Predicting retirement preparation through the design of a new measure

Researchers' capacity to investigate retirement planning behaviour is impeded by the lack of rigorous measurement within the literature. For this study, a comprehensive measure based on the reflexive planning domains of public protection, self‐insurance, and self‐protection was developed and evaluated in a sample of 174 employees aged ≥45 years. Variables of gender, age, income and core self‐evaluations were examined for their influence on planning effort in each of the three domains. Results indicated a clean, three‐factor structure for retirement planning behaviours. All variables emerged as predictors of planning effort in one or more domains. Implications of results for future research into retirement planning and the targeting of planning interventions are discussed.     

Training therapists to work effectively online and offline within digital culture

The speed at which technology evolves, and therefore the speed at which online mental health services evolve and the training required to keep up with them, has become a real concern for the profession. The need for training in transferring face-to-face skills to the online environment has been recognised for some years by leading professional organisations as not only desirable but also essential. In addition, there is an increasing need to keep abreast of digital culture and the type of online environments that clients inhabit. This applies to counsellors and therapists whatever space they are using to deliver services, which may be in the traditional face-to-face consulting room or using tools that enable therapy at a distance, such as the Internet.     

The Balancing Act—Ethical Issues in Parent Training Research: Confidentiality,Harm Reduction,and Methodology

Attention and disruptive behavior disorders present considerable challenges for children and their parents. These challenges have led to the development of parenting programs; however, there is a paucity of literature that discusses the ethical dilemmas parent training researchers face. This article reviews ethical principles and professional standards relevant to parent training research and provides case material to illustrate the challenge of balancing ethical adherence and empirical rigor using three ethical issues that commonly arise in parent training research. In particular, this article focuses on ethical issues surrounding confidentiality in a group setting, use of control groups, and limiting changes in medication/treatment status outside of the treatment protocol.     

Ethical Obligations and Clinical Goals in End-of-Life Care: Deriving a Quality-of-Life Construct Based on the Islamic Concept of Accountability Before God (Taklīf)

End-of-life medical decision making presents a major challenge to patients and physicians alike. In order to determine whether it is ethically justifiable to forgo medical treatment in such scenarios, clinical data must be interpreted alongside patient values, as well as in light of the physician's ethical commitments. Though much has been written about this ethical issue from religious perspectives (especially Christian and Jewish), little work has been done from an Islamic point of view. To fill the gap in the literature around Islamic bioethical perspectives on the matter, we derive a theologically rooted rubric for goals of care. We use the Islamic obligation for Muslims to seek medical treatment as the foundation for determining the clinical conditions under which Muslim physicians have a duty to treat. We next link the theological concept of accountability before God (taklīf) to quality-of-life assessment. Using this construct, we suggest that a Muslim physician is not obligated to maintain or continue clinical treatment when patients who were formerly of, or had the potential to be, mukallaf (the term for a person who has taklīf), are now not expected to regain that status by means of continued clinical treatment.     

Elder Abuse: Ethical and Related Considerations for Professionals in Psychology

Elder abuse presents difficult ethical considerations that the field of psychology has yet to sufficiently address. As demographics and sociocultural factors shift in the coming decade, this deficit in ethical competence may become an increasingly serious problem. Although legal definitions of elder abuse lack uniformity and clarity, there is much room for improvement in the field of psychology. Ethical considerations most relevant to professionals in psychology draw heavily on the principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence and respect for people's rights and dignity. Professional standards of competence, discrimination, informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, and cooperation with other professionals are also critical in these considerations. A number of recommendations are made, centering around the needs for more education, frank discussion, and empirical examination of the complexities of elder abuse.     

Custody and Visitation Trends in the United States in Domestic Violence Cases

Summary

This article addresses custody and visitation trends in domestic violence cases in the United States. It defines domestic violence behaviorally, looks briefly at its prevalence, and discusses national policy statements and studies. It also examines statutory trends concerning the role of domestic violence in custody and visitation cases, including the O. J. Simpson guardianship case. Practical suggestions for litigants and judges are included. The article concludes that the way domestic violence issues are treated in custody and visitation cases is often problematic, and calls for specific reforms.     

Physical Abuse and Childhood Disability

SUMMARY

Several authors have hypothesized that children with disabilities are at increased risk for physical abuse. Such a finding would be consistent with current ecological models, which posit that certain child characteristics (e.g., behavior problems) in combination with other risk factors can lead to abuse. The paucity of research in this area makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions at this time. However, the few studies conducted suggest that child characteristics play a minor role in the etiology of abuse. Despite the lack of evidence indicating that children with disabilities are at significantly greater risk for abuse than their nondisabled peers, the presence of a disability raises some unique issues in the identification, assessment, and treatment of special needs children. This article reviews the literature linking abuse and disability as a risk factor. In addition, impediments encountered in the assessment and treatment of abused children with disabilities and their families are discussed and guidelines for practice are presented.     

Trauma Exposure and Health: A Review of Outcomes and Pathways

A growing body of literature has established robust relations between trauma and a variety of adverse physical health outcomes. In both retrospective and prospective research, adults with a history of self-reported or court-substantiated maltreatment report significantly more health concerns than those without maltreatment histories, in both clinical and community samples, whether health problems are self-reported or physician-diagnosed. Two pathways by which poor health outcomes are theorized to occur include the biological pathway, which largely implicates severe stress and subsequent dysregulations in central stress-response systems as the underlying cause of health problems, and the behavioral pathway, which suggests that health risk behaviors are largely responsible for the relations between trauma and health. This article reviews the research evaluating the relations between various types of trauma, particularly physical and sexual abuse in childhood, and three such health outcomes: pain, gastrointestinal disorders, and cardiovascular disease. Evidence to support the biological and behavioral pathways is also reviewed.     

Childhood Maltreatment Increases the Risk of Intimate Partner Violence via PTSD and Anger Personality Traits in Individuals Consulting for Sexual Problems

Childhood maltreatment is a significant risk factor for the perpetration of intimate partner violence (IPV) in adulthood. This study tested, in a clinical sample, a conceptual model suggesting that childhood maltreatment contributes to the development of anger personality traits, directly and indirectly via posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and that anger personality traits, in turn, are associated with IPV. Adults consulting for sex therapy (n = 114) completed self-report measures of childhood maltreatment, PTSD, anger, and IPV. Participants were exposed to high rates of childhood maltreatment (83%). Path analysis supported the hypothesized model: Exposure to child maltreatment was associated with anger personality traits, and this association was partially mediated by PTSD symptoms. Anger personality traits were highly correlated with IPV.     

Cultural Values and Performance Appraisal: Assessing the Effects of Rater Self-Construal on Performance Ratings

Much of the prior research investigating the influence of cultural values on performance ratings has focused either on conducting cross-national comparisons among raters or using cultural level individualism/collectivism scales to measure the effects of cultural values on performance ratings. Recent research has shown that there is considerable within country variation in cultural values, i.e. people in one country can be more individualistic or collectivistic in nature. Taking the latter perspective, the present study used Markus and Kitayama's (1991) conceptualization of independent and interdependent self-construals as measures of individual variations in cultural values to investigate within culture variations in performance ratings. Results suggest that rater self-construal has a significant influence on overall performance evaluations; specifically, raters with a highly interdependent self-construal tend to show a preference for interdependent ratees, whereas raters high on independent self-construal do not show a preference for specific type of ratees when making overall performance evaluations. Although rater self-construal significantly influenced overall performance evaluations, no such effects were observed for specific dimension ratings. Implications of these results for performance appraisal research and practice are discussed.