The Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire: a measurement invariance examination among U.S. Anglos and U.S. Hispanics

The aim of this article is to assess the measurement invariance of the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ) in U.S. Anglo (n = 490) and U.S. Hispanic ( n = 379) samples of college students. The BVAQ items demonstrated invariance of the factor loadings, the latent item intercepts, and unique factor variances. However, Hispanics had higher verbalizing scores and lower fantasizing scores on the latent variables. As a whole, the BVAQ requires additional testing and/or refinement for use with a Hispanic sample. Until such refinements, the authors recommend that the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 be used with U.S. Hispanic samples.     

An examination of gender differences for job satisfaction,mental health,and occupational stress among senior U. K. civil servants

This study found that gender differences exist within senior U.K. civil servants. Females within the civil service were significantly more job dissatisfied, and suffered from poorer mental and physical ill health. They also showed more concern about their role at work, the factors associated with their particular job, the job's relationship to the home environment, and the constraints of the job. Males were more affected by how much control they felt they had at work, and by their hard-driving and achievement oriented behavior.     

An empirical examination of client attitudes towards online counseling.

Trends over the past decade have shown that online counseling has grown in terms of popularity among consumers and clinicians alike; however, little, if any empirical evidence exists that examines client attitudes towards online counseling as alternative to traditional face-to-face therapy. Therefore, this study investigated client attitudes towards online counseling. Data was collected from 48 e-clients who received online counseling at the Center for Online Addiction. Variables such as client perceptions and concerns about using online counseling, clients' reasons for seeking online counseling over in-office treatment, and demographic profiles of e-clients were assessed. Results suggested that Caucasian, middle-aged males, with at least a four-year bachelors degree were most likely to use online counseling and anonymity, convenience, and counselor credentials were the most cited reasons they sought online counseling over in-office treatment. The lack of perceived privacy and security during online chat sessions and the fear of being caught while conducting online sessions were the main concerns reported by e-clients. A better understanding of client motives and perceptions towards online counseling helps to guide treatment in using the Internet as a clinical tool, especially as the Internet becomes increasingly more available in previously remote markets and the field of online counseling continues to grow.     

An empirical examination of relative deprivation theory

Relative deprivation theory centers around the proposition that the negative affect associated with judgments of one's own status is not simply a function of one's objective status. Instead, resentment, anger, dissatisfaction and other deprivation-related emotions vary with the subjective assessment of one's status. In the present experiment, subjects read vignettes in which the hypothesized preconditions of felt deprivation were manipulated. They then indicated the degree of perceived resentment and related cognitive-emotional factors attributed to the story characters. Perceptions of deprivation become more prevalent when an individual who lacks a desired outcome (X) (a) compares with another who does possess X, (b) feels entitled to X, (c) feels it was once feasible to attain X, and (d) feels it is not feasible to attain X in the future. The results also suggest that certain preconditions, such as the presence of a comparison other and entitlement, act conjunctively in affecting judgments of felt deprivation. Finally, personal control over desired outcomes appears to be important for relative deprivation theory.     

Professional satisfaction among U.S. healthcare chaplains

This article reports the results of a questionnaire sent to 1,099 chaplains with board certification from the Association of Professional Chaplains regarding determinants of professional satisfaction among U.S. healthcare chaplains.     

Survey of organizational job stress among physical education managers

To explore job stress among the 115 male managers in physical education from Fars province in Iran, participants completed the Job Stress Survey by Spielberger and Vagg. Analysis indicated that these managers experienced high frequency and severity of job stress, especially for an inadequate salary. Lack of organizational support contributed more to the variability of job stress among participants than job pressure.     

An empirical study of the reports of APA's peer review panel in the congressional review of the U.S.S. IOWA incident

The U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee (HASC) review of the US. Navy's investigation of the U.S.S. IOWA incident provides a case study of the problems with reconstructive psychological evaluations. The US. Navy attributed the explosion on board the U.S.S. IOWA to the intentional suicidal acts of Gunner's Mate Clayton Hartwig, a conclusion supported primarily by an Equivocal Death Analysis (EDA) conducted by the FBI. Systematic analysis of the reports of the expert panelists who consulted to the NASC reveals that 11 of the 14 panelists were critical of the conclusions reached by the Navy/FBI. There was considerable variability among the judgments of the panelists, who reached consensus only for broad categories. Because the reliability and validity of postmortem psychological reconstructions such as EDA and psychological autopsy have not been established, clinicians are urged to exercise caution in the use of such procedures and to be sensitive to ethical obligations to consumers when using such techniques.     

An empirical examination of the mechanisms mediating between high-performance work systems and the performance of Japanese organizations

The resource-based view of the firm and social exchange perspectives are invoked to hypothesize linkages among high-performance work systems, collective human capital, the degree of social exchange in an establishment, and establishment performance. The authors argue that high-performance work systems generate a high level of collective human capital and encourage a high degree of social exchange within an organization, and that these are positively related to the organization's overall performance. On the basis of a sample of Japanese establishments, the results provide support for the existence of these mediating mechanisms through which high-performance work systems affect overall establishment performance.     

