Psychometric Properties and Factorial Structure of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory-Trait Version (STAI-T) in Caribbean University Students

The study investigated the psychometric properties of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory—Trait Scale (STAI-T: Spielberger, 1983) in a Caribbean university student sample. Participants were 415 undergraduate students (75% female) who completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Trait Version (STAI-T; Spielberger, 1983), Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996), the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS; Zung, 1965), the Ego Resiliecy-89 (ER-89; Block, 1989), and the Perceived Stress Scale-Ten Item Version (PSS-10; Cohen et al., 1983). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to examine the construct validity of the trait anxiety scale in terms of factor structure, convergent, discriminant, and nomological validities. CFA results revealed that a two-factor solution (trait anxiety absent and trait anxiety present) provided significantly better fit than the one-factor model of trait anxiety. There was clear evidence of convergent validity, discriminant validity, and nomological validity of the scale. Results support the psychometric adequacy of the STAI-T for use with Caribbean university students.     

Psychobiography in psychology: Past,present, and future

The present article reviews the history and emerging trends in the field of psychobiography. Five historical periods are highlighted: hagiography and pre-19th century study of lives; Freud and applied psychoanalysis; psychodynamic extensions and personology; modern multi-theoretical models; and psychobiography as interdisciplinary science. The author advocates for a science of psychobiography manifested in expanded and empirically validated theoretical models anchoring research. Further, attention is drawn to the need for more rigorous historiographic research methods weighting first-person sources and incorporating mixed methods designs. Increased attention to ethical and legal issues in the conduct and reporting of psychobiographical studies is also highlighted. Finally, emerging trends in psychobiography related to research production, academic training, and organisational initiatives are presented.     

Moderating role of affectivity in career resilience and career anchors

This study explored the moderating role of positive affect and negative affect in the link between employees’ career resilience and their career anchors . A convenience sample (N=143) of predominantly black African people (86%) and staff level (80%) employees with more than 10 years of service (60%) participated in the study (mean age: 41 years; men: 52%; women: 48%) . Correlational analysis showed significant associations between the variables . Hierarchical moderated regression analysis indicated low positive affect as a significant moderator of the career resilience-managerial competence career anchor relationship . High negative affect and low negative affect significantly weakened the career resilience-entrepreneurial creativity, career resilience-pure challenge and career resilience-lifestyle relationships . The findings add new insights that may be useful for career development support programmes in the contemporary workplace .     

Addressing Urgent Community Mental Health Needs in Rwanda: Culturally Sensitive Training Interventions

Rwandan leaders in the health and educational sectors have begun to discuss the necessity for establishing culturally appropriate community-based mental health counselling services in Rwanda, especially trauma counselling. The need for a community psychology approach is anchored in the lingering effects of the genocide and the continuing post-traumatic stress symptoms suffered by many in the population. Capacity building in an effort like this would require the design of multi-level counselling curricula that are sensitive to the social structures within Rwandan culture. These curricular endeavours call for the development of a National Counselling Centre to serve as a structural mechanism for organizing community-based counselling initiatives. We consider the community health services needs in Rwanda here, along with associated challenges and strategies for effective mental health services in a country with a recent history of genocide. A community psychology approach to mental health would benefit Rwandan society by making trauma counselling and recovery services available and accessible to citizens throughout the country.     

Engagement organisationnel,coping, et affects en contexte organisationnel : test d’un modèle intégrateur

This study examines a model relating components of organizational commitment to positive and negative affect through the partial mediation of problem solving coping. The results of a study conducted among a sample of 647 employees from various organizations show that affective commitment relates positively to positive affect and negatively to negative affect, with the relation to positive affect being partially mediated by problem solving coping. Normative commitment was positively related to negative affect. Finally, continuance commitment based on few alternatives was negatively related to positive affect and positively related to negative affect, with the relation to positive affect being partially mediated by a weaker problem solving coping. Continuance commitment based on perceived sacrifice had no effects.     

