Reliability and Validity of the Vicarious Trauma Organizational Readiness Guide (VT‐ORG)

The Vicarious Trauma Organizational Readiness Guide (VT‐ORG) is an assessment of an organization's readiness to address vicarious trauma (VT), which is exposure to the traumatic experiences of people served. This study reports on the psychometric properties of the VT‐ORG. Employees of first responder agencies (e.g., law enforcement, fire, emergency services) and victim assistance agencies are at a high risk for vicarious traumatization, which can lead to PTSD, substance use, and suicidal ideation, among other negative impacts. Organizations that do not address VT may see such effects as employee turnover, reduced efficiency, and negative work environments. The VT‐ORG is an assessment tool designed to help organizations complete the first step of organizational change—conducting a needs assessment. Study participants were 3,018 employees across 13 first responder and victim assistance agencies who completed the 67‐item VT‐ORG and additional measures for evaluation of its validity and reliability. The VT‐ORG was found to have excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's α = .98). A structural equation model demonstrated that the subscales of the VT‐ORG predicted criterion measures of turnover intention, compassion satisfaction, and organizational resilience, with an overall model fit of CFI = .99, RMSEA = .053. This study found the VT‐ORG to be a reliable and valid assessment of organizational responses to vicarious trauma.     

Let’s Play: Using Systemic and Experiential Techniques in the Play Therapy Instruction of MFT Masters’ Students

Marriage and family therapists are uniquely poised to work with entire families, including children. It is surprising then, that so few MFTs affiliate with play therapy. Many COAMFTE accredited masters’ programs offer some form of play therapy training, but therapists often report feeling uncomfortable with play therapy (Gil, 2015). In this paper, we offer a condensed refresher course on play therapy for MFTs, including suggested readings, materials, and instructions to expand training from a 2-day seminar to a 14-week course. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of offering play therapy instruction as a semester long required course for masters’ students.     

Affection and Abuse: Technology Use in Adolescent Romantic Relationships

Communication technologies benefit romantic relationships in terms of connection, but can also bring potential harm. Positive relational outcomes of adolescent technology use (i.e., increased emotional connection) have been examined separately from negative outcomes (i.e., unwanted monitoring of whereabouts) in previous research. However, the current study utilized hierarchical multiple regression to explore whether variance in both positive and negative relational outcomes could be explained by time spent online. Results suggest that time spent online predicts both positive relationship quality and cyber dating abuse after controlling age and gender. Implications include a greater understanding of the intersection between technology and adolescent relationships.     

How does mindfulness modulate daily stress response: evidences from ambulatory assessment

Objective: Mindfulness has been found to be associated with less adverse stress response. However, little is known about how mindfulness modulates stress response in the real daily life. The current study investigated the relation between daily stress and negative emotions, and explored a mediational link via perceived loss of control, and moderation by dispositional mindfulness, to better understand this association. Design: A total of 95 college students were recruited to complete a questionnaire and to report on their stress, perceived loss of control and negative emotions in daily life. Main Outcome Measures: Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) was used to assess dispositional mindfulness. Stress, perceived loss of control and negative emotions were assessed by ambulatory assessment. Results: Stress was positively related with negative emotions at within-person level. Perceived loss of control mediated the relationship between stress and negative emotions. Furthermore, participants with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness showed an attenuated association between stress and anger, and also attenuated associations between perceived loss of control, and anger and fatigue at within-person level. Conclusion: These findings point to perceived loss of control as an important key factor in daily stress effects. Dispositional mindfulness appears to have beneficial effects in that it attenuates the impact of daily stressors on individuals’ wellbeing. Clinical implications and limitations are discussed.     

The feasibility of working memory tablet tasks in predicting scholastic skills in classroom settings

Cognitive assessment in natural group settings facilitates data collection but poses threats to the validity. In this study, tablet‐based working memory (WM) tasks, the counting span, and reading span were used in predicting 12‐year‐old children's (N = 837) scholastic skills and fluid intelligence in a classroom with environmental noise. WM tasks had excellent internal consistency, correlated with scholastic skills, and accounted for more of the variance in cognitive performance (grade point average, fluid intelligence, scholastic skills) compared with individually administered (n = 190) digit span task. Furthermore, the multilevel analysis revealed that compared with the classrooms with no noise, when naturally occurring speech or nonspeech types of environmental noises were present during assessment, WM scores or the reliability estimates were not lower. In contrast, when both types of noises were present, the relationships between some of the WM and achievement scores were even stronger. Thus, assessments in natural classroom contexts may promote revealing the individual differences in WM.     

Learning to calibrate: Providing standards to improve calibration accuracy for different performance levels

This experimental study explores whether feedback in the form of standards helps students in giving more accurate performance estimates not only on current tasks but also on new, similar tasks and whether performance level influences the effect of standards. We provided 122 first‐year psychology students with seven texts that contained key terms. After reading each text, participants recalled the correct definitions of the key terms and estimated the quality of their recall. Half of the participants subsequently received standards and again estimated their own performance. Results showed that providing standards led to better calibration accuracy, both on current tasks and on new, similar tasks, when standards were not available yet. Furthermore, with or without standards, high performers calibrated better than low performers. However, results showed that especially low performers' calibration accuracy benefitted from receiving standards.     

‘It’s not a diet,it’s a lifestyle’: a longitudinal,data-prompted interview study of weight loss maintenance

Objective: To advance understanding of the individual and environmental factors underpinning weight loss maintenance. Design: Semi-structured, data-prompted interviews were conducted with twelve overweight adult participants (three men, nine women) who had lost over 5% of their body weight in the year before baseline. Participants gathered daily data through wireless scales, activity monitors (Fitbit?), ecological momentary assessment and experience sampling (taking photographs, writing notes). They were interviewed at 3- and 6-months post baseline. Interview stimuli included personal data of weight and activity graphs, correlations of psychological factors, and self-generated notes and photographs. Interview data were analysed using the Framework Method, applying pre-specified maintenance-relevant theoretical themes. Results: The theoretical Framework provided a good fit for the narratives, with five main themes underpinning successful weight loss maintenance: sustained motivation, effective self-regulation, plentiful resources, habit formation and a supportive environment. Additionally, participants reported an identity shift from being a dieter to accepting a new healthy lifestyle. Goal prioritising and allowing for occasional controlled lapses enhanced weight loss maintenance. Conclusions: This study successfully used the novel method of data-prompted interviews to explore weight loss maintenance experiences with new explanations emerging from the data. Future research should further develop behaviour change maintenance theory and data-prompted interview method.     

Gamification in employee selection: The development of a gamified assessment

Gamification has attracted increased attention among organizations and human resource professionals recently, as a novel and promising concept for attracting and selecting prospective employees. In the current study, we explore the construct validity of a new gamified assessment method in employee selection that we developed following the situational judgement test (SJT) methodology. Our findings support the applicability of game elements into a traditional form of assessment built to assess candidates' soft skills. Specifically, our study contributes to research on gamification and employee selection exploring the construct validity of a gamified assessment method indicating that the psychometric properties of SJTs and their transformation into a gamified assessment are a suitable avenue for future research and practice in this field.     

Unpacking the Unethical Gift: Gift Experience and Unethicality Assessment

This research investigates how contextual factors affect unethicality assessment of products. The research is conducted in the context of gifts and compares interpersonal gifts (IGs) and self-gifts (SGs) by examining individuals’ reactions in front of unethical gifts. Five experiments investigate how individuals assess product unethicality differently, depending on the source of the gift, being the Self or a gifter. This research employs attribution theory to explain the differences between IGs and SGs and identify psychological distance as a boundary condition for the effect.