Strategies and attributes of highly productive scholars and contributors to the school psychology literature: recommendations for increasing scholarly productivity

In all academic fields, there are scholars who contribute to the research literature at exceptionally high levels. The goal of the current study was to discover what school psychology researchers with remarkably high levels of journal publication do to be so productive. In Study 1, 94 highly productive school psychology scholars were identified from past research, and 51 (39 men, 12 women) submitted individual, short-answer responses to a 5-item questionnaire regarding their research strategies. A constant comparative approach was employed to sort and code individual sentiments (N=479) into categories. Seven broad categories of counsel for increasing productivity emerged: (a) research and publication practices and strategies, (b) collaboration, mentoring and building relationships, (c) navigating the peer-review process, (d) strategies to bolster writing productivity and excellence, (e) personal character traits that foster productivity, (f) preparation before entering the professoriate, and (g) other noteworthy sentiments. Results are discussed in terms of nine recommendations for scholars and graduate students who wish to increase their productivity. In Study 2, five of the most productive scholars (1 woman, 4 men) participated in a semi-structured interview about their high levels of productivity. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed, and a case analysis approach employed to profile each scholar. Study limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Psychometric properties of the Sutter-Eyberg Student Behavior Inventory with rural middle school and high school children

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Sutter-Eyberg Student Behavior Inventory (SESBI) in a rural sample of children and adolescents. Thirty-eight 5th- through 12th-grade teachers completed the SESBI on 726 children in their classrooms. High Cronbach's alphas supported the reliability of the SESBI scales in this population. Higher SESBI scores were obtained by boys than girls and by African American students than Caucasian students, more so at lower grades. Teacher's race did not affect SESBI scores. In contrast to children with developmental delay, children with learning disabilities obtained higher scores than others on the SESBI Intensity scale but not on the Problem scale. This suggests that teachers of children with learning disabilities recognize the higher frequency of problem behaviors in their students but do not consider these behaviors to be problems for themselves. On both SESBI scales, children with developmental delay were not distinguishable from peers without developmental delays.     

Affectionate same-sex touch: the influence of homophobia on observers' perceptions

The author extended the proposition (V. J. Derlega, R. J. Lewis, S. Harrison, B. A. Winstead, & R. Costanza, 1989) that the fear of being seen as homosexual accounts for the common finding that U.S. women engage in more same-sex touch than do U.S. men. The author proposed a theoretic model positing that the magnitude of homophobia's influence on behavior and on reactions to behavior is proportional to the likelihood that the behavior is sexual in nature. An experiment involving reactions to same-sex embraces demonstrated that, although homophobia was negatively related to evaluations of same-sex affectionate touch, the magnitude of the relationship covaried with the probability that the touch was sexual. The implications of these findings for longer range theory development are discussed.     

Relational message interpretations of nonverbal matching behavior: an application of the social meaning model

The social meaning model asserts that some nonverbal behaviors have consensually recognized relational meanings within a given social community. According to this perspective, the interpretations made by encoders, decoders, and 3rd-party observers of the same nonverbal behavior should be congruent. The authors applied the model to the identification of relational message interpretations of nonverbal matching behavior. Confederates either matched or did not match the nonverbal behaviors of conversational participants while being watched by nonparticipant observers. All three nonconfederate participants provided interpretations of the confederates' relational messages. As the authors had expected, there were moderate correlations between the 3 perspectives, with observers usually providing less favorable assessments than the conversational participants. The authors also examined the influence of positive and negative stimulus behavior on relational message interpretations.     

Questions of culture,age and gender in the epidemiology of suicide

Cultural values were examined as predictors of suicide incidence rates compiled for men and women in six age groups for 33 nations for the years 1965, 1970, 1975, 1980, and 1985. Hofstede's cultural values of Power-Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Masculinity (i.e., social indifference) were negative correlates of reported suicide, and Individualism was a strong positive correlate. The proportion of variance in suicide reports generally related to these four cultural values was R2 = 0.25. Suicide by women and by middle-aged people was most related to cultural values, even though international variance in suicide is greater for men and for the elderly. Suicide incidence for girls and young women showed unique negative correlations with Individualism. For all age groups, Individualism predicted a greater preponderance of male suicides, and Power-Distance predicted more similar male and female suicide rates. Social alienation and Gilligan's feminist theory of moral judgment were hypothesized to explain some gender differences.     

