Social axioms and values: a cross‐cultural examination

The relationships between social axioms, general beliefs that people hold about the social world, and values, defined as desirable goals for life, were examined in five cultural groups. Results show that the correlations between social axioms and Schwartz's (1992) values are generally low, suggesting that they represent two distinct types of construct. Based on a structural equation modelling approach, results further show that generally speaking, the five axiom dimensions are related to the value types in a meaningful and interpretable manner, and that these relationships are generally similar across the five cultural groups. Implications of these results and directions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social Cynicism and Job Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Analysis

Social cynicism, a negative view about people and social institutions, was found to show a negative correlation with job satisfaction across societies. A preliminary study in Hong Kong showed that social cynicism and job satisfaction correlated negatively across individuals as well. To confirm the causal effect of social cynicism on job satisfaction, a longitudinal study in Shanghai, China, with three waves of surveys, was conducted. Results showed that social cynicism correlated negatively with job satisfaction measured concurrently, and was predictive of job satisfaction measured subsequently. Consistent with the buffering hypothesis, perceived well‐being was a significant moderator in that the negative relationship between social cynicism and job satisfaction was significant only when perceived well‐being was low. On s'est aperçu que le cynisme social (une vision négative des gens et des institutions sociales) entretenait une corrélation négative avec la satisfaction professionnelle quelle que soit la société. Une étude préliminaire à Hong‐Kong a montré que le cynisme social et la satisfaction professionnelle présentaient également une corrélation négative au niveau de l'individu. Dans le but de confirmer le statut causal du cynisme social sur la satisfaction professionnelle, on a mené une étude longitudinale en Chine, à Shanghai, avec trois enquêtes successives. Les résultats montrent que le cynisme social est négativement reliéà la satisfaction professionnelle mesurée au même moment et prédit la satisfaction professionnelle mesurée ultérieurement. En accord avec l'hypothèse portant sur la résistance aux aléas de l'existence, le bien‐être perçu est un modérateur actif dans la mesure où la relation négative entre le cynisme social et la satisfaction professionnelle n'est significative que lorsque le bien‐être perçu est médiocre.     

Perceptual symbols of creativity: Coldness elicits referential,warmth elicits relational creativity

Research in the cognitive and social psychological science has revealed the pervading relation between body and mind. Physical warmth leads people to perceive others as psychological closer to them and to be more generous towards others. More recently, physical warmth has also been implicated in the processing of information, specifically through perceiving relationships (via physical warmth) and contrasting from others (via coldness). In addition, social psychological work has linked social cues (such as mimicry and power cues) to creative performance. The present work integrates these two literatures, by providing an embodied model of creative performance through relational (warm = relational) and referential (cold = distant) processing. The authors predict and find that warm cues lead to greater creativity when 1) creating drawings, 2) categorizing objects, and 3) coming up with gifts for others. In contrast, cold cues lead to greater creativity, when 1) breaking set in a metaphor recognition task, 2) coming up with new pasta names, and 3) being abstract in coming up with gifts. Effects are found across different populations and age groups. The authors report implications for theory and discuss limitations of the present work.     

Pilot Study Investigating the Role of Therapy Dogs in Facilitating Social Interaction among Children with Autism

Ten children with autism, aged 7–10, attended 14 individual sessions of social interaction therapy. A group-comparison design was adopted. Comparing two interventions, matching and random assignment were used to form the experimental group (Animal-Assisted Play Therapy with a therapy dog) and the comparison group (an identical play therapy procedure using a doll as the dog surrogate). The within-group results using nonparametric tests showed that verbal social behavior increased significantly in the experimental group. Although the magnitude of this increase was not significantly larger than that in the comparison group, the preliminary findings suggested that the therapy dog had a positive impact on language output. The results are discussed in terms of the role that a therapy dog can fulfill as a “Speech Elicitor” for children with autism.     

