Emotional self‐efficacy,graduate employability,and career satisfaction: Testing the associations

Graduate employability has been the subject of little empirical research. There are a number of difficulties in defining and measuring graduate employability, which means that there is a paucity of research that looks at its predictors and outcomes. Previous work has proposed that emotional competence improves graduate employability, and this study further investigates this idea by examining the association between emotional self‐efficacy and employability. Also investigated is the association between employability and career satisfaction. Working graduates (N = 306) completed measures of emotional self‐efficacy, self‐perceived employability, and career satisfaction, and the data were analysed using structural equation modelling. We found emotional self‐efficacy to be an important predictor of graduate employability. Additionally, we found that graduate employability mediates the relationship between emotional self‐efficacy and career satisfaction. Some recommendations, in light of these findings, are discussed.     

Correspondence

Dorothy Judd: Give Sorrow Words: working with a dying child. Published by Free Association Books, 1989. £12.95.

Clifford Yorke, Stanley Wiseberg, Thomas Freeman: Development and Psychopathology — Studies in Psychoanalytic Psychiatry. Published by Yale University Press. £22.50.

Otto Weininger: Children's Phantasies. The Shaping of Relationships. Published by Karnac Books, 1989. £14.95.

Lynn Barnett: Enriching Day Care, 1989. Anna Freud Nursery, 1988. Buddle Lane, 1987. Available from Concorde Video Films Council Ltd., 201 Felixstowe Road, Ipswich, IP3 9BJ. Price £10 to hire, £30 + p.p. &; V.A.T. to buy.     

Some questions concerning states of fragmentation: unintegration,under-integration,disintegration, and the nature of early integrations

The paper attempts some clarifications and differentiations concerning (1) Bick's classic distinction between states of helpless unintegration and states of defensive disintegration; (2) the difference between a state and a phase, and Bick's apparent challenge to some aspects of object relations thinking. The paper then lists some types of early pre-depressive and pre-Oedipal integrations and integrators: these include, as well as various kinds of containment, the role of the interested, interesting, and occasionally reclaiming object.     

The use of child drawings to explore the dual↔group analytic field in child analysis

Awareness that the child is part of a complex relational system has ensured that all child analysts agree on the necessity of establishing a therapeutic alliance with the parents. Unconscious conflictual dynamics involve the child analyst and include him, from the time of the initial consultation, in an analytic field that is closer to that of a group than to the bi‐personal set‐up of therapy with adults. Through a clinical example, the author hypothesizes that the child’s drawings and play can be viewed as tools capable of mapping the unconscious emotions present in an analytic field that extends beyond the analyst–child couple. Play and drawings can be used in the relationship with the parents not in an explanatory sense, but as a probe with which to explore the universe of unconscious emotions present in the group field. The images or the story of the play used with this particular modality prove to be an attractive pathway that is effective in facilitating the alpha function of each of the members of the group. Furthermore, in this sense, they create the conditions for an occasion through which the parents can become more aware of their own unconscious emotions that have been entrusted to the child and expressed through his symptomatology. The possibility for the little group of subjects involved in a child analysis for oscillation in a dual–group field permits not only a shared experience of knowledge, but also a shared creativity aimed at knowledge of emotional truth (O).     

Tales of a Therapist

ABSTRACT

Historically, theorists and clinicians from various schools of family therapy have discussed therapist self-disclosure in terms of either helping or inhibiting therapeutic progress. Although postmodern language-based theorists and therapists accept and encourage its use, few clinical examples of therapist self-disclosure exist in the family therapy literature. In this paper, a postmodern family therapist working within the language-based tradition describes the use of self-disclosures with a couple. The therapist then reviews the effects of those self-disclosures through the eyes of husband, wife, and therapist.     

家庭因素中父母情感温暖、文化性与责任心对大学生职业决策自我效能的中介与中介调节研究

目的：探讨大学生家庭因素中父母情感温暖教养方式、文化性家庭环境与责任心对职业决策自我效能的中介效应与中介调节效应。方法：采用责任心量表、职业决策自我效能量表、父母教养方式评价量表和家庭环境量表,对大学四个年级1207名学生进行测量,运用SPSS12.0、AMOS17.0对数据进行统计分析。结果：（1）父母情感温暖通过责任心对大学生职业决策自我效能具有稳定而持久的间接作用。（2）文化性作为父母情感温暖的调节变量,其与父母情感温暖的交互作用对责任心具有明显的预测作用,并通过责任心中介变量,对大学生职业决策自我效能产生稳定而持久的间接作用。     

初中生社会比较在成就目标与学业自我效能感之间的中介效应

采用成就目标定向、社会比较和学业自我效能感三个量表,以724名初中生为被试,对社会比较在成就目标与学业自我效能感之间的中介作用进行了考察。结果表明：（1）除对学习能力自我效能感产生直接影响外,掌握接近目标会通过上行比较、成绩接近目标会通过上行/下行比较间接地影响学习能力自我效能感;（2）掌握接近目标、成绩接近目标和成绩回避目标不仅会对学习行为自我效能感产生直接影响,还会通过下行比较对其产生间接影响。说明成就目标可以通过直接和间接两种不同的方式影响学业自我效能感。     

Creative Self‐Efficacy and Innovative Behavior in a Service Setting: Optimism as a Moderator

Creativity research on the personality approach has focused on the relationship between individual attributes and innovative behavior. However, few studies have empirically examined the effects of positive psychological traits on innovative behavior in an organizational setting. This study examines the relationships among creative self‐efficacy, optimism, and innovative behavior as well as the moderating effect of optimism. Longitudinal data across two periods were collected from 120 spa employees of a diet and beauty salon company in Taiwan. After controlling for the effects of job tenure and the Big Five personality traits, this study found that employees with a high level of creative self‐efficacy demonstrate a high level of innovative behavior at work, and optimism does not have a direct effect on employees' innovative behavior, but it does play a moderating role. When employees' creative self‐efficacy is high, those with greater optimism exhibit greater innovative behavior at work. Toward the end, this paper offers suggestions for future research and discusses the practical implications of this study.     

Do military decision makers behave as predicted by prospect theory?

Four experiments were conducted to explore the robustness of risky choice framing among military decision makers. In the first experiment the original version of the Asian disease problem was administered. In contrast to Tversky and Kahneman's ( 1981 ) original findings, military decision makers were not influenced by the gain and loss framing. They demonstrated risk‐seeking behavior in both domains. In the second experiment, we administered a military version of the Asian disease problem. We found a significant framing effect, but it was unidirectional: The decision makers were risk seeking in both domains, but significantly more risk seeking in the loss domain. To explore the strength of this risk‐seeking preference, we altered the problem in a third experiment, making the risky alternative 12.5% less attractive than the certain one. Again, we found risk‐seeking behavior in both domains. Finally, we explored reasons for these deviations from prospect theory by comparing the responses of business students and military officers. In this analysis, we observed significantly higher levels of self‐efficacy in the military sample, as compared to the civil sample, and that the self‐efficacy influenced risk seeking only in the military sample. In a post hoc analysis we also found that years of education reduced risk‐seeking preference. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can confidence come too soon? Collective efficacy,conflict and group performance over time

Groups with a strong sense of collective efficacy set more challenging goals, persist in the face of difficulty, and are ultimately more likely to succeed than groups who do not share this belief. Given the many advantages that may accrue to groups who are confident, it would be logical to advise groups to build a high level of collective efficacy as early as possible. However, we draw on Whyte’s (1998) theory of collective efficacy and groupthink, to predict that when confidence emerges at a high level toward the beginning of a group’s existence, group members may be less likely to engage in process conflict; a form of conflict that may be beneficial in the early phase of a group project. We found support for this prediction in two longitudinal studies of classroom project teams.