Wartime faith-based reactions among traumatized Kosovar and Bosnian refugees in the United States

In William James' view, one function of prayer is a faith-based, conscious approach to a higher power when in distress. Accordingly, this study investigates the use of private prayer among Muslim war refugees from Kosovo and Bosnia (N?=?138). Results show that these refugees were highly traumatized and most counted on private prayer for coping with their wartime difficulties. Four major types of prayer familiar to Americans were employed by roughly two-thirds to 86% of this sample. As expected, most types of prayer were associated with both wartime traumatic distress and greater religiousness. Also, 77% used prayer so that their enemies would “pay for what they have done.” However, this type of prayer was predicted only by higher levels of education and not by religiousness or traumatization. The need for examining the general and specific social contexts of prayer, such as war and terror, and prayer itself, perceived as a common human experience, are discussed. A structural equation model indicated that war-related trauma was associated directly only with negative religious coping but indirectly with positive coping, mediated by levels of emotional distress. Religiousness was related directly only to positive coping. These findings are discussed with respect to their theoretical and clinical implications.     

大学生抗挫折心理能力对自杀意念影响的研究

为了探讨大学生抗挫折心理能力对自杀意念的影响,采用《抗挫折心理能力问卷》和《自杀意念自评量表》对882名大学生进行调查研究.结果发现:(1)大学生抗挫折心理能力在性别、年级、生源、学校类型等因素上存在显著差异;(2)大学生抗挫折心理能力与自杀意念之间呈显著的负相关,抗挫折心理能力的多个因素与自杀意念各因素之间的负相关显著;(3)大学生的挫折容忍力、意志品质、挫折复原力、信心、挫折认知水平、挫折经验是自杀意念的有效预测变量.     

An Investigation of College Students’ Perceptions of Academic Dishonesty,Reasons for Dishonesty,Achievement Goals,and Willingness to Report Dishonest Behavior

This study investigated students’ perceptions of their own and their peers’ academic dishonesty (AD), their reasons for this dishonesty, their achievement goals, and their willingness to report AD (WRAD) within a Chinese cultural context. The results identified students’ belief that their peers had a greater likelihood of engaging in AD and had more motivation to do so than did the students themselves. Gender and academic major did not affect students’ WRAD. However, students were significantly more willing to report classmates than friends. In terms of the participants’ self-perceptions and peer perceptions concerning motivations for AD, more female students cited the lack of penalties as the reason for their own and their peers’ AD, whereas male students more frequently cited their lack of attention to schoolwork as the reason for their own AD. In contrast to students in the social sciences, business students more frequently cited inadequate capabilities as the reason for their AD, and engineering students more frequently attributed their AD to self-interest. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that three motivations for AD (opportunism, inadequacy, and self-promotion) could positively predict AD, whereas mastery-approach goals could negatively predict AD.     

Detrimental Effects of Discrimination on Mental Health in Asian Americans: Counteracting Roles of Religious Involvement

Few studies have examined the role of religious involvement as a potential protective factor in the mental health of Asian Americans. Using the first national sample from the National Latino and Asian American Study (2002–2003), this study explored the direct effect of religious attendance on the diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder and self-rated mental health in Asian Americans (n = 2,095), above and beyond that of discrimination and acculturation factors. Hierarchical regression models associated (a) gender and discrimination with generalized anxiety disorder, and (b) gender, employment status, English proficiency, and discrimination with self-rated mental health. Including religious attendance added explanatory power to both models, indicating its influence on mental health. There was no interaction between religious attendance and discrimination, suggesting a suppressing rather than stress-buffering effect of religious attendance. These patterns suggest future investigation in the relationship between religious involvement and mental health in relation to subcultural differences among Asian Americans.     

Item Selection for the Development of Short Forms of Scales Using an Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm

This article presents the use of an ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm for the development of short forms of scales. An example 22-item short form is developed for the Diabetes-39 scale, a quality-of-life scale for diabetes patients, using a sample of 265 diabetes patients. A simulation study comparing the performance of the ACO algorithm and traditionally used methods of item selection is also presented. It is shown that the ACO algorithm outperforms the largest factor loadings and maximum test information item selection methods. The results demonstrate the capabilities of using ACO for creating short-form scales.     

Estimating the Reliability of Aggregated and Within-Person Centered Scores in Ecological Momentary Assessment

Consider two independent groups with K measures for each subject. For the j^th group and k^th measure, let μ^tjk be the population trimmed mean, j = 1, 2; k = 1, ..., K. This article compares several methods for testing H 0 : u1k = t2k such that the probability of at least one Type I error is, and simultaneous probability coverage is 1 - α when computing confidence intervals for μ^t1k - μ^t2k . The emphasis is on K = 4 and α = .05. For zero trimming the problem reduces to comparing means, but it is well known that when comparing means, arbitrarily small departures from normality can result in extremely low power relative to using say 20% trimming. Moreover, when skewed distributions are being compared, conventional methods for comparing means can be biased for reasons reviewed in the article. A consequence is that in some realistic situations, the probability of rejecting can be higher when the null hypothesis is true versus a situation where the means differ by a half standard deviation. Switching to robust measures of location is known to reduce this problem, and combining robust measures of location with some type of bootstrap method reduces the problem even more. Published articles suggest that for the problem at hand, the percentile t bootstrap, combined with a 20% trimmed mean, will perform relatively well, but there are known situations where it does not eliminate all problems. In this article we consider an extension of the percentile bootstrap approach that is found to give better results.     

A study on purchasing behavior of teenagers in Taiwan: example of counterfeit goods

This study has established a relationship model encompassing such aspects as consumer values, consumer involvement, purchase behavior, and consumer satisfaction. Furthermore, taking counterfeit goods as an example, this study employs factor analysis, reliability analysis, and the structural equation model to verify the relationship between the research aspects. Another major discovery of this study was that teenagers' behavioral purchasing mentality is graphic, hyperlinked, and is geared toward useful situations and functional needs. When they consider their degree of need, they inevitably incorporate many emotional needs. However, their attitude toward counterfeit goods is rational, which is confirmed by the fact that Hypothesis 1 was not supported.     

Gene Patents: A Broken Incentives System

The proliferation of patents on human genes has raised important ethical questions centered on the conflict of patient rights and intellectual property rights. With the Supreme Court’s June 2013 decision that altered the patent eligibility of genetic material, it is important to reexamine the ethical implications of gene patents as a concept. Such patents suggest an ownership of genetic material that may hinder access to healthcare and inhibit medical progress. The application of the current patent system to genetic material thus violates patients’ rights without fulfilling the system’s goal of promoting innovation, suggesting a need for a revised incentives infrastructure.     

It Takes a Village: The Effects of 10th Grade College-Going Expectations of Students, Parents, and Teachers Four Years Later

Adolescents are surrounded by people who have expectations about their college-going potential. Yet, few studies have examined the link between these multiple sources of college-going expectations and the actual status of students in postsecondary education years later. The study draws on data collected in the 2002–2006 Educational Longitudinal Study and employs an underutilized statistical technique (cross-classified multilevel modeling) to account for teacher reports on overlapping groups of students (typical of high school research). Results showed that positive expectations of students, parents, English, and mathematics teachers in the 10th grade each uniquely predicted postsecondary status 4 years later. As a group, the four sources of expectations explained greater variance in postsecondary education than student characteristics such as socioeconomic status and academic performance. This suggests positive expectations are additive and promotive for students regardless of their risk status. Teacher expectations were also found to be protective for low income students. Implications for future expectancy research and equity-focused interventions are discussed.     

创伤个体注意控制、焦虑及情绪对闯入记忆的影响

以往研究认为认知控制在闯入记忆的发展中起一定作用。研究以83名大学生本科生为被试,采用创伤电影范式和问卷调查结合的方式,旨在考察创伤个体注意控制、焦虑及情绪对闯入记忆的影响。结果显示,注意控制、焦虑和情绪与闯入记忆相关;注意控制和观看创伤电影前的消极情绪对闯入记忆有一定的预测作用;注意控制与焦虑、情绪相关;高低注意控制组分别在焦虑、情绪上差异显著。注意控制、焦虑、创伤前负性情绪与闯入记忆相关;注意控制、创伤前负性情绪显著影响闯入记忆。 关键词：闯入记忆;注意控制;焦虑;情绪;创伤