Parental socialization of mental health in Chinese American families: What parents say and do,and how youth make meaning

Parental mental health socialization is a process by which parents shape how youth develop and maintain beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors regarding mental health and help-seeking behaviors. Although culture shapes parental mental health socialization, few studies have examined specific parental socialization practices regarding mental health and help-seeking, especially as a culturally anchored process. Using a qualitative approach, this study explores youth-reported parental socialization of mental health within Chinese American families by examining focus group data from 69 Chinese American high school and college students. Findings revealed that youth received parental messages that conveyed culturally anchored conceptualizations of mental health that included stigmatized views of mental illness and perceptions of mental distress as not a legitimate problem. Parents responded to youth distress in culturally consonant ways: by encouraging culturally specific coping methods, dismissing or minimizing distress, or responding with silence. Youth engaged in the active interpretation of parental messages through cultural brokering, bridging the gap between their parents’ messages and mainstream notions of mental health and help-seeking. Overall, our findings point to the significant role of culture in parental mental health socialization in Chinese American families and the need to integrate culturally specific understandings of mental health into future interventions for Asian American youth.     

Psychological maladjustment mediates the link between remembrances of parental rejection in childhood and loneliness in adulthood: A cross-cultural comparative study

Drawing stimulus from interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory, this multicultural study examined relations between men's versus women's remembrances of maternal and paternal acceptance-rejection in childhood and their current level of loneliness, as mediated by adults' self-reported psychological maladjustment. Adults (N = 899) from five nations (Iraq, Italy, the Netherlands, Pakistan, and the United States) responded to the Adult version of the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire-short form for mothers and fathers, the Adult version of the Personality Assessment Questionnaire-short form, and the Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Loneliness Scale. Adults' remembrances of maternal and paternal rejection in childhood significantly and independently predicted feelings of loneliness but remembered paternal rejection was more strongly related to these feelings than were remembrances of maternal rejection. Psychological maladjustment fully mediated the effect of remembered maternal rejection but only partially mediated the effect of remembered paternal rejection on loneliness. There were no significant differences in these results across the five countries or genders. Overall, the results suggest that adults' remembrances of parental rejection in childhood—along with the theoretically expected development of psychological maladjustment—are likely to be associated panculturally with the experience of loneliness in adulthood.     

A comparison of stimulus set size on tact training for children with autism spectrum disorder

Previous studies on skill acquisition have taught targets in stimulus sets composed of different numbers of stimuli. Although the rationale for selection of a stimulus set size is not clear, the number of target stimuli trained within a set is a treatment decision for which there is limited empirical support. The current investigation compared the efficiency of tact training in 4 stimulus set sizes, each of which included 12 stimuli grouped into (a) 4 sets of 3 stimuli, (b) 3 sets of 4 stimuli, (c) 2 sets of 6 stimuli, and (d) 1 set of 12 stimuli. Results of all 4 participants with autism spectrum disorder show tact training with larger (i.e., 6 and 12) stimulus set sizes was more efficient than training with smaller (i.e., 3 and 4) stimulus set sizes.     

The facilitative interpersonal skills method: Difficult psychotherapy moments and appropriate therapist responsiveness

The Facilitative Interpersonal Skills (FIS) task is a performance test of therapists’ use of common relational skills (e.g. empathy, building expectations). The FIS method includes (a) materials that simulate difficult client moments on video, which are used to collect therapists’ responses to these situations; and (b) independent ratings of these responses. Many of the FIS items are informed by psychotherapy processes that have been linked to outcome and facilitative conditions that have been reframed as individual therapist skills (e.g. alliance bond capacity). Overall, the FIS has predicted psychotherapy outcome. A single study is described in which FIS predicted the therapist effect using multilevel modelling of a large sample of clients who were nested within therapists. We also summarise two additional outcome studies that used experimental designs. One future direction is to better understand how therapists form responses to these difficult moments. We conclude that forming an optimal therapeutic response during challenging, emergent in‐session situations involves responsiveness (Stiles et al., 1998), or finding a response that fits the clients’ needs within any moment.     

The Development of Selective Attention in Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The influence of age on a selective attention task was studied in a sample of children with and without Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The impact of methylphenidate (MPH) treatment on selective attention was also investigated in the children with ADHD. Two age groups of children with ADHD and two age groups of control children were tested using a timed computer task. The task consisted of identifying visual target stimuli under various distracter conditions. Distracters varied on the basis of modality (i.e., visual, auditory, or both) and task relevance (i.e., meaningful or irrelevant). Reaction times and accuracy were measured. Children with ADHD were less efficient on the selective attention task than were children without ADHD, and older children were more efficient than younger children in both groups. Children without ADHD were influenced more by the nature of distracters than were children with ADHD. For children with ADHD, MPH improved performance overall.     

