Development and validation of a Christian-based Grief Recovery Scale

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a Christian-based Grief Recovery Scale (CGRS) which was used to measure Christians recovering from grief after a significant loss. Taiwanese Christian participants were recruited from churches and a comprehensive university in northern Taiwan. They were affected by both the Christian faith and Chinese cultural beliefs. The CGRS is developed through replicated factor analyses in three stages. The final version of the CGRS retains 35 Likert-type items and consists of six factors: spiritual well-being; recovering meaning and sense of control; ongoing physical and emotional responses; reassuring faith; strongly missing a deceased loved one; and life disturbance. The evidence for CGRS reliability and validity is highlighted. Implications for research and counselling practice are suggested.     

The persuasive effectiveness of mini‐films: Narrative transportation and fantasy proneness

Little empirical investigation has been made on mini‐films, an innovative online marketing technique of branded entertainment. This study intends to gain a deeper understanding of the advertising effectiveness of mini‐films. Employing a narrative persuasion research approach, an online survey with hyperlinks to a variety of real mini‐films was conducted to test the aggregate persuasive effectiveness of this marketing innovation. The results demonstrated that narrative transportation has a major influence on the attitude toward the mini‐film; the mini‐film attitude fully mediates the effect of narrative transportation to brand attitude, and subsequently to purchase intention. Furthermore, conceptualized as a normal consumer characteristic, the influence of fantasy proneness on the persuasive mechanism of this online advertising genre has also been under study. Empirical evidence showed that fantasy proneness has a positive influence on narrative transportation. This study has made a contribution to academics and practitioners alike for future research into branded entertainment. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Neither Bereavement nor Grief: Coping with the Death of a Cherished Person in the Cunda-sutta

Though bereavement and grief have been common human experience throughout recorded history, how bereavement is viewed and grief coped with varies from one philosophical tradition to another. By examining features running throughout the Cunda-sutta, this paper demonstrates a shift from the ordinary conception of bereavement to an insightful understanding of not-bereavement. If one possesses insight into how worldly convention shapes ordinary conceptions of bereavement, then one need not associate bereavement with loss and grief. For ordinary people, grief may be regarded as a natural response to loss. However, in light of the emptiness of bereavement, the emphasis can be shifted from coping with grief to the understanding of not-grief and to the cultivation of mental abilities conducive to moving forward on the right path. By examining the reasoning of neither bereavement nor grief, this paper sheds new light on a rarely acknowledged perspective on coping with the death of a cherished person.     

Examining the Three-Step Theory (3ST) of Suicide in a Prospective Study of Adult Psychiatric Inpatients

This study examined the validity and predictive utility of the three-step theory (3ST) of suicide in psychiatric patients. Participants were 190 consecutively admitted adult psychiatric inpatients (53% female, 60% White, ages 18–73) assessed at three time points: baseline, 4 weeks later (n = 112), and 3 months postdischarge (n = 102). Results were broadly supportive of the 3ST. First, at baseline, an interactive model of pain and hopelessness accounted for substantial variability in suicidal desire, even when controlling for depression and lifetime ideation. This result replicated in different genders and age ranges (i.e., 18–32 and 33–73). Further, pain and hopelessness were robust predictors of suicidal desire weeks and months into the future. Second, among those with pain and hopelessness, lower connectedness, as well as the extent to which pain exceeds connectedness, were robust predictors of higher suicidal desire. Last, a baseline measure of practical capability for suicide predicted suicide attempts both retrospectively and prospectively, even when controlling for lifetime ideation—however, dispositional and acquired contributors to capability were less predictive. Results support the validity and predictive utility of the 3ST, and suggest that the theory may have utility for guiding risk assessment and intervention.     

Gender makes the difference: The moderating role of leader gender on the relationship between leadership styles and subordinate performance

Using a predominantly male research and development (R&D) sample and a predominantly female customer service personnel sample, we investigated how authoritarian and benevolent leadership styles interact with leader gender to influence subordinate performance (i.e., task performance, citizenship behavior, and creativity). Our research extends role congruity theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002) by adopting  and  attribution principles to offer a more comprehensive framework for explaining how leader gender affects the impact of leadership styles on subordinate performance. Our results suggest that the negative relationship between authoritarian leadership and subordinate performance is stronger for female than for male leaders and that the positive relationship between benevolent leadership and subordinate performance is stronger for male than for female leaders. Accordingly, in addition to leaders’ engaging in gender-role congruent behaviors, a useful strategy is to adopt behaviors that are perceived as a positive deviation from their gender role.     

Frank's 'cubic' hexagonal phase: An intermetallic cluster compound as an example

Frank introduced in 1965 the novel idea of projection from a four-dimensional cube to recover the points of a hexagonal lattice with a special c / a ratio of ( 3 - 2 ½. This was called a cubic hexagonal crystal, as there was a similarity to the conventional cubic crystals in that directions were perpendicular to planes with the same Miller-Bravais indices. While a number of crystals in the NiAs-Ni 2 In family have been reported with this special axial ratio, the number of atoms in the unit cell is small. As the first example of an intermetallic cluster compound, we identify µ-Al 4 Mn, µ-Al 4 Cr, Zn-Mg-Sm and a host of related intermetallics featuring a special aggregate of icosahedra as Frank's 'cubic' hexagonal phase or its variant. The metric is generated by the Friauf polyhedra and the icosahedral linkages and leads to a multimetric crystal and several interesting connections with hexagonal quasicrystals, hexagonal phases and derivative orthorhombic and lower-symmetry structures.     

Stability and strain of decagonal Al-Ni-Co quasicrystal under high pressure up to 70GPa

The stability of high-quality decagonal Al72Ni20Co8 single quasicrystals has been investigated under high pressure up to 67 GPa by means of an in situ angular-dispersive X-ray powder diffraction method using synchrotron radiation and a diamond anvil cell. It is found that the compression behaviour is almost isotropic. On the other hand, the strain behaviour on compression is found to be fairly anisotropic. This means that the quasiperiodic structure in the decagonal Al72Ni20Co8 quasicrystal is much more easily distorted than is the periodic structure.