The Influence of Culture,Self‐Reported Multicultural Counseling Competence,and Shifting Standards of Judgment on Perceptions of Family Functioning of White Family Counselors

This study examines the perceptions of 163 White family counselors who reported their overall impressions of family functioning in response to a fictitious case report. On the intake summary, the family was identified as either Latino or White. Aside from the names used for family members, the cases were identical. Participants assigned significantly higher (i.e., healthier) ratings to the Latino family as compared with the White family. However, this effect was moderated by self‐reported multicultural counseling knowledge and awareness. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Self‐esteem moderates preferences for accepting versus rejecting interaction partners

Two experiments compared the social orientations of people with high and low self‐esteem (HSEs vs. LSEs). In Experiment 1, participants received positive or negative interpersonal feedback from an accepting or rejecting evaluator. HSEs chose to interact with a rejecting evaluator more often than LSEs did. In Experiment 2, participants received solely negative interpersonal feedback from an accepting or rejecting evaluator of high or low social status. This time, both HSEs and LSEs chose an accepting/high‐status evaluator over a rejecting/low‐status one, but only HSEs chose a rejecting/high‐status evaluator over an accepting/low‐status one. Implications are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Direct and Indirect Pathways between Parental Constructive Behavior and Adolescent Affiliation with Achievement-Oriented Peers

We investigated the direct and indirect pathways through which parental constructive behavior may influence the adolescent’s affiliation with achievement-oriented peers. Using a longitudinal survey data set from nine California and Wisconsin high schools (from 9th through 12th grades, with an approximate age range from 14 through 18) structural equation models were estimated. Our longitudinal analyses confirmed an indirect effect from Time 1 parental constructive behavior and a direct effect from Time 2 parental constructive behavior on an increase in the perceived achievement orientation of friends at Time 2, net of the stability effect from the prior values of the perceived achievement orientation of friends at Time 1. A point to be emphasized is that parental influence on peer affiliation in late adolescence remains significant even as parental involvement in adolescents’ lives diminishes. In addition, the direct effect from Time 2 parental constructive behavior on the perceived achievement-orientation of friends appears stronger for boys than for girls.     

Evaluating the evidence for pancultural self-enhancement

We do not regard the better-than-average effect as 'the only acceptable measure of self-enhancement' (Heine, Kitayama, & Hamamura, 2007b). Rather, we object to meta-analytical inclusion of effects that are incapable of testing the tactical self-enhancement hypothesis. In Investigation 1 of Sedikides, Gaertner, and Vevea (2007a), 12 of the 24 effects involved attributes that were unvalidated for domain (collectivistic vs individualistic): these effects are uninformative. The 12 domain-validated effects supported the hypothesis. In Investigation 2 of Sedikides et al. (2007a), 12 of the 29 effects were deemed irrelevant. None of these effects involved a correlation between: (a) a participant's rating of self and his/her rating of another person; and (b) idiographic importance rating of the comparison attributes. These effects, then, cannot test whether the self–other comparison varies with the personal importance of the comparison attributes. The 17 relevant effects supported the hypothesis. The weight of the evidence points to the panculturality of self-enhancement.     

Deductive reasoning and creativity: a cross-cultural study

The present cross-cultural study examined the relationship between deductive reasoning and creativity among college students (M age=20.4 yr., SD= .6) from Hong Kong (n=39) and the United States (n=38). Participants performed tasks designed to measure deductive reasoning, creative writing, and insight problem-solving, all in verbal form. No correlation was found between the performance for deductive reasoning and creativity as measured by creative writing. Insight problem-solving performance correlated significantly with that for both reasoning and creativity. Significant cultural differences favoring the American participants were only found on the creative writing and insight problem-solving tasks, both of which supposedly involve creative thinking. There seems to be cultural dependence for creativity but not for deductive reasoning which suggests a qualification of a strong cultural-relevance view positing pervasive cultural influences on human thinking processes.     

Context and cognitions: environmental risk, social influence, and adolescent substance use

This study examined the cognitions thought to mediate the impact of context on adolescent substance use and also the extent to which context moderates the relations between these cognitions and use. Risk cognitions and behaviors were assessed in a panel of 746 African American adolescents (M age 10.5 at Wave 1, 12.2 at Wave 2). Results indicated that adolescents living in high-risk neighborhoods were more inclined toward substance use and more likely to be using at Wave 2. These context effects were mediated by the adolescents' risk cognitions: their risk images, willingness to use, and intentions to use. Also, context moderated the relation between willingness and use (the relation was stronger in high-risk neighborhoods) but it did not moderate the intentions to use relation.     

Appropriateness of the Multi-Attitude Suicide Tendency Scale for non-White individuals

Analyses of data collected from 480 university students (approximately 56% White and 44% Black) challenge the utility of the Multi-Attitude Suicide Tendency Scale (MAST) for use with individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds. This size sample allowed for an examination of the psychometric properties and cultural relevance of the MAST for non-Whites. Correlations between scores on the MAST, suicide, and depression measures were in the expected directions for Whites but not for Blacks or Latinos. The White sample data fit the four-factor model of the MAST, but the model required several modifications to fit the data from the Black sample. Verification of the cultural relevance of the MAST and a revision of the scale are recommended to improve its usefulness.