The role of fairness perceptions and accountability attributions in predicting reactions to organizational events

Researchers have found that fairness perceptions relate to many different outcomes (e.g., J. A. Colquitt, D. E. Conlon, M. J. Wesson, C. Porter, & K. Y. Ng, 2001). However, they cannot predict when an employee will react against a specific individual or against the organization itself. To address this question, the authors integrated the fairness and blame-attributions literatures. They predicted that blame attributions would strengthen the relationship between fairness perceptions and reactions to specific organizational agents. They surveyed 48 employees who believed there were inaccuracies in their most recent performance appraisals. Employees reported perceptions of fairness and attributions of blame to both their supervisor and the organization and rated their commitment to both targets. Supervisors simultaneously rated each employee's citizenship behavior toward each target. For supervisor reactions and organizational citizenship behavior directed at the organization, blame and fairness perceptions interacted; unique positive reactions were elicited only when the supervisor was perceived as blameless and fair.     

The Causes,Course, and Consequences of Anger Problems in Veterans Returning to Civilian Life

While anger is a common problem for veterans returning from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, veterans' understanding of the causes, course, and consequences of anger has not been explored. We conducted this qualitative study to learn veterans' perspectives about their anger problems. We identify and describe three distinct patterns of anger problems that emerged as a consequence of (a) loss of structure during reintegration to civilian life, (b) moral injury sustained through a wartime experience, and (c) posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While anger problems tended to be short lived for those experiencing loss of structure, problems persisted for years for those with moral injury or PTSD. Anger following all three patterns negatively impacted veterans' experiences with reintegration. We discuss the implications of these findings.     

Resolving Uncertainty About the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale–12: Application of Modern Psychometric Strategies

In this study, we evaluated the factor structure, reliability estimates, item parameters, and differential correlates of the short form of the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (Carleton, Norton, &; Asmundson, 2007 Carleton, R., Norton, P., &; Asmundson, G. (2007). Fearing the unknown. A short version of the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 21, 105–117.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in samples of undergraduate women (n = 387) and men (n = 276) ranging in age from 18 to 49 years (M = 20.20, SD = 3.91). This instrument was designed to measure 2 facets of intolerance of uncertainty—prospective anxiety and inhibitory anxiety—although total scores on the measure are often used. A major objective of this study was to determine the degree to which derivation of total versus subscale scores is empirically permissible. Comparison of a bifactor model to a unidimensional model and a 2-factor correlated traits model indicated that the bifactor model exhibited superior fit to the sample data. This model provided evidence of a strong general intolerance of uncertainty factor that was more reliable and accounted for significantly more common variance than either subscale factor. Examination of the item response theory slope parameters revealed negligible bias in the measure's items across genders. Finally, a series of simultaneous regression analyses was conducted to examine differential correlates of the measure's total scale scores for men and women.     

Emergent social identity and observing social support predict social support provided by survivors in a disaster: Solidarity in the 2010 Chile earthquake

Survivors of disasters commonly provide each other with social support, but the social‐psychological processes behind such solidarity behaviours have not been fully explicated. We describe a survey of 1240 adults affected by the 2010 Chile earthquake to examine the importance of two factors: observing others providing social support and social identification with other survivors. As expected, emotional social support was associated with social identification, which in turn was predicted by disaster exposure through common fate. Observing others' supportive behaviour predicted both providing emotional social support and providing coordinated instrumental social support. Expected support was a key mediator of these relationships and also predicted collective efficacy. There was also an interaction: social identification moderated the relationship between observing and providing social support. These findings serve to develop the social identity account of mass emergency behaviour and add value to disaster research by showing the relevance of concepts from collective action.     

Career success criteria and locus of control as indicators of adaptive readiness in the career adaptation model

The present research had two goals. The first goal was to identify additional individual characteristics that may contribute to adaptive readiness. The second goal was to test if these characteristics fit the career adaptation model of readiness to resources to responses. We examined whether career success criteria (measured at Time 1) and career locus of control (measured at Time 1) would contribute to adaptivity and predict university students’ career decision-making self-efficacy (measured at Time 2) through the mediation of career adaptability (measured at Time 1). Results based on a two-wave survey among a sample of 437 Chinese university students showed that the criteria of intrinsic fulfillment and work-life balance, as well as internal career locus of control positively predicted Chinese university students' career adaptability, which in turn predicted career decision-making self-efficacy. These findings support the career adaption model and carry implications for career construction theory and university students' career development.