Testing the measurement equivalence of personality adjective items across cultures

Although previous research has examined cross-cultural differences in personality, many of these studies neglected to first establish that the measures being used were equivalent in meaning across cultures. Using samples of Chinese, Greek, and American respondents, the measurement equivalence of the Big Five Mini-Markers [Saucier, G. (1994). Mini-markers: A brief version of Goldberg’s unipolar Big-Five markers. Journal of Personality assessment, 63, 506–516] was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis. The results indicate that all of the scales demonstrate configural invariance, but fail to show metric or scalar invariance. Several adjectives from these scales were found to exhibit bias at the item-level. The practical implications of these results are discussed and future research is suggested.     

The evolution of the concept of medicalization in the late twentieth century

This article attempts to outline a history of the critique of medicalization that developed in the 1960s in the work of Thomas Szasz, R. D. Laing, Michael Foucault, and others that was applied in their work to medical and psychiatric theory and practice, the penal system, and public health systems. This article follows the development of Foucault's own work on "governmentality" that emphasized the individualization and internalization of the themes of medicalization and the application of these ideas by his disciples to contemporary medical developments. Finally, the author explores recent historiography in the history of medicine and public health that supports this thesis of individualization that both undermines and reconfigures the older notion of medicalization.     

Sexual harassment expanded: An examination of the relationships among sexual harassment,sex discrimination,and aggression in the workplace

We hypothesized that sexual harassment is part of a broader behavioral family including aggression and discrimination. We examined whether the relationships between these types of mistreatment can be represented well by a general factor that relates to other workplace variables. Evidence from military datasets showed that sexual harassment, sex discrimination, and workplace aggression can be conceptualized as a more general factor that functioned well in an integrated model of sexual harassment and was experienced differently by men and women. Thus, there is utility in examining these types of mistreatment both together and independently, both for research and prevention purposes.