The Army National Guard in OIF/OEF: Relationships among combat exposure,postdeployment stressors,social support,and risk behaviors

With the continued operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, studies of the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder and related symptoms are now common. However, lacking is how these symptoms relate to precipitating conditions and the mitigating effects of social support on these symptoms. This is particularly relevant for reserve military personnel, who have been shown to be greater at-risk for postdeployment problems. The present study examined questionnaire data obtained from Army National Guard (ARNG) units immediately after their return from deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan during 2010 (N = 4329 soldiers in 50 units). Findings showed few soldiers displayed risk behaviors (i.e., daily alcohol use, use of illicit drugs, suicide thoughts, and physically threatening others) during and after deployment. Those most likely to have more postdeployment risk behaviors were also those who showed more risk behaviors during deployment. A substantial percentage of soldiers reported combat exposure, postdeployment negative emotions, and postdeployment loss of a personal relationship. These reported outcomes were all related to increased risk behaviors after deployment. The buffering effect of social support on postdeployment risk behaviors was equally evident when data were examined individually and when grouped by unit memberships. Implications of findings for future research, practice, and policies are discussed.     

A Compositional Analysis of the Organizational Climate-Performance Relation: Public Schools as Organizations

The present study examined specific aspects of organizational climate related to job satisfaction, employee turnover, and organizational performance in public elementary schools. Survey data were obtained from school staff and students and from school district archives. Hypotheses tested included: (1) Employee perceptions of organizational climate and job satisfaction, when aggregated to an organizational level, would represent group-level constructs; (2) Employee perceptions of positive organizational climate would be associated with higher levels of job satisfaction and organizational performance and with lower levels of employee turnover; (3) Relations of organizational climate to organizational performance and to employee turnover would be mediated by employee job satisfaction; and (4) Employee perceptions of positive organizational climate and job satisfaction would be associated with less achievement disparity between minority and non-minority students. Study results supported all but one hypothesis. There was no evidence for the mediating effects of job satisfaction on relations of organizational climate to organizational performance and to employee turnover. Results were consistent with the broader organizational literature, which has shown the importance of orderly work environments, collegial relations, and supportive leaders for effectively functioning groups and organizations.     

Faking on Personality Measures: Implications for selection involving multiple predictors

The potential for faking on noncognitive measures in high stakes testing situations remains a concern for many selection researchers and practitioners. However, the majority of previous research examining the practical effects of faking on noncognitive assessments has focused on these measures in isolation, rather than the more common situation in which they are used in combination with other predictors. The present simulation examined the effects of faking on a conscientiousness measure on criterion‐related validity, mean performance of those selected, and selection decision consistency when hiring decisions were based on this measure alone vs in combination with two other predictors across a range of likely selection scenarios. Overall, results indicated that including additional predictors substantially reduced – but did not eliminate – the negative effects of faking. Faking effects varied across outcomes and selection scenarios, with effects ranging from trivial to noteworthy even for multiple‐predictor selection. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Courtship learning in Drosophila melanogaster: Diverse plasticity of a reproductive behavior

Mechanisms for identifying appropriate mating partners are critical for species propagation. In many species, the male uses multiple sensory modalities to search for females and to subsequently determine if they are fit and receptive. Males can also use the information they acquire in this process to change their courtship behavior and reduce courtship of classes of targets that are inappropriate or unreceptive. In Drosophila, courtship plasticity, in the form of both nonassociative and associative learning, has been documented—the type of learning depending on the nature of the trainer. The conditions in which the male is presented with the training target can profoundly alter the cues that he finds salient and the longevity of the memory that he forms. With the exception of habituation and sensitization, these types of plasticity have an operant component in that the male must be courting to respond to the behavior-altering cues. Courtship plasticity is therefore a complex and rich range of behaviors rather than a single entity. Our understanding of these plastic behaviors has been enhanced by recent advances in our understanding of the circuitry underlying courtship itself and the identification of chemical cues that drive and modify the behavior. Courtship learning is providing a window into how animals can use a variety of sensory inputs to modulate a decision making process at many levels.When confronted with a potential mate, Drosophila melanogaster males perform a stereotyped courtship ritual. This behavior serves at least two obvious functions for the male. The first is to prime conspecific females for copulation. During courtship, the female is assessing the male''s suitability, and if the song he sings (Burnet et al. 1971; von Schilcher 1976a) and pheromones he emits (Grillet et al. 2006; Kurtovic et al. 2007) are correct for her species and of sufficient quality, her willingness to copulate is increased. She will slow her locomotion, present her abdomen to the male, and then spread her wings and genital plates to allow him to mount (Lasbleiz et al. 2006). A second function of courtship is that it allows a male to accumulate information about the target courtship object to assess its suitability and receptiveness. The male uses auditory, mechanosensory, visual, and chemosensory signals from the target to make this assessment (for review, see Villella and Hall 2008; Ejima and Griffith 2009).Since D. melanogaster males will avidly initiate courtship of a wide variety of inappropriate and/or unreceptive targets, including immature males, sexually immature virgin females, mated females, and heterospecific females, the information obtained during courtship is critical to deciding whether to increase the intensity of his effort or terminate pursuit of the target. In the last several years, courtship has become a favored model for those researchers interested in how the nervous system specifies “innate” behaviors. While it is true that a male does not have to be instructed to produce adequate courtship (Hall 1994; Clyne and Miesenbock 2008), this apparently stereotyped behavior is far from static: It can be modified in a dizzying number of ways by experience. In this paper, we will discuss how information gathered during courtship can allow males to learn about specific types of courtship objects and broadly modify future behavioral responses to a particular class of target.     

Evaluating the invariance and validity of the structure of dysfunctional attitudes in an adolescent population

Form A of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (DAS-A), a self-report measure of depressive beliefs, is widely used to test Beck's cognitive model of depression. The present study is the first to evaluate the DAS-A factor structure in an adolescent population of 542 high school juniors and the first to examine a hierarchical model. Findings support the existence of a hierarchical structure consisting of two conceptually meaningful group factors (Dysfunctional Attitudes About Achievement and Dysfunctional Attitudes About Needing Approval), a method factor consisting of reverse-worded items, and a general factor, which accounts for 65% of the variance in total scores. The general factor is related to sociotropy, autonomy, and neuroticism, whereas the Dysfunctional Attitudes About Achievement and Dysfunctional Attitudes About Needing Approval factors demonstrate convergent and discriminant validity with respect to autonomy and sociotropy. The structure displays partial metric invariance in female and male students as well as in Caucasian and Non-Caucasian students.     

Test of a Model Incorporating Stress,Strain, and Disintegration in the Cohesion-Performance Relation1

This study proposes that stress, strain, and group disintegration are important concepts in studying cohesion's relation to performance. Data were obtained from 9,013 U.S. Army soldiers (in the ranks of Private through Staff Sergeant) in 112 companies representing units in both the U.S. and Europe. Results showed that stress, strain, and disintegration added significant, albeit small amounts of variance to perceived individual and group combat performance. The cohesion component, team task support as opposed to peer emotional support, showed the strongest relation to perceived individual and group combat performance, and showed the strongest buffering and mediating effects on the relation of stress to perceived combat performance.     

Form characteristics of category-retrieval relationships in children and adults

Subjects from Grades 2, 4, 6, and college performed a sort-recall task with 24 noncategorized items, using two 12-item sorts, four 6-item sorts, or six 4-item sorts. Among the children, the effects of increasing unitization at study were uneven across the category size conditions used and did not resemble the linear patterns shown by adults. Second graders showed retrieval advantages only for the smallest categories used, whereas fourth and sixth graders benefited from the use of moderately sized sorting categories but failed to show additional improvements for smaller sorting categories. An examination of subjects' sorting explanations suggested that different category-retrieval patterns may reflect better and poorer item relations established in smaller and larger categories, respectively. Sort conditions affording the best recall at the different grade levels were those in which subjects established the greatest number of contextual and categorical (taxonomic) relations among sorted items.     

School Counselors’ General Self-Efficacy,Ethical and Legal Self-Efficacy,and Ethical and Legal Knowledge

School counselors encounter ethical and legal situations that necessitate the knowledge and confidence to apply decision-making skills. We report the findings from a correlational investigation that examines practicing school counselors’ (N = 287) ethical and legal self-efficacy, ethical and legal knowledge, and general self-efficacy. Higher ethical and legal self-efficacy was associated with higher general self-efficacy and ethical and legal knowledge. The implications of these findings are discussed.