The role of career values for work engagement during the transition to working life

The present longitudinal study examined the role of career values for work engagement across the transition from university education to working life. Finnish young adults reported on their career values (intrinsic, rewards, and security values) at the age of 23; and the degree of person–organization fit (value congruence, and congruence between one's education and the job), subjective income and economic stress two years later at the age of 25. Work engagement was assessed at both measurement points. Structural equation modeling results showed, first, that intrinsic but not rewards or security career values were related to work engagement. Second, value congruence and having a job which was related to young adults' educational field were positively associated with work engagement. Our findings suggest that along with person–organization fit, intrinsic career values are a significant factor in shaping and facilitating successful transitions from education to work.     

Children's Loss of Agency under Extreme Adversity

This study explores the notion of children's agency in situations of extreme adversity. The child participants (n=117) live in the midst of the HIV/AIDS pandemic; extreme poverty; and systemic educational malfunction. Four focus group interviews were conducted with the children to explore their experiences of potential barriers to education. The findings indicated that contextual factors had a profoundly negative impact on the children, with their agentive capacity being severely compromised through their exposure to multiple, complex layers of risk. There was very little evidence to suggest that children retain any sense of their own agency in such adversity. This has implications for their resilience and for the development of policy and intervention strategies that may meet these children's needs.     

Breaking up is Hard to do,Especially for Strongly “Preoccupied” Lovers

Abstract

Is a relationship breakup harder on certain people? To address this question, the present study investigated the relationship of individuals’ attachment styles to various reported aspects of a relationship's dissolution: initiation of the breakup, emotional reactions to the breakup, reasons for the breakup, and experiences and perceptions following the breakup. One hundred nineteen undergraduates completed an extensive questionnaire concerning a past romantic relationship that had broken up. Feeney, Noller, and Hanrahan's (1994) Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ) provided continous measures for five attachment styles or “attitudes”: confidence, discomfort with closeness, need for approval, preoccupation with relationships, and relationships as secondary. Principal-components analyses served to derive criterion indexes from the breakup questionnarie measures, which were individually regressed on the five ASQ scales. As predicted form attachment theory, respondents scoring high on preoccupation with relationships (reflcting anxious/ambivalent attachment) showed distinctive responses to the relationship breakup, in contrast to those scoring high on other attachment styles. Specifically, those strongly preoccupied with relationships reported (a) that their partner was unhappy in the relationship and had initiated the breakup, (b) having experienced difficulty adjusting to the breakup and felling it had been a mistake, and (c) more negative emotion and less positive emotion following the breakup. Implications of these findings are discussed     

Coping among children and adolescents with chronic illness

The present study was aimed to investigate age and gender effects on coping with everyday stressors among children and adolescents with chronic illness and healthy controls. Patients (8–13 years of age) with asthma (n=47), atopic dermatitis (n=52), and cancer (n=57) were compared to healthy controls (n=158) matched by age, gender, and grade. Self-report data on coping with academic and interpersonal stressors were collected. The primary results indicated that coping with everyday stressors was improved in children and adolescents with chronic illness compared to healthy controls. Thus, patients reported less passive avoidance on cross-situational coping and tended to show more situation-specific coping with social and school-related stressors than healthy controls. Additionally, among the clinical groups, patients with atopic dermatitis and cancer scored higher on positive self-instructions than patients with asthma. Conclusively, the results suggest that coping with a chronic illness may lead to more effective coping with everyday stressors. Implications for evaluating coping styles in patients with chronic illness are discussed.     

What Matters to Stakeholders? Measuring Values at a University Museum

ABSTRACT

Perceptions of museum performance may be linked to individual values. This study asked members of different groups that hold a stake in a university museum (e.g., Alaska Native, Art Community, Business Community, Donors/Museum Members, Military Leaders, Science Community, K–12 Teachers, University Leaders) what they valued about their museum's performance. Results indicate that key differences exist with respect to performance indicators among some groups; however, stakeholders as a whole highly value indicators related to the human face of the museum and the collections. Museums can use these results to develop and pursue appropriate goals for specific audiences and to develop performance reports that matter to stakeholders.     

Reliability and Validity of the Dyadic Observed Communication Scale (DOCS)

We evaluated the reliability and validity of the Dyadic Observed Communication Scale (DOCS) coding scheme, which was developed to capture a range of communication components between parents and adolescents. Adolescents and their caregivers were recruited from mental health facilities for participation in a large, multi-site family-based HIV prevention intervention study. Seventy-one dyads were randomly selected from the larger study sample and coded using the DOCS at baseline. Preliminary validity and reliability of the DOCS was examined using various methods, such as comparing results to self-report measures and examining interrater reliability. Results suggest that the DOCS is a reliable and valid measure of observed communication among parent-adolescent dyads that captures both verbal and nonverbal communication behaviors that are typical intervention targets. The DOCS is a viable coding scheme for use by researchers and clinicians examining parent-adolescent communication. Coders can be trained to reliably capture individual and dyadic components of communication for parents and adolescents and this complex information can be obtained relatively quickly.     

Parts function as perceptual organizational entities in infancy

Both objects and parts function as organizational entities in adult perception. Prior research has indicated that objects affect organization early in life: Infants grouped elements located within object boundaries and segregated them from those located on different objects. Here, we examined whether parts also induce grouping in infancy. Five- and 6.5-month-olds were habituated to two-part objects containing element pairs. In a subsequent test, infants treated groupings of elements that crossed part boundaries as novel, in comparison with groupings that had shared a common part during habituation. In contrast, the same arrangement of elements failed to elicit evidence of grouping in control conditions in which the elements were not surrounded by closed part boundaries. Thus, infants grouped and segregated elements on the basis of part structure. Part-based processing is a key aspect of many theories of perception. The present research adds to this literature by indicating that parts function as organizational entities early in life.     

Social Mishap Exposures for Social Anxiety Disorder: An Important Treatment Ingredient

Conventional cognitive-behavioral therapy for social anxiety disorder, which is closely based on the treatment for depression, has been shown to be effective in numerous randomized placebo-controlled trials. Although this intervention is more effective than waitlist control group and placebo conditions, a considerable number of clients do not respond to this approach. Newer approaches include techniques specifically tailored to this particular population. One of these techniques, social mishap exposure practice, is associated with significant improvement in treatment gains. We will describe here the theoretical framework for social mishap exposures that addresses the client's exaggerated estimation of social cost. We will then present clinical observations and outcome data of a client who underwent treatment that included such social mishap exposures. Findings are discussed in the context of treatment implications and directions for future research.