Cultural orientation and psychological well-being in Chinese Americans

Examined cultural orientation in the domains of language proficiency, cultural activity, and social relationship, and its relationship with psychological well-being in a group of 143 Chinese Americans in San Francisco. Four indicators of psychological well-being were utilized, two assessing the experience of distress (depression level and negative affect) and two assessing positive well-being (positive affect and life satisfaction). Domain-specific cultural orientations were found to hold differential relationships with psychological well-being. For instance, bicultural activity orientation predicted the best psychological well-being (regardless as to how it was assessed), but socially separatist individuals experienced less negative affect than assimilated and bicultural respondents. Findings were discussed in the context of the multicultural setting of San Francisco. It is suggested that future research retain separate assessments of domain-specific cultural orientation, examine the contribution of the community's ethnic/cultural composition to its members' cultural orientations (i.e., address the role of person-environment fit) and study their impact on psychological well-being. The data reported here were collected as part of the author's doctoral dissertation. Ricardo F. Munoz and Guillermo Bernal guided and supported the implementation of this study; Sunwoo Lee assisted with the data analysis; and Edison J. Trickett and the anonymous reviewers offered helpful suggestions.     

Toward culturally sensitive intervention with arab families in Israel

Over the past three decades, Arab society in Israel has been undergoing processes of transition. These processes are manifested by changes in the economy, education, the status of women, family structure, and by socio-cultural changes and transformations in patterns of coping with social problems. There is a serious lack of empirical research on the implications of this process for the value systems of Arab society and families in Israel and a dearth of relevant intervention-oriented literature. This article outlines the basic cultural values in the Arab society in Israel in an attempt to illuminate the relevance of these values for family structure and for direct interventions with Arab families in Israel.     

5-11岁儿童元知觉发展的实验研究

本项研究旨在探索 5 -1 1岁儿童元认知发展的规律 ,2 80名昆明市及路南县汉、撒尼族儿童参与了三项知觉实验 ,实验结果表明 :1儿童随年龄的增长 ,有关知觉组织策略的知识及自我监察的能力也逐渐发展 ,表现为系统观察、选取有效策略及计划性的增强。 2儿童对信息的加工不断深入 ,从表浅的加工过渡到详尽的加工 ,不仅要求补充必要的信息 ,而且主动搜索隐蔽的线索以促进识辨。3儿童自我评价从笼统、含糊逐渐向客观、全面发展。4路南儿童元知觉的发展晚于昆明儿童两年 ,但在路南的汉族儿童和撒尼族儿童之间不存在显著差异 ,说明文化教育对儿童元知觉发展的重要影响。     

Social integration and social support in a life crisis: Effects of macrosocial change in east Germany

This process evaluation study examined what variables moderate and mediate treatment effects on days in stable housing and client satisfaction for homeless mentally ill clients. In general, demographic characteristics did not moderate either outcome variable. Housing contacts, entitlement contacts, mental health contacts, and supportive services were significant mediators of the treatment effect on days in stable housing. Program contacts, mental health contacts, and supportive services were significant mediators of client satisfaction. The authors thank the National Institute of Mental Health for their financial support (MH43248, MH42357) for this project, Dorothy Gano for word processing and editorial assistance, and Gitry Heydebrand, Melissa Dannelet, Betty Tempelhoff, Ruth Smith, and Laeeq Ahmad for assisting in the interviews of clients. We are also appreciative of the cooperation given to us by the staffs of Malcolm Bliss Mental Health Center, St. Patrick's Center, the Community Advocacy and Support Alliance Program, and the St. Louisemergency shelters. Finally, we thank all of the participants in this study; we hope that their homelessness has now ended. (The conclusions presented in this paper are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect official National Institute for Mental Health policy.)     

The holocaust of first nation people: Residual effects on parenting and treatment implications

The residential school experience was devastating for many First Nation (Indian) people. The lingering effects of this era have been far reaching and remain painfully evident throughout Native communities. One of the more obvious areas directly affected has been parenting. This paper discusses current parenting difficulties of Native clients who were formerly in residential schools. A connection is made between the abuse experienced by these individuals and their parental struggles. Along with addressing various sociopolitical issues, a number of clinical interventions designed to promote the healing process of these victims and their families are provided and discussed.     

Neurobehavioral deficits,adolescent traumatic brain injury,and transition to college

Outcome following traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been frequently evaluated for adults, although there has been minimal research on adolescents with TBI. It has been argued that TBI sequelae may be more difficult for adolescents to adjust to given developmental changes in physical (puberty), interpersonal (self-concept), and environmental domains (transition to college). In addition, it is commonly acknowledged that moderator variables such as psychiatric history, family functioning, substance use, and sexuality impact functional outcome following TBI, although it is often difficult to objectively evaluate these variables. The current study examined relationships among TBI-related deficits, moderator variables, and academic outcomes for six adolescents transitioning to college. The findings suggest that it may not be appropriate to predict functional outcome based solely on objective neuropsychological results. However, moderator variables appear to have a more direct relationship with outcome, depending on the moderator variable and the individual.     

Cultural competency in genetic counseling

Incorporating a cross-cultural curriculum into genetic counseling training programs demonstrates a professional conviction of genetic counselors that cultural issues are important in genetic counseling. Funded by the Special Projects Fund in 1993 from the National Society of Genetic Counselors and the Kitson Fund from the Department of Social, Organizational, and Counseling Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University, theHandbook of Cross-Cultural Genetic Counseling was developed to provide genetic counseling programs a curriculum to teach cross-cultural genetic counseling. The theoretical rationale for the development of a cultural curriculum is presented. By expanding cultural knowledge, developing an awareness of oneself and others, and increasing the repertoire of culturally relevant counseling skills within a socio-political context, genetic counselors will be able to better serve all clients seeking genetic counseling.     

Melodies in caregivers' speech: A species-specific guidance towards language

The author reports on a series of integrated studies on melodic contours in infant-directed (ID) speech. ID melodies in speech are taken as an instructive example of intuitive parenting in order to review current evidence on its forms, functions and determinants. The forms and functions of melodic prototypes are compared in terms of universal properties and individual and/or cultural variability across samples of German, Chinese and American mothers, and German mothers and fathers with their 2- and 3-month-old infants. Microanalyses of interactional contexts show that forms and functions of ID melodies are intimately related to typical dimensions of intuitive caregiving–arousing/soothing, turnyielding/turn-closing, approving/disapproving. The communicative functions of ID melodies as both categorical and graded signals are discussed with respect to the current knowledge on infant responses to ID speech and on early speech perception. According to a comprehensive longitudinal study of ID speech in relation to stages of infant vocalization, ID speech results from fine-tuned adjustments in various prosodic and linguistic features to developmental changes in infants' perceptual and vocal competence. ID melodies evidently have the potential to draw infant attention to caregivers' speech, to regulate arousal and affect in infants, to provide models for imitation, to guide infants in practising communicative subroutines and to mediate linguistic information. Current evidence suggests that the melodies in caregivers' speech provide a species-specific guidance towards language acquisition.