The impact of within country heterogeneity in vocational specificity on initial job matches and job status

This paper analyses the impact of vocational specificity on school-to-work transitions in terms of initial job mismatches and socioeconomic status at the individual level. Considering heterogeneity amongst the various qualifications in Austria, the study finds that the positive impact of specificity on initial labour market placement known from cross-country research also holds within the highly stratified Austrian system in which various vocational specialisations are provided at the upper secondary level. Independent of the level and field of the qualification obtained, vocational specificity facilitates initial labour market placement, resulting in a reduced mismatch risk and an increase in initial jobs status. In the course of subsequent labour market adjustments, however, holders of general qualifications attain higher status gains when changing jobs. Likewise, the overqualified can make up for a good part of their initial status penalty on labour market entrance through job changes. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

You Make Your Own Luck

This essay takes up two questions. First, what does it mean to say that someone creates her own luck? At least colloquially speaking, luck is conceived as something out of an agent's control. So how could an agent increase or decrease the likelihood that she'll be lucky? Building on some recent work on the metaphysics of luck, the essay argues that there is a sense in which agents can create their own luck because people with more skill tend to have more opportunities to benefit from luck. Second, what implications does this conception of luck have for related topics such as how we evaluate performances (like shooting an arrow), including coming to know something? The ubiquitous presence of luck in our actions is often underappreciated. The essay argues that when we combine an expected outcomes view of luck with a counterfactual view of causation, the distinction between environmental and intervening veritic luck seems to disappear. We need a more nuanced view of how luck sometimes undermines credit for success in agents' actions. The upshot of this view is that while luck may undermine the creditworthiness of an agent's success, it only partially undermines creditworthiness.     

Parentification and Alcohol Use: Conditional Effects of Religious Service Attendance

This study tested a model of the relation between parentification and alcohol use through differentiation of self (DoS), with religious service attendance as a moderator. Results provided mixed support for the model. Perceived unfair parentification was associated with decreased DoS, and lowered DoS corresponded to increased alcohol use. Religious service attendance moderated the association between increased perceived unfairness and increased alcohol use. Implications for practice focused on assessing perceived unfairness and integrating clients’ religiousness.     

School‐based humanistic counselling for psychological distress in young people: A practice research network to address the attrition problem

Aims: School‐based humanistic counselling (SBHC) is a common psychological intervention for young people, particularly in the UK. However, studies have tended to suffer from high attrition rates, such that effects may have been over‐estimated. This paper describes a low budget ‘star topology’ practice research network (PRN) outcome evaluation of SBHC in a sample where attrition rates were minimised. Design: A practice‐based longitudinal study in a small PRN compared levels of psychological distress at first and last session from session‐by‐session data. Multilevel regression modelling was used to identify predictors of outcomes. Methods: Eight counsellors working across 11 schools agreed to use session‐by‐session self‐rating on the Young Person's CORE (YP‐CORE) yielding data from 256 young people aged 11 to 17. Predictors of outcomes were analysed using multilevel regression analysis. Results: Mean levels of distress on the YP‐CORE reduced from 18.29 (SD = 7.32) at baseline to 9.10 (SD = 6.19) at endpoint, giving a baseline to endpoint effect size of 1.26 (95% CI = 1.06–1.46). Lower levels of psychological distress at endpoint were associated with male clients, younger age groups, greater rates of attendance at counselling, and bereavement as a presenting problem. Conclusions: This ‘star topology’ PRN focused on a single study and demonstrated that such a system can provide relatively low cost, high quality data. The data showed that SBHC is associated with large reductions in psychological distress, and that this cannot be attributed to the high attrition rates of previous datasets.     

Supervisor social skill and supervision outcome

Background: The practice of clinical supervision is considered an effective procedure to achieve a variety of professional outcomes for supervisees. Supervisory alliance mediates many of the learning outcomes thought important for effective supervision. Therefore, it is important to identity supervisor characteristics that relate to the capacity to develop a positive supervisory alliance and achieve supervision outcome. Aim: Supervisor interpersonal skill was investigated as a characteristic involved with both supervisee assessment of supervisory alliance and learning outcomes of supervision. Method: Forty supervisors completed assessments for interpersonal skill and provided 8 sessions of supervision to 50 supervisees. Supervisees completed assessments for supervisory alliance and supervision evaluation. Findings: Supervisor interpersonal skill predicted supervisee rated supervisory alliance and supervision outcome. Implications: Supervisor interpersonal skill is important for the capacity to develop a positive supervisory alliance and manage the learning environment of supervision.     

Drinking motives in alcohol use disorder patients with and without social anxiety disorder

The high comorbidity of alcohol use disorders (AUD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) is often explained by excessive drinking in social situations to self-medicate social anxiety. Indeed, the motive to drink alcohol to lower social fears was found to be elevated in socially anxious persons. However, this social anxiety specific motive has not been directly investigated in primarily alcohol dependent individuals. We explored social anxiety, the motivation to drink alcohol in order to cope with social fears, and social anxiety as a consequence of drinking in AUD with and without comorbid SAD. Male AUD inpatients with (AUD+SAD group, N=23) and without comorbid SAD (N=37) completed a clinical interview and a questionnaire assessment. AUD+SAD patients reported higher levels of depression and an elevated motive to drink due to social anxiety but did not experience more social fears as a consequence of drinking. Previous results concerning alcohol drinking motives in order to relieve social fears could be replicated in a clinical AUD sample. Additionally, our findings suggest comorbid AUD+SAD patients to be more burdened regarding broader psychopathological symptoms. Thus, accessibility to SAD-specific screening and treatment procedures may be beneficial for primary AUD patients.     

Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual level outcomes in an organizational context

Whereas coaching is very popular as a management tool, research on coaching effectiveness is lagging behind. Moreover, the studies on coaching that are currently available have focused on a large variety of processes and outcome measures and generally lack a firm theoretical foundation. With the meta-analysis presented in this article, we aim to shed light on the effectiveness of coaching within an organizational context. We address the question whether coaching has an effect on five both theoretically and practically relevant individual-level outcome categories: performance/skills, well-being, coping, work attitudes, and goal-directed self-regulation. The results show that coaching has significant positive effects on all outcomes with effect sizes ranging from g = 0.43 (coping) to g = 0.74 (goal-directed self-regulation). These findings indicate that coaching is, overall, an effective intervention in organizations.     

Antisocial behavior reduces the association between subdimensions of ADHD symptoms and alcohol use in a large population‐based sample of adolescents

The aim of this study was to investigate possible effects of antisocial behavior on reducing the association between subdimensions of ADHD symptoms (inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity) and alcohol use. Boys and girls were analyzed separately using a population‐based Swedish adolescent sample. A randomly selected cross‐sectional survey was performed in secondary and upper secondary schools in Västmanland County during 2010. Participants were a population of 2,439 15–16 year‐olds and 1,425 17–18 year‐olds (1,947 girls and 1,917 boys). Psychosocial adversity, antisocial behaviors, symptoms of ADHD and alcohol use were assessed by questionnaires. Except for girls' inattention, subdimensions of ADHD symptoms were not associated with alcohol use when variance due to antisocial behavior was accounted for. Among boys, instead of an indirect effect of antisocial behavior on the association between impulsivity and alcohol use, a moderating effect was found. Among girls, the inattention component of ADHD was independently associated with alcohol use even when adjusted for antisocial behavior. The reduced associations between symptoms of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and alcohol use for boys and girls after adjusting for antisocial behavior suggest a considerable overlap between hyperactivity, impulsivity, and antisocial behavior. The direct pathway between inattention and alcohol use among girls suggests that girls with inattention symptoms are at risk of alcohol use regardless of antisocial behavior. Special attention should be given to these girls. Accounting for antisocial behavior reduced the relation between subdimensions of ADHD symptoms and alcohol use, and antisocial behaviors should therefore be screened for when symptoms of ADHD are present.