The Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms Distress Index: A pragmatic exploration of general factors to enhance a multidimensional scale

Objective: The authors attempted to develop and validate a general distress index for a multidimensional psychological symptom/outcome measure used in over 300 college counseling centers with more than 100,000 cases annually: the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms (CCAPS). Method: Four models were compared for fit indices (n = 19,247): the existing first-order factor model (without a general factor), a second-order factor model, a bifactor model, and a single factor or “total score” model. In separate clinical and non-clinical samples, concurrent and divergent validity were examined using several well-established measures of psychological symptoms, as well as two-week test–retest and treatment utilization data. Results: Second-order and bifactor models which captured a single “distress” factor both exhibited good fit to the data relative to the baseline and “total score” model. Validity data indicated that factors adequately measured meaningful clinical onstructs. Conclusion: Both the bifactor and second-order models indicated the presence of a “distress index” comprised items across many of the CCAPS subscales. This distress scale has strong applicability for benchmarking the overall severity and complexity of patients at different centers, and can be used to help identify colleges and universities with areas of clinical strength, which can be studied to improve the field. Clinically, the distress index offers a parsimonious and efficient method for clinicians to monitor patients’ progress through treatment.     

Religious Experience in a Cross-Cultural and Interfaith Context: Limitations and Possibilities

Religious experience is a multifaceted aspect of an individual’s experience involving conscious and unconscious components. Individuals, for example, maintain varied ideas of God at different levels of awareness and consciousness, all of which contribute to their broader experience of God. This paper focuses primarily on complex theistic experiences of God, their relationship to psychological and spiritual health, and how these experiences can be changed through psychological intervention. Consideration is also given to ethical issues and other implications of changing one’s religious experience.     

Leisure and Subjective Well-Being: A Model of Psychological Mechanisms as Mediating Factors

Leisure is a key life domain and a core ingredient for overall well-being. Yet, within positive psychology, its definition and the psychological pathways by which it evokes happiness are elusive (Diener and Biswas-Diener 2008). In this paper, we seek to address these issues by delineating leisure and presenting a conceptual framework linking leisure to subjective well-being (SWB). Leisure is defined as a multidimensional construct, encompassing both structural and subjective aspects. Respectively, it is the amount of activity/time spent outside of obligated work time and/or perceived engagement in leisure as subjectively defined. To explain the effects of leisure on SWB, a quantitative summary of theories from 363 research articles linking leisure and SWB was conducted. Based on our findings, we propose five core psychological mechanisms that leisure potentially triggers to promote leisure SWB: detachment-recovery, autonomy, mastery, meaning, and affiliation (DRAMMA). These psychological mechanisms promote leisure SWB which leads to enhanced global SWB through a bottom-up theory of SWB. We discuss how future research can use this conceptual model for understanding the interplay between leisure and SWB.     

Two-Factor Structure of Social-Evaluative Fear in Children: Distinguishing Fear of Positive and Negative Evaluation in Social Anxiety

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment - Social anxiety is characterized by fear, nervousness, and avoidance in social situations and can emerge as early as childhood. Recent...     

Expressing experience: the promise and perils of the phenomenological interview

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - This paper outlines several of the challenges that are inherent in any attempt to communicate subjective experience to others, particularly in...     

How normative and social identification processes predict self‐determination to engage in derogatory behaviours against outgroup hockey fans

Bringing together self‐determination theory, intergroup theories based on the social identity approach, and normative approaches, three studies conducted among hockey fans tested if social norms and social identity predict greater self‐determined motivation to engage in derogatory behaviours against an outgroup team and higher frequency of these behaviours. Higher self‐determination was conceptualised as an indicator of internalisation. In Study 1, hockey fans who identified more strongly as fans of the Montreal Canadiens (N = 181) displayed a stronger positive association between the perceived norm in favour of outgroup derogation and self‐determined motivation to engage in derogatory behaviours against fans of an outgroup team. This interaction also emerged on the frequency with which the derogatory behaviours were enacted. In Studies 2 and 3 (Ns = 105 and 116), this norm by social identity interaction was replicated on both the self‐determination and the frequency outcomes for fans of a diversity of teams in the National Hockey League. In Study 3, these findings were observed over and above a manipulation that framed derogatory behaviours as being either harmful or beneficial. Results are discussed in light of motivational theories, normative approaches, and intergroup theories based on the social identity approach. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.