Anxiety and career exploration: Gender differences in the role of self-construal

Given the social nature of many tasks involved in exploring and committing to a career, we hypothesized that social anxiety would correlate to exploration and commitment, even after controlling for general anxiety. We also hypothesized that self-construal and gender would interact with social anxiety in relation to exploration and commitment. In a sample of predominantly European American undergraduates (n = 161), higher social anxiety associated with lower vocational commitment for both women and men, after accounting for general anxiety. For women, interdependence was also associated significantly with vocational commitment. Social anxiety correlated to environmental exploration only for men low in independence. Neither social anxiety nor self-construal associated with environmental exploration for women or foreclosure for either group.     

Immigrant youth of Indian origin: Generational differences in self-critical perfectionism

A community sample of foreign-born first generation (n = 53) and U.S.-born secondgeneration (n = 57) youth of Indian origin (ages 18–25) was studied. Variables predicting self-critical perfectionism were perceived prejudice, enculturation, and communication difficulty with parents and their interaction with generation status. The differences between the two generations pointed to nuanced self-pressures of Indian immigrant youth, despite good academic standing and middle-class family income. Implications discuss counseling with Indian immigrant youth.     

IPI and MMPI predictions of counterproductive job behaviors by racial group

Correctional officers hired by a large urban agency between 1980 and 1985 were administered the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI) and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) before being appointed to the job. The 3,349 white, 3,391 black, and 1,547 hispanic male officers were subsequently evaluated on their job status and histories of absence, lateness, and disciplinary interviews. Discriminant function analyses were applied to the IPI and MMPI, alone and together, to assess any race differences in their prediction accuracy for each counterproductive job behavior measure. No significant bias in prediction accuracy was detected, though hispanic males tended to have the highest number of correct predictions. The implementation of prediction equations for these tests would have reduced negative job behaviors by as much as 13%. Analyses of the relative percentages of good performers rated incorrectly were also included.     

Scaling pigeons' choice of feeds: bigger is better.

Preferences of hungry pigeons among 10 grains and pellets were analyzed using a Thurstone scaling procedure. The recovered scales were positively correlated with size of the feed. The correlations improved when the Thurstonian assumption of equal-sized discriminal dispersions (Case V) was replaced with the assumption of proportional-sized dispersions (Case VI), as entailed by Weber's law. The correlations weakened when the experiments were conducted with the pigeons close to their free-feeding weights, where the probability of sampling alternative grains increased. In the final experiment, exposure to a large pellet shifted the preferences between two smaller pellets.     

Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills for Families of Individuals With Behavioral Disorders: Initial Feasibility and Outcomes

Family members of individuals with behavioral disorders are a valuable source of logistical and emotional support for patients. Family members may take on tremendous financial and/or psychological responsibility to care for their loved ones, which can result in poor psychological outcomes for the family and, in turn, impede the recovery of the patient. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills training is an effective treatment that has been utilized with numerous populations, including family members of individuals with behavioral problems, and has shown efficacy in improving various interpersonal outcomes; however, no study has examined feasibility and outcomes of delivering all four unabridged DBT skills modules to this population. Twenty participants attended weekly DBT skills classes for 6 months, where they acquired skills in mindfulness, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and distress tolerance. There were significant pre-post improvements for emotion dysregulation, stress reactivity, and various interpersonal outcomes; there were no significant changes in depression or anxiety. These results suggest that DBT skills may be effective at improving broad clinical domains in a sample of family members of individuals with behavioral problems. This research is the first step in demonstrating that DBT skills might benefit family members of patients with heterogeneous mental health problems and, therefore, fits in to the field’s growing interest in cost-effective transdiagnostic interventions.     

The Family Life and Adjustment of Hmong American Sons and Daughters

We examined gender differences in intergenerational family conflict and its associations with psychological and academic adjustment using a United States sample of 121 Hmong American first-year college students. Hmong women and men reported similar levels of family conflict. Family conflict was related to psychological distress, above and beyond neuroticism. Gender moderated the relationship between family conflict and substance usage and academic performance. For Hmong college men, higher family conflict was associated with lower rates of smoking and higher rates of completing the first year of college. For Hmong college women, higher family conflict was associated with greater likelihood of alcohol consumption in their lifetime.     

Birthday and birthmate problems: misconceptions of probability among psychology undergraduates and casino visitors and personnel

Subjective estimates and associated confidence ratings for the solutions of some classic occupancy problems were studied in samples of 721 psychology undergraduates, 39 casino visitors, and 34 casino employees. On tasks varying the classic birthday problem, i.e., the probability P for any coincidence among N individuals sharing the same birthday, clear majorities of respondents markedly overestimated N, given P, and markedly underestimated P, given N. Respondents did notedly better on tasks varying the birthmate problem, i.e., P for the specific coincidence among N individuals of having a birthday today. Psychology students and women did better on both task types, but were less confident about their estimates than casino visitors or per sonnel and men. Several further person variables, such as indicators of topical knowledge and familiarity, were associated with better and more confident performance on birthday problems, but not on birthmate problems. Likewise, higher confidence ratings were related to subjective estimates that were closer to the solutions of birthday problems, but not of birthmate problems. Implications of and possible explanations for these findings, study limitations, directions for further inquiry, and the real-world relevance of ameliorating misconceptions of probability are discussed.     

The moderating role of ethnicity in the relation between religiousness and mental health among ethnically diverse college students

Many studies have documented the links between dimensions of religiousness with mental health (e.g., Hackney and Sanders 2003; Mofidi et al. 2006). However, very little is known about whether these links differ across ethnic groups. This study examined the contribution of dimensions of religiousness to the prediction of mental health in an ethnically diverse sample of 413 college students (167 European Americans, 83 African Americans, 81 Asian Americans, and 82 Latino Americans). Results indicated significant ethnic differences across dimensions of religiousness. African Americans were significantly higher on religious engagement and religious conservatism than the other ethnic groups and significantly lower on religious struggle than European Americans. Moderated multiple regressions revealed that increases in religious struggle was associated with poorer mental health for African Americans and Latino Americans, while increases in religious engagement and ecumenical worldview were associated with better mental health for African Americans. The findings indicate that ethnicity is an important factor to consider when examining the link between religiousness and mental health.     

The dynamics and validity of the group selection interview

The authors examined the validity of the group interview, in which several applicants are interviewed simultaneously, vs. the traditional 1-on-1 selection interview. The authors also investigated perceptions of fairness for each interview format and whether the order in which the applicant was asked to respond in the group interview affected the quality of his or her response. Participants were 91 undergraduates who participated in 1-on-1 or group interviews for a scholarship award. The present results supported the hypothesis that interviewers in the 1-on-1 format were significantly better at predicting the applicants' academic potential. Also, in the group interviews, the order in which the applicants were asked to respond affected the quality of their responses significantly.