Emotional intelligence and personal growth initiative effects on subjective happiness among university students

This study examined emotional intelligence and personal growth initiative influences on the level of subjective happiness among university students in Ghana. Two hundred and sixty undergraduate students were participants (female = 69.8%; mean age = 21.72 years, SD = 3.61 years). They responded to measures of emotional intelligence, personal growth initiative, and subjective happiness. After controlling for their demographic characteristics, and following hierarchical regression analysis, results indicate emotional intelligence and intentional behaviour domain of personal growth to predict students’ level of subjective happiness. These findings suggest that students’ ability to manage and utilise their emotions, as well as their personal growth initiative contribute significantly to their level of happiness.     

Cross-Cultural Challenges to the Construct “Posttraumatic Growth”

Responses of individuals to traumatic events are varied. Traumatic events can lead to positive transformations that are known as posttraumatic growth (PTG). Most of the empirical studies of PTG have been addressed from a Western perspective. Theoretically, the concept appears to be cross-culturally valid, but there has been a fundamental deficiency in operationalizing the concept in regard to cultures that are non-Western. Cultural elements play an important role in influencing the behavior of individuals in the aftermath of trauma. Hence, it is important to conceptualize and measure PTG in the framework of the culture to which the individual belongs. The effects of culture come from both the immediate culture (proximal) and the broader (distal) sources that impact the nature of rumination, cognitive strategies, and the process of growth. This paper addresses various cross-cultural challenges to the construct PTG such as emic versus etic perspectives on PTG, proximate and distal influences of culture on PTG, specific cultural influences on rumination, cognitive strategies, and growth, cultural bias inherent in theories of PTG, and measurement issues of PTG across cultures.     

What kind of kind is intelligence?

The model of human intelligence that is most widely adopted derives from psychometrics and behavioral genetics. This standard approach conceives intelligence as a general cognitive ability that is genetically highly heritable and describable using quantitative traits analysis. The paper analyzes intelligence within the debate on natural kinds and contends that the general intelligence conceptualization does not carve psychological nature at its joints. Moreover, I argue that this model assumes an essentialist perspective. As an alternative, I consider an HPC theory of intelligence and evaluate how it deals with essentialism and with intuitions coming from cognitive science. Finally, I highlight some concerns about the HPC model as well, and conclude by suggesting that it is unnecessary to treat intelligence as a kind in any sense.     

Examining the factor structure of narrative meaning-making for stressful events and relations with psychological distress

This study examined the underlying factor structure of 15 narrative meaning-making indices for narratives of stressful events, and explored the incremental validity of the narrative factor solution over and above general personality traits in predicting various indices of psychological well-being. Two-hundred and twenty four undergraduates (M_age?=?19.2 years, SD_age?=?2.1; 114 males and 110 females; 67.6% Caucasian, 12.0% East Asian, 7.6% African-American, 4.0% South Asian, 2.2% Hispanic, and 6.7% as mixed or Other origin) wrote about the most traumatic experience in their life, and completed a series of psychological questionnaires. The narratives were coded in 15 ways theoretically derived from the narrative meaning-making literature. A series of exploratory structural equation models indicated that a four-factor solution best approximated the data. The four factors were: positive processing, negative processing, integrative meaning, and structure. All four factors related differentially to indices of well-being over and above traits. There appear to be four distinct, but related, factors of narrative meaning-making for memories of stressful events, which shed light on the nuanced relations with well-being.     

The longitudinal association between internalizing symptoms and academic achievement among immigrant and non‐immigrant children in Norway

The aim of this study was to explore the longitudinal relation between internalizing symptoms and academic achievement, as two processes of children and youth development, among children in Norway, and whether having an immigrant background moderated this association. Data collected from 4,458 students in Norway in four waves over three years were analyzed with multi‐group latent growth curve modeling (LGM ). Results showed that internalizing symptoms level remained unchanged over time both for immigrant and non‐immigrant children, while levels of academic achievement increased only for children of immigrants with both parents born outside of Norway. Further analyses supported a reciprocal relation between internalizing symptoms and academic achievement and revealed that the initial level of academic achievement predicted the rate of change in internalizing symptoms over time, but not vice versa. Moreover, immigrant background did not moderate the associations in the model, however, children of immigrants with both parents born abroad initially had lower levels of academic achievement, but showed an increase in academic achievement, compared to their non‐immigrant peers as well as to peers with one native‐born parent after controlling for gender and their grade at the first observation. The implications for policy and practice were discussed.     

