Criterion-related validity of sit-and-reach tests in university men in Hong Kong

To examine the criterion-related validity of traditional, modified, and YMCA sit-and-reach tests and the relationships of these with abdominal muscular strength and endurance measured by the sit-up test, 52 university men of mean age 20.7 yr. were administered two trials of six measurements in counterbalanced order, including traditional, modified, and YMCA sit-and-reach tests, passive straight-leg raise, low-back flexibility evaluation, and 1-min. sit-up test. Pearson product-moment correlations were significant (p < .05) for traditional and modified sit-and-reach tests with hamstrings' flexibility (rs = .71 and .77, respectively). Also, the YMCA sit-and-reach test was significantly associated with hamstrings' flexibility (r = .64) and low-back flexibility (r = .47). Stepwise multiple regression indicated hamstrings' flexibility was the only significant predictor of traditional and modified sit-and-reach tests, explaining the variances of 59.1% and 49.8%, respectively. However, both hamstring and low-back flexibility were significant predictors for the YMCA sit-and-reach test, which in total accounted for 52.2% of explained variance. Traditional and modified sit-and-reach tests are valid in assessing hamstrings' flexibility only, whereas the YMCA sit-and-reach test is valid for measuring both the hamstring and low-back flexibility.     

Multisystemic therapy for young offenders: families' experiences of therapeutic processes and outcomes

Multisystemic Therapy (MST) has been found to be effective in reducing youth antisocial behavior, but little is known about the process and impact of MST from the perspective of families themselves. This qualitative study explored parents' and young people's experiences of MST, focusing on aspects of the intervention that promoted or limited change. Thirty-seven semistructured interviews were conducted with a consecutive sample of 21 families (21 parent interviews, 16 young people) who had participated in a randomized controlled trial of MST for young offenders in the United Kingdom. Thematic analysis yielded 10 themes, organized into two domains: (a) engagement in MST and initial processes of change captures the central importance of the therapeutic relationship and the MST engagement model in families' positive experiences of MST; and (b) outcomes are complex reflects the range of positive outcomes reported (notably increased parental confidence and skills, improved family relationships, a return to education, and greater reflection and aspiration on the part of the young person) and mixed behavior outcomes. Even when the young person had reoffended, respondents indicated a range of other benefits for the family. The findings support the MST theory of change as well as point to some outcomes not usually measured in MST outcome studies. They also suggest some adaptations that may increase the impact of the intervention, including more attention to the influence of deviant peers, and ongoing support for families struggling to maintain strategies beyond the prescribed treatment period.     

The Hispanic Stress Inventory--Adolescent Version: a culturally informed psychosocial assessment

A 2-phase study was conducted to develop a culturally informed measure of psychosocial stress for adolescents: the Hispanic Stress Inventory--Adolescent Version (HSI-A). Phase 1 involved item development through the collection of open-ended focus group interview data (n = 170) from a heterogeneous sample of Hispanic youths residing in the southwest and northeast United States. In Phase 2, we examined the psychometric properties of the HSI-A (n = 1,651), which involved the use of factor analytic procedures to determine the underlying scale structure of the HSI-A for foreign-born and U.S.-born participants in an aggregated analytic approach. An 8-factor solution was established, with factors that include Family Economic Stress, Acculturation-Gap Stress, Culture and Educational Stress, Immigration-Related Stress, Discrimination Stress, Family Immigration Stress, Community and Gang-Related Stress, and Family and Drug-Related Stress. Concurrent, related validity estimates were calculated to determine relations between HSI-A and other measures of child psychopathology and behavioral and emotional disturbances. HSI-A total stress appraisal scores were significantly correlated with both the Children's Depression Inventory and the Youth Self Report (p < .001). Reliability estimates for the HSI-A were conducted, and they yielded high reliability coefficients for most factor subscales, with the HSI-A total stress appraisal score reliability alpha at .92.     

A Mediated Moderation Model of Conformative Peer Bullying

We investigated the relationship between conformative peer bullying and issues of peer conformity among adolescents. This relationship is examined through the establishment of a mediated moderation model for conformative peer bullying using structural equation modeling in a sample of 391 second-year middle school students in Seoul, South Korea. We found that peer pressure and resistance to peer influence interact with one another to affect antisocial conformity, which then affects conformative peer bullying, thereby establishing its mediated moderation effect. The results suggest that conformative peer bullying that encourages and assists active bullies is affected by antisocial conformity; moreover, an individual’s capacity to resist peer influence plays a protective role against peer conformity, and this must be acknowledged as a significant influence in conformative peer bullying among adolescents.     

