Autobiographical memory and well-being in aging: The central role of semantic self-images

Higher levels of well-being are associated with longer life expectancies and better physical health. Previous studies suggest that processes involving the self and autobiographical memory are related to well-being, yet these relationships are poorly understood. The present study tested 32 older and 32 younger adults using scales measuring well-being and the affective valence of two types of autobiographical memory: episodic autobiographical memories and semantic self-images. Results showed that valence of semantic self-images, but not episodic autobiographical memories, was highly correlated with well-being, particularly in older adults. In contrast, well-being in older adults was unrelated to performance across a range of standardised memory tasks. These results highlight the role of semantic self-images in well-being, and have implications for the development of therapeutic interventions for well-being in aging.     

Innovative moments and change in Career Construction Counseling

This article presents an exploratory study of the process of change during Career Construction Counseling (CCC). The Innovative Moments Coding System (IMCS) and the Return to the Problem Coding System (RPCS) were used to an intensive analysis of a career counseling case — the case of Michael. Both systems are grounded in a narrative conception of the self which suggests that narrative change results from the elaboration and development of narrative exceptions to a client's core problematic self-narrative. The IMCS identifies and tracks the occurrence of five different types of narrative change and the RPCS tracks the ambivalence present in the clients discourse throughout the therapeutic process. This is the first attempt to use these methods with a career counseling case. The results suggest that the narrative elaboration progresses from the first to the third session. We discuss these results, emphasizing the process of change in career counseling with clients in which maladaptive repetition underlies career decision-making difficulties.     

Mentoring relationships from early adolescence through emerging adulthood: A qualitative analysis

This study compared perceptions of mentoring relationships among early adolescents, middle adolescents, and emerging adults. In ten focus groups, 56 middle school, high school, and college students described relational experiences that were analyzed thematically. Differences in the characteristics of the mentors nominated by the youth across the age groups were noted and five broad themes identified. Three themes were similar across the different age groups: (a) the importance of spending time together and engaging in shared activities, (b) trust and fidelity, and (c) role modeling and identification. Two themes were present in the narratives of all three age groups but played out differently in ways that were consistent with developmental issues and needs of that age group: (a) balancing connection and autonomy and (b) empowerment. These data can help guide future research and practice involving youth mentoring relationships across developmental and disciplinary divides.     

Oliver Bloodstein: reflections on a career. Interview by Mark Onslow

Oliver Bloodstein arrived at the University of Iowa in 1941 to study under Wendell Johnson. There he began an influential career that included a seminal documentation of the development of stuttering, the development of the continuity hypothesis and the anticipatory struggle hypothesis, and the writing of five editions of the influential text “A Handbook on Stuttering.” In this interview Dr. Bloodstein reflects on his remarkable and inspiring career, which continues today with his involvement in the preparation of a sixth edition of this text.

Educational objectives: The reader will; (1) describe the contribution to the field of stuttering made by Dr. Bloodstein; (2) discuss the career influences that led to his achievements; (3) know Dr. Bloodstein's current views on the cause of stuttering; and (4) identify the locations at which he worked during his career.     

Exploring the career construction interview for vocational personality assessment

This mixed-methods study explored the validity and usefulness of the Career Construction Interview (CCI) with college students (n = 83) from a midsize Southern university. Using Pearson's r correlations, comparisons were made between the three-letter RIASEC Strong Interest Inventory (SII) theme code and RIASEC theme codes derived from coding the CCI narratives of the participants. Results indicated moderate correlation between the CCI and SII participant results.     

Counseling for the transition to adulthood as joint, goal-directed action

Transition is important in the career literature as it identifies times at which people are often likely to consult counselors about issues for which they need help. However, the counseling literature has not provided a conceptualization of, or research on, the joint, goal-directed actions and projects of the counselor and the client, which explicitly reflect the goal-directed nature of the transition itself. To address this issue, 12 counseling dyads, representing 37 counseling sessions, were studied. In these dyads, counseling was observed as the joint, goal-directed action between professional counselors and youth who sought assistance with their transition to adulthood. The data were collected using the action-project method. The counseling sessions were video-recorded, then immediately played back for the counselor and client separately to gather their recalled thoughts and feeling during counseling. Detailed qualitative analysis of the data set addressed the research question, “What are the goal-directed projects that counselors and their clients jointly construct, articulate, and enact relevant to the transition to adulthood?” The findings indicated the relationship and identity are intertwined goal-directed projects within counseling as well as outside of it. These projects contributed to the reframing and reorganization of clients' transition projects outside of counseling in occupational, educational, and familial domains. The findings suggest important implications for counseling youth in transition, that is, counselors and clients explicitly address their joint relationship and identity goals in an effort to realize a mutually satisfactory and important transition to adulthood.     

