A Goodness-of-Fit Approach to Informed Consent for Pediatric Intervention Research

As children and adolescents receive increased research attention, ethical issues related to obtaining informed consent for pediatric intervention research have come into greater focus. In this article, we conceptualize parent permission and child assent within a goodness-of-fit framework that encourages investigators to create consent procedures “fitted” to the research context, the child's cognitive and emotional maturity, and the family system. Drawing on relevant literature and a hypothetical case example, we highlight four factors investigators may consider when constructing consent procedures that best reflect participants' rights, concerns, and well-being: (a) the child's current assent capacity and the likely impact of study information on the child's mental and physical development, (b) parents' understanding of their child's treatment needs and distinctions between treatment and clinical trials research, (c) the family's history of shared decision making, and (d) the child's strivings for autonomy within the context of their parents' duty to make decisions in the child's best interest.     

Processing fluency affects behavior more strongly among people higher in trait mindfulness

Processing fluency is the ease of processing information about a stimulus, which people can attribute to the experience of enjoyment. Despite consistent findings that processing fluency can affect self-reported judgments, little research has examined whether processing fluency or its interactions with personality traits can affect behavior. The current studies demonstrate that processing fluency is more likely to affect behavior among people higher in trait mindfulness. We manipulated processing fluency with rhyming versus nonrhyming maxims in Study 1 and with regulatory fit versus nonfit in Study 2. Participants higher in mindfulness showed a stronger positive effect for processing fluency on the dependent variable: the number of ideas they listed in a task they continued for as long as they enjoyed it.     

多阶段增长模型的方法比较

多阶段增长模型（Piecewise Growth Modeling,PGM）可以解决发展趋势中具有转折点的情形,并且相对其他复杂的曲线增长模型,解释更简单.已有的统计方法主要通过多层线性模型和潜变量增长模型对多阶段模型进行估计.通过模拟研究,用HLM6.0和Mplus6.0对上述两种模型分别进行估计,结果发现在参数估计的精度上,两种估计方法没有差异,只是在犯一类错误的概率上后者略小.进一步通过对错误模型的探讨发现,在样本量小（n=50）,斜率变化小（△b=0.2）时,用线性模型拟合数据而非PGM所犯错误概率较小,整体拟合更佳.但随着样本的增加和斜率变化的增加,错误模型的犯错概率明显增大.故在实际应用中,为了能更好拟合数据,研究者应根据数据本身的情况选择恰当的模型.     

Guidelines for Counsellors Working with People of African Ancestry in a Sport Context

The objective this article is to describe five practice guidelines for counsellors working with people of African ancestry in a sport context. The practice guidelines pertain to counsellor training, counsellor perspectives, counsellor services, counsellor ethics and counsellor research. These practice guidelines can assist counsellors working with people of African ancestry in a sport context to focus on both personal development through sport and performance enhancement in sport. This will enable athletes not just to view sport in terms of their win-lose record, but to also strive for excellence in sport by becoming better people. In becoming better people athletes can contribute to building up Africa and her people.     

不同反应线索条件下调节匹配对建议采纳的影响

研究的目的是为了探究不同反应线索条件下调节匹配对建议采纳的影响。实验中有两个反应线索：言语性反应线索(实验一)与非言语性反应线索(实验二), 两个实验均采用2(调节取向：促进/防御)×2(建议策略：渴望/警惕)的混合设计。实验一、二的被试分别是81和79名在校大学生, 年龄均在19~25岁之间。实验结果表明, 在言语反应线索条件下, 调节匹配时人们对建议的采纳程度更高; 在非言语性反应线索条件下, 防御取向时, 调节匹配时人们显著提高了建议的采纳程度, 但促进取向条件人们对建议的采纳程度无明显差异。结果表明在促进取向下非言语性反应线索对调节匹配具有干扰作用, 这个结果值得进一步研究。     

On Nonequivalence of Several Procedures of Structural Equation Modeling

The normal theory based maximum likelihood procedure is widely used in structural equation modeling. Three alternatives are: the normal theory based generalized least squares, the normal theory based iteratively reweighted least squares, and the asymptotically distribution-free procedure. When data are normally distributed and the model structure is correctly specified, the four procedures are asymptotically equivalent. However, this equivalence is often used when models are not correctly specified. This short paper clarifies conditions under which these procedures are not asymptotically equivalent. Analytical results indicate that, when a model is not correct, two factors contribute to the nonequivalence of the different procedures. One is that the estimated covariance matrices by different procedures are different, the other is that they use different scales to measure the distance between the sample covariance matrix and the estimated covariance matrix. The results are illustrated using real as well as simulated data. Implication of the results to model fit indices is also discussed using the comparative fit index as an example. The work described in this paper was supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Project No. CUHK 4170/99M) and by NSF grant DMS04-37167.     

Did COVID-19 really change our well-being? It's up to meaning in life: Evidence from two longitudinal studies

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, copious studies have explored whether and how COVID-19 has changed individuals' well-being. However, research has revealed mixed and inconsistent findings on this topic, with some suggesting that the pandemic hampered well-being, and others showing non-significant or even opposite patterns. Yet, little is known about what psychological factors could explain such discrepancies. The present study aims to fill this gap by proposing meaning in life (MIL) as a key moderator of the changes in well-being following the pandemic. Two studies reported here (total N = 19,828), which took within-person longitudinal approaches comparing subjective well-being (SWB; hedonic well-being) and psychological well-being (PWB; eudaimonic well-being) before and during COVID-19 (Study 1: 2018, 2019 vs. 2020, 2021; Study 2: 2019 vs. 2021), provided empirical evidence supporting our theoretical claims. Specifically, we found significant moderative effects of MIL in both studies, such that individuals who held a higher MIL amidst COVID-19 experienced an increase in SWB as well as PWB. In stark contrast, the two indicators of well-being declined over time among those who possessed a lower MIL during the pandemic. Overall, our results suggest that MIL serves as one of the significant moderators of the changes in well-being following COVID-19, which may address the previous conflicting findings in this field.     

Does it fit? The relationships between personality,decision autonomy fit,work engagement,and emotional exhaustion in self-managing organizations

The novel organizational form of self-managing organizations decentralizes decision authority, thus promising higher adaptability and sustainability. However, recent practical experiences showed that such organizations struggle with employee turnover and lack of engagement, and thus, levers to improve personnel selection are required. This work investigated the relationship between person-environment fit regarding perceived and ideal decision autonomy and the employee outcomes of work engagement and emotional exhaustion in self-managing organizations. Furthermore, the associations with personality traits were examined. The study relied on cross-sectional survey data from two subsamples of employees working in self-managing and traditional organizations. Group comparison was used to test the elevated level of decision autonomy in self-managing organizations, polynomial regression with response surface analysis was used to investigate the effect of (mis-)fit, and multiple regression analyses evaluated the relationship with personality traits. The findings showed that employees in self-managing organizations experienced higher decision autonomy than those in traditional organizations. Additionally, the fit between ideal and perceived decision autonomy predicted higher work engagement, while extraversion, openness to experience, and low neuroticism predicted higher ideal decision autonomy. As a result, individual person-environment fit regarding decision autonomy and personality requires attention in self-managing organizations to engage employees. The findings imply that the effect of decision autonomy on engagement is not positive per se but depends on the intraindividual characteristics, which must be of concern when decentralizing decision authority organization-wide. Therefore, personnel selection and recruitment processes in self-managing organizations should consider ideal decision autonomy and personality traits as assessment criteria.     

Paired comparisons with individual differences

A model of Bradley-Terry type for paired comparisons is considered. In addition to the usual parameters, the model allows for individual parameters and corresponding parameters for the choice-alternatives. The model is applied to a set of data from a Danish investigation of the attitude of blue collar workers towards alternative social gains. The proposed model is finally compared to a model recently suggested by Schönemann and Wang.     

The analysis of multitrait-multimethod matrices via constrained components analysis

Multitrait-Multimethod (MTMM) matrices are often analyzed by means of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). However, fitting MTMM models often leads to improper solutions, or non-convergence. In an attempt to overcome these problems, various alternative CFA models have been proposed, but with none of these the problem of finding improper solutions was solved completely. In the present paper, an approach is proposed where improper solutions are ruled out altogether and convergence is guaranteed. The approach is based on constrained variants of components analysis (CA). Besides the fact that these methods do not give improper solutions, they have the advantage that they provide component scores which can later on be used to relate the components to external variables. The new methods are illustrated by means of simulated data, as well as empirical data sets.This research has been made possible by a fellowship from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences to the first author. The authors are obliged to three anonymous reviewers and an associate editor for constructive suggestions on the first version of this paper.