Personality and Participative Climate: Antecedents of Distinct Voice Behaviors

Based on the work of Van Dyne, Ang, and Botero (2003 Van Dyne, L., Ang, S. and Botero, I. C. 2003. Conceptualizing employee silence and employee voice as multidimensional constructs. Journal of Management Studies, 40: 1359–1392. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the concept of voice, generally defined as speaking up, was expanded to include three types of voice behaviors: prosocial, acquiescent, and defensive. Prosocial voice is a fundamentally positive form of voice, whereas acquiescent and defensive voice behaviors reflect more negative forms of voice. We examined individual-level personality traits of Agreeableness and Extraversion and group-level participative climate as predictors of supervisor ratings of each voice behavior. Testing these ideas with a multilevel design in a sample of Chinese workers and their managers, results demonstrated support for links of Agreeableness, Extraversion, and participative climate with supervisor ratings of voice behaviors. Further, group-level participative climate moderated relationships between individual-level Agreeableness and voice behaviors.     

Correction to: Development and Validation of Perceived Self-Transformation Scale for the Satir Model

Contemporary Family Therapy -     

Retirement Resources Inventory: Construction,factor structure and psychometric properties

The scientific investigation of the relationship between resources and retirement well-being is impeded by the lack of proper measurement of resources. This study reports on the development of an inventory that assesses resources relevant to retirement well-being. The 35-item Retirement Resources Inventory (RRI) is a self-report measure consisting of three factors. The RRI was extensively evaluated in a sample of 267 Australian retirees aged 50 years or above. In general, the three subscales of the RRI were shown to possess good internal consistency (0.81–0.89) and test–retest reliability (0.83–0.88) within a one-month interval. Retirement resources, as assessed by the RRI, significantly accounted for additional variance in both retirement satisfaction (16%) and retirement adjustment (22%) above and beyond that explained by demographic variables. More importantly, results from cross-lagged panel analysis indicated that retirement resources predicted retirement well-being rather than the reverse. Findings from the current study provide strong support for the resource perspective, which proposes that resources are critical to well-being in retirement. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for retirement planning and designing retirement interventions are discussed.     

Visual perceptual abilities of Chinese-speaking and English-speaking children

This paper reports an investigation of Chinese-speaking and English-speaking children's general visual perceptual abilities. The Developmental Test of Visual Perception was administered to 41 native Chinese-speaking children of mean age 5 yr. 4 mo. in Hong Kong and 35 English-speaking children of mean age 5 yr. 2 mo. in Melbourne. Of interest were the two interrelated components of visual perceptual abilities, namely, motor-reduced visual perceptual and visual-motor integration perceptual abilities, which require either verbal or motoric responses in completing visual tasks. Chinese-speaking children significantly outperformed the English-speaking children on general visual perceptual abilities. When comparing the results of each of the two different components, the Chinese-speaking students' performance on visual-motor integration was far better than that of their counterparts (ES = 2.70), while the two groups of students performed similarly on motor-reduced visual perceptual abilities. Cultural factors such as written language format may be contributing to the enhanced performance of Chinese-speaking children's visual-motor integration abilities, but there may be validity questions in the Chinese version.     

Are DSM-IV-TR Borderline Personality Disorder, ICD-10 Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, and CCMD-III Impulsive Personality Disorder Analogous Diagnostic Categories Across Psychiatric Nomenclatures?

This study examined the validity of the borderline construct which encompasses diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV-TR Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), ICD-10 Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD), and CCMD-III Impulsive Personality Disorder (IPD) in a sample of 1,419 Chinese psychiatric patients. Participants completed the Chinese Personality Disorder Inventory and the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory-2 assessing various disordered personality features. Adequate internal consistency was found for the borderline construct (α = .83). Exploratory factor analysis revealed two components: (1) affective and cognitive disturbances, and (2) impulse dysregulation, which were replicated by confirmatory factor analysis. Item analysis indicated that the various borderline criteria displayed similar levels of diagnostic efficiency, which does not support the elimination of fear of abandonment and transient psychotic features from the EUPD and IPD criteria set. Findings of this study suggest that BPD, EUPD, and IPD may represent analogous diagnostic categories across classification systems.