Cross-cultural Differences in Self-reported Decision-making Style and Confidence

The Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire (Mann, Burnett, Radford, & Ford, 1997) measures self-reported decision-making coping patterns. The questionnaire was administered to samples of University students in the US (N = 475), Australia (N = 262), New Zealand (N = 260), Japan (N = 359), Hong Kong (N = 281), and Taiwan (N = 414). As predicted, students from the three Western, individualistic cultures (US, Australia, and New Zealand) were more confident of their decision-making ability than students from the three East Asian, group-oriented cultures (Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan). No cross-cultural differences were found in scores on decision vigilance (a careful decision-making style). However, compared with Western students, the Asian students tended to score higher on buck-passing and procrastination (avoidant styles of decision making) as well as hypervigilance (a panicky style of decision making). Japanese students scored lowest on decision self-esteem and highest on procrastination and hypervigilance. It was argued that the conflict model and its attendant coping patterns is relevant for describing and comparing decision making in both Western and Asian cultures.     

An Exploratory Study Comparing Goal-Oriented Mental Imagery with Daily To-Do Lists: Supporting College Student Success

Although to-do lists are a ubiquitous daily planning tool there is limited information on users’ perceptions of this method. Another resource to support goal-oriented planning is mental imagery. A substantial body of research shows the utility of mental imagery in the domains of healthcare, sports, business and education. Imagery has been shown to enhance goal-oriented behavior, and along with primed positive affect, to enhance persistence and coping. For the purpose of comparison, a sample of 214 college students practiced either a goal-oriented mental imagery technique or a to-do list technique on alternate days for two weeks. On mental imagery days students were significantly more likely to report a sense of accomplishment, ease, coping, and positive affect, compared with to-do list days. Qualitative comments provided additional informative detail showing to-do list days to be associated with a task orientation, greater dissatisfaction with underachievement, and higher levels of perceived stress and negative affect. While the study shows benefit for both mental imagery and to-do lists, a tenable conclusion from the results is that a combination of the two methods may actually yield the greatest benefit. Used in tandem the methods provide a synergistic orientation to daily tasks with a heightened sense of positive affect and expectancy.     

Factors Which Impact the Delivery of Genetic Risk Assessment Services Focused on Inherited Cancer Genomics: Expanding the Role and Reach of Certified Genetics Professionals

There is tremendous excitement about the promise of new genomic technologies to transform medical practice and improve patient care. Although the full power of genetic diagnosis has not yet been realized, paradigms of clinical decision-making are changing. In fact, recent policy level changes to promote genetic counseling by certified genetics professionals (GP) such as genetic counselors and clinical geneticists, are occurring at both the payer and state level. However, there remain opportunities to develop policies within the United States to: 1) enhance the access to the limited workforce of GPs; 2) revise reimbursement schemes such that costs to deliver these services may be recouped by institutions with GPs; and 3) protect against the potential for discrimination based on genetic information. Although many of these issues predate advances in genomic technologies, they are exacerbated by them, with increasing access and awareness as costs of testing decrease. Consequently, evolving shifts in national policies poise GPs to serve as a hub of information and may be instrumental in facilitating new models to deliver genetics-based care through promoting academic-community partnerships and interfacing with non-GPs. As we acknowledge the potential for genomics to revolutionize medical practice, the expertise of GPs may be leveraged to facilitate incorporation of this information into mainstream medicine.     

Hoping,wishing, and dogs

Although dogs are almost totally incapable of symbolic behaviour, they can hope, for a dog's behaviour can manifest not only a desire for something but varying degrees of expectation that it will get what it desires; but since they are almost totally incapable of symbolic behaviour, nothing they do can indicate that they both desire something and yet are certain that they will not get it. So the suggestion that dogs entertain idle wishes is, apparently, vacuous, i.e. untestable, or nonsensical. Nonetheless, we can imagine situations in which we would be tempted to say of a dog that it had an idle wish, but since idle wishes so often and typically require language, we should be reluctant to impute it.     

Ecological Theology: Roots in Tradition, Liturgical and Ethical Practice for Today

Often it is claimed that themes occasionally present in Christianity such as anthropocentrism, ecological alienation, and redemption as a world‐escaping disembodied immortality, translated directly into large‐scale abuse of nature and subsequent ecological crisis. Such a view is too simplistic, however. Instead the present environmental and ecological crisis may be primarily traced to cultural, economic, and technological developments of the last 500 years. Indeed, within Christian monasticism, ecofeminism, covenantal ethics, and cosmic christology, one finds ample resources for the transformation of human attitudes towards nature and a brighter ecological future.     

Teaching Peace in a Time of War

It is difficult to distinguish a time of war from a time of peace in America, because the Bush administration prosecutes its war on terrorism with an ongoing supporting economy. "Teaching Peace" means analyzing realistically the vested interests in perpetuating a state of war.     

Developmental grey matter changes in superior parietal cortex accompany improved transitive reasoning

The neural basis of developmental changes in transitive reasoning in parietal regions was examined, using voxel-based morphometry. Young adolescents and adults performed a transitive reasoning task, subsequent to undergoing anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans. Behaviorally, adults reasoned more accurately than did the young adolescents. Neural results showed (i) less grey matter density in superior parietal cortex in the adults than in the young adolescents, possibly due to a developmental period of synaptic pruning; (ii) improved performance in the reasoning task was negatively correlated with grey matter density in superior parietal cortex in the adolescents, but not in the adult group; and (iii) the latter results were driven by the more difficult trials, requiring greater spatial manipulation. Taken together, the results support the idea that during development, regions in superior parietal cortex are fine-tuned, to support more robust spatial manipulation, resulting in greater accuracy and efficiency in transitive reasoning.     

The Melbourne decision making questionnaire: an instrument for measuring patterns for coping with decisional conflict

A study was conducted to examine the factorial validity of the Flinders Decision Making Questionnaire (Mann, 1982), a 31-item self-report inventory designed to measure tendencies to use three major coping patterns identified in the conflict theory of decision making (Janis and Mann, 1977): vigilance, hypervigilance, and defensive avoidance (procrastination, buck-passing, and rationalization). A sample of 2051 university students, comprising samples from Australia (n=262), New Zealand (n=260), the USA (n=475), Japan (n=359), Hong Kong (n=281) and Taiwan (n=414) was administered the DMQ. Factorial validity of the instrument was tested by confirmatory factor analysis with LISREL. Five different substantive models, representing different structural relationships between the decision-coping patterns had unsatisfactory fit to the data and could not be validated. A shortened instrument, containing 22 items, yielded a revised model comprising four identifiable factors–vigilance, hypervigilance, buck-passing, and procrastination. The revised model had adequate fit with data for each country sample and for the total sample, and was confirmed. It is recommended that the 22-item instrument, named the Melbourne DMQ, replace the Flinders DMQ for measurement of decision-coping patterns. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Beyond “Entry-level” Jobs: Immigrant Women and Non-regulated Professional Occupations

This article examines issues of foreign credential recognition from the standpoint of immigrant women with post-secondary degrees and employment backgrounds in non-regulated managerial and business professional occupations. Drawing on interviews with recent immigrant women and service providers in Calgary, Alberta, the article describes the women’s experience of looking for work, locating it in the context of the wider organization of settlement services and the labour market. The discussion focuses on the women’s participation in bridging programs designed to connect skilled immigrants with mainstream employers and help them obtain “entry-level” jobs in their fields.