The self-assessment of resilience and anxiety: psychometric properties

This report describes the psychometric properties of the Self-Assessment of Resilience and Anxiety (SARA) scale within the context of a study of kava for generalized anxiety. This eight-item, patient-rated scale includes questions designed to measure calmness, mental clarity, confidence, physical well being, sociability, and resilience. The SARA scale was administered during a clinical trial of kava versus placebo in 38 subjects diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Validation of the SARA scale was assessed against the Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Penn State Worry Questionnaire, Sheehan Disability Scale, Arizona Sexual Experience scale, and Clinical Global Impression of Illness Improvement scale. Good test-retest reliability, internal consistency, convergent validity, and sensitivity to treatment were identified, and factor analyses revealed a three-factor internal structure. The SARA scale was responsive to symptom change over time and correlated with comparable GAD symptom measures. The SARA scale demonstrates solid psychometric properties and may serve as a reliable and valid measure in the use of kava or related medicinal herbs.     

Prospective Longitudinal Associations Between Persistent Sleep Problems in Childhood and Anxiety and Depression Disorders in Adulthood

The objective of this study was to examine the associations between persistent childhood sleep problems and adulthood anxiety and depression. Parents of 943 children (52% male) participating in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study provided information on their childrens sleep and internalizing problems at ages 5, 7, and 9 years. When the participants were 21 and 26 years, adult anxiety and depression were diagnosed using a standardized diagnostic interview. After controlling for childhood internalizing problems, sex, and socioeconomic status, persistent sleep problems in childhood predicted adulthood anxiety disorders (OR (95% CI) = 1.60 (1.05–2.45), p = .030) but not depressive disorders (OR (95% CI) = .99 (.63–1.56), p = .959). Persistent sleep problems in childhood may be an early risk indicator of anxiety in adulthood.     

The relation of age, gender, ethnicity, and risk behaviors to self-esteem among students in nonmainstream schools

This cross-sectional study investigated self-esteem in relation to age, gender, ethnicity, and risk behaviors among a sample of nonmainstream students. Participants were 149 students in the 6th to 12th grades from two nonmainstream schools (one charter and one alternative school). Self-esteem and youth risk behaviors were determined by using a modified version of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) and the National Alternative High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey (Grunbaum et al., 1999), respectively. Results indicated that nonmainstream students with high self-esteem were more likely to engage in their first sexual experience and to begin marijuana use later in life. African American students reported having their first sexual experience at an older age, but having more sexual partners than did Latino students. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

SPSS and SAS programs for generalizability theory analyses

The identification and reduction of measurement errors is a major challenge in psychological testing. Most investigators rely solely on classical test theory for assessing reliability, whereas most experts have long recommended using generalizability theory instead. One reason for the common neglect of generalizability theory is the absence of analytic facilities for this purpose in popular statistical software packages. This article provides a brief introduction to generalizability theory, describes easy to use SPSS, SAS, and MATLAB programs for conducting the recommended analyses, and provides an illustrative example, using data (N= 329) for the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Program output includes variance components, relative and absolute errors and generalizability coefficients, coefficients for D studies, and graphs of D study results.     

Who needs control? A cultural perspective on the process of compensatory control

Compensatory control theory (CCT) provides a framework for understanding the mechanisms at play when one's personal control is challenged. The model suggests that believing the world is a structured and predictable place is fundamental, insofar as it provides the foundation upon which people can believe they are able to exert control over their environment and act agentically towards goals. Because of this, CCT suggests, when personal control is threatened people try to reaffirm the more foundational belief in structure/predictability in the world, so that they then have a strong foundation to reestablish feelings of personal control and pursue their goals. This review seeks to understand how the basic assumptions of these compensatory control processes unfold in different cultural contexts. Drawing on research and theorizing from cultural psychology, we propose that cultural models of self and agency, culturally prevalent modes of control, and culture-specific motivations all have implications for compensatory control processes. Culture determines, in part, whether or not personal control deprivation is experienced as a threat to perceiving an orderly world, how/whether individuals respond to low personal control, and the function that responses to restore a sense of order in the world serve. A theoretical model of compensatory control processes across cultures is proposed that has implications for how people cope with a wide range of personal and societal events that potentially threaten their personal control.     