Resilience in Families Adapting to Autism Spectrum Disorder

This study explored adjustment and adaptation in families living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Data on family resilience were collected from 19 biological mothers of children with ADS. The data were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively to yield information on factors that enable these families to bounce back from the diagnosis and accompanying challenges with regard to ADS. The findings from the qualitative analysis indicate that social support, the spousal relationship, and family time, togetherness and routines are the most important resilience-promoting factors with ASD. Family hardiness, family problem-solving communication, and family time and routines were significant resilience resources.     

The transconfessional character of the doctrine of justification and its depiction on the title page of the Brest Bible

Abstract

This article examines the illustration on the Brest Bible's title page, relating it to the woodcut, The Law and the Gospel or Law and Grace, created forty-five years earlier to provide a visual aid for Luther's doctrine of salvation by faith and God's grace alone. Luther's reflections on justification, while original in thrust, had been preceded by centuries of the Church's teaching on the subject. Law and Grace appeared among book illustrations, particularly on the title pages of Bibles, not only in Lutheran editions, but also in those commissioned by other confessions. Sometimes the schema would be deliberately altered to modify the message. This essay shows how the title page of the Brest Bible provides a striking example, and that in light of Calvin's teaching, the image there reveals a subtle, but significantly modified reinterpretation.     

Between Private and Public Sectors

This article validates Simon Kuznets’ argument that minorities prefer the private sector to the public sector in order to avoid discrimination. Based on new archival findings, comparative interethnic research shows that majority Greek civil engineers in the interwar years developed close, interlocking relations with the government and national institutions, which elevated their socio-professional status. Despite the absence of anti-Jewish legislation, this process effectively excluded equally qualified Jewish engineers from Greek-controlled power networks and employment. The Greek nationalistic climate of the times permeated the civil engineers’ professional associations and Greece's one higher educational institution (National Technical University of Athens) of engineering. As the professional networks consolidated to protect their interests, Jewish civil engineers and architects, employers and employees alike, were effectively shut out with no possibility of benefitting from professional integration or association with the mainstream community of civil engineers. Jewish civil engineers were, therefore, channelled into restricting their services to Jewish clients and community projects. However, with the newly developing large-scale armaments industries in the 1930s, Jews opted to train as chemical, mechanical, and electrical engineers to fill positions in family-owned firms (as did their fellow Greeks), and also found employment in lower paying jobs that Greek engineers considered unattractive in state-owned facilities.     

The Baltic Churches and the Challenges of the Post-Communist World

This article analyses and describes the recent history of the Baltic churches, their theological reorientation and the challenges they have encountered in the post-Communist Baltic society. The focus is on the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Lutheran churches whereas the Catholic and Orthodox churches receive less attention. It is first demonstrated that much has changed since the Second World War regarding the churches' membership numbers and their societal position. The article then pays attention to two phenomena that have caused much discussion not only within the churches but also among foreign observers: the fear that the Lutheran Church will surrender to the Catholic Church, and the quite opposite anxiety that the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod will grow too influential within Baltic Lutheranism. Finally, the author examines the way the Baltic churches have been involved in politics during the last two decades.     

The Vatican and Europe: Political Theology and Ecclesiology in Papal Statements from Pius XII to Benedict XVI

The article examines the origins and evolution of the Vatican's political theology and ecclesiology for Europe from Pius XII (especially after the Second World War) and including the pontificates of John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It seeks to examine the continuities of the ‘Idea of Europe’ in papal thought against a background of changing political context – the end of the Second World War, the Cold War, the fall of the communist state system, the emergence of a united but diverse Europe after 1989. The political structures of the continent now include within its geographic sweep Western and Eastern Christian churches which, divided by tradition and modern history, find their relationship a key marker in the contemporary religious identity of Europe. This reality is a significant framework for Vatican thinking on Europe especially for John Paul II and Benedict XVI.