Does authenticity always breed mental health? A cross-cultural comparison between the United States and China

Numerous studies on Western cultures have suggested a strong linkage between authenticity and mental health. However, little is known about whether such an association can be generalized to Eastern cultures. This study aimed to conduct a cross-cultural comparison on the association between three dimensions of authenticity (authentic living, self-alienation, and accepting external influence) and two factors of mental health (negative and positive) across Western and Eastern cultures. Measurement invariance tests were carried out and multigroup structural regression models developed on two college samples from the US (n = 392) and China (n = 281). Results suggested that the associations between authenticity and the negative factor of mental health were consistent across cultures, where both self-alienation and accepting external influence were positively associated with anxiety. However, the associations between authenticity and the positive factor of mental health were different in the US and Chinese samples. Specifically, both authentic living and accepting external influence were significantly associated with life satisfaction in the US sample but not in the Chinese sample. Findings stress that having a nondistorted perception of the true self is critically related to lower levels of anxiety across cultures and highlighted the need to identify culture-specific promotive factors for life satisfaction.     

Réactions cognitives et émotionnelles à des discriminations raciales explicites vs ambiguës

In the continuity of the works on attributional ambiguity, this research focuses on the cognitive, emotional and behavioral effects produced by explicit or implicit employment discrimination. In accordance with our hypothesis, participants within an explicit discrimination perceive more injustice and discrimination compared to those with an ambiguous one. They also show more anger and demonstrate more adjustment strategies for finding a job within the explicit discrimination than the participants among the ambiguous one. These results are confronted with those of the literature and discussed in terms of their practical implications.     

Using tenets from the Bhagavad Gita in counselling diaspora Hindu older adults: Impact on stress mitigation and improving quality of life

This article reports a study on the impact of a Bhagavad Gita (BG) text-based counselling programme for long-term immigrant diaspora Hindu older adults in the US and UK. Compared with the journal writing sessions, participants of the BG lessons reported lower stress and better quality of life post-test (p ≤ 0.025; Hedges' g = −0.65–0.36). Results of the latent class analyses highlighted complex behaviour patterns in the post-test dataset and foregrounded six classes/subgroups of participants likely to gain most from the BG programme: older adult females, diaspora Hindu older adults with postgraduate-professional qualifications, widowed older adults, those living alone or with other kith-kin, those with above threshold programme compliance (defined as those who attended 13–24 (>50%) BG lessons, and completed 13–24 (>50%) BG homework lessons). Overall, the results of the study endorse the connection between age and religiosity and support a BG text-based counselling programme as a workable strategy for long-term immigrant diaspora Hindu older adults. The BG text provides a firm ethnoculturally grounded counselling approach to work with diaspora Hindu older adult clients, taking cognisance of their intersectional realities. It may help them cope with the dynamics of the modern, traditional, and continuously shifting realities in a foreign milieu.     

Self-control: An integrative framework

Research on self-control has flourished within the last two decades, with many researchers trying to answer one of the most fundamental questions regarding human behaviour—how do we successfully regulate desires in the pursuit of long-term goals? While recent research has focused on different strategies to enhance self-control success, we still know very little about how strategies are implemented or where the need for self-control comes from in the first place. Drawing from parallel fields (e.g., emotion regulation, health) and other theories of self-regulation, we propose an integrative framework that describes self-control as a dynamic, multi-stage process that unfolds over time. In this review, we first provide an overview of this framework, which poses three stages of regulation: the identification of the need for self-control, the selection of strategies to regulate temptations, and the implementation of chosen strategies. These regulatory stages are then flexibly monitored over time. We then expand this framework by outlining a series of growth points to guide future research. By bridging across theories and disciplines, the present framework improves our understanding of how self-control unfolds in everyday life.     

Clinical interpretation: The hermeneutics of medicine

I argue that clinical medicine can best be understood not as a purified science but as a hermeneutical enterprise: that is, as involved with the interpretation of texts. The literary critic reading a novel, the judge asked to apply a law, must arrive at a coherent reading of their respective texts. Similarly, the physician interprets the text of the ill person: clinical signs and symptoms are read to ferret out their meaning, the underlying disease. However, I suggest that the hermeneutics of medicine is rendered uniquely complex by its wide variety of textual forms. I discuss four in turn: the experiential text of illness as lived out by the patient; the narrative text constituted during history-taking; the physical text of the patient's body as objectively examined; the instrumental text constructed by diagnostic technologies. I further suggest that certain flaws in modern medicine arise from its refusal of a hermeneutic self-understanding. In seeking to escape all interpretive subjectivity, medicine has threatened to expunge its primary subject — the living, experiencing patient.     

The crane's foot: The rise of the pedigree in human genetics

The standard pedigree used by geneticists is intimately connected to the history of genetics. Pedigrees drawn today are based on standards established in the early decades of the twentieth century. Those standards were established by geneticists who pursued an active interest in eugenics. The slightly different standards followed in America vs. England to some extent followed the stronger support of Mendelism by the Americans, as well as the individual preferences of the leading human geneticists in those countries.     

The effects of family composition,family health,parenting behavior and environmental stress on children's divorce adjustment

The traditional family composition model of children's divorce adjustment was compared to a family competence model. Subjects included 81 children whose parents remained married, were divorced, or were divorced and subsequently remarried. Divorced families had been separated for between 24 and 48 months. Custodial parents completed questionnaires regarding family functioning, occurrence of stressful life events, and child's psychosocial adjustment. Children completed questionnaires regarding parenting behaviors and self-esteem. A trained examiner conducted a structured diagnostic interview of the child. Multivariate analysis of covariance showed that family composition had a significant effect on the occurrence of stressful events and change in income but not children's adjustment. Hierarchical multiple regression correlations indicated the most powerful predictors of child adjustment were family competence variables which accounted for 21% of the variance in child adjustment scores. In contrast, family composition accounted for only 8% of variance in child adjustment scores. Further, hierarchical multiple regression correlations indicated that higher levels of family functioning were associated with families where parental hostility was low and parents displayed few rejecting behaviors while practicing consistent and appropriate discipline.     

Modeling item responses when different subjects employ different solution strategies

A model is presented for item responses when different subjects employ different strategies, but only responses, not choice of strategy, can be observed. Using substantive theory to differentiate the likelihoods of response vectors under a fixed set of strategies, we model response probabilities in terms of item parameters for each strategy, proportions of subjects employing each strategy, and distributions of subject proficiency within strategies. The probabilities that an individual subject employed the various strategies can then be obtained, along with a conditional estimate of proficiency under each. A conceptual example discusses response strategies for spatial rotation tasks, and a numerican example resolves a population of subjects into subpopulations of valid responders and random guessers.The first author's work was supported by Contract No. N00014-85-K-0683, project designation NR 150-539, from the Cognitive Science Program, Cognitive and Neural Sciences Division, Office of Naval Research. We are grateful to Murray Aitkin, Isaac Bejar, Neil Dorans, Frederiksen, and Marklyn Wingersky for their comments and suggestions, and to Alison Gooding, Maxine Kingston, Donna Lembeck, Joling Liang, and Kentaro Yamamoto for their assistance with Example 2.     

The myth of science education

It is argued that the manner in which we teach science in the high schools represents an outdated positivistic conception of science. The standard presentation of a year of each of chemistry, biology and physics should be replaced by an integrated science plus history, philosophy, and sociology of science which would take a total of three years to complete. A proper appreciation for the true nature of science is essential to the continued health of the scientific enterprise.     

Separability of item and person parameters in response time models

This paper discusses two forms of separability of item and person parameters in the context of response time (RT) models. The first is separate sufficiency: the existence of sufficient statistics for the item (person) parameters that do not depend on the person (item) parameters. The second is ranking independence: the likelihood of the item (person) ranking with respect to RTs does not depend on the person (item) parameters. For each form a theorem stating sufficient conditions, is proved. The two forms of separability are shown to include several (special cases of) models from psychometric and biometric literature. Ranking independence imposes no restrictions on the general distribution form, but on its parametrization. An estimation procedure based upon ranks and pseudolikelihood theory is discussed, as well as the relation of ranking independence to the concept of double monotonicity.I am indebted to Wim van der Linden for bringing Thissen's (1983) paper to my notice, and to Martijn Berger, Frans Tan, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier drafts of this paper.