Gun culture and symbolism among U.K. and U.S. women

The authors explored attitudes of young women in the United Kingdom (n = 108) and the United States (n = 91) toward (a) the possession and use of guns through the Attitude to Guns Scale (N. R. Branscombe, J. A. Weir, & P. Crosby, 1992) and (b) guns' perceived functional and symbolic significance through the Symbolic Nature of Guns Scale (C. A. Cooke & J. E. Puddifoot, 1997). There were significant differences in beliefs concerning the right to own a gun and the protective effect of guns but not in the perceived contribution of guns to crime. Although neither group strongly equated guns symbolically with power or control, the U.S. women were more likely to perceive guns as expressions of freedom or independence, and the U.K. women were more likely to view guns as expressions of danger and violence. The findings were contextualized by comparison with samples of male control participants of similar ages.     

A demographic analysis of suicide among U.S. Navy personnel

Age-, sex-, race-, and employment-adjusted standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were calculated for sailors committing suicide between 1990 and 1996 and compared with adjusted SMRs for civilians. Cluster analyses were conducted on annual rates from 1983 through 1995 to examine differences between comparison groups across time and location. Results showed fewer than expected suicides for Caucasian and African American males and a somewhat higher than expected suicide rate among other ethnic group males and among Caucasian women. The suicide rate showed an increase during the study period, with some evidence toward a clustering effect in time and space.     

An epidemiological study on work and family stress among Chinese in Hong Kong

Hong Kong, with a population of over six million in a modern city, has been shown to be a very stressful place to live in. However, epidemiological data from a big-scale study in this regard are lacking. The present territory-wide survey, from a sample representative of the general population, was aimed to investigate the work and family stress of Chinese adults in the community with respect to the impact on their psychological well-being. The psychosocial context was considered as an important source of stress. The results showed that coping with work demands and rearing children were reported as the highest stress responses. Moreover, workers in Hong Kong took an instrumental attitude, i.e., one emphasizing material rewards, in order to reduce the job stress arising from interpersonal conflicts in the workplace.     

Sex-role imagery in modern art: An empirical examination

Conclusion It is not clear to what degree the sex-role images in modern art reinforce or encourage traditional ideas of masculinity and femininity. Since many fewer people are exposed to the fine arts than to mass media such as television, the effects of fine art on people's sex-role conceptions are probably negligible. But fine art is one more link in a vast and complex network of sex-role images and standards. At the very least, the sex-role stereotypes we find in fine art provide us with another index of the degree to which sexism pervades our society and culture.     

Work ethic and grit: An examination of empirical redundancy

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between work ethic and grit. Several direct relationships were examined at the dimension and broader construct-level, as well as each variable's relationships with external variables. Work ethic and grit were moderately correlated at the broader construct-level, both related to conscientiousness, and several dimensions of the constructs were related. Work ethic explained significant incremental variance in job satisfaction and turnover intentions above and beyond grit. However, grit explained incremental variance in stress above and beyond work ethic. Study implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.     

Evaluating a brief measure of social self-efficacy among U.S. adolescents

Preliminary data were collected to evaluate the performance of a social self-efficacy measure among 4,061 public high school adolescents. Principal-axis factor analysis was followed by a 4-way between-groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) to test for differences in the Total score means on selected demographic estimates and their interactions. Relations between the Total score and selected risk behaviors were examined through a series of one-way ANOVAs and the Tukey HSD test. Factor analysis results suggested a one-factor model best explained the factor structure of the scale items (factor loading range = .64 - .77, eigenvalue = 4.05, h(2) = .51). Females reported a significantly higher mean Total social self-efficacy rating than males, while White students reported a significantly higher mean Total social self-efficacy rating than Black and Asian students. Statistically significant lower mean Total social self-efficacy ratings were also noted for those who reported physical fighting, avoiding school, and being bullied.     

Precipitating Circumstances of Suicide among Active Duty U.S. Army Personnel Versus U.S. Civilians, 2005–2010

To help understand suicide among soldiers, we compared suicide events between active duty U.S. Army versus civilian decedents to identify differences and inform military prevention efforts. We linked 141 Army suicide records from 2005 to 2010 to National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) data. We described the decedents’ military background and compared their precipitators of death captured in NVDRS to those of demographically matched civilian suicide decedents. Both groups commonly had mental health and intimate partner precipitating circumstances, but soldier decedents less commonly disclosed suicide intent.     

An empirical evaluation of the SYNWORK1 multiple-task work environment

SYNWORK1 is a multiple-task work environment that allows up to four tasks (memory search, arithmetic, visual monitoring, and auditory monitoring) to be performed concurrently. Experiments were conducted to evaluate performance and subjective workload for each individual task and all combinations of tasks at two presentation rates. At the slower default rates, the three experiment-paced tasks were not very demanding, and improvements with practice were due primarily to the subject-paced arithmetic task. Doubling the presentation rates made the demands of all tasks more comparable and decreased the influence of arithmetic performance. SYNWORK1 is useful for comparisons between populations of individuals and evaluations of arousal-related variables, and, with modification, could provide a tool for assessing basic issues in multiple-task performance.