Personality and job satisfaction: the mediating role of job characteristics

This study tested a model of the relationship between core self-evaluations, intrinsic job characteristics, and job satisfaction. Core self-evaluations was assumed to be a broad personality concept manifested in 4 specific traits: self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and low neuroticism. The model hypothesized that both subjective (perceived) job characteristics and job complexity mediate the relationship between core self-evaluations and job satisfaction. Two studies were conducted to test the model. Results from Study 1 supported the hypothesized model but also suggested that alternative models fit the data well. Results from Study 2 revealed that core self-evaluations measured in childhood and in early adulthood were linked to job satisfaction measured in middle adulthood. Furthermore, in Study 2 job complexity mediated part of the relationship between both assessments of core self-evaluations and job satisfaction.     

The California Family Health Project: V. Family problem solving and adult health.

This article explores the relationship between family Problem Solving and the Health of adults in a community-based sample of 225 families. Family Problem Solving refers to the ways in which the family conducts itself to resolve a shared problem. Sixteen observer ratings of family Problem-Solving behavior during a 30-minute task were developed, based on the Simulated Family Activity Measure (SIM-FAM), and good interrater agreement was achieved. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) yielded a set of three well-constructed, interpretable dimensions: Problem-Solving Effectiveness, Problem-Solving Style, and Sociomotor Activity. Multidimensional scaling analyses (MDS) suggested that family problem-solving behavior involved an organized, means-end sequence of family behaviors in which aspects of style served problem-solving effectiveness. All 16 Problem-Solving variables were analyzed with a set of 14 health variables, for husbands and wives separately, using canonical correlation. No subset of Problem-Solving variables was significantly associated with a subset of Health variables for either husbands or wives, although there was a significant association between the two sets of variables when taken as a whole. Given previous research on family Problem Solving, we conclude that the absence of significant associations between particular aspects of family Problem Solving and Health may be due to our use of a community-based rather than a stressed or clinical sample. Associations between Family Problem Solving and Health might best be viewed in the context of other family variables.     

Satisfaction in interpersonal interactions as a function of similarity in level of dysphoria

This study compared dysphoric and nondysphoric male and female undergraduates as they conversed with dysphoric or nondysphoric undergraduates of the same sex. Subjects rated their satisfaction with the conversation after each turn. The results showed that people in homogeneous dyads (i.e., both partners were dysphoric or both partners were nondysphoric) were more satisfied with the interaction, and their satisfaction increased as the conversation proceeded. People in mixed dyads were less satisfied, perceived each other as colder, and spoke about increasingly negative topics. Thus, in accord with other research showing that similarity leads to liking, the crucial determinant of interactional satisfaction was neither the mood of the subject nor the mood of the partner, but their similarity in mood.     

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The impact of the activation of positive and negative components of an ethnic stereotype on judgments of responsibility for both positive and negative stereotypic behaviors was considered. Overall, stereotype activation biased judgments in a stereotype-consistent manner, across both positive and negative scenarios. Generalization of these judgments to more global trait perceptions of the target was limited to the negative scenario. Results are discussed in terms of both the use of stereotypes as inferential shortcuts and in-group favoritism mechanisms.     

Operationalization of the Multicultural Counseling Competencies

For the past 20 years, the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development (AMCD) has provided leadership for the American counseling profession in major sociocultural and sociopolitical domains. Through our vision of the centrality of culture and multiculturalism to the counseling profession, we have created new directions and paradigms for change. One of our major contributions has been the development of the Multicultural Counseling Competencies (Sue, Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992).     

Attitudes Toward Domestic Violence: Race and Gender Issues

Previous research has notextensively addressedhow attitudes toward domestic violence vary betweenethnicities and genders. This experiment utilizeddomestic violence scenarios with the husband's andwife's ethnicities varied to form four combinations ofEuropean-American and African-American couples.Participants were 156 European-American (87 female and69 male) and 109 African-American (73 female and 36 male)undergraduate introductory psychologystudents aged 18-24 years. Participants read thescenario and completed 7 questionnaires about theirattitudes toward the scenario, domestic violence, andwomen. Analyses showed that women relative to menblamed the husband more for the abuse, sympathized morewith the wife, and rated the incident as more serious,and African-American participants sympathized more with African-American victims. In addition,participants blamed the African-American husband lessfor the abuse than the EuropeanAmerican husband. Bothwomen and European-Americans, relative to men and African-Americans, had more positive views ofwomen and disapproved more strongly of wife beating.This research demonstrates that participant gender andethnicity, as well as abuser and victim ethnicity, do have an effect on attitudes toward domesticviolence.     

Suicide ideation: its relation to depression, suicide and suicide attempt

A random sample of 3,935 adults from a general population were interviewed and asked to report how often they had thoughts of suicide as well as their opinion on the frequency of suicide ideation in others. Depression was found to be related to the respondent's reports of his/her own suicidal thoughts and to reports of frequent suicide ideation in others. A total of 5.4 percent of the respondents reported some degree of suicide ideation in the previous month and 9.1 percent reported that others think about suicide once a month or more. When the demographic characteristics of those who report suicide ideation in themselves or others were compared to those of suicide attempters and committers, some consistencies were found, suggesting that such questions may be useful in identifying those "at risk." Nevertheless, sufficient discrepancies were found which suggest that there may be a number of factors which increase or decrease the likelihood that someone with thoughts of suicide will attempt or commit suicide. Follow-up studies are necessary to uncover such factors and the degrees to which they influence the occurrence of suicide.     

Money and subjective well-being: it's not the money, it's the motives.

Past researchers have argued that the relative importance a person attaches to money is negatively related to subjective well-being (SWB). However, the past research suffers from the theoretical problem of not including the diferent motives for making money. With a sample of 240 business students, the authors developed a set of scales to measure motives for making money. They used a sample of 492 business students to confirm the factor structure of these motives. With another sample of 266 business students, the authors found that the negative relationship between money importance and SWB was due to the two variables being the result of a common cause; namely, the motives of social comparison. seeking power, showing off, and overcoming self-doubt. This finding was replicated with a sample of 145 entrepreneurs.