Evaluation of the Bifactor Structure of the Dispositional Hope Scale

The Dispositional Hope Scale (DHS; Snyder et al., 1991) is composed of items assessing an individual's perception of his or her agency and pathways. This study examined support for the bifactor structure and relation of the factors in this model with depressive symptoms. It also examined cross-gender measurement invariance for the bifactor model. A community sample of 413 women and 257 men completed the DHS. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated more support for the bifactor model than the 1- and 2-factor models. Results also indicated full measurement invariance across gender for the bifactor and the 2-factor models. The general and the specific agency factors, but not the specific pathways factor, correlated with depressive symptoms. The better support for the bifactor model suggests that ideally hope has to be measured and examined by factors reflecting high covariance for agency and pathways, and also factors reflecting unique variances for agency and pathways. The support for full cross-gender measurement invariance indicated that there are no differences in measurement and scaling properties for the DHS across ratings provided by women and men, and therefore the DHS ratings can be scored in the same way for women and men.     

Children's hostile intent attributions and emotional distress: What do parents perceive?

Traditionally, assessments of social information processing and associated emotional distress have used children's self‐reports. We posit that additional informants, such as parents, may help illuminate the association between these variables and aggression. Our sample was composed of 222 dual‐parent families of fourth‐grade children (103 boys; 119 girls). Children responded to instrumental and relational provocations and their parents read the same scenarios and responded the way they believed their child would. Peer nominations provided aggression scores. We explored how means differed by provocation type (relational vs. instrumental), informant (mother, father, and child), and gender of child. The results also suggest that parent perceptions may effectively predict children's participation in relational and physical aggression, above and beyond the child's self‐reports.

     

Ulrike Kistner and Philippe Van Haute: Violence,Slavery and Freedom between Hegel and Fanon,Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2020, 168 pp., ISBN 978-1-77,614-623-9, ISBN 978-1-77,614-627-7

Continental Philosophy Review - Violence, Slavery and Freedom between Hegel and Fanon is a volume of secondary literature that dispels common misconceptions about the relationship between Hegelian...