Adolescents with Turkish background in Norway and Sweden: a comparative study of their psychological adaptation

Using a questionnaire survey, this study compared psychological adaptation (self-esteem, life satisfaction, and mental health problems) of Turkish adolescents in Norway and Sweden, and examined to what extent ethnic and majority identities, acculturation strategies, and perceived discrimination accounted for adaptation among Turkish adolescents. The samples consisted of 407 Turks (111 in Norway and 296 in Sweden) with a mean age of 15.2 years and 433 host adolescents (207 in Norway, 226 in Sweden) with a mean age of 15.6 years. Turks in Norway reported poorer psychological adaptation than Turks in Sweden. Predictors of good adaptation were Turkish identity and integration, whereas poor adaptation was related to marginalization and perceived discrimination. The results indicated that the poorer adaptation of Turks in Norway compared to that of Turks in Sweden could be due to lower degree of Turkish identity and higher degree of perceived discrimination.     

Social Class, Race, and Ethnicity: Career Interventions for Women Domestic Violence Survivors

This story describes a community intervention study conducted with women domestic violence survivors and a research dilemma related to the complex interrelationships between women's social class, race and ethnicity, and career development needs and experiences. The author presents diversity and research dilemmas related to facilitating women's critical consciousness of power dynamics at work in their lives. The influence of community context, career intervention curricula, and research team members' values on research decisions are described. This story highlights the importance of researchers examining their values and how those values impact the communities that they serve.     

Stimulus control of cocaine self-administration

Environmental stimuli that set the occasion wherein drugs are acquired can "trigger" drug-related behavior. Investigating the stimulus control of drug self-administration in laboratory animals should help us better understand this aspect of human drug abuse. Stimulus control of cocaine self-administration was generated here for the first time using multiple and chained schedules with short, frequently-alternating components--like those typically used to study food-maintained responding. The procedures and results are presented along with case histories to illustrate the strategies used to produce this stimulus control. All these multicomponent schedules contained variable-interval (VI) components as well as differential-reinforcement-of-other-behavior (DRO) or extinction components. Schedule parameters and unit dose were adjusted for each rat to produce stable, moderate rates in VI components, with minimal postreinforcement (infusion) pausing, and response cessation in extinction and DRO components. Whole-body drug levels on terminal baselines calculated retrospectively revealed that all rats maintained fairly stable drug levels (mean, 2.3 to 3.4 mg/kg) and molar rates of intake (approximately 6.0 mg/kg/hr). Within this range, no relation between local VI response rates and drug level was found. The stimulus control revealed in cumulative records was indistinguishable from that achieved with food under these schedules, suggesting that common mechanisms may underlie the control of cocaine- and food-maintained behavior.     

中小学教师的职业倦怠与工作压力、自尊和控制点的关系研究

本研究旨在探讨中小学教师的职业倦怠与工作压力、自尊和控制点的关系。用教师职业倦怠问卷、工作压力调查表、自尊量表和控制点量表对766名教师进行了问卷调查。结果发现：教师的职业倦怠与工作压力、自尊和控制点之间存在显著的相关关系;教师的工作压力、自尊、控制点分别对职业倦怠的情绪衰竭、非人性化、低成就感具有显著的预测作用。     

Impact of group rejections from a physical activity on physical self-esteem among university students

This study examined the effects of trait physical self-esteem (TPSE) and reasons for group rejections upon state physical self-esteem (SPSE) in a social psychology experiment. Two vignettes were prepared for students to imagine themselves being rejected from a group physical activity. In one vignette, students were rejected by chance, whereas in the other, due to physical incapability. The results indicated that SPSE did not change significantly after rejection by chance, but that SPSE decreased significantly after rejection due to physical incapability. When the sample was divided to subgroups, high TPSE students decreased SPSE to the same level as low TPSE students, and the magnitude of decrease in high TPSE students was even larger than that in low TPSE students after rejection due to physical incapability. The similar pattern was observed in the comparison between male and female students, whereas SPSE of Physical Education major students did not drop as much after rejection due to physical incapability. Contrary to previous research, high TPSE failed to protect the decline of SPSE after group rejections particularly due to physical incapability. The involvement of the importance theory, coping strategies, and sources of rejections needs to be investigated further. Educational implications of the findings are discussed.     

