“Taking another route”: Daily survival narratives from mothers who are homeless

Homelessness among families has become a growing social problem for communities, yet little is known about the types of daily survival strategies such families employ. This paper presents results of a qualitative study of the coping narratives of 64 mothers living in temporary emergency shelters with their children. The women reported using a variety of coping responses to daily stressful events. These included the use of direct actions and more palliative strategies. Results suggest that stress and coping theory may be useful for understanding homelessness. Implications for program development and future research are discussed.     

The gating paradigm: Effects of presentation format on spoken word recognition by children and adults

This study focused on the impact of stimulus presentation format in the gating paradigm with age. Two presentation formats were employed—the standard, successive format and a duration-blocked one, in which gates from word onset were blocked by duration (i.e., gates for the same word were not temporally adjacent). In Experiment 1, the effect of presentation format on adults’ recognition was assessed as a function of response format (written vs. oral). In Experiment 2, the effect of presentation format on kindergarteners’, first graders’, and adults’ recognition was assessed with an oral response format only. Performance was typically poorer for the successive format than for the duration-blocked one. The role of response perseveration and negative feedback in producing this effect is considered, as is the effect of word frequency and cohort size on recognition. Although the successive format yields a conservative picture of recognition, presentation format did not have a markedly different effect across the three age levels studied. Thus, the gating paradigm would seem to be an appropriate one for making developmental comparisons of spoken word recognition.     

Ambivalence and Response Amplification Toward Native Peoples1

This study determined whether ambivalence toward Native peoples would result in amplified, or polarized, responses to members of the group, as assessed in terms of both general attitudes and social policy endorsements. In addition, it examined whether priming would mediate these effects, based on the notion that ambivalent attitudes contain both positive and negative dimensions that may be activated at different times. Induction of different mood states was used as an indirect priming manipulation. One hundred thirty-eight Canadian participants completed measures of ambivalence toward Native peoples and Canadians. One week later, these participants underwent a positive, neutral, or negative mood induction procedure. They then indicated their attitudes toward Native peoples and Canadians, and responded to social policy questions involving both groups. Participants who were highly ambivalent or not ambivalent toward Native peoples were retained for analysis; participants generally displayed low ambivalence toward Canadians. It was predicted and the results confirmed that only participants who were ambivalent toward Native peoples would display a relative response amplification effect: a greater difference between positive and negative mood states in their responses to Native peoples than in their responses to Canadians.     

Using three-dimensional graphics in neuropsychological hypothesis testing

This paper presents the application of an overlapping sampling technique used with a fast Fourier transform on electroencephalographic data. The use of this sampling and analysis technique is demonstrated on data in which steady state, rate of change, and critical event hypotheses are tested. The benefit of applying computer-generated three-dimensional graphics to the results of using this innovative sampling and analysis technique is emphasized.     

VARIABLES RELATED TO BREAST SELF-EXAMINATION: Model Generation

Using a prospective design, variables from several relevant social psychological theories that would predict breast self-examination were identified. The participants included a probability sample of 362 women who were 35 or older. Instruments were tested for validity and reliability. Data were collected from each participant twice, 1 year apart, using an in-person interview for Time 1 and a telephone interview for Time 2. Results of standardized path coefficients (beta) indicated that breast self-examination (BSE) at Time 2 was directly related to BSE at Time 1 (.76). Indirect paths for susceptibility (.40), health motivation (.46), and barriers (-.54) were identified. All paths mentioned were significant (p5.01). Findings have implications for interventions to increase BSE in women 35 and older.     

The Psychometric Properties of the Swedish Version of the General Self-Efficacy Scale: A Rasch Analysis Based on Adolescent Data

Self-efficacy describes people’s belief in their own ability to perform the behaviors required to produce a desired outcome. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Swedish version of the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) with an adolescent sample, using Rasch analysis. The scale was examined with a focus on invariant functioning along the latent trait as well as across sample groups. The data were collected 2009 and 2010 among 3764 students aged between 13 and 15 years, in the 7^th to 9^th grade, in compulsory schools in the municipality of Karlstad, Sweden. The item fit was acceptable, the categorization of the items worked well and the scale worked invariantly between years of investigations. Although the GSES worked well as a whole, there was some evidence of misfit indicating room for improvements. The targeting may be improved by adding more questions of medium difficulty. Also, further attention needs to be paid to the dimensionality of the GSES as well as to whether the psychometric properties of GSES are affected by using more recent data.