Mentoring in China: Enhanced Understanding and Association with Occupational Stress

Purpose  

Given the increased usage of mentoring programs in multi-cultural settings, including the Chinese workplace, the present study examined Chinese employees’ understanding of mentoring relationships and whether mentoring played a role in their occupational stress process.     

Diverse Perceptions of the Informed Consent Process: Implications for the Recruitment and Participation of Diverse Communities in the National Children’s Study

We examined the experiences, perceptions, and values that are brought to bear when individuals from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds consider participating in health research. Fifty-three women from Latino, Asian American, Middle Eastern, or Non-Latino, White backgrounds participated in seven English or Spanish focus groups facilitated by trained investigators using a standard protocol. Investigators described the National Children’s Study (NCS) and then asked questions to elicit potential concerns, expectations, and informational needs. Group sessions were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using qualitative thematic methods. A major theme that emerged during focus groups was participant self-identification as a member of a cultural group or community when raising issues that would influence their decision to participate in research. A related theme was the belief by some that communities may differ in the ease of participation in the NCS. Identified themes related to the informed consent process included perceived risks, anticipated burden, perceived benefits, informational needs, and decision-making strategies. Although themes were shared across groups, there were cultural differences within themes. Findings indicated that individuals from diverse backgrounds may have different perspectives on and expectations for the research process. To effectively recruit representative samples, it will be important to address a range of issues relevant for informed consent and to consider the impact of participation on both individuals and communities.     

事件相关电位(ERPs)反映汉字与其心理模板的失匹配

以10名年龄为19—24岁的男性大学生为被试进行了ERP实验。当被试对特定汉字的心理模板与实际呈现的汉字不匹配时,记录到一峰潜伏期在400ms左右的负走向波——N400。在形、义因素得到控制的条件下,汉字刺激和其心理模板间音因素的匹配与否影响到N400的左右不对称程度。N400和P300部分重叠,受到非语言因素如刺激字比例和判断任务的调制。     

A large-scale comparison of perspectives on parenting between teenage runaways and nonrunaways

Teenage runaways were compared to teenage nonrunaways concerning their views on parenting behaviors. In ratings of reasons for running away, the runaways emphasized typical teenage issues such as differences in values from parents and rebellion. On the other hand, nonrunaways gave highest ratings to more dramatic issues such as parental abuse and drug use. Runaways were less likely to want to have children than nonrunaways and, if they did have children, runaways anticipated being very different with their children than their parents had been with them (e.g., more involved and open). Nonrunaways generally expected to be about the same as their parents had been. Suggestions for treatment, based on the findings, are offered.     

Word associations in old age: evidence for consistency in semantic encoding during adulthood

Word associations of 80 young and 80 older adults were compared for 113 stimulus words. The proportion of paradigmatic responses varied with the grammatical class of the stimulus word and with the vocabulary level of the subject, but not with age. The same proportion of young and older adults gave the most common responses. Although older adults had a greater number of unique responses, this seems to reflect age differences in vocabulary level, as vocabulary but not age was a good predictor. Within-subject variability was also comparable across age, as on a retest young and older adults gave the same proportion of responses that were identical to those on the original test. Both age groups were more likely to repeat common than uncommon responses on the retest. This, together with analyses of response latency, suggests equivalent use of strategic processes across age. The results indicate that semantic structure and semantic encoding in adults are related to verbal ability, but not to age.     

Work and family precursors of burnout in teachers: Sex differences

This paper examines factors contributing to burnout in women and men teachers. Results indicated that men were significantly higher than women on one of the Maslach burnout subscales—depersonalization. Additional results showed that women experienced significantly more depression, headaches, and role conflict than their male counterparts. Multiple regression results indicated that 47% of the variation in burnout was accounted for by a model of burnout that included role conflict, marital satisfaction, work sources of stress, and social support in women. But in men, the main contributor to burnout was sources of stress including doubts about competence and problems with students. The results are discussed from a gender role perspective that takes account of the differential implications of gender roles for women and men.This research was supported by grants from York University including the Faculties of Arts and Administrative Studies. We would like to thank Jacob Wolpin for assitance in the data analyses.     

Psychologists in secondary schools: Training and present patterns of service

Psychologists serving randomly selected secondary schools were surveyed regarding actual and preferred patterns of service and training. Though a small sample was employed, the random sampling procedure and high response rate attained were viewed by the investigators as effective means for controlling the sampling error that often occurs in survey research. As a group, respondents indicated little specialized training for working with the secondary school population. Traditional assessment and report writing activities occupied the main portion of respondents' working time although nearly all reported involvement in the design and implementation of intervention plans for a variety of client groups. The psychologist-to-student ratio was found to be 1:6180, and more than 60% of those surveyed reported plans for a career change out of school psychology. One-fourth of the districts surveyed reported that psychological services were not regularly available.     

Sex stereotypes and implicit personality theory. I. A personality description approach to the assessment of sex stereotypes

It was proposed that sex stereotypes be phrased in terms of the person perception construct, “implicit personality theory,” as the structured sets of inferential relations that link personal attributes to the social categories female and male. The utility of this formulation was assessed by having 31 college students use a set of 66 personality traits to describe other people. A measure of trait co-occurrence was derived from these data and was used as input to Kruskal's multidimensional scaling program. A two-dimensional configuration was interpreted in terms of two orthogonal properties, Social Desirability and Potency. An Indirect Female-Male property (based on the proportion of times each trait was used to describe a male) was strongly related to the configuration and was closely aligned with the Potency vector. Thus, stereotypes of females and males were associated with the Potency dimension of person perception, with females seen as “soft” and males as “hard.” The directly rated sex property Male-Female was also located near the Potency vector, but was not strongly related to the configuration. This lack of fit may have been due to social desirability responding. The results support the utility of formulating sex stereotypes in terms of implicit personality theory and suggest the need to distinguish direct and indirect assessments of stereotypes.     

Individual differences in preschool object play: The influences of anxiety proneness and peer affiliation

Individual differences in anxiety and peer affiliation were investigated as factors influencing variability of object play among preschoolers. Eighteen three-year-olds were divided into high- and low-anxious groups on the bases of separation anxiety and general anxiety scales. Their mature and immature object play, their peer affiliation, and their peer-watching behaviors were observed in preschools. Low-anxious children played more, showed more mature play, and watched peers less when they were alone; high-anxious children showed no play increases but watched peers more when alone. Separation anxiety scores predicted preschool differences more sensitively than general anxiety scores. It was theorized that separation anxiety related mechanisms hinder children's ability to fully profit from preschool experiences.