Differences in familism values and caregiving outcomes among Korean, Korean American, and White American dementia caregivers.

Recent theories have suggested that burden and distress among dementia caregivers may be higher in American culture, which emphasizes individualism, and lower in cultures with higher levels of familism. However, immigrants may experience higher levels of burden because of acculturation with attendant values, conflicts and stresses. Forty-four Korean caregivers and 32 Korean American caregivers were compared with 54 White American caregivers on sociodemographic variables, familism, burden, anxiety, and depression. Familism was highest in Korean caregivers and lowest in Whites, with Korean Americans in the middle. Koreans and Korean Americans reported higher levels of burden. Koreans showed higher levels of depression and of anxiety than White American caregivers, with Koreans and Korean Americans higher than Whites on anxiety. These results suggest a need for greater specificity in theories about familism values, with attention to the specific meaning of familism in different cultures.     

Korean Immigrant Women's Journey from Abused Wives to Self-Reliant Women

Today's adolescent girls experience sociocultural pressures and life stressors which result in negative mental health outcomes, including binge eating. The purpose of this article is to present a model of psychotherapy for adolescent girls who engage in binge eating. The components in this model include: (a) Feminist Therapy to emphasize client empowerment and the importance of sociocultural context in understanding girls’ concerns; (b) Cognitive Behavior Therapy to help clients to eliminate dieting and to cope with pressures for attaining the beauty ideal; (c) Dialectical Behavior Therapy to assist clients in coping with emotions; and (d) Interpersonal Therapy to help clients improve relational transitions and disputes.     

Aging Koreans' perceived conflicts in relationships with their offspring as a function of age, gender, cohabitation status, and marital status.

The Youn Scale was used to assess aging Koreans' perceived conflicts in relationships with their adult offspring. The sample consisted of 623 elderly Koreans between the ages of 55 and 84 years. Results indicated that aging Koreans experienced significantly more conflicts in their relationships as they grew older. There were also differences in the perceptions of problems in relationships with their offspring between those who lived together with their adult children and the those who did not, and also between those who were married and those who were single. The findings imply that aging Koreans want to have qualitatively better (i.e., warmer and closer) relationships with their offspring, regardless of their bereavement status and cohabitation status.     

Does shared group identification lead to group creativity? Group regulatory focus as a moderator

Regarding the effect of identification on creativity in groups, two theoretical views compete. One view emphasizing group‐welfare motives underlying identification proposes a positive identification–creativity relationship in groups because members sharing high group identification are motivated to engage in behaviors that they believe are optimal for their group, including those that depart from the group's status quo, thus resulting in enhanced group creativity. The other view highlighting affiliative motives underlying identification, in contrast, posits a negative identification–creativity relationship in groups because highly identified members are motivated to engage in behaviors that certify their belongingness in the group, that is, behaviors that conform to the existing group norms and status quo, which constrains the group's potential for creativity. This study aims to reconcile these competing perspectives by invