Children’s notions of the malleability of their academic competencies

This study set out to examine children’s notions of the malleability of their academic competencies and the relations of these notions to the child’s grade-level and gender and the parent’s educational level. In interviews of a total of 103 boys and girls of the third and the sixth grade, children of academically and vocationally educated parents were asked to rate their potential for improving their competencies in mathematics and Finnish. The children were asked to use intrapersonal and normative criteria in their ratings. The ratings were found to form distinct domains of the notions of malleability, as they did not correlate with each other. The children’s ratings of their current competencies, i.e. their academic self-concepts, turned out to be related to their normative ratings of the malleability of their competencies. The findings further suggested that the children’s notions of the malleability of their academic competencies became more pessimistic in the course of their school years.

Effet de diverses sources d’information sur l’auto-efficacite au leadership

The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of different sources of information on beliefs of leadership self-efficacy. A posttest-only design with three experimental groups and a control group was used to investigate the effect of various information sources on leadership self-efficacy. Performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, and verbal persuasion are the sources of information that were tested. Results indicated that vicarious experience produced a larger effect on leadership self-efficacy than performance accomplishments and verbal persuasion. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in the light of Bandura’s self-efficacy theory (2003) and Bass’ transformational leadership theory (1985).     

心理韧性儿童的社会能力自我觉知

旨在考察心理韧性儿童与缺乏心理韧性儿童相比社会能力自我觉知特点, 以探究社会能力自我觉知的心理韧性发展意蕴。利用量表法和内隐联结测验(IAT), 对经由汇聚操作法筛选出的99名心理韧性儿童和176名缺乏心理韧性儿童, 分别测量社会能力外显自我觉知与内隐自我觉知, 并从2个信息源多角度测量其实际社会能力。结果发现：心理韧性儿童比缺乏心理韧性儿童有更高水平的社会能力外显自我觉知, 社会能力自我觉知与心理社会发展功能总体上存在极其显著的正向关联; 心理韧性组儿童自我觉知的社会能力低于其实际社会能力但两者显著正相关, 缺乏心理韧性组儿童自我觉知的社会能力接近于其实际社会能力但两者不存在显著相关, 两组儿童自我觉知的社会能力与实际社会能力之差的差异极其显著; 心理韧性儿童在内隐社会能力自我觉知测验不相容任务与相容任务上反应时之差显著大于缺乏心理韧性儿童。这提示, 外显上谨慎一致的高水平社会能力自我觉知和内隐上更倾向于认为自己有能力或为心理韧性发展的主体性机制原因之一。     

Teachers' self-efficacy beliefs as determinants of job satisfaction and students' academic achievement: A study at the school level

Teachers' self-efficacy beliefs were examined as determinants of their job satisfaction and students' academic achievement. Over 2000 teachers in 75 Italian junior high schools were administered self-report questionnaires to assess self-efficacy beliefs and their job satisfaction Students' average final grades at the end of junior high school were collected in two subsequent scholastic years. Structural equation modeling analyses corroborated a conceptual model in which teachers' personal efficacy beliefs affected their job satisfaction and students' academic achievement, controlling for previous levels of achievement.     

New Directions in Goal-Setting Theory

ABSTRACT— Goal-setting theory is summarized regarding the effectiveness of specific, difficult goals; the relationship of goals to affect; the mediators of goal effects; the relation of goals to self-efficacy; the moderators of goal effects; and the generality of goal effects across people, tasks, countries, time spans, experimental designs, goal sources (i.e., self-set, set jointly with others, or assigned), and dependent variables. Recent studies concerned with goal choice and the factors that influence it, the function of learning goals, the effect of goal framing, goals and affect (well-being), group goal setting, goals and traits, macro-level goal setting, and conscious versus subconscious goals are described. Suggestions are given for future research.     

Depression in Women with Heart Disease: The Importance of Social Role Performance and Spirituality

Compared with men, women are more likely to experience depression, and depression increases risk of morbidity and mortality in individuals with heart disease. Psychosocial interventions have been developed for depressed patients with heart disease; however, women's experience of chronic disease differs from men's and women may benefit from interventions tailored to address their difficulties. Spirituality and social roles have been related to depressive symptoms in other populations. To identify the relationship between depression and spirituality and social role performance (i.e., role concerns, role rewards and confidence in ability to fulfill roles) in women with heart disease, we assessed depressive symptoms, spirituality, social role functioning and medical history in 125 women with heart disease. After controlling for age and severity of medical conditions, spirituality, role confidence and role concerns were significantly associated with depressive symptoms. Consideration of spirituality and aspects of social role performance may be important when developing psychosocial interventions for depressed women with heart disease.     

Validation of a Portuguese version of the multidimensional measure of employability

This study describes the validity and reliability evidence of the multidimensional measure of employability (MME) based on the internal structure and relations to career self-efficacy and career success. Two hundred forty seven Portuguese persons (75.7% women) aged from 21–73 years old (M = 39.9, SD = 10.9) participated. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested adequate fit in the correlational and hierarchical models. Measurement reliability was good for total score and each factor. Correlations with the additional measures provided evidence of validity. MME provides a tool for research and career counseling, enabling comprehensive employability assessment and personalized interventions, while recognising the interplay between employability dimensions.     

Van Inwagen and the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument

In this paper I do two things: (1) I support the claim that there is still some confusion about just what the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument is and the way it employs Quinean meta-ontology and (2) I try to dispel some of this confusion by presenting the argument in a way which reveals its important meta-ontological features, and include these features explicitly as premises. As a means to these ends, I compare Peter van Inwagen’s argument for the existence of properties with Putnam’s presentation of the indispensability argument. Van Inwagen’s argument is a classic exercise in Quinean meta-ontology and yet he claims – despite his argument’s conspicuous similarities to the Quine-Putnam argument – that his own has a substantially different form. I argue, however, that there is no such difference between these two arguments even at a very high level of specificity; I show that there is a detailed generic indispensability argument that captures the single form of both. The arguments are identical in every way except for the kind of objects they argue for – an irrelevant difference for my purposes. Furthermore, Putnam’s and van Inwagen’s presentations make an assumption that is often mistakenly taken to be an important feature of the Quine-Putnam argument. Yet this assumption is only the implicit backdrop against which the argument is typically presented. This last point is brought into sharper relief by the fact that van Inwagen’s list of the four nominalistic responses to his argument is too short. His list is missing an important – and historically popular – fifth option.

Help-seeking: testing the effects of task interdependence and normativeness on employees’ propensity to seek help

This study explores the effects of task interdependence (high versus low) and helping norms (supportive versus non-supportive) on propensity to seek help. Participants were most likely to seek help when: (1) task interdependence was high, and (2) supportive help-seeking norms were operative. A 2-way interaction also emerged. Under the non-supportive norms condition, help-seeking was greatest for high versus low levels of task interdependence; when supportive norms were operative, relatively high levels of help-seeking arose across task interdependence conditions. No support for the hypotheses that high self-esteem, high task specific self-efficacy, and low achievement motivation would increase help-seeking was obtained.     

目标定向与适应:社会自我效能感的中介作用

通过对176名大学新生3个月的纵向研究,采用探索性因素分析、信度分析和回归分析等方法对目标定向与适应的关系以及社会自我效能感在其中的中介作用进行了深入研究。结果表明,(1)学习目标定向能够有效地预测个体的学业适应、社会适应和心理适应;而成绩目标定向对三类适应都无显著性影响;(2)社会自我效能感在学习目标定向与社会适应、心理适应之间具有完全中介效应,而对学习目标定向与学业适应之间没有中介作用;(3)社会自我效能感对学业适应无显著性影响。