The Role of Attachment and Stigma in the Relationship Between Stress and Attitudes Toward Counseling in South Korea

Using structural equation modeling, the authors investigated the mediators between stress and attitudes toward seeking professional help among 298 undergraduate students in South Korea. Results indicated that attachment styles (avoidance and anxiety) and stigma (public and self‐stigma) mediated the relationship between stress and attitudes toward seeking help. Furthermore, public and self‐stigma had different paths depending on attachment styles related to help seeking. Regarding previous counseling experience, differences in the relationships between stress, attachment styles, stigma, and attitudes toward seeking help were evident.     

Performance of Fourth-Grade Students with Learning Disabilities on Multiplication Facts Comparing Teacher-Mediated and Technology-Mediated Interventions: A Preliminary Investigation

Instructional applications (apps) are educational software programs that can be accessed via mobile technologies (e.g., iPad, smartphone) and used to help students acquire various academic skills, including mathematics. Although research suggests that app-based instruction (AI) can be effective, there is a paucity of research comparing AI, to teacher-directed instruction (TDI) or to a combination of instructional approaches (CI) involving both AI and TDI in tandem. In an alternating treatments design, we compared AI, TDI, and CI conditions during instruction targeting multiplication facts with six students with learning disabilities. Results were inconsistent across students, and no condition emerged as consistently better than the others. Students completed social validity rating scales, and all approaches were favored by at least one student. Our results support findings from previous research involving similar comparisons between these instructional formats in which no (or minimal) differences across conditions were detected. We conclude that there may not be a meaningful difference between the outcomes achieved using AI, TDI, or CI for many students. Results are discussed in terms of directions for the future research.     

Participant Reflexivity in Community‐Based Participatory Research: Insights from Reflexive Interview,Dialogical Narrative Analysis,and Video Ethnography

Focusing on researchers, the predominant discourse on reflexivity has seldom considered the contribution that participants could make to research through their self‐reflections. To bring to light the significance of participants' self‐reflection in participatory inquiries, I develop the concept of participant reflexivity, referring to the process in which participants use insights gained through self‐reflection for data analysis and group discussion. My discussion is based on a community‐based participatory research project conducted with a group of adult learners on their educational experiences. I examined the accounts shared by one of the participants by using insights from the theories of reflexive interview, dialogical narrative analysis and video ethnography, and found that her accounts played a pivotal role in evoking group reflections and drawing the conclusion of the project. I argue that participant reflexivity is a useful construct that can do justice to what participants can uniquely offer in participatory inquiries. The concept can also contribute to advancing knowledge of reflexivity by complementing the researcher‐focused predominant discourse on reflexivity. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Long-term psychological sequelae of smoking cessation and relapse.

The authors examined whether smoking cessation and relapse were associated with changes in stress, negative affect, and smoking-related beliefs. Quitters showed decreasing stress, increasing negative health beliefs about smoking, and decreasing beliefs in smoking's psychological benefits. Quitters became indistinguishable from stable nonsmokers in stress and personalized health beliefs, but quitters maintained stronger beliefs in the psychological benefits of smoking than stable nonsmokers. Relapse was not associated with increases in stress or negative affect However, relapsers increased their positive beliefs about smoking and became indistinguishable from smokers in their beliefs. For quitters, decreased stress and negative beliefs about smoking may help maintain successful cessation. However, for relapsers, declining health risk perceptions may undermine future quit attempts.     

Basketball training increases striatum volume

The striatum is associated with the learning and retention of motor skills. Several studies have shown that motor learning induces neuronal changes in the striatum. We investigated whether macroscopic change in striatum volume occurs in a segment of the human population who learned basketball-related motor skills and practiced them throughout their entire athletic life. Three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging volumetry was performed in basketball players and healthy controls, and striatum volumes were compared based on basketball proficiency, region and side. We identified morphological enlargement in the striatum of basketball players in comparison with controls. Our results suggest that continued practice and repetitive performance of basketball-related motor skills may induce plastic structural changes in the human striatum.     

Individual and Contextual Factors Associated With School Connectedness in the Context of Counseling in Schools

School connectedness refers to students' beliefs that their peers and adults at school care about their learning and themselves as individuals. School connectedness has been widely documented as a significant predictor for positive student outcomes, yet little is known about factors associated with it as an outcome variable. Guided by the advocating student-within-environment framework situated with the social development model, this study explored individual and contextual factors associated with school connectedness among 1,201 students in Grades 4 to 8. Gender, ethnicity, grade level, and social skills were found to be significant individual factors, whereas school support for learning and acceptance of diversity were significant contextual factors. Together, the individual and contextual factors explained 47% of the variance in school connectedness. Our findings also revealed grade-related variability concerning associations between the factors and school connectedness. These findings provide further insights into fostering connectedness in the context of counseling in schools with consideration to students' developmental needs.     

Effects of Self‐Affirmation,Narratives, and Informational Messages in Reducing Unrealistic Optimism About Alcohol‐Related Problems Among College Students

This study examines intervention approaches to improve the accuracy of risk judgments among college students with unrealistic optimism about alcohol‐related problems. We conducted a randomized experiment with 2 self‐affirmation (affirmed, nonaffirmed) and 3 message conditions (narrative, informational, no treatment control). Results indicate that providing risk information to unrealistic optimists, while concomitantly protecting their self‐concept via either self‐affirmation or narratives, may reduce defensive reactions and align their perceived risk more closely with their actual risk. Self‐affirmation reduced unrealistic optimism only among those exposed to an informational message, not those exposed to a narrative. The narrative message appeared to increase perceived risk among unrealistic optimists via transportation and identification with the character. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of this work.     

To Balance or not to Balance: Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Affect-Balance Scale

This study examined the psychometric quality of the Affect-Balance Scale (ABS) (Bradburn, 1969) using data collected from 292 middle-aged and older adults, living independently. The dimensionality of the scale was examined, the quality of individual items was tested, and the validity of the ABS was studied. Using a tetrachoric correlation matrix with the robust weighted least squares (WLSMV) estimation method of the Mplus program, we found that two moderately correlated (r = -0.37) constructs are needed to adequately account for the pattern of item scores in the ABS. Two of the 10 ABS items were found to be problematic. When raw sum scores were used in analysis, the correlation between the positive-affect and the negative-affect subscales was lower (r = -0.17), indicating that random and nonrandom measurement error masked the relationship between the two. While affect-balance correlated substantially with five criterion well-being measures, the negative-affect subscale (which constitutes half of the ABS) had a similar pattern of correlations, with only slightly lower magnitude. The theoretical construct of nobreak 'balance' is also questioned. The 'balance' scoring method (subtracting the negative-affect subscale score from the positive-affect subscale score) nets exactly the same score as does summing scores from both subscales together. Accordingly, the summed scores have the very same correlations with other variables as do the balance scores.     

Examining the Relationship between Social Support,Parenting Stress,and Depression in South Korean Single Mothers

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among social support, parenting stress, and depression in single mothers with young children in South...