Contextualized self-representations in adulthood

Theorizing has focused on individuals' self-representations as a psychological resource for coping with life stress and developmental challenges in adulthood. Many of the prominent theories have conceptualized self-representations with regard to specific social contexts (e.g., role-specific self-representations) and have examined specific structural organizations of the self-concept with regard to psychological adjustment. This article describes research on the associations between self-concept structures and psychological well-being in adulthood. Specific emphasis is given to the feature of self-concept differentiation (SCD). Most research suggests that a high level of SCD tends to indicate self-fragmentation and tends to be associated with poorer adjustment and psychological well-being. Findings from a daily diary study with adults of all ages are reported showing that different levels of SCD were in a consistent and meaningful way related to the daily endorsement of positive and negative self-attributes. Daily self-representations, in turn, were significantly related to individuals' level of daily negative affect and to intra-individual variation in negative affect. These findings suggest that SCD may exert its effect on adjustment and psychological well-being through specific ways of processing self-related information.     

Riskanter Alkoholkonsum im Jugendalter

Binge drinking is common in adolescents. Externalizing behavior disorders, novelty seeking, lack of parental monitoring, delinquency and deviant peer affiliations are regarded as major risk factors. In the framework of a prospective longitudinal study, the specific explanatory power of these risk factors for variation in hazardous drinking behavior (here: maximum amount of alcohol drunk on one single occasion) of 15-year-olds is determined. A stepwise linear regression analysis revealed statistically significant independent contributions to the maximum amount of alcohol drunk on one single occasion for all risk factors. This implies that each of the risk factors investigated plays a unique role for adolescent binge drinking and provides clues for the conception of preventive strategies. Possible preventive measures derived from these findings are discussed.     

Mentalisierungsdefizite bei stationären Patienten

Background

Fonagy (2009) considers the improvement of mentalization, understood as an element of structural change, as a global goal of psychotherapeutic treatment. Yet until now there is little knowledge about the mentalizing skills in clinical populations.

Material and methods

We examined the mentalizing skills in 201 patients on admission for complex psychotherapeutic inpatient treatment with the “Reading the mind in the eyes”-Test (RMET). We explored if there are diagnosis-related differences in the RMET and compared our findings to published data on the RMET in clinical and normal populations.

Results

Compared to normal populations our sample scored significantly lower in the RMET, however, no diagnosis-related differences were found.

Conclusions

Although our data are preliminary, psychotherapeutic inpatient treatment should consider the patients reduced mentalizing skills.     

Personal characteristics,resources, and environment as predictors of business survival

Although new venture success is frequently investigated in entrepreneurship, economics, and psychology, the studies published to date vary widely in their theoretical basis, study design, and research methodology. Based on organizational life‐cycle theory and interactional personality theory, this longitudinal study analyses predictors of venture survival. Of 354 small business owners observed over 8 years, 283 (79.9%) still had active businesses at the end of the observation period. A survey instrument was developed to measure the relevant characteristics of the entrepreneurs, their resources, and the environment. Logistic regression models predicting medium‐ and long‐term business survival included these characteristics and the interactions between them entered stepwise as blocks. Startup decisions (line of business, type, and size of planned business) were used as control variables. Much of the variance is explained by our research model (Nagelkerkes R²=.36 for survival at 4 years, and .33 for survival at 8 years). Although long‐term business survival is predicted by the individual variables of startup size and social capital (networks), a larger part of the variance is explained by environment/resource interactions.     

Patientensuizid im psychiatrischen Fachkrankenhaus

Suicide prevention especially with psychiatric inpatients is traditionally a very important aspect of psychiatric treatment. During the 1970s and 1980s there was a noticeable increase in so-called hospital suicides in Germany, especially suicides of schizophrenic inpatients. The number of psychiatric inpatient suicides has currently decreased again and a shift to more depressive suicides has also been observed. Furthermore questions which are asked in court are presented and discussed.     

Prävention

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

A psychometric evaluation of behavioral inhibition and approach self-report measures

Despite the putative applicability and unquestioned heuristic value of capturing individual variation in behavioral inhibition (BIS) and approach system (BAS) sensitivities, the field has yet to achieve widespread agreement regarding a self-report instrument of choice. The current study evaluates perhaps the two strongest candidates, the BIS/BAS scales (Carver & White, 1994) and the Sensitivity to Punishment and Sensitivity to Reward Questionnaire (SPSRQ; Torrubia, Avila, Molto, & Caseras, 2001). Using both confirmatory and exploratory factor analytic techniques in two university samples, we determined that neither measure achieved adequate fit to our data set, and both contain multiple items we deemed to be problematic. Models trimmed of the poor items achieved better fit than the full models. However, even after trimming the data, model fit was marginal at best. Caution is urged in the continued use of both measures on conceptual and psychometric grounds.