Collaborative scholarly communities and access in the study of material and visual cultures of religion

The Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion at Yale University (MAVCOR) does not simply, or even most fundamentally, shape a physical center at Yale University. Although MAVCOR organizes events at Yale and coordinates project cycles involving Yale affiliates as well as scholars from other universities in the United States and around the world, much of MAVCOR’s activity is conducted online. MAVCOR publishes a born-digital, open-access double-blind peer-reviewed journal, MAVCOR Journal. It also features a born-digital exhibition space, the Material Objects Archive. In at least two ways, MAVCOR is deliberately interstitial, invested in the connective spaces between both disciplines and technologies. First, the Center emerged from a desire to promote interdisciplinary conversation among scholars of religion, art history, anthropology, and others engaged with our subjects of inquiry. We have aimed to accomplish this goal by shaping a forum for conversation and an archive for mutual use. Second, MAVCOR engages the need to form a space for peer-reviewed content online in a manner that emphasizes the mutually beneficial relationship of print and digital modes of inquiry. In this work, MAVCOR’s overarching commitment is to promote innovative, substantively researched, thoughtfully constructed scholarship, with robust interdisciplinarity as a fundamental element of form and content.     

Alliance Ratings as a Part of Trainee Evaluations Within Family Therapy Training

Client-reported therapeutic alliance scores were examined as a measure of improvement in therapeutic skills across master's-level marriage and family therapy (MFT) training. The results indicate significant correlations between alliance ratings and training variables, with the number of cumulative clinical hours identified as a significant predictor of alliance ratings according to a regression analysis. Trainees lacking the expected number of clinical contact hours in each level of training were found to be more likely to receive consistently marginal alliance ratings. Additionally, alliance ratings were especially useful in identifying trainees who were functioning at minimal levels of competency.     

Residual Geriatric Depression Symptoms: A Place for Psychotherapy

Geriatric depression is a relatively commonly occurring mental disorder. A subpopulation of depressed older adults are those who have engaged in or completed pharmacotherapy, yet continue to experience depressive symptoms. We review the prevalence, psychosocial effects, and treatment of residual symptoms of depression in older adults. Data from previous studies conducted by our group are presented to support our contention that residual symptoms of geriatric depression are treatable through psychosocial means.     

Ethnicities and social adjustment in Canadian adolescents

Canada is a complex plural society made of groups with multiple ethnic and linguistic origins. It is uncertain whether government support for multiculturalism is reflected in retention of ethnic identities in the majority of the population in the face of both acculturative social forces and publicly expressed political arguments against multiculturalism. The degree to which ethnic identity or identities are retained in young people is explored through secondary analysis of data gathered on some 2,100 Alberta adolescents, with analysis of various kinds of social adjustment that may be linked to expressed ethnic origins or ancestries. Nearly half of the adolescents retained a single ethnic allegiance, with the remainder expressing multiple ethnic identities. Many non-random patterns were found in terms of association of declared ethnic allegiance and variables such as home language; religious affiliation and observance; scholastic achievement; sexual behaviour; alcohol and drug use; family structure; and parental education family discord, and selfesteem. Three groups (South Asian, Chinese, and Spanish and Portuguese) emerged as having strong family systems, conservative social habits and high achievement aspirations. Correlation of variables across ethnic groupings indicated a coherent pattern, with students of German, Polish, and Italian ancestry forming a group; Dutch and Ukrainian-ancestry students another; French, Scots, and Irish-ancestry a further group; and Scandinavian and English-ancestry students another group. The results are promising enough for us to propose that further research on comlex ethnic identities and social behaviours in youth should be undertaken.     

Natural choice in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Perceptual and temporal effects on selective value

In three experiments, four chimpanzees made choices between two visible food options to assess the validity of the selective value effect (the assignment of value to only the most preferred type of food presented in a comparison). In Experiment 1, we established that all chimpanzees preferred single banana pieces to single apple pieces before presenting the critical test. In this test two chimpanzees preferred a mix of one banana piece and one apple piece to a single banana piece when both banana pieces were approximately the same size, but two chimpanzees were indifferent between the two options, exhibiting the selective value effect. In Experiment 2, when the banana pieces in both options were more closely equated in size, the chimpanzees were biased to choose the single banana piece over the mixed array even though this was the smaller total amount of food. However, in Experiment 3, when we introduced longer intervals between each trial, the chimpanzees preferred the mixed set and thus the larger total amount of food. The results demonstrate that only some chimpanzees exhibit the choice pattern indicative of the selective value effect, and they do so only when item size is not carefully controlled and trials are presented quickly in succession. Thus, the behavior pattern originally labeled the selective value effect may actually be explained by a combination of chimpanzees’ sensitivity to small differences in preferred food amount and chimpanzees tendency to avoid less preferred foods that would delay the acquisition of further preferred food items.