Family of Origin Coaching for Clinicians in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service

The role of the therapist as a person rather than only as a technician has become increasingly important in family therapy since the post-modern turn. Despite this there is a paucity of research exploring supervision models that focus on self-reflection, as opposed to clinical competence. This study documents the experience of a Family of Origin Coaching group, conducted with six clinicians and one supervisor working in a child and adolescent mental health service. A participatory action framework was used, with data analysed using grounded theory. A variety of benefits were reported, including personal development, an enhanced empathy towards clients and an ability to better cope with stressful team dynamics. Family of Origin coaching has the potential to yield benefits for clinicians as a compliment to traditional supervision. Issues of confidentiality and safety need to be addressed carefully, especially during times of organisational change or stress.     

An investigation into assessment centre validity,fairness, and selection drivers

This study examined the construct‐related validity of an assessment centre (AC) developed by a national distribution company for the selection and development of lower‐grade managers. In five locations throughout Britain, 487 individuals were observed on nine dimensions, each of which was measured through six distinct exercises. Multitrait‐multimethod analyses conducted to investigate the convergent and discriminant validity of the AC revealed strong exercise (“method”) effects. This finding was corroborated by an exploratory factor analysis showing that AC ratings clustered into factors according to exercises, rather than according to performance dimensions. A series of MANOVAs and chi‐squared tests demonstrated that neither the exercise ratings nor the selection decision were biased by sex, ethnicity, or training location, and a logistic regression determined which exercises had most impact on the final decision.     

The role of perceived specificity level of failure events in self-enhancement and in constructive self-criticism

Three studies tested the role played by perceived specificity level of failures in self-enhancement and in constructive self-criticism. The first study demonstrated that perceived specificity level of events can serve as a self-protection mechanism (N = 137). The second study, based on retrospective reports of past failures and their implications, showed that perception of failures as specific induced a higher level of constructive self-criticism (N = 171). The third study tested reactions to failures induced in the laboratory. It was found that self-improvement processes are more pronounced and negative emotional reaction is weaker in failures that are specific (shape perception test) than in those that are global (intelligence test). Statistical control over perceived severity of the failure diminished the difference between the two conditions in negative emotional reaction but not in self-improvement (N = 84).     

Sex Differences in Episodic Memory

ABSTRACT— Research shows sex differences in episodic memory. These differences vary in magnitude as a function of the type of material to be remembered. Throughout the life span, verbal episodic-memory tasks yield differences favoring women. In contrast, episodic-memory tasks requiring visuospatial processing result in differences favoring men. There are also sex differences favoring women on episodic-memory tasks requiring both verbal and visuospatial processing and on face-recognition tasks. Thus, there may be a small, general episodic-memory advantage for women—an advantage that can increase by the advantage women have over men in verbal production and can be reversed by the male advantage in visuospatial tasks. In addition, environmental factors affect the magnitude of the sex differences in episodic memory.     

Job burnout: toward an integration of two dominant resource-based models

The goal of this study was to integrate the job demands-resources model and the conservation of resources model of job burnout into a unified theoretical framework. The data were collected through a mail questionnaire survey among nurses holding managerial positions in the Hospital Authority of Hong Kong. From a computer-generated random sample of nurses, 543 (84.3% women) returned usable surveys, amounting to a response rate of 24.2%. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed paths originating from job demands and job resources to the core job burnout dimensions, namely, emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Results supported the integrated model, indicating that job demands and job resources had differing effects on the burnout dimensions. The effect of job demands was stronger and partially mediated the effect of job resources. Implications of the results from this study on management practices were discussed.     

Moderators of the relationships between coworkers' organizational citizenship behavior and fellow employees' attitudes

The authors developed and tested the prediction that the relationship hetween coworkers' organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and fellow employees' attitudes depends on the supervisors' abusiveness. Results of a longitudinal study using data collected from 173 supervised employees at 2 points in time (separated by 7 months) suggested that coworkers' OCB was positively related to fellow employees' job satisfaction and affective commitment when abusive supervision was low. However, when abusive supervision was high, coworkers' OCB was negatively related to job satisfaction and was unrelated to organizational commitment. The results of a 2nd study were consistent with the idea that the attributions employees make for their coworkers' OCB explains the moderating effect of abusive supervision on the relationship between coworkers' OCB and job satisfaction.     

Simple rules for detecting depression

Depressive disorders are major public health issues worldwide. We tested the capacity of a simple lexicographic and noncompensatory fast and frugal tree (FFT) and a simple compensatory unit-weight model to detect depressed mood relative to a complex compensatory logistic regression and a naïve maximization model. The FFT and the two compensatory models were fitted to the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) score of a representative sample of 1382 young women and cross validated on the women's BDI score approximately 18 months later. Although the FFT on average inspected only approximately one cue, it outperformed the naïve maximization model and performed comparably to the compensatory models. The heavier false alarms were weighted relative to misses, the better the FFT and the unit-weight model performed. We conclude that simple decision tools—which have received relatively little attention in mental health settings so far—might offer a competitive alternative to complex weighted assessment models in this domain.