Levels of processing and phonological priming in Chinese character completion tests

This study investigated the level of processing (LoP) effect in the Chinese character completion task. Stem cues, either graphemically or phonetically related to a target character, were used to generate two different kinds of perceptual tests. By giving participants either direct or indirect instructions, the character completion tests could be either an explicit or an implicit memory test. For the implicit test, LoP effects were not found between Read and Generation conditions, whereas the Physical condition did not produce priming. In addition, no priming was found when participants received graphemic cues during the test. For the explicit test, on the other hand, a standard pattern of LoP effects was found between the Physical, Read, and Generation conditions. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of lexical access for character completion tests and the role of phonology in processing Chinese characters.     

Natural concepts in a juvenile gorilla (gorilla gorilla gorilla) at three levels of abstraction

The extent to which nonhumans are able to form conceptual versus perceptual discriminations remains a matter of debate. Among the great apes, only chimpanzees have been tested for conceptual understanding, defined as the ability to form discriminations not based solely on simple perceptual features of stimuli, and to transfer this learning to novel stimuli. In the present investigation, a young captive female gorilla was trained at three levels of abstraction (concrete, intermediate, and abstract) involving sets of photographs representing natural categories (e.g., orangutans vs. humans, primates vs. nonprimate animals, animals vs. foods). Within each level of abstraction, when the gorilla had learned to discriminate positive from negative exemplars in one set of photographs, a novel set was introduced. Transfer was defined in terms of high accuracy during the first two sessions with the new stimuli. The gorilla acquired discriminations at all three levels of abstraction but showed unambiguous transfer only with the concrete and abstract stimulus sets. Detailed analyses of response patterns revealed little evidence of control by simple stimulus features. Acquisition and transfer involving abstract stimulus sets suggest a conceptual basis for gorilla categorization. The gorilla's relatively poor performance with intermediate-level discriminations parallels findings with pigeons, and suggests a need to reconsider the role of perceptual information in discriminations thought to indicate conceptual behavior in nonhumans.     

Predictors of General Self-Efficacy and Self-Esteem in Occupational Therapy Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

A national survey reported college students showed higher risk of mental health problems than the general population. Using self-efficacy and self-esteem as indicators of mental health, this study explores sociodemographic, relational, educational, and work factors associated with these outcomes. A sample of 148 occupational therapy students in Norway participated, and data were analyzed with multiple linear regression. Factors associated with positive self-efficacy and self-esteem were higher general satisfaction with the education program, amount of time spent on self-study, and being male. Implications are attention toward female students' self-perceptions, improving the learning environment, and encouraging students to do more self-study.     

Self-esteem,performance feedback,and cardiovascular stress reactivity

Abstract

This study sought to establish the impact of performance-related feedback on cardiovascular responses to stressors, and whether this impact is influenced by individual differences in self-esteem. A total of 66 college women were categorized as either high or low in self-esteem on the basis of their scores in a standardized psychometric test. They then took part in a laboratory experiment, in which they were assigned to one of three performance-feedback manipulations. Following the provision of feedback on an initial laboratory task (picture-matching), they undertook a second task (mental arithmetic). Cardiovascular functioning was monitored throughout. Provision of negative feedback to the initial task exerted an adverse impact on cardiovascular responses, suggestive of unhappiness with performance. Provision of positive feedback to the initial task exerted an impact on cardiovascular functioning during the second task, suggestive of task engagement. Importantly, low self-esteem exacerbated the adverse impact of negative feedback. The impact of feedback and the buffering role of self-esteem may have important consequences for cardiovascular health. Further, discrepancies in the findings of previous feedback research may be accounted for by dispositional individual differences.     

Brief strategic therapy in first myocardial infarction patients with increased levels of stress: a randomized clinical trial

Background: Little is known about the impact of interventions targeting chronic stress levels on clinical outcomes among myocardial infarction (MI) patients with increased levels of stress. Objectives: To examine the impact of the addition of brief strategic therapy (BST) to usual care (UC) on clinical outcomes in first MI patients with increased levels of stress. Design: Eighty-one patients were randomly assigned to BST in conjunction with UC (medical treatment, risk factor information, and guidance on unhealthy behavior change) or to UC. Methods: The outcome measures were scores on the Perceived Stress Scale, reinfarction and cardiac mortality rates, and scores on the Health Survey. Measures were taken before, post-treatment, and at two follow-ups. Results: Patients subjected to BST showed reduced perceived stress at post-treatment and maintained decreased levels at follow-ups. At 1-year follow-up, they had a lower rate of non-fatal reinfarction, and at 2.5-year follow-up, they had a lower rate of fatal reinfarction. Their mental and physical health was improved at post-treatment and this was sustained at follow-ups. Conclusion: The addition of BST to UC favorably influences the disease course after MI in patients with increased levels of stress.