Factor analysis of the cognitive-somatic anxiety questionnaire

The Cognitive-Somatic Anxiety Questionnaire (CSAQ; Schwartz, Davidson, & Goleman, 1978) is a brief self-report rating scale designed to differentiate between cognitive and somatic symptoms of anxiety. The CSAQ gained relatively widespread acceptance as a behavioral assessment instrument before much was known about its psychometric properties. Psychometric studies of the CSAQ (e.g., DeGood & Tait, 1987) have raised questions about the instrument's item content and subscale structure. The primary purpose of the present study was to determine whether the Cognitive and Somatic subscales correspond to the instrument's factorial structure in a clinically anxious population. The sample consisted of 120 nonpsychotic psychiatric inpatients. Factor analysis with oblique rotation accounted for 60% of the total variance and yielded four factors that do not conform to the Cognitive-Somatic subscale structure. The results challenge the validity of the CSAQ and suggest the need for an improved instrument capable of differentiating the multidimensional features of clinical anxiety.     

Bystanders' Reactions to Witnessing Repetitive Abuse Experiences

The Impact of Event Scale—Revised (D. S. Weiss &C. R. Marmar, 1997) was used to obtain self‐reported trauma levels from 587 young adults recalling childhood or adolescence experiences as witnesses to common forms of repetitive abuse defined as bullying. Mean participant scores were in a range suggesting potential need for clinical assessment at the time these events occurred. Multiple regression analysis identified significant predictors of distress levels, with intensity of abuse being the strongest. Additional results and implications of findings are discussed.     

Promoting higher‐order learning benefits by building lower‐order mnemonic connections

Two experiments were conducted in an effort to combine a mnemonic strategy for remembering individual items with a mnemonic procedure for remembering, and reasoning about, inter‐item relationships. In Experiment 1, students using the combined mnemonic approach were able to identify more individual items (fish names from their pictures) and were subsequently able to remember more components of six studied hierarchies (order, family, and species names of the fish) than did students in an ‘own best method’ control condition. Additionally, and importantly, mnemonic students outperformed control students on an analogy task requiring inferences about superordinate, subordinate, and coordinate relationships. In Experiment 2, the initial number of to‐be‐learned fish was reduced so that the performance of both mnemonic and control students was comparable with respect to fish identification. Despite such item‐level comparability, an advantage for mnemonically instructed students was observed on both immediate and two‐day‐delayed hierarchy tests. We suggest that by cementing lower‐order connections, mnemonic strategies facilitate students' learning of higher‐order information. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predictive validity of the CognitiveVs. Somatic Anxiety Distinction

The purpose of this study was to test the predictive validity of an instrument, The Cognitive-Somatic Anxiety Questionnaire (CSAQ), which purports to measure separately cognitive and somatic anxiety. Twelve subjects with either predominantly cognitive or somatic anxiety received a treatment that matched their predominant anxiety mode (“matched”), and twelve received a treatment which addressed the secondary anxiety mode (“mismatched”). After five sessions, the “matched” subjects reported significantly fewer anxiety symptoms than the “mismatched” subjects. The results support the predictive validity of the CSAQ, and suggest that anxiety may not be a unidimensional phenomenon. The implications of these results for clinical practice are discussed.     

Twilight of the idols? pluralism and mystical <Emphasis Type="Italic">praxis</Emphasis> in Islam

In this article, we discuss the current trend of authoritarianism in the Islamic world, especially as embodied in the institution of taqlîd, whereby a lay person blindly follows a religious scholar. We will compare this to the mystical tradition of Ibn ‘Arabî as well as the early esoteric Shî’ite tradition, where a much more “rebellious” type of Islam was offered and provided purviews of pluralism and universalism that challenge authoritarian closures of interpretation in relationship with God. By way of further comparison, we will also attend to the writings of some liberal and pluralistic thinkers in the Muslim world.

Maintaining cheerfulness in the midst of a gloomy task, fraught with immeasurable responsibility, is no small feat; and yet what is needed more than cheerfulness? -Nietzsche Twilight of the Idols

     

Integrating Biological Measures Into the Study of Bullying

The emergence of minimally intrusive techniques for collecting biological data creates a case for the inclusion of these data into bullying research models. This integration would produce a more comprehensive understanding of the problems and better direct intervention and prevention techniques, which are currently based primarily on self‐report, peer nomination, and observational research data. The authors make the case for including biological measures in research on bullying and present sample research questions and potential counseling practice applications.     

A scale of educational-vocational undecidedness: A typological approach

A scale designed to measure and identify antecedents of educational-vocational indecision was administered to a variety of college student groups expected to differ in career-decidedness. Results indicate that the scale is reliable, appears to discriminate career-decided from career-undecided students, and is responsive to interventions designed to alleviate educational-vocational indecision. A factor analysis of the scale yielded four factors: need for structure, perceived external barriers, positive choice conflict, and personal conflict. The instrument has potential for diagnostic, criterion, and conceptual purposes related to career indecision.