The Driving Appraisal Inventory: Psychometric Characteristics and Construct Validity1

Four studies examined the dimensionality, reliability and construct validity of the Driving Appraisal Inventory (DAI), a self-report measure of driving habits and skills. In Study 1, analysis of 127 items led to the formation of four unidimensional, internally reliable scales: Carelessness, Drunken Driving, Vehicle Safety, and Self-Evaluation. In Study 2, all were found to have acceptable test-retest reliability. In Study 3, convergent validity support was obtained for the Carelessness and Vehicle Safety scales. In Study 4, concurrent criterion-related validity support was obtained for the Carelessness and Drunken Driving scales. Scores on the Self-Evaluation scale appear to be more a function of self-confidence and/or ego-involvement in driving skills and less a function of actual driving skills. Men score higher than women do on the Carelessness, Drunken Driving, and Self-Evaluation scales, and in Study 4, criterion-related validity of the Self-Evaluation scale was stronger among women than among men.     

A critical review of Robert Welker's The Teacher as Expert: A theoretical and historical examination

In this work, the views of thinkers in education who have been concerned with expertise are scanned. In the introduction, the importance of the subject is established. The point is made that the ratio of administrators has gone from one supervisor to 32 teachers in 1920 to one administrator for everey 12 teachers in 1985. As well, specialists in teaching have increased 1, 000 percent in the sixteen years before 1980. In their plans for career stages the current reform efforts of the Holmes group and the Carnegie Forum have emphasized an increase in both steps of the hierarchy of education and the type of specialization that might occur. It is crusial to consider our most prominent educations thinkers for their insights about the effects of educations expertise.     

Addictions and the family: An introduction

The editors of this special issue would like to express their appreciation to William C. Nichols, editor ofContemporary Family Therapy, for his support and encouragement in putting together this issue. We would also like to acknowledge and thank H. Allan Dye, Joan Jurich, Kevin R. Kelly, Richard M. Loughead, Nancy Shook, and Paul H. Wright for their patience, assistance, and editorial reviews.     

Attending to the shame: Working with addicted populations

Shame is a potent emotion that plays a major role in the life of addicted individuals. Shame's ability to penetrate and skew major motivational systems may play a part in the formation of addicted lifestyles. The shame-based or shame-prone individual, such as the addicted client, poses unique problems for the therapist. This paper explicates the processes and consequences of shame and offers guidelines to help clinicians work with addicted clients.Mitchell B. Young, MS, is a third-year doctoral student in the department of counseling and development at Purdue University.The author wishes to express appreciation to Kate Kerr, PhD, for her fine editorial work.     

Planned Happenstance: Constructing Unexpected Career Opportunities

Chance plays an important role in everyone's career, but career counseling is still perceived as a process designed to eliminate chance from career decision making. Traditional career counseling interventions are no longer sufficient to prepare clients to respond to career uncertainties. Work world shifts challenge career counselors to adopt a counseling intervention that views unplanned events as both inevitable and desirable. Counselors need to teach clients to engage in exploratory activities to increase the probability that the clients will discover unexpected career opportunities. Unplanned events can become opportunities for learning.     

Direct comparison of auditory implicit memory tests

In this experiment, we examined the degree to which four implicit tests and two explicit tests, all involving auditory presentation, were sensitive to the perceptual characteristics of the stimuli presented during study. Presenting stimuli visually decreased priming in all the implicit memory tests, relative to auditory presentation. However, changing voice between study and test decreased priming only in the implicit memory tests requiring identification of words degraded by noise or by low-pass filtering, but not in those tests requiring generation from word portions (stems and fragments). Modality effects without voice effects were observed in cued recall, but the opposite pattern of results (voice effects without modality effects) was obtained in recognition. The primary new finding is the demonstration that auditory memory tests, both explicit and implicit, differ in their sensitivity to the perceptual information encoded during study.     

Pretence–reality distinction: confusion and paradox

Peter Mitchell, Pretence–reality distinction: confusion and paradox, p.414 Ted Ruffman, Pretence–reality confusions in children and adults, p.416 György Gergely, Some confusion about pretence–reality confusions, p.417 Paul L. Harris, Delving into Uncle Albert’s cabinet: further thoughts on the pretence–reality distinction, p.419     

Exposure to internet pornography among children and adolescents: a national survey.

Estimates suggest that up to 90% or more youth between 12 and 18 years have access to the Internet. Concern has been raised that this increased accessibility may lead to a rise in pornography seeking among children and adolescents, with potentially serious ramifications for child and adolescent sexual development. Using data from the Youth Internet Safety Survey, a nationally representative, cross-sectional telephone survey of 1501 children and adolescents (ages 10-17 years), characteristics associated with self-reported pornography seeking behavior, both on the Internet and using traditional methods (e.g., magazines), are identified. Seekers of pornography, both online and offline, are significantly more likely to be male, with only 5% of self-identified seekers being female. The vast majority (87%) of youth who report looking for sexual images online are 14 years of age or older, when it is developmentally appropriate to be sexually curious. Children under the age of 14 who have intentionally looked at pornography are more likely to report traditional exposures, such as magazines or movies. Concerns about a large group of young children exposing themselves to pornography on the Internet may be overstated. Those who report intentional exposure to pornography, irrespective of source, are significantly more likely to cross-sectionally report delinquent behavior and substance use in the previous year. Further, online seekers versus offline seekers are more likely to report clinical features associated with depression and lower levels of emotional bonding with their caregiver. Results of the current investigation raise important questions for further inquiry. Findings from these cross-sectional data provide justification for longitudinal studies aimed at parsing out temporal sequencing of psychosocial experiences.