The quality and quantity of mother-toddler conflicts in two contexts

Current Psychology - The purpose of this study was to examine the quantity and quality of the mother-toddler conflicts in two contexts. Forty mother-toddler pairs participated in the study in South...     

Psychosocial–Environmental Risk Factors for Suicide Attempts in Adolescents with Suicidal Ideation: Findings from a Sample of 73,238 Adolescents

We determined risk factors that discriminate between suicide attempt (SA) adolescents and suicidal ideation only (SI only) adolescents using data from the 2010 Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web‐based Survey (12–19 years; N = 73,238). In males, heavy alcohol use, drug use, and high perceived sadness/hopelessness showed significant effects on the presence of SA versus the presence of SI only. In females, along with these variables, low academic achievement, poor perceived health status, high perceived stress, and unhealthy coping strategy were also significantly related to the presence of SA versus SI only. Therefore, clinical interventions targeting adolescents' psychological distress are warranted to prevent suicide.     

Self‐Construal Scales Lack Validity

Self‐construal is thought to mediate and explain the effects of culture on a wide variety of outcome variables. A meta‐analysis of published cross‐cultural self‐construal research is reported in this article, and the results across studies suggests that the evidence for the predicted cultural differences is weak, inconsistent, or nonexistent. The results of 3 priming experiments (N = 121, N = 99, and N = 361) suggest that (a) priming does not account for the inconsistent results observed in the meta‐analysis, (b) that scores on a self‐construal scale appear to be measuring trait‐like constructs that are not sensitive to priming, and (c) that measures of self‐construals lack convergent validity. The results of several measurement studies (N = 121, 223, 230, 323, 214, 206, 126, 204, 148, 141, and 150) were inconsistent with the a priori two‐factor measurement model in every case. Self‐construal scales were found to be radically multidimensional and highly unstable within and across cultures. These results lead us to conclude that catastrophic validity problems exist in research involving the use of self‐construal scales in cross‐cultural research.     

Relationships between Protestant Work Ethic and Work Effort in a Field Setting

Soixante-huit étudiants ont relevé leurs activatés quotidiennes pendant sept journées consécutives. Ils ont ensuite passé l'échclle de Mirels et Garrett, le "Protestant Work Ethic" datant de 1971 (P.W.E.). Les sujets qui présentent un score élevé au P.W.E. consacrent plus de temps a leurs etudes et moins à leurs loisirs (par comparaison avec ceux dont le résultat au P.W.E. est faible). Ces différences existent pour les jours ouvrés, mais pas pour le week-end.
Sixty-eight student subjects recorded their daily activities for seven consecutive days, and afterwards completed Mirels and Garrett's (1971) Protestant work ethic (PWE) scale. Compared to low PWE scorers, high PWE scorers worked longer hours on their study and spent less time on leisure. These differences occurred during weekdays but not at the weekend.     

Talking Politics,Performing Masculinities: Stories of Hong Kong Men Before and After the Umbrella Movement

Sex Roles - The present paper addresses the under-explored issue of the role of politics in the construction of masculinity, focusing specifically on political Confucianism and men’s doing of...     

The (In)validity of Self‐Construal Scales Revisited

This paper offers a critical rejoinder in the discussion concerning the viability of self‐construal scales. It is our contention that the existing data reported in our previous article (Levine et al., 2003) and elsewhere are more than sufficient to justify the conclusion that self‐report scales purporting to measure interdependent and independent self‐construals as 2 orthogonal constructs lack validity. The arguments to the contrary offered by Gudykunst and Lee (2003) and Kim and Raja (2003) are disputed. Additional data (N = 1,013) show that neither age, occupation, sample size, standardization, nor a 2nd‐order structure can account for the problems we documented previously. Although we see potential utility in the self‐construal construct, we believe that the 3 primary scales fail to meet reasonable and accepted social scientific standards. Difficult conceptual problems will need to be solved prior to the development of new and improved measures.