论全球化背景下的青少年同一性困惑

全球化给当代青少年带来了巨大的心理冲击和影响,在全球化背景下,青少年追寻同一性的步伐受到阻碍。青少年的同一性困惑对其心理健康产生了负面影响,只有有针对性地采取相应的心理健康教育才能帮助青少年提高心理健康水平,适应全球化的发展。     

Succès de carrière et bien-être psychologique au travail des conseiller-e-s de l’accompagnement professionnel : rôle médiateur de la satisfaction des besoins psychologiques

Within the framework of complex links between well-being and performance, this study aimed at examining the relations between objective and subjective career success and psychological well-being at work (PWBW) as well as the mediating effects of psychological needs satisfaction (PNS). French career counselors (n = 138) completed a questionnaire. Results showed that psychological needs satisfaction of autonomy, relatedness and competence had a mediating effect between objective career success (financial and hierarchical) and subjective career success (social and psychological), and the well-being. More exactly, three types of PNS had a mediating effect between the social and psychological career success and the PWBW while autonomy and relatedness PNS mediatized the relation between financial career success and PWBW. Only need satisfaction for relatedness mediatized the link between hierarchical success and PWBW. Occupational success would be a positive health at work resource. Facilitating forms of success and SBP becomes a promising track in health. The investigation can be widened to other jobs linked to counseling and to other different business sectors.     

Career construction counseling: A thematic analysis of outcomes for four clients

Thematic analysis was used in this study of career construction counseling with four diverse, purposively-selected participants. After the intervention, the participants who sought and received career construction counseling were interviewed to determine their experience of the intervention. The results showed the value of career construction counseling in bringing about change in the participants' career-life stories.     

The Self‐Administered Witness Interview Tool (SAW‐IT): Enhancing witness recall of workplace incidents

Given the often crucial role of witness evidence in occupational health and safety investigation, statements should be obtained as soon as possible after an incident using best practice methods. The present research systematically tested the efficacy of a novel Self‐Administered Witness Interview Tool (SAW‐IT), an adapted version of the Self‐Administered Interview designed to elicit comprehensive information from witnesses to industrial events. The present study also examined the effect of schematic processing on witness recall. Results indicate that the SAW‐IT elicited significantly more correct details, as well as more precise information than a traditional incident report form. Contextual information about a worker's safety history biased the reports of participant witnesses, confirming that witnesses should be shielded from extraneous post‐event information prior to reporting. Importantly, these results demonstrate that the SAW‐IT can enhance the quality of witness reports.     

Exploring changes during life and career design dialogues

This article describes the processes of change that occur during career counseling based on the ‘making oneself self’ model (Guichard, 2008; Guichard, 2009). This counseling intervention process forms part of the more general paradigm of life designing (Savickas et al., 2009). The main goal for this counseling is fostering “reflexivity” of individuals with regard to their investment in their various spheres of life. Three career counseling interviews were conducted using both methods of dialogues for life and career design dialogues (LCDD) and self-confrontation (Larsen, Flesaker, & Foundation, 2008; Valach, Michel, Dey, & Young, 2002). Each interview is described with a focus on the changes perceived by the interviewees in relation to their initial reason for consulting as well as on their dialogues with the counselor, who facilitated these changes and provided support for them. The analysis of the dialogues suggests the existence of a three-step evolution supporting the changes. On the basis of these data, the discussion examines the reflexive approach in its theoretical, methodological and practical dimensions.     

Reflection and reflexivity during life-design interventions: Comments on Career Construction Counseling

The 8 articles in the Symposium advanced understanding of “Reflexivity in Life-Design Interventions”. This discussion highlights distinctions between reflection and reflexivity, as well as their relation to first-order and second-order change. Then the contributions of the Symposium authors are organized using four phases of narrative counseling: symbolic representation, reflective self-examination, reflexive new realizations, and revisioning career identity. The discussion concludes by organizing the diverse terms the authors used to name these four phases into a uniform format.     

Non-suicidal self-injury and identity distress in Flemish adolescents: Exploring gender differences and mediational pathways

There is an increasing amount of research that examines non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in relation to identity formation in adolescents. However, little or no research to date has explored associations between NSSI and identity distress in specific domains. To address this shortcoming, we assessed NSSI, identity distress, anxiety, and depression using self-report questionnaires in 568 high school students. Gender differences in NSSI were found with lifetime prevalence of NSSI being twice as high in females as compared to males. Gender differences in terms of identity domains were also significant; adolescent females showed higher levels of distress in the identity domains of career goals, friendship, and group loyalties as compared to males. Adolescents engaging in NSSI showed higher distress in domains of long-term goals, friendship, sexual orientation and behavior, values and beliefs. Results indicated that it was not distress in specific domains as such but the impairment due to daily impact of identity distress that explained additional variance in lifetime prevalence of NSSI above and beyond gender, age, depression, and anxiety. We also demonstrated that gender differences in lifetime prevalence of NSSI were mediated by differences in such identity impairment. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Factor Structure of the Burden Interview

Zarit's Burden Interview is the most commonly used measure of burden among family caregivers for demented older adults, but has been criticized for its diverse item content and lack of correspondence to theoretically based multidimensional burden scales. The factor structure of this measure of burden was examined in a sample of 220 family caregivers of demented elderly. The implied 1-factor model and a 2-factor model proposed in the literature were not good fits to the data. Fourteen of the 21 nonglobal items were found to tap three underlying factors of Embarrassment/Anger, Patient's Dependency, and Self-criticism. This factor structure was replicated in a second sample of 108 caregivers. The relationship of these factors to latent factors identified in other multifactorial burden scales suggests a greater degree of convergence across measures than has been assumed.     

Testing a calling model of psychological career success in Australian young adults: A longitudinal study

Theory-based longitudinal research on career calling is sparse. In a two-wave, cross-lagged panel design we assessed Hall and Chandler's (2005) calling model of psychological career success using 216 young adults (M age = 20.44 years, SD = 2.54). We tested if changes in career calling over time were associated with changes in goal-directed effort (work effort and career strategies) and psychological career success (life meaning and career adaptability) over time, and if goal-directed effort mediated between career calling and psychological career success over time. The standard causal model showed a better fit over the base, reverse, and reciprocal causation models. T1 career calling predicted T2 work effort, career strategies, life meaning, and career adaptability. Only career strategies mediated between T1 career calling and T2 life meaning and T2 career adaptability. Limitations and future directions are discussed.     

Self-presentation and gender on MySpace

Within the cultural context of MySpace, this study explores the ways emerging adults experience social networking. Through focus group methodology, the role of virtual peer interaction in the development of personal, social, and gender identities was investigated. Findings suggest that college students utilize MySpace for identity exploration, engaging in social comparison and expressing idealized aspects of the selves they wish to become. The public nature of self and relationship displays introduce feedback mechanisms by which emerging adults can legitimize images as associated with the self. Also, male–female differences in self-presentation parallel, and possibly intensify, gender norms offline. Our study suggests that social networking sites provide valuable opportunities for emerging adults to realize possible selves; however, increased pressure for female sexual objectification and intensified social comparison may also negatively impact identity development. A balanced view, presenting both opportunities and drawbacks, should be encouraged in policies regarding youth participation in social networking sites.     

Self‐esteem discrepancies and identity‐expressive consumption: Evidence from Norwegian adolescents

Prior research established that simultaneously holding discrepant explicit (deliberate, controlled) and implicit (automatic, uncontrolled) self‐esteem gives rise to self‐enhancing behaviours. Given that individuals tend to enhance their self‐concepts with brands that are associated with positive identities, this study examined whether self‐esteem discrepancy was related to the extent to which individuals developed connections with brands that are associated with their in‐groups. Findings from an adolescent sample (ages 16–18) indicated that adolescents with larger discrepancies between explicit and implicit self‐esteem were more likely to construct their self‐concepts using in‐group‐linked brands.     

Measuring autobiographical fluency in the self-memory system

Autobiographical memory is widely considered to be fundamentally related to concepts of self and identity. However, few studies have sought to test models of self and memory directly using experimental designs. Using a novel autobiographical fluency paradigm, the present study investigated memory accessibility for different levels of self-related knowledge. Forty participants generated 20 “I am” statements about themselves, from which the 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th were used as cues in a two-minute autobiographical fluency task. The most salient aspects of the self, measured by both serial position and ratings of personal significance, were associated with more accessible sets of autobiographical memories. This finding supports theories that view the self as a powerful organizational structure in memory. Results are discussed with reference to models of self and memory.     

Modéliser l’évaluation des processus de changement en counseling d’orientation : une perspective constructiviste et intégrative

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to design models that are used to assess the effects of career counseling. The article is part of the constructivist perspective in the emerging new paradigm of counseling psychology in the 21st century. Dialogue is seen as the strategic point in the change process of intervention practices. Through an analytical synthesis of different theoretical and empirical work on dialogue and an exploratory study of its reflexive dimension, the article points out the contribution of constructivist approaches while suggesting a constructionist and integrative perspective. It thus opens a discussion on the relevance of an interdisciplinary approach for dialogic and reflexive phenomena involved in the self-transformation process.