The psychosocial impact of Hurricane Katrina: contextual differences in psychological symptoms, social support, and discrimination

This study tested a contextual model of disaster reaction by examining regional differences in the psychosocial impact of Hurricane Katrina. A total of 386 individuals participated in this study. All were recruited in the primary areas affected by Hurricane Katrina and included residents of metropolitan New Orleans (Orleans Parish, Louisiana), Greater New Orleans (i.e., Metairie, Kenner, Gretna), and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (i.e., cities along the coast from Waveland to Ocean Springs, Mississippi). Participants were assessed for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, other psychological symptoms, perceptions of discrimination, perceptions of social support, evacuation distance, and the extent to which they experienced hurricane-related stressful events. Results were consistent with previous research on the impact of disasters on mental health symptoms. Findings extended research on individual differences in the response to trauma and indicated that regional context predicted unique variance in the experience of discrimination, social support, and emotional symptoms consistent with the theoretical model presented.     

Developmental changes in coping: situational and methodological influences

Previous studies on the development of coping have shown rather inconsistent findings regarding the developmental trajectories for different coping dimensions. The aim of this study is to search for possible influences that might explain these inconsistencies. The analysis focuses on methodological influences (longitudinal vs. cross-sectional assessments) and situational influences. Two samples of children were traced longitudinally with yearly assessments from grade 2 to 5 (sample 1, N =432) and from grade 4 to 7 (sample 2, N =366). A third sample (N =849) was added with cross-sectional assessments from grade 2 to 7. The assessed coping dimensions were related to (a) problem solving, (b) seeking social support, (c) palliative coping, (d) externalizing emotional coping, and (e) avoidant coping. The use of the coping strategies had to be assessed for six stress-evoking situations. The results show only small differences between the longitudinal and the cross-sectional coping assessments. There are, however, clear situational influences on the choice of the coping strategies and also on the resulting developmental trajectories.     

Religiousness, Health, and Health Behavior in Public-Use Data of the National Center for Health Statistics

Studies of religiousness and health-related variables in large, population-based cross-sectional or, preferably, longitudinal studies, which are often prohibitively expensive, are important to complement findings from the more commonly performed studies. Inadequately known among social science researchers, the national health surveys of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) offer large, high-quality data sets to the public at no or nominal cost and hence offer important opportunities for research in the area of religion and health, religion and reproductive behavior, sociology of religion and psychology of religion. This report provides an overview of the data sets and a bibliography of prior research using these data, which is intended to suggest how the data of NCHS may be further exploited by researchers of religiousness and health.

中澳管理者人格类型的性别差异研究

采用MBTI对中国和澳大利亚管理者人格类型的性别差异进行了比较研究.结果表明,在人格的维度、维度组合、类型上,澳大利亚管理者比中国管理者有更大的性别差异;而两国男性管理者在人格的维度、维度组合、类型上的差异比两国女性管理者的差异更大.研究同时发现,中国男、女管理者人格类型的分布都较集中,澳大利亚男、女管理者的人格类型分布都较均衡.     

Confidence to Foster Across Cultures: Caregiver Perspectives

It is important to understand how cultural values, beliefs and traditions of foster parents are related to placement success because a substantial proportion of children in care come from culturally diverse backgrounds. In the present study participants were asked about resources they saw as necessary to improve their confidence fostering children from culturally diverse backgrounds. Sixty-one foster parents from a central Canadian province participated in a telephone interview that included the question: “what would help you feel more confident about fostering children with different values, beliefs and traditions?” A total of 35 unique responses were obtained and grouped together by 13 foster parents. Multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis were used to analyze the grouping data. Foster parents described six themes: understanding different cultures, training, self awareness, agency support, open discussion and community services. There were several similarities and differences between the perspectives of foster parents interviewed and the literature. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Attitude learning through exploration: advice and strategy appraisals

Processes of attitude learning were investigated through a game requiring discrimination between good and bad objects, where feedback about object valence (involving gain or loss) is contingent on approach. Previous research demonstrates a preponderance of false‐negative errors, with some good objects (‘learning asymmetry’) and most novel objects (‘generalization asymmetry’) being judged as bad, but provides no direct evidence concerning how participants appraise alternative strategies and their own performance. To compare alternative strategies, participants received advice, supposedly from a previous participant, that most objects were bad and should be avoided, or good and should be approached. Learning and generalization asymmetries were replicated, especially among participants who followed the former (risk‐averse) advice. Additionally, participants' evaluations of their own game strategy were inversely related to amount of negative feedback (the number of bad objects approached), but unrelated to positive feedback (from good objects approached), pointing to the salience of negative information for self‐appraisals. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of differential vowel prolongations on perceptions of speech naturalness

Prolongation of speech sounds is currently used to modify stuttering and enhance fluency. Prolonged speech (PS) (e.g., prolonged vowels, prolongation throughout utterances) is, however, often perceived as unnatural by listeners. This study examined at which durations and in which contexts 52 college students (primary language was American English) perceived PS to be unnatural. Stimuli were limited to controlled variation in prolongation of the vowel in the middle single-syllable word of a carrier phrase (i.e., say word again). The prolongation was effected by digital waveform manipulation within the Kay Elemetrics Computerized Speech Laboratory (CSL). The listeners judged if they strongly agreed, agreed, or disagreed that the phrases sounded natural. Results indicated that the extent of vowel duration (and possibly context) does influence listener's perception of speech naturalness, findings which can be applied to facilitate fluency therapy.

Educational objectives: (1) The reader will learn about and be able to summarize the digital waveform manipulation procedure in the study. (2) The reader will learn about and be able to describe the effects of differential vowel prolongation on listener's perception of speech naturalness. (3) The reader will learn about and evaluate how differential vowel prolongation can be used to enhance fluency.