Psychological Sense of University Membership: An Adaptation Study of the PSSM Scale for Turkish University Students

The Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale (PSSM) is a widely used instrument to assess the sense of belonging to a school among adolescents. Despite its widespread use in middle and high school students, to date no particular adaptation study has been conducted for its use among university students. For this reason, the present study conducted an adaptation of the PSSM scale for these students. Five hundred and nine students at a Turkish university voluntarily participated in the study, and the PSSM Scale's factor structure was examined by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, identifying three factors representing the students' sense of university membership with acceptable internal consistencies: acceptance by faculty members (.70), belonging (.75), and acceptance by students (.76). The internal consistency of the 18-item scale was calculated as .84. As hypothesized, the convergent and discriminant validity of the scale was also tested. The self-report sense of belonging and degree of satisfaction with the university were positively correlated with the three dimensions of the scale. Also, the scores regarding the students' intention to drop out of university along with loneliness were negatively correlated with all the dimension of the PSSM scale.     

Cultural Values and Happiness: An East-West Dialogue

Abstract

Happiness as a state of mind may be universal, but its meaning is complex and ambiguous. The authors directly examined the relationships between cultural values and experiences of happiness in 2 samples, by using a measurement of values derived from Chinese culture and a measurement of subjective well-being balanced for sources of happiness salient in both the East and the West. The participants were university students–439 from an Eastern culture (Taiwan) and 344 from a Western culture (the United Kingdom). Although general patterns were similar in the 2 samples, the relationships between values and happiness were stronger in the Taiwanese sample than in the British sample. The values social integration and human-heartedness had culture-dependent effects on happiness, whereas the value Confucian work dynamism had a culture-general effect on happiness.     

More than just a pretty face and a hot body: multiple cues in mate-choice

Mate preferences have been well studied in social and evolutionary psychology. In two studies (N = 490), using two different measurement techniques, we examined mate preferences for the body and the face in the context of other traits. Results replicated prior research on mate preferences across the sex of the participant and mating duration but clarified the nature of preferences for physical attractiveness. Generally, physical attractiveness was a necessity in short-term mating and for men and traits like kindness were a necessity in long-term mating and for women. Men wanted a short-term mate who had a good body, likely because that body advertises fertility whereas both sexes wanted a mate with a nice face for a long-term mate, which is likely because the face is a cue based on structural properties related to health. Sex and mating-duration differences on preferences for attractive faces and bodies were robust to differences in measurement technique.     

Comorbidity of anxiety-depression among Australian university students: implications for student counsellors

ABSTRACT

The incidence, factor structure and scale item differences in anxiety-depression comorbidity were investigated in a sample of Australian university students defined according to the presence of anxiety and/or depression. The incidence of anxiety-depression comorbidity was over 32%, about four times that for anxiety or depression alone. Participants with comorbidity had significantly higher Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) total and factor scores than those with anxiety or depression alone. The major differences between the comorbid and unitary disordered subgroups were for self-disintegration and autonomic arousal. Comorbidity of anxiety and depression is a more serious disorder than either anxiety or depression alone, and appears to exist in large proportions among university students. Assessment and treatment plans might benefit from inclusion of this comorbidity.     

The use of interest and competence scores to predict educational choices of Chinese high school students

This study examined how interest, perceived competence (i.e., efficacy), and prestige preference, as measured by the Personal Globe Inventory (PGI; Tracey, 2002), contributed to the classification of Chinese high school students with different education orientations. It was hypothesized that interest, efficacy, and prestige would yield a significantly higher correct classification hit rate of students with different educational orientations than would be expected by chance, and that the combined set of the interest, efficacy, and prestige predictors would contribute significantly more variance than interest scores alone or the efficacy scores alone in predicting students' educational orientations. Findings suggested that the interest and competence scores of the PGI based on both the Holland RIASEC model as well as the 4-type (People, Things, Data, and Ideas) model were able to discriminate among students in three educational orientation groups: Arts and Humanities, Business, and Science. The PGI interest and competence scores of students in these educational orientation groups were consistent with the expected theoretical direction. The findings were supportive of the concurrent validity of the PGI for senior high school students in Hong Kong. Theoretical and practice implications were discussed.     

Substance Use Among High School Athletes

SUMMARY

During the past two decades, prevention specialists have responded to concerns about youthful substance use by developing a variety of programs. The most effective of these programs have been based upon our understanding of the risk and protective factors involved. While student-athletes generally share the same level of risk as other high school students, as a group, they may have other characteristics that can be considered. In addition, the special socializing experience of participating in athletics may present special opportunities for prevention. We suggest that it is prudent to build upon important lessons in designing programs for student athletes and we provide, as a starting point, an overview of twelve key processes with demonstrated impact.     

On the advantages of word frequency and contextual diversity measures extracted from subtitles: The case of Portuguese

We examined the potential advantage of the lexical databases using subtitles and present SUBTLEX-PT, a new lexical database for 132,710 Portuguese words obtained from a 78 million corpus based on film and television series subtitles, offering word frequency and contextual diversity measures. Additionally we validated SUBTLEX-PT with a lexical decision study involving 1920 Portuguese words (and 1920 nonwords) with different lengths in letters (M?=?6.89, SD?=?2.10) and syllables (M?=?2.99, SD?=?0.94). Multiple regression analyses on latency and accuracy data were conducted to compare the proportion of variance explained by the Portuguese subtitle word frequency measures with that accounted by the recent written-word frequency database (Procura-PALavras; P-PAL; Soares, Iriarte, et al., 2014 Soares, A. P., Iriarte, A., Almeida, J. J., Simões, A., Costa, A., França, P.,?… Comesaña, M. (2014). Procura-PALavras (P-PAL): Uma nova medida de frequência lexical do Português Europeu contemporâneo [Procura-PALavras (P-PAL): A new measure of word frequency for contemporary European Portuguese]. Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica, 27, 110–123.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). As its international counterparts, SUBTLEX-PT explains approximately 15% more of the variance in the lexical decision performance of young adults than the P-PAL database. Moreover, in line with recent studies, contextual diversity accounted for approximately 2% more of the variance in participants' reading performance than the raw frequency counts obtained from subtitles. SUBTLEX-PT is freely available for research purposes (at http://p-pal.di.uminho.pt/about/databases).     

From Penis Envy to Goddesses in Everywoman:

No abstract available for this article.