Concurrent validity of Holland's theory for non-college-degreed black women

This study, using the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and the Self-Directed Search (SDS), explored the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed black women. The VPI and the SDS were administered to 102 black women workers in occupational environments consistent with Holland's six vocational environments. The results revealed that four scales of the VPI and four scales of the SDS successfully differentiated the occupational groups consistent with Holland's theoretical notions. In general, the findings lend some support to the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed black women.     

Validation of Catalan version of BRIEF-P

The BRIEF-P is one of the most used instruments to measure Executive Function (EF). This report is aimed at showing the psychometric properties of the Catalan version of it. To do this, a random cluster sampling was carried out in Osona (Catalonia), recruiting 417 teachers and 408 parents of children aged 3 to 6 years. As with the original instrument, results show that reliability is excellent and that girls have a better EF than boys in the following areas: Working Memory, Plan/Organize, and Inhibit. Since in some areas Catalonia's preschool children show EF values slightly better than those of the reference sample, a new scale for using it in this population is provided.     

Caregiver interactions with autistic children

Caregiver interactions with young autistic children were contrasted with those involving caregivers and developmentally matched mentally retarded and normal infants. Caregivers of autistic children were similar to other caregivers in their responsiveness to child nonverbal communication bids and in their engagement in mutually sustained play. Caregivers of autistic children were similar to caregivers of mentally retarded children in their greater use of control strategies. However, these two groups of caregivers differed in the particular strategies they used to shape their children's behavior. Caregivers of mentally retarded children pointed to objects while caregivers of autistic children spent more time physically holding their children on task. Individual differences within the autistic sample indicated that caregivers regulated their children's behavior less and showed more mutual play and positive feedback to more communicatively able autistic children. These findings suggest that caregivers respond differentially to the specific deficiencies shown by their children.     

Development of a Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention Program to Treat Anxiety and Social Deficits in Teens with High-Functioning Autism

Anxiety is a common co-occurring problem among young people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Characterized by deficits in social interaction, communication problems, and stereotyped behavior and restricted interests, this group of disorders is more prevalent than previously realized. When present, anxiety may compound the social deficits of young people with ASD. Given the additional disability and common co-occurrence of anxiety in ASD, we developed a manual-based cognitive-behavioral treatment program to target anxiety symptoms as well as social skill deficits in adolescents with ASD [Multimodal Anxiety and Social Skills Intervention: MASSI]. In this paper, we describe the foundation, content, and development of MASSI. We also summarize data on treatment feasibility based on a pilot study that implemented the intervention.     

Utility of the trauma symptom inventory's atypical response scale in detecting malingered post-traumatic stress disorder

The authors examined the Trauma Symptom Inventory's (TSI) ability to discriminate 88 student post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) simulators screened for genuine PTSD from 48 clinical PTSD-diagnosed outpatients. Results demonstrated between-group differences on several TSI clinical scales and the Atypical Response (ATR) validity scale. Discriminant function analysis using ATR revealed 75% correct patient classification but only 48% correct simulator classification, with an overall correct classification rate of 59% (positive predictive power [PPP] = .71; negative predictive power [NPP] = .51). Individual ATR cutoff scores did not yield impressive classification results, with the optimal cutoff (T score = 61) correctly classifying only 61% of simulators and patients (PPP = .66, NPP = .54). Although ATR was not developed as a malingered PTSD screen, instead serving as a general validity screen, caution is recommended in its current clinical use for detecting malingered PTSD.     

时尚消费:意义表达与自我建构的工具

本文视时尚消费为一种文化现象,并在麦克莱肯的意义转移模型基础上提出意义互动模式,强调消费者的消费主体地位和时尚消费的创造性功能,指出消费者不仅接受着文化内涵,同时也通过自己的解构和重构积极地进行着意义和自我的建构。作为现代社会不可避免的现象,消费就这样以其独特的方式成为意义表达和自我建构的工具。     

Heterogeneity in the Unemployment Experience: A Cluster Analytic Investigation1

Two hundred forty-seven unemployed individuals completed a battery of scales assessing constructs relevant to the unemployment situation. These constructs included: financial situation, employment commitment, job-seeking confidence, time structure, mental health, cognitive impairment, physical symptoms, and unemployment negativity (how upset an individual is about being unemployed). The results on a subset of these variables were cluster analyzed to assess whether the unemployed individuals in this sample formed meaningful subtypes. The cluster analysis revealed four distinct subtypes of unemployed individuals. The subtypes that were identified can help us to understand the heterogeneity inherent in the unemployment experience. The differences among the subtypes also have implications for designing outplacement and intervention workshops for the unemployed.     