Speech timing in Parkinson''s and Huntington''s disease

The purpose was to determine the effects of two different basal ganglia diseases on speech planning, initiation, and production. Patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD) and Huntington's Disease (HD) were compared with normal subjects on speech timing tasks. Speech reaction time was unimpaired, while changes in duration at different speech rates were affected differently in the two patient groups. In HD, changes in the duration of syllables, of pauses between phrases, and of sentences were all reduced, while in PD only the control of sentence duration was impaired. The HD patients had reduced syllable repetition rates, but both patient groups maintained their repetition rates over 5 sec. The ratios of word to phrase time, and of phrase to sentence time, remained constant across regular and fast speaking rates and did not differ from normal in either patient group. The results suggest that PD and HD patients are not impaired in speech planning or initiation, but have poor control over the duration of speech events.     

An observational analysis of self-stimulatory behavior of older adults in a nursing home

Self-stimulatory behavior is described as a class of stereotyped and repetitive behaviors. This behavior often warrants concern because it can interfere with the learning and maintenance of more appropriate functional behaviors. In the present study, several topographies of self-stimulation were generated and the behavior of three older adult nursing home patients was observed for six weeks. Self-stimulation was high rate in all three subjects, and the manifestation of the behavior was idiosyncratic. Potential etiological factors and implications for treatment were discussed.     

Couples Work in Cultural Context: Te Ao Māori and Poststucturalist Practices Informing Counselor Training in Aotearoa New Zealand

This article outlines key themes that appear in the teaching of poststructuralist ideas and practices for couples counseling within the Postgraduate Diploma in Counseling Program at Unitec Institute of Technology in Auckland, New Zealand, and it explores the congruence of this pedagogical approach with Māori (indigenous) understandings of relationality, collaboration, and partnership. The diploma program's curriculum includes narrative therapy and relational language‐making. Themes explored in this article include: understanding (heterosexual) couple relationships as contextualized entities, deconstructing dominant discourses of coupledom, and the positioning of counselors/teachers as nonexpert. Taking each theme in turn, the authors, one of them Māori and two Pākehā (European), articulate points of alignment with Māori cultural concepts and practices.     

Does Grit Influence Sport-Specific Engagement and Perceptual-Cognitive Expertise in Elite Youth Soccer?

We examined whether soccer players who score low and high on the personality trait grit can be differentiated based on their sport-specific engagement and perceptual-cognitive expertise. Findings revealed that grittier players accumulated significantly more time in sport-specific activities including competition, training, play, and indirect involvement. Moreover, there was a significant main effect for performance on the perceptual-cognitive skills tests across groups, with grittier players performing better than less gritty players on the assessments of decision making and situational probability. The findings are the first to demonstrate a potential link between grit, sport-specific engagement, and perceptual-cognitive expertise.     

The Convergence of Virtual Reality and Social Networks: Threats to Privacy and Autonomy

The rapid evolution of information, communication and entertainment technologies will transform the lives of citizens and ultimately transform society. This paper focuses on ethical issues associated with the likely convergence of virtual realities (VR) and social networks (SNs), hereafter VRSNs. We examine a scenario in which a significant segment of the world’s population has a presence in a VRSN. Given the pace of technological development and the popularity of these new forms of social interaction, this scenario is plausible. However, it brings with it ethical problems. Two central ethical issues are addressed: those of privacy and those of autonomy. VRSNs pose threats to both privacy and autonomy. The threats to privacy can be broadly categorized as threats to informational privacy, threats to physical privacy, and threats to associational privacy. Each of these threats is further subdivided. The threats to autonomy can be broadly categorized as threats to freedom, to knowledge and to authenticity. Again, these three threats are divided into subcategories. Having categorized the main threats posed by VRSNs, a number of recommendations are provided so that policy-makers, developers, and users can make the best possible use of VRSNs.