Helping the child with cancer: what school personnel want to know

As more children with cancer survive, the importance of facilitating school reintegration as a part of maximizing the quality of life has become evident. Workshops have been presented to school personnel to acquaint them with the issues facing cancer patients and their families, but there are gaps in our knowledge of what school personnel really need or want to know. In this study, 18 teachers of children with cancer and 15 teachers with no prior contact with students with cancer completed a questionnaire designed to assess needs, beliefs, and priorities with regard to working with cancer patients in the classroom. Significant findings included: (a) a consensus that a certain core of information about medical/psychological issues would be useful, and presentation of such information by psychologists and medical personnel working with such families would be optimal; (b) teachers having cancer patients as students were less likely to see the adaptation of siblings as an important issue; (c) teachers associated working with a student with cancer with less stress and demands on their time than predictable from previous studies; and (d) cancer patients as a whole were rated as having fewer behavioral, emotional, and learning problems than randomly selected students without a major illness, suggesting a "halo effect" or contradiction of some literature. Preliminary findings are detailed and implications are discussed for those attempting to help teachers facilitate students' adjustment to school following diagnosis and treatment of cancer.     

Marital attributions in spouses of depressed patients

Causal attributions (i.e., locus, stability, globality) and responsibility attributions (i.e., bad intent, selfish motivation, blame) were assessed in the spouses of 27 depressed psychiatric inpatients and 30 nondepressed dyads to test predictions derived from Hooley's (1987) symptom-controllability model of marital distress. Results indicated that (1) depressed patients and their spouses were less dyadically adjusted than nondepressed spouses, (2) causal and responsibility attributions about depressive behaviors predicted lower dyadic adjustment, and (3) attributions of causality mediated the relationship between group status (depressed or nondepressed) and dyadic adjustment among spouses who had higher expectations for their partner to change. Results suggest that among spouses with a high expectancy for change, depression may be a risk factor for marital distress.     

Revisiting university student gender role perceptions

Gender role perceptions of five objects—Ideal Woman, Ideal Man, Most Women, Most Men and Self—were elicited from 3300 university students, 81% of whom were Caucasian, with 7% Hispanic, 6% African-American, and 4% Asian. Profiles of student responses for the five objects provided a comprehensive updating of 1970s research on student gender roles. Women (N= 1842) and men (N= 1148) students generally preferred an androgynous Ideal Woman. Women also preferred an androgynous Ideal Man, but men preferred a masculine sex-typed Ideal Man. Women and men's perceptions of Most Women and Men continued to be sex-typed. Men's self perceptions were androgynous, while women saw themselves as feminine sex-typed. Findings suggest that little change in students' gender role perceptions has occurred in the past 15 years.     

Missional Congregations in Civil Society: An Imagination for God's World

This article provides glimpses of the emerging missional church within the civil society arena from the perspective of congregational case studies. Civil society studies offer five potential community contributions that provide congregations expanded possibilities for discerning and fulfilling their missional vocations in their communities. Framed within trinitarian missional theology, these create a meaningful framework for congregations to expand their imaginations and strengthen their public participation with God's mission in today's world.     

Gender roles,computer attitudes,and dyadic computer interaction performance in college students

Females tend to score lower than males on measures of computer aptitude and attitudes. This study examined the potential effects of several mediating factors, sex of experimenter, sex of experimental partner, sex typing (Bem Sex Role Inventory score), and level of past experience, on a computer interaction task involving a dyad. College students, drawn from a primarily white college population, after completing paper-and-pencil measures assessing computer experience, computer attitudes, and gender roles, participated in a computer task involving drawing up to ten prescribed geometric patterns on a computer screen. Research assistants recorded the number of correctly completed patterns and videotaped participant interaction through a one-way mirror. Males reported experiencing more computer involvement than females. For males, past computer experience and masculinity were correlated with more positive computer attitude scores. For females, only past computer experience related to more positive computer attitude scores. Analyses of the computer interaction variable indicated that participants asked male research assistants significantly more questions than female research assistants. Several interaction effects were also found.A previous version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association, New Orleans, April 1991.     

Quantitative difference in the experience of state-trait anxiety in emotionally disturbed and normal children

In order to investigate the state-trait anxiety distinction in emotionally disturbed and normal children, the responses of 120 emotionally disturbed children and 126 normal children to the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (Spielberger, 1973) were factor analyzed separately. For the emotionally disturbed group two A-State and two A-Trait factors were found with the A-State factors accounting for significantly more of the variance than did A-Trait factors. For the normal group four A-State and two A-Trait factors were found, but there was not a significant difference between the amount of variance accounted for by A-State and A-Trait factors. Results were discussed as supporting the state-trait distinction and as having several implications for future research on anxiety.     

Predicting post‐traumatic growth and post‐traumatic stress in firefighters

Emergency service workers (e.g., firefighters, police, and paramedics) are exposed to elevated levels of potentially traumatising events through the course of their work. Such exposure can have lasting negative consequences (e.g., post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)) and/or positive outcomes (e.g., post‐traumatic growth (PTG)). Research had implicated trauma, occupational and personal variables that account for variance in post‐trauma outcomes yet at this stage no research has investigated these factors and their relative influence on both PTSD and PTG in a single study. Based in Calhoun and Tedeschi's model of PTG and previous research, in this study regression models of PTG and PTSD symptoms among 218 firefighters were tested. Results indicated organisational factors predicted symptoms of PTSD, while there was partial support for the hypothesis that coping and social support would be predictors of PTG. Experiencing multiple sources of trauma, higher levels of organisational and operational stress, and utilising cognitive reappraisal coping were all significant predictors of PTSD symptoms. Increases in PTG were predicted by experiencing trauma from multiple sources and the use of self‐care coping. Results highlight the importance of organisational factors in the development of PTSD symptoms, and of individual factors for promoting PTG.     

Are Dishonest Extraverts More Harmful than Dishonest Introverts? The Interaction Effects of Honesty‐Humility and Extraversion in Predicting Workplace Deviance

Honesty‐Humility, one of the six major personality dimensions included in the HEXACO model of personality structure, has previously been found to show negative correlations with workplace deviance. In this study, we hypothesised that Extraversion would moderate the relationship between Honesty‐Humility and workplace deviance. In particular, we posited that the relation between Honesty‐Humility and workplace deviance would be stronger among employees who are high on Extraversion than among those low on Extraversion. The hypothesis was tested using three different samples across Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands. It was found in two of the three samples that high levels of Extraversion did indeed amplify the relationship between (low) Honesty‐Humility and workplace deviance. Results suggest a potentially important role for multiplicative effects of personality variables on workplace criteria.