Implementing Firearms Restriction for Preventing U.S. Army Suicide

Suicide among U.S. Army soldiers remains a significant concern for both population health and personnel readiness, with firearms constituting the majority of soldier suicides. Means restriction, or removing an at-risk soldier’s access to lethal means, is a well-established procedure for reducing suicides. Nonetheless, various cultural, legal, and practical concerns may encumber firearms restriction implementation in the U.S. Army. This article reviews policy relevant to firearms restriction, including federal laws, Department of Defense directives, and U.S. Army regulations. Recommendations are provided for providers and commanders that balance the rights of soldiers with the need to ensure safety. In particular, installation restriction, field settings, enlisting supportive others, unit engagement, and off-installation storage are discussed. These approaches span the public health intervention model, providing numerous potential avenues to a balanced approach for firearms restriction in preventing suicide.     

Self-Efficacy in the Face of Threats to Entrepreneurial Success: Mind-Sets Matter

Results from two studies, extending implicit theories to entrepreneurship, demonstrated that incremental theorists (entrepreneurial ability is malleable), compared to entity theorists (entrepreneurial ability is fixed), reported more self-efficacy after threats to personal ability and business success. In Study 1, women induced to hold an incremental theory reported more self-efficacy regarding future entrepreneurial endeavors, compared to women induced to hold an entity theory, after being told entrepreneurial ability is primarily driven by masculine traits (threat condition). Results from Study 2, a sample of business owners, replicated this incremental buffering effect after threats to both men and women's entrepreneurial success (i.e., poor business performance). We discuss results in terms of how mind-sets matter for entrepreneurial endeavors, especially in the face of challenges.     

Family economic pressure and adolescent suicidal ideation: application of the family stress model

This study used a sample of 501 families from the Mississippi Delta region to examine the feasibility of the Family Stress Model for understanding adolescent suicidal ideation. The results indicated that family economic pressure was related to parental depressive symptoms, which, in turn, was related to parental hostile behavior and physical abuse. These parental behaviors were related to adolescent self-esteem and depressive symptoms, which, in turn, were related to adolescent suicidal ideation. Therefore, family economic pressure and parental depressive symptoms and behaviors were indirectly related to adolescent suicidal ideation. The results indicate the applicability of the Family Stress Model for understanding adolescent suicidal ideation.     

The Political Manipulation of Group Composition: Engineering the Decision Context

Group decisions are not made solely by evaluating the merits of the contending positions. Instead, actors may engage in manipulation to increase the fortunes of their policy preference. Actors may manipulate information, group procedures, or group composition. Using a model of group socialization, this paper argues that a manipulator may seek to alter the group composition as to access and/or status. In doing so, the manipulator seeks to create a more favorable decision environment. This political perspective maintains that the dynamic nature of group composition provides an opportunity for a manipulator to engineer the decision context, potentially affecting the group's decisional output. Strategies and tactics of composition manipulation are presented and then utilized to analyze the American decision process during the Iranian revolution.     

Professional Preparation of Junior and Senior College Student Personnel Administrators

Student personnel administrators from 48 junior colleges and 45 four-year institutions identified how they distributed their professional time, the importance they attributed to 15 job functions, the relative importance they attached to academic and on-the-job training in preparing for the 15 functions, and the substantive areas they felt appropriate for graduate programs to emphasize. While on-the-job training was generally viewed as more helpful than academic preparation, the latter was perceived as at least relevant to most administrative activities. There were some differences both in the type of training recommended and in the nature of the work done by the two groups of administrators. However, in view of their general similarity, it was concluded that the unique needs of each could probably be met in a single graduate program if requirements are reasonably flexible and if satisfactory practicum-internship facilities are available in both the junior and senior college settings.     

Generalized Academic Prediction in Four-Year Colleges

This investigation was designed to develop “generalized” regression weights for predicting first-year grades at any four-year college and to estimate the regression constant at each college to take into account differences among colleges in the academic potentials of their students and in the rigor of their grading practices. Results for 50 colleges which participated in the American College Testing Research Services were used to develop generalized regression weights for the ACT-Composite and the high school average (HSA). Regression constants were estimated by using Astin's (1965) factor scores for 167 colleges to predict mean ACT-Composite, mean HSA, and mean college GPA. The predictive efficiency of the generalized equations was compared with that of unique equations developed for 18 individual colleges. The generalized equations proved to be as accurate as the unique equations. Some implications were drawn for the practical application of generalized equations in pre-college guidance and college admission programs.     

Description and Prediction of Diversity Among Junior Colleges

Diversity in student characteristics at 79 junior colleges was examined. An attempt was made to predict each of 22 student characteristics on the basis of factor scores developed by Richards, Rand, and Rand from published information. Freshmen at the 79 junior colleges were shown to differ widely from each other in level of academic input, major goals in attending college, plans and aspirations, features that made the college attractive to them, degree of influence exerted by others, and significant out-of-class achievements. Most of these differences were related to one or more of the factor scores, but the multiple correlations were too low to permit the substitution of one set of data for the other without a significant loss in accuracy. Implications for characterizing junior colleges, for the naming of factor scores, and for junior college research are discussed.