Development and Validation of the Xhosa Translations of the Beck Inventories: 2. Item Analysis,Internal Consistency and Factor Analysis

The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and the Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS) were translated into Xhosa, a language widely spoken in South Africa to yield translated scales referred to as the XBDI-I (Xhosa BDI-II), the XBAI (Xhosa BAI) and the XBHS (Xhosa BHS). These scales were administered to a sample of 122 Xhosa respondents which included students and patients. The psychometric properties of the translated scales were comparable to those of the original English versions. Measures of internal consistency were as high as those for the validation studies in the USA and good item-scale correlations were obtained. This suggests that the translation yielded clinically useful scales which tap symptoms that are largely culturally universal.     

Effects of lifestyle and stress on the employee and organization: Implications for promoting health at work

Abstract

This research was designed to determine the extent to which employee health and performance are predicted by lifestyle and stress. Data were collected from 345 employees working in a variety of organizations in southern California. Additionally, supervisors evaluated the work performance of the participating employees whom they directly supervised, and company records of employee health care costs were obtained. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed (a) that physical lifestyle (i.e., exercise pattern, eating habits, and general health practices) predicted unique variance in vitality and positive well-being; (b) that psychosocial lifestyle (i.e., social relations, intellectual activity, occupational conditions, and spiritual involvement) predicted unique variance in vitality, positive well-being, anxiety, depression, lack of self-control, and somatic complaints; (c) that employee stress predicted unique variance in vitality, positive well-being, anxiety, depression, physician visits, somatic complaints, illness absences, and supervisory ratings of job performance, absenteeism and tardiness; (d) that physical lifestyle buffered the adverse consequences of stress for anxiety, depression, physician visits, and company health care costs; and (e) that there was a Physical x Psychosocial Lifestyle interaction for anxiety, depression, and lack of self-control. However, the employee lifestyle factors were not related to supervisory ratings of performance at work. The findings have direct implications for organizational health programs and policies.     

Die systemische Beratung interpersoneller Konflikte in Familienunternehmen

The unique relationship of two social systems – the family and the enterprise – is the outstanding feature of family enterprises. It has advantages, but at the same time holds some risks. Problems of family enterprises which call for counselling have been often described in the literature, but hardly any tailor-made concepts for specific counselling. After reviewing the literature about counselling for family enterprises and about their specific organisation a counselling concept adapted to their special situation is presented. We describe a systemic counselling method operating resource- and solution-oriented and offering access to various levels with regard to the individual, the family system and the organisation. A case report explains how to proceed.     

Learned associability and associative change in human causal learning.

The Mackintosh (1975) model of associative learning specifies that processing of both the cues presented on a trial and the outcome of that trial will interact to determine the amount of associative change undergone by a given cue. Experiments looking at the distribution of associative change among the elements of a reinforced compound in animal conditioning studies indicate that processing of the outcome of a trial does indeed influence associative change. The work reported here investigates the distribution of associative change among the elements of a reinforced compound in a human causal judgement paradigm, and it indicates that processing of the cues presented on a trial also plays a role in determining associative change (in terms of changes in the associability of cues as a result of experience). Taken in combination, these results provide good support for Mackintosh (1975) and the characterizations of both cue and outcome processing that it offers.     

一个参与者眼中的行为遗传学史上的里程碑

行为遗传学的历史,从横切面看,就好似一个由心理学、遗传学、生物学、进化论、人类学、人口学、生物统计、社会学以及法哲学等学科组合成的万花筒。任何一对学科的演进都呈正相关。虽然任何一对学科都不至于相互否定,但是,他们各自独特的历史和人物,又使得每一对学科并不完全相似