Generative Concern, Political Commitment, and Charitable Actions

The implications of psychosocial generativity (Erikson, 1950) for understanding contemporary politics were explored. Study 1 replicated, in two samples, previous findings that generativity concerns are related to a variety of political activities, including the expenditure of time and money in support of political organizations. Using path analyses, Study 2 extended these findings and demonstrated how midlife generativity concerns interacted with political orientation and interest in politics to produce stronger relationships with giving. These findings suggest that people view the political arena as one important way to improve society and thereby manifest cultural generativity. Although focusing on the domain of politics, these studies highlight the complexity of generativity as a construct; broad concerns with generativity operate within the context of ideological commitments to produce greater levels of generative activity.     

Assessment Centre Observation Procedures: An Experimental Comparison of Traditional,Checklist and Coding Methods

Concern about the construct validity of assessment centre judgements has led to calls for research into observers’ cognitive processes. In an experiment comparing the Traditional observation procedure against use of a Behavioural Checklist and of Behavioural Coding, six outcome variables were examined. The methods were found to yield similar outcomes in terms of accuracy of judgement, accuracy of written evidence, correlation between dimension ratings, and attitude toward the method employed. However, significant between-method differences were observed in variability between observers and in their willingness to recommend a procedure. It is argued that Behavioural Coding has special merit in assessment centres; the method reduces the cognitive demands placed on assessors, and valuably structures their information-processing. Traditional objections to simultaneous observation and classification are shown to be inappropriate.     

Alcohol problems and relapse: Can the clinic combat the community?

Despite over a decade of research and debate into the issue of relapse the majority of people in treatment for alcohol-related problems still relapse. In this paper the results of an innovative relapse prevention and management programme are reported. It was found that a cognitive-behavioural package of strategies reduced the likelihood of relapse. On average, clients receiving this experimental package took four times longer to return to any alcohol use and seven times longer to return to ‘heavy drinking’ than did a conventional treatment control group. However, notwithstanding these results, 60 per cent of the experimental group did return to harmful drinking. The authors question whether further refinement of these procedures is possible, and suggest that if relapse rates are to be further reduced then greater attention needs to be given by counsellors to clients' social environment.     

Index to Volume 29

Other Index

Index to Volume 29     

Co‐occurrence of depression and delinquency in personality types

Although the co‐occurrence between adolescent depression and delinquency has been well‐studied, the nature of the longitudinal associations is not yet clear. To clarify this we examined whether personality type is a moderator in the longitudinal co‐occurrence of depression and delinquency. A total of 338 young and middle adolescents completed questionnaires about depression, delinquency and personality in 3 yearly waves of the CONflict And Management Of RElationships (CONAMORE). We found that the stable overcontrollers showed the highest mean level on depression and that the stable undercontrollers showed the highest mean level on delinquency. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the longitudinal co‐occurrence between depression and delinquency was best described by means of a stability model, in which personality type membership proved to be an important moderator. The three personality types differed significantly on the rank‐order stability of both depression and delinquency. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.