Paranormal beliefs and religiosity: Chinese version of the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale

This paper reports an initial study investigating the relations of paranormal beliefs with religiosity in a Chinese sample, as well as the development of a Chinese version of the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale and a test of its psychometric properties with 310 college students (5.5% Christians, 21.3% Buddhists, 61% believers in traditional Chinese religions, and 12% atheists). The reliability and validity of the Chinese version were satisfactory. In general, traditional Chinese religious believers had higher scores on paranormal belief than did Christians and atheists, and the mean total score of the Chinese participants was higher than previously reported in a Western sample. It was concluded that the greater involvement of practitioners of traditional Chinese religions in activities emphasizing paranormal experiences might contribute to their greater paranormal belief, especially as compared to the minority Christian group. The results are consistent with the idea that Christianity may offer the least support for paranormal belief.     

Teaching a simple meal preparation skill to adults with moderate and severe mental retardation using video modeling

We evaluated whether adults with mental retardation in the moderate or severe range would acquire simple meal preparation skills via video modeling. Training was conducted in the kitchen of the participants' day treatment setting. The intervention consisted of (i) watching a video of an adult with a developmental disability making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and (ii) receiving verbal praise for each step of the task that was performed correctly. All three participants mastered the task and demonstrated generalization across settings. All three participants also demonstrated maintenance of the skill one month following mastery. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Job and educational level of company managers: their relations with job satisfaction

In a previously published study, we used a Satisfaction Inventory to measure the job satisfaction of managerial staff (the Inventaire de Satisfaction Appliqué aux Cadres , ISAC). The method of construction and certain metric qualities of the inventory were explained (Frances, 1983).     

REFLECTIONS ON A FEMINIST RESEARCH PROJECT

This article describes the group process in a feminist research project on resiliency in adult women survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Memos written by members of the research team that were content analyzed independently provided the major source of data. Researchers' subjectivity, members' expectations for intimacy, and the role of power were examined. We describe how group members learned that taking the researcher's subjectivity into account affected our understanding of participant stories. The longing for intimacy created frustrations that needed to be acknowledged and processed by the group. Further tensions revolved around the feminist ideal of egalitarian relationships, which at times conflicted with the need for efficient decision making. We conclude with suggestions to aid feminist researchers in negotiating process issues.