The SASSI‐3 Face Valid Other Drugs Scale: A Psychometric Investigation

The authors investigated the psychometric capabilities of the Face Valid Other Drugs (FVOD) scale of the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory‐3 (SASSI‐3; G. A. Miller, 1999). Internal consistency reliability estimates and construct validity factor analysis for 230 college students provided initial support for the psychometric properties of the SASSI‐3's FVOD scale.     

Implementing faculty computer literacy programs

A faculty computer literacy grant underwrote distribution and analysis of surveys of faculty computer use and expectations, publication of an extensive newsletter, seminars and workshops, and a computers-on-loan program in which faculty members could take out portable computers like library books. Survey results, successes, and failures are discussed.     

Writing and publishing instructional and research software

Many psychologists who currently use computers in research and instruction will eventually consider developing software of their own. Recommendations for structuring, writing, documenting, and possibly publishing software, as well as dealing with publishers, modifying programs, and converting syntax, are presented in hopes of stimulating the writing of new software.     

The role of optimism and engagement coping in college adaptation: A career construction model

From the perspective of the career construction theory (Savickas, 2005, 2013), adaptation is fostered by adapt-ability resources via the process of adapting. Using this model, the current research tested hypotheses representing the conceptual formulation that academic and psychological adjustments (i.e., adaptation) are associated with optimism (i.e., an adapt-ability resource) via engagement coping (i.e., adapting). These hypotheses were tested in a short-term multiwave study with a sample of incoming college undergraduates (N = 236). The resultant data were largely consistent with the study's hypotheses. In structural equation analyses optimism was shown to be a direct predictor of the greater use of engagement coping, and better psychological adaptation to college transition. Further, empirical tests of mediation revealed that the relationships of optimism with academic and psychological adaptation were mediated by engagement coping.     

“An Unchanging God in a Changing World”: Sexual Practice and Decision-Making among Christian Women in South Africa

Journal of Religion and Health - This study explored the relationship between sexual health and religion among young, Pentecostal Christian women navigating the transition to adulthood in...     

Role of Religion and Spirituality in Stress Management Among Nurses

Religion and spirituality play a significant role as coping resources under stressful circumstances. Nursing professionals confront with a variety of stressors repeatedly and are found to employ religious/spiritual coping techniques in managing the negative impact of work stress. The present review explores different religious and spiritual coping strategies utilized by nurses of different socio-cultural and religious backgrounds and highlights the importance of treating religion and spirituality as two separate entities in studying their stress-buffering effect. The MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, PsycArticles databases and Google Scholar were searched from 2006 to 2017 with the key words nursing, stress, religious coping, religiosity and spirituality. Various notions of the divine/transcendent aspect of life have led to lack of consensus over a functional definition of religion as well as spirituality. This is found to be the core element of methodological inadequacy in studying individuals’ reliance on religion and spirituality during stress. Further, most of the existing measures do not adequately explore spirituality as a construct independent of religion. Measures should be more culture sensitive to discover culturally enriched religious practices and rituals adopted by individuals belonging to different socio-cultural milieu to overcome stress. The role of religion and spirituality in stress resilience, emotion regulation and burnout among nurses around the globe needs further empirical support. Multiple levels at which religious and spiritual coping may moderate/mediate the relationship between work stress and behavioral/emotional outcomes among human service personnel who face high emotional labor demands should be more comprehensively analyzed.     

Quality of Life and Compact Development Policies in Bandung, Indonesia

The study explores whether Quality of Life (QOL) corresponds to the spatial pattern of urban system as a result of compact development policy practice in Bandung city, Indonesia. It examines the connection between QOL and selected attributes of compact development. A self-reported life satisfaction is used as a proxy for QOL based on a cross-sectional survey data from 400 respondents. The analysis shows that the changes in QOL significantly correspond to the change of different attributes of compact development. The result suggests that compact development policies in Bandung have not shown a desirable result in improving QOL of the urban residents. The result also indicates that the implementation of the policy is less beneficial in the context of developing countries. The study strengthens the existing argument that compact development policies need to be tailored to suit the context of developing countries, rather than just be taken for granted from the practices in developed countries.     

Perceived past, present, and future control and adjustment to stressful life events

Perceived control is a central construct in psychology and is key to understanding individual differences in poststress outcomes (Frazier, Berman, & Steward, 2001). The goals of the current studies (using 4 samples of undergraduate students, total N = 1,421) were to examine the relations between different aspects of perceived control and poststress outcomes and to differentiate perceived control over specific events from related constructs (i.e., general control beliefs, coping strategies). To accomplish these goals, we first developed a new measure of perceived past, present, and future control over stressful life events. The data supported the content validity, factor structure, internal consistency and test-retest reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity of the new measure. Consistent with the temporal model of control (Frazier et al., 2001), these 3 forms of control had very different relations with adjustment. Present control was consistently related to lower distress levels in cross-sectional, longitudinal, and prospective analyses. Present control also predicted outcomes beyond the effects of general control beliefs and coping strategies. Past and future control had nonsignificant or positive relations with distress, although future control was associated with better outcomes (i.e., course grades) when the stressor was controllable. Thus, our measure can be used to assess the relations between perceived past, present, and future control and outcomes across a range of stressors. Because the relations between these 3 forms of control and outcomes differ markedly, measures that combine these aspects of control hinder the understanding of the important role of perceived control in adjustment to stress.