Pride in our community: Reflecting on LGBTQ publications in the American Journal of Community Psychology

In this Virtual Special Issue (VSI), we curate and discuss a set of 28 articles previously published in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities. The purpose of this VSI is to bring visibility to this body of scholarship in AJCP and to reflect on how the strengths of our field have been used throughout this work in pursuit of supporting LGBTQ wellbeing. In this VSI, we first discuss articles that help to set the historical background for publications in AJCP. We then discuss papers under the broad themes of HIV/AIDS, identities within ecological context, and social activism among LGBTQ communities. We then reflect on opportunities for our field to further leverage our strengths in contributing to LGBTQ scholarship. Overall, this VSI celebrates the contributions to LGBTQ research already present in AJCP, and we hope inspires future contributions to the pages of AJCP and beyond.     

"Demographic Futures for Christianity and the World Religions"

Abstract :  Since before 1970 Christian researchers have been tracking the massive demographic shift of Christianity to the Southern Hemisphere and noting the increasingly religious nature of populations around the world. At the same time, writers on the future of religion have been drawn to extreme portrayals of decline or revival of religion. However, the world's religious situation is replete with detailed information, drawn from enormous data collections on religious affiliation and questions about religion in government censuses. Quantitative tools, utilizing this information in the context of demography provide a more nuanced view of humankind's religious future. Demographic trends coupled with conservative estimates of conversions and defections envision over 80% of the world's population will continue to be affiliated with religions 200 years into the future. This religious future will have a profound influence on Christian theology, relations between religions, and the interaction between religion and politics.     

A test of an interactive model of bulimic symptomatology in adult women

An interactive model of bulimic symptom development, first suggested by Vohs et al. (1999), was tested in adult women (mean age = 45.19). The following hypothesis was examined in a longitudinal design over 2.5 years: Women high in perfectionism, low in self-esteem, and who perceive themselves as overweight would be the most likely to experience an increase in bulimic symptoms. Results supported the model with regard to maintenance and exacerbation, but not onset, of bulimic symptoms. Furthermore, the interactive model was tested to see if it showed specificity to bulimic, versus depressive or anxious, symptoms. Some support for the model's specificity to bulimic symptoms was observed; however, the increase of anxious symptoms was also observed. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Personality Strengths as Resilience: A One‐Year Multiwave Study

We examined how personality strengths prospectively predict reactions to negative life events. Participants were 797 community adults from 42 countries. At five points over the course of 1 year, participants completed a series of questionnaires measuring seven personality strengths (hope, grit, meaning in life, curiosity, gratitude, control beliefs, and use of strengths), subjective well‐being, and frequency and severity of negative life events. Using hierarchical linear modeling with assessment periods nested within participants, results from lagged analyses found that only hope emerged as a resilience factor. To illustrate the importance of using appropriate lagged analyses in resilience research, we ran nonlagged analyses; these results suggest that all seven personality strengths moderated the effect of negative life events on subjective well‐being, with greater strengths associated with healthier outcomes. To provide evidence that personality strengths confer resilience, a prospective examination is needed with the inclusion of events and responses to them. The use of concurrent methodologies and analyses, which is the norm in psychology, often leads to erroneous conclusions. Hope, the ability to generate routes to reach goals and the motivation to use those routes, was shown to be particularly important in promoting resilience.     

Motivational Mechanisms of Self-Concordance Theory: Goal-Specific Efficacy and Person–Organization Fit

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to elaborate on two mechanisms of self-concordance theory (SCT; Sheldon and Elliot in Pers Soc Psychol 24(5):546, 1998)—goal-specific efficacy and perceived person–organization (PO) fit—as mediators of the relationships between autonomous and controlled goal motives and goal accomplishment and job satisfaction.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were from two independently collected samples of administrative employees (N1 = 37, N2 = 102) and their significant others across two points in time.

Findings

Results indicated that autonomous motives were positively related to goal-specific efficacy and perceived PO fit (Time 1), and showed indirect effects on goal accomplishment and other-rated job satisfaction (Time 2). Controlled motives were negatively related to the same intermediaries and outcomes.

Implications

Goal motives implicate goal-specific outcomes, and individuals’ overall composition of goal motives—across their goals—shape their goal efficacy and PO fit perceptions. These mechanisms relate to distal outcomes of goal accomplishment and job satisfaction. The research offers theoretical implications for the proximal outcomes of goal motives, but also practical implications for ways in which organizations can improve incumbent PO fit perceptions.

Originality/Value

Although research has shown that having self-concordant goals is positively associated with individual outcomes, existing research has yet to understand why this is the case. In addition, most studies of SCT apply difference scores to study the construct at the individual-level rather than specifying motives separately and considering a multilevel perspective. Our research offers a novel investigation of the proximal outcomes of SCT and the levels at which they operate.

     

Typing Speed as a Confounding Variable and the Measurement of Quality in Divergent Thinking

The need to control for writing or typing speed when assessing divergent-thinking performance has been recognized since the early ‘90s. An even longer tradition in divergent-thinking research has the issue of scoring the responses for quality. This research addressed both issues within structural equation modeling. Three dimensions of originality—uncommonness, remoteness, and cleverness—were used to derive an overall quality score. Mixed evidence was found in Study 1 for the direct effect of typing speed on fluency. In addition, indirect effects of typing speed via cognitive complexity on overall quality of ideas were uncovered but marginal in both Study 1 and Study 2. This indirect effect was also found for cleverness in Study 2. Another indirect effects of typing speed via fluency was found for cleverness and uncommonness. These findings indicate that controlling for typing speed is important in online divergent-thinking assessment. The inter-relations of various quality scores pertaining to the dimensions of uncommonness, remoteness, and cleverness were promising in terms of convergent validity. Important problems with respect to these scores were identified and discussed to guide future attempts to measure quality in DT.     

Systematic review of the psychometric properties of transphobia scales

Introduction: Prejudice and discrimination against transgender individuals (i.e., transphobia) is pervasive and has been shown to have pernicious effects on the physical (e.g., substance abuse and other self-harm behaviors) and psychological (e.g., depression and suicidal ideation) well-being of those targeted.

Aims: To date, a review of the psychometric properties of scales assessing transphobia has not been conducted; this gap compromises researchers' ability to make informed measurement decisions.

Methods: In the current study, 61 articles that contained 83 scales were identified, and their adherence to best practices in psychometric testing was evaluated.

Results: Most of the transphobia scales included in the current review did not provide sufficient information about item generation and refinement, scale dimensionality, scale score reliability, or validity. Each scale was entered into a table and was ranked on the basis of its total score. A score of 1 was issued for each psychometric feature that adhered to best practice guidelines, with total scores ranging from 0 to 5 (i.e., higher scores denote greater psychometric soundness).

Discussion: Properties of the reviewed scales are summarized and recommendations are made for future transphobia scale development and validation. The measures that emerged as possessing the highest scores and, subsequently, the greatest utility are identified.     

A daily diary study of relationships between feelings of gratitude and well-being

Much of the research on relationships between gratitude and well-being has concerned between-person level relationships, and this research suggests that increasing people’s feelings of gratitude can increase their well-being. To complement this research, we examined such relationships at the within-person level. Participants (N = 130) in the present study described their well-being and how grateful they felt each day for two weeks. MLM analyses found that at the within-person level, daily feelings of gratitude and hedonic and eudaimonic well-being were positively related. Lagged analyses found that feelings of gratitude on one day were positively related to hedonic (but not eudaimonic) well-being on the next day, and well-being on one day was not related to gratitude on the next day. These results complement existing research and suggest that causal relationships between gratitude and well-being may vary as a function of whether gratitude is measured in more affective or cognitive terms.     

Auditory statistical learning: predictive frequency information affects the deployment of contextually mediated attentional resources on perceptual tasks

Statistical learning is a general phenomenon in which environmental regularities are implicitly acquired through repeated exposure to those environments. Sometimes, that information can be utilised to affect various aspects of cognitive performance (e.g. reaction time) on tasks that utilise selective attention (e.g. visual search). In the current study, we examined the effect of passively listening to predictive auditory contexts in facilitating attention to a certain frequency or frequency range. In doing so, we found that there is a general tendency for attentional resources to be negatively affected when the context sequences are made novel after context–target associations have been formed (Experiment 1), and when the context no longer reliably cues the previous target (Experiment 2). The experiments are framed to contrast Associative Learning and Memory Hypothesis perspectives.