant effect on the factor structure of the SPCS. CFA of the SPCS-R, in which negatively worded items were rephrased so that all statements were positively worded, supported the measure’s hypothesized two-factor structure (i.e., leadership competence and policy control). Subscales of the SPCS-R were found reliable and related in expected ways with measures of community involvement. Implications of the study for empowerment-based research and practice are described, and strategies to further develop the SPCS are discussed.     

Feeling Hopeful Inspires Support for Social Change

Hope is an emotion that has been implicated in social change efforts, yet little research has examined whether feeling hopeful actually motivates support for social change. Study 1 (N = 274) confirmed that hope is associated with greater support for social change in two countries with different political contexts. Study 2 (N = 165) revealed that hope predicts support for social change over and above other emotions often investigated in collective action research. Study 3 (N = 100) replicated this finding using a hope scale and showed the effect occurs independent of positive mood. Study 4 (N = 58) demonstrated experimentally that hope motivates support for social change. In all four studies, the effect of hope was mediated by perceived efficacy to achieve social equality. This research confirms the motivating potential of hope and illustrates the power of this emotion in generating social change.     

社会支持与身心健康关系研究述评

该研究从社会支持的概念入手．探讨了社会支持的结构与测量．社会支持对身心健康影响的作用模型,影响社会支持的因素,并对研究中存在的问题及研究方向进行了探讨。