Immigrant Youth and Employment: Lessons Learned from the Analysis of LSIC and 82 Lived Stories

Finding a job has become a critical challenge to many youth. Immigrant youth, who have been a key part of the global migrants, are particularly vulnerable when entering the job market of the host country due to various structural barriers. However, in both public policy discourse and research, their labour market experience tends to be overlooked. In this paper, we report the employment experience of recently arrived immigrant youth based on an analysis of the LSIC and findings of in-depth interviews of 82 immigrant youth in four cities in Canada. Our results reveal that recently arrived immigrant youth tend to work in lower-skilled employment, experience significant delays in finding employment, have difficulties with foreign credential recognition, and have fewer means to access to job markets.     

Negative triangles: simple geometric shapes convey emotional valence

It has been suggested that downward pointing triangles convey negative valence, perhaps because they mimic an underlying primitive feature present in negative facial expressions (Larson, Aronoff, and Stearns, 2007). Here, we test this proposition using a flanker interference paradigm in which participants indicated the valence of a central face target, presented between two adjacent distracters. Experiment 1 showed that, compared with face flankers, downward pointing triangles had little influence on responses to face targets. However, in Experiment 2, when attentional competition was increased between target and flankers, downward pointing triangles slowed responses to positively valenced face targets, and speeded them to negatively valenced targets, consistent with valence-based flanker compatibility effects. These findings provide converging evidence that simple geometric shapes may convey emotional valence.     

The effect of cognitive behavior therapy on decision making in adolescents who self-harm: a pilot study

Research shows poor decision making in adolescents who self-harm and a positive correlation between decision-making abilities and duration since last self-harm episode. This exploratory study investigated whether decision making in self-harming adolescents could be improved through treatment with a novel cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). It also investigated whether improvement in decision making following treatment was linked to self-harm cessation. Adolescent self-harmers receiving CBT (n = 24) or no treatment (n = 9) and healthy controls (n = 22) were longitudinally compared on the Iowa gambling task (IGT). Significant IGT improvements were only observed for adolescents who self-harm following CBT. CBT may benefit adolescent self-harmers and generate decision-making improvements.     

La version française du dictionnaire pour le LIWC : modalités de construction et exemples d’utilisation

LIWC is, originally, a text analysis program that counts words of English texts in psychologically meaningful categories. It provides an analysis (in percentage) for 80 dimensions of language (functional words, topics, punctuation). The goal of this methodological note is to present the French LIWC. This version respects the structure of the categories of the English version of the software and gives explanations about the user guide such the preparation of the to be analyzed texts. Then, we explain the decisions for translating the English dictionary into French. We emphasize the constraints imposed by the morphology of written French language and the difficulties encountered (elision of the article, elision of negation and of verbs’ tense). Presenting the translation problems allows understanding the modalities of construction of the dictionary and allows for a LIWC user to build a personalized dictionary in order to analyze contents more suited to the research needs. A qualitative comparison of dimensions obtained with both the French and English versions for 66 bilingual texts of various types and contents provides satisfactory results. A statistical comparison of 119 expressive writings produced by students from three university courses (Humanities, Sciences and Psychology) about a given event (success or failure to an exam) shows the validity of the French version for identifying the expressed contents. Thus, this tool should be efficient for undertaking research in different fields of psychology (health, work and education) concerning oral and written language produced in different contexts.     

Two models of unawareness: comparing the object-based and the subjective-state-space approaches

Over the past 20 years or so, a small but growing literature has emerged with the aim of modeling agents who are unaware of certain things. In this paper we compare two different approaches to modeling unawareness: the object-based approach of Board and Chung (Object-based unawareness: theory and applications. University of Minnesota, Mimeo, 2008) and the subjective-state-space approach of Heifetz et al. (J Econ Theory 130:78–94, 2006). In particular, we show that subjective-state-space models (henceforth HMS structures) can be embedded within object-based models (henceforth OBU structures), demonstrating that the latter are at least as expressive. As long as certain restrictions are imposed on the form of the OBU structure, the embedding can also go the other way. A generalization of HMS structures (relaxing the partitional properties of knowledge) gives us a full converse.