Does Global Context Modulate Cerebral Asymmetries? A Review and New Evidence on Word Imageability Effects

In this article we examine whether the distribution of function across the right and left cerebral hemispheres for lexical processing is influenced by the global context within which words are presented. A review of previously published studies indicates that the ubiquitous right visual field (RVF)/left hemisphere advantage for word recognition may be reduced or eliminated for nouns, content words, or high image words, but only when such items are presented along with verbs, function words, or low image words. However, paradoxically, when the former items are presented in more homogeneous contexts, the RVF advantage is uniformly observed. We propose that the processing efficiency of a hemisphere for a given stimulus depends on that item's relation to the other stimuli provided, that is, the global context. This was examined in a visual half-field experiment that varied whether high and low image nouns were presented in homogeneous (blocked lists) or heterogeneous (mixed lists) contexts. An unvarying RVF advantage was observed for high image words in homogeneous contexts, but this advantage was eliminated when the same items were presented in heterogeneous contexts. We suggest that stimulus heterogeneity maximizes reliance on differing, but complementary, computational biases across hemispheres. Hence, the extent to which the left and right hemispheres are recruited for the recognition of individual word types can vary dynamically with variation in the stimulus environment.     

The Social Psychology of Caregiving: Physical and Psychological Costs of Providing Support to the Disabled1

The emphasis of much of the existing research on social support-health relationships has been on the availability and impact of support on the recipient, but social psychologists have paid little attention to the costs to the caregiver of providing that support. In an earlier study (Schulz & Decker, 1985), we found that the long-term coping of individuals experiencing chronic disability as a result of spinal-cord injury was facilitated by the availability of a primary support person, or caregiver. In this study we examined the determinants of well-being of the primary caregiver of the middle-aged and elderly spinal-cord-injured persons. Psychological well-being, life satisfaction, and depression were the dependent measures. The availability of social support, social contact, and feelings of control over one's life were important determinants of caregiver well-being, even after controlling for health and income. In addition, the amount of time spent each day assisting the disabled person was a strong independent correlate of depression, and the extent to which the caregiver felt burdened by the victim was significantly and negatively related to life satisfaction. These results are discussed in the context of a comprehensive stress-coping model. Since data were available from both disabled individuals and their primary support persons, we had the unique opportunity to compare the perspectives of both those giving and receiving daily care. We found no relationship in levels of psychological well-being and depression reported by the disabled person and caregiver; however, caregivers attributed to the victims affective levels similar to their own.     

Verbal self-correction behaviors of fluent and nonfluent aphasic subjects

This investigation examined the use of six explicitly defined verbal self-correction behaviors by fluent and nonfluent aphasic subjects of high and low verbal ability, and by subjects further classified into six groups according to type of aphasia (Broca's, Anomic, Wernicke's etc.). Aphasic groups, on the average, generated some type of verbal self-correction effort on more than half of their initially erroneous responses, and the proportions of these efforts did not differ between aphasic patient groups. Significant differences in self-correction success were found, however, between groups classified according to fluency and severity, as well as among the six groups based on type of aphasia. In the former case, distinctions in self-correction skill favored high-verbal-ability groups regardless of fluency classification. In the latter instance, the subgroups typically formed by less severely impaired patients (Anomic and Broca's) had significantly higher proportions of successful self-correction behaviors than those comprised of individuals with more severe involvement (Wernicke's and Broca's plus severely limiting apraxia of speech). Between-group differences for specific types of self-correction behaviors occurred rarely, but those which were found could be related to characteristics of the particular aphasic groups under consideration. Verbal self-correction behavior is discussed as a behavioral reaction to an erroneous response or dissatisfaction with the quality of an intended response. These behaviors are viewed as indicators of the intactness of an aphasic individual's self-monitoring system, and of his tolerance for responses that are qualitatively limited by his verbal deficits.