Latent Growth Curve and Repeated Measures ANOVA Contrasts: What the Models are Telling You

The relationship between the latent growth curve and repeated measures ANOVA models is often misunderstood. Although a number of investigators have looked into the similarities and differences among these models, a cursory reading of the literature can give the impression that they are very different models. Here we show that each model represents a set of contrasts on the occasion means. We demonstrate that the fixed effects parameters of the estimated basis vector latent growth curve model are merely a transformation of the repeated measures ANOVA fixed effects parameters. We further show that differences in fit in models that estimate the same means structure can be due to the different error covariance structures implied by the model. We show these relationships both algebraically and through using data from a simulation.     

死亡心理:外部防御还是内在成长?

对西方主要的死亡心理研究进行了回顾和比较分析,不同的死亡心理研究在研究传统、研究对象和研究方法方面存在差异。但是根据研究的侧重点,可以总结出死亡心理的核心内涵:外部防御和内在成长。对死亡的抽象认知产生死亡焦虑,死亡焦虑产生死亡恐惧、自我保护、外在价值导向等外部防御反应;对死亡的具体认知产生死亡反省,死亡反省产生死亡接受、亲社会动机和行为、内在价值导向等内在成长反应。作者以死亡心理的两类反应为框架,综述了近5年来新的研究证据,并对该领域当前研究的局限和未来研究方向进行了分析。     

3～6岁儿童人格发展的群组序列追踪研究

目的:运用自编幼儿人格发展教师评定问卷对幼儿人格进行追踪测量,探讨其年龄及性别发展特点。方法:用整群抽样法选取3~3.5岁、3.5~4岁、4~4.5岁3个年龄群组幼儿为被试,采用群组序列的追踪设计,进行为期1年半的追踪测量,结合潜变量增长曲线模型和多层线性模型处理数据,探讨幼儿在3~6岁间人格的发展特点。结果:(1)幼儿的智能特征、认真自控、外倾性、亲社会性、情绪稳定性5个人格维度在3~4岁发展最快,4~5岁持续增长但发展速度放缓,到5~6岁时趋于平稳;(2)女孩的认真自控和亲社会性在3岁时显著高于男孩,但在3~6岁间的增长率不存在差异,即女孩的认真自控和亲社会性在幼儿阶段发展水平始终高于男孩。结论:从家庭进入幼儿园的环境变迁促使了幼儿人格的进一步发展,5岁左右幼儿人格开始初步形成;女孩的认真自控和亲社会性水平在幼儿阶段始终高于男孩。     

Finding character strengths through loss: An extension of Peterson and Seligman (2003)

People can experience positive changes even in the midst of adversity and loss. We investigated character strengths following three recent shooting tragedies. Using an Internet database of respondents to the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS), we compared responses from three groups of participants (N?=?31,429) within close proximity of each event: those who completed it eight months prior to the event, and one month and two months after. Results suggested that for one of the events, participants who completed the VIA-IS after the event showed slightly different levels of self-reported character strengths compared to participants who completed the VIA-IS before the event, with some mean levels higher and others lower. The observed differences in character strengths were inconsistent across follow-up periods, and effect sizes were small (d values from –0.13 to 0.15). These findings raise questions about whether and how tragedies might catalyze differences in character strengths.     

Dimensionality of stress experiences: Factorial structure of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) in a population‐based Swedish sample

We investigated the factorial structure of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ‐recent; Levenstein, Prantera, Varvo et al., 1993) in a large (N = 1516; 35–95 years) population‐based Swedish sample (Nilsson, Adolfsson, Bäckman et al., 2004; Nilsson, Bäckman, Erngrund et al., 1997). Exploratory principal components analysis (PCA) was conducted on a first, randomly drawn subsample (n = 506). Next, the model based on the PCA was tested in a second sample (n = 505). Finally, a third sample (n = 505) was used to cross‐validate the model. Five components were extracted in the PCA (eigenvalue > 1) and labeled “Demands,” “Worries/Tension,” “Lack of joy,” “Conflict,” and “Fatigue,” respectively. Twenty‐one out of the 30 original PSQ items were retained in a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) model that included the five (first‐order) factors and, additionally, a general (second‐order) stress factor, not considered in prior models. The model showed reasonable goodness of fit [χ²(184) = 511.2, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.904; RMSEA = 0.059; and SRMR = 0.063]. Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses supported the validity of the established model. The results are discussed in relation to prior investigations of the factorial structure of the PSQ.