Relationship of Attachment Style to Personality Factors and Family Interaction Patterns

This study investigated the relationships among attachment, personality style, and family interaction patterns. The results revealed that avoidant attachment style was associated with indirect affect expression as measured by somatic complaints, social isolation, family disengagement, and family conflict avoidance. Anxious/ambivalent style was associated with more overt expression of depression and anxiety. Family factors were not significantly related to either the anxious/ambivalent or secure styles. The implications and potential therapy benefits for use of attachment theory in family therapy and directions for future research are also addressed. Marci Leveridge, PhD, is a Licensed Health Service Provider and private practitioner in Oklahoma City. Cal Stoltenberg, PhD, is Professor, Counseling Psychology Program, University of Oklahoma, Department of Educational Psychology, 820 Van Vleet Oval, Room 321, Norman, OK 73019-2041 (cstoltenberg@ou.edu). Denise Beesley, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Counseling Psychology Program at the University of Oklahoma.     

Incremental Validity of Locus of Control After Controlling for Cognitive Ability and Conscientiousness

This research examined the criterion-related validity of work-specific locus of control in predicting job performance, including incremental validity after controlling for cognitive ability and conscientiousness. Data from a student sample and from a large employee sample were used to evaluate the scale properties of measures of locus of control, conscientiousness, and cognitive ability. Two concurrent criterion-related validation studies were then conducted to evaluate the incremental validity of locus of control. In both validation studies, locus of control demonstrated overall and incremental relationships with performance after controlling for ability and conscientiousness, such that employees with higher internal locus of control performed more effectively than externals.     

Peer Influence in Children and Adolescents: Crossing the Bridge from Developmental to Intervention Science

Considerable evidence supports the hypothesis that peer relationships influence the growth of problem behavior in youth. Developmental research consistently documents the high levels of covariation between peer and youth deviance, even controlling for selection effects. Ironically, the most common public interventions for deviant youth involve segregation from mainstream peers and aggregation into settings with other deviant youth. Developmental research on peer influence suggests that desired positive effects of group interventions in education, mental health, juvenile justice, and community programming may be offset by deviant peer influences in these settings. Given the public health policy issues raised by these findings, there is a need to better understand the conditions under which these peer contagion effects are most pronounced with respect to intervention foci and context, the childs developmental level, and specific strategies for managing youth behavior in groups.     

Commentary: What is the Meaning and Utility of the Psychopathy Concept?

The concept and measurement of psychopathy in young people is discussed with respect to five key issues: (1) the respective merits of self-reports and ratings by others; (2) whether callous/unemotional (CU) features may be more appropriately tapped by physiological measures; (3) the possible utility of genetic studies; (4) the distinctiveness of CU from other risk factors for antisocial behavior; and (5) the homogeneity of CU as a construct.     

Predicting the Stability of Conduct Problems in Children with and Without Callous-Unemotional Traits

We tested predictors of persistence in conduct problems for children with and without callous-unemotional (CU) traits. Participants were 79 children of an original 98 children recruited from a community-wide screening to oversample children with conduct problems and to ensure equal numbers of children high and low on CU traits. The sample was reassessed at four yearly intervals and the 79 children (81%) were those with data at all four assessments. Children within each conduct problem group were divided into those with more and less stable patterns of conduct problems based on structured interviews with parent and child. Stability in conduct problems for children without CU traits was more strongly related to level of impulsivity and socioeconomic status, whereas children high on CU traits showed more stable conduct problems if they experienced higher rates of life stressors.     

Social anxiety in body dysmorphic disorder

Although clinical impressions suggest that patients with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) experience distress in social situations, social anxiety in BDD has received little investigation. This study examined social anxiety in 81 patients with BDD and change in social anxiety with pharmacotherapy. Subjects completed the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SADS) and were assessed with measures of BDD symptomatology. Participants in a placebo-controlled fluoxetine trial completed measures at baseline and endpoint. The mean SADS score was 1.3 SD units higher than nonclinical sample means but consistent with other clinical sample means. Social anxiety was significantly correlated with BDD severity. Greater depressive symptoms as well as comorbid avoidant personality disorder, but not comorbid social phobia, were also associated with higher SADS scores. Social anxiety did not improve more with fluoxetine than placebo, yet it improved significantly more in fluoxetine responders than in nonresponders. Understanding social anxiety in BDD has implications for reducing rates of misdiagnosis and treatment dropout.     

Construct validity of a personality assessment game in a simulated selection situation and the moderating roles of the ability to identify criteria and dispositional insight

There is scant research on the validity of personality assessment games in selection situations. Therefore, in two experimental simulated selection studies, the construct validity of an assessment game developed to assess honesty-humility was tested. Both studies found no differences between a control condition and a simulated selection condition on honesty-humility game scores. Moreover, convergent and discriminant validity with self-reported personality were not affected by the manipulation. We obtained mixed evidence that individual differences in dispositional insight and the ability to identify criteria influenced the validity of the game. As the validity of the personality assessment game was not significantly affected in the simulated selection context, our findings may imply that well-designed personality assessment games can be used for high-stakes selection assessments.     

外圆内方：中国人人际关系性的潜在剖面结构及其适应性

为进一步挖掘中国人人际关系性人格特质的内涵,研究1采用“个体中心”的潜在剖面分析方法对1911名CPAI-2中国人的常模样本在人际关系性上的表现进行整体揭示。同时,为比较中西方人际关系性的不同,研究2探讨了非华人群体人际关系性的潜在剖面结构。研究3进一步在2580名大学生群体中验证中国人人际关系性上的外圆内方的潜在剖面结构,并探讨人际关系性的亚型以及哪种亚型的人在现代社会更具适应性。中国人群体的研究结果均呈现四分类模型,但这一分类模型并没有在西方样本中复现出来,并且研究3发现中国人群体中外圆内方的亚群体最具适应性。研究结合中国传统文化中的“君子人格”进行相关讨论,为当代中国人辩证统一的“外圆内方”的文化特异性的行为模式提供历史阐释及其当代生活适应性的证据。     

善良人格与道德需要满足的关系：交叉滞后研究

道德需要被认为是独立于自主、胜任和关系需要（ACR）的基本心理需要,通过对两个时间段的纵向数据分析（N = 1,187）,使用交叉滞后模型,研究探讨了善良人格与道德需要满足之间的关系。结果发现,善良人格与道德需要满足存在一定程度的跨时间稳定性;在控制了ACR和人口学信息后,善良人格与道德需要满足存在双向预测关系。研究在中国文化下为道德需要的存在提供了证据,扩展了基本心理需要相关理论,并为道德教育和人格培养提供理论依据。     

Why do we share aggressive online content? Testing a short cycle model

The present study aimed to observe the impacts of aggressive online content exposure and personality on aggressive content sharing, considering the mediating role of positive and negative affects. A total of 302 Brazilians, equally divided into two groups, participated in a social network simulation, being exposed to aggressive (experimental group) or neutral (control group) posts and choosing what they would like to share on this site (among aggressive or nonaggressive material). A factorial MANOVA showed a significant difference for positive and negative affects and aggressive content sharing (Wilks' Λ = 0.936; F[3, 298] = 6.812; p = .001; η² = 0.064). Through structural equation modeling, an explanatory model was also tested, in which this behavior was directly predicted by aggressive online content exposure and suffered indirect effects from openness, conscientiousness, and extroversion, mediated by positive affects (goodness-of-fit index = 0.997, comparative fit-index = 0.998, Tucker-Lewis index = 0.996, SRMR = 0.028, root-mean-square error of approximation = 0.035, CI = 0.003−0.054). It is possible to conclude that the objectives are met, highlighting the contribution to understanding aggressive online behavior through the proximal processes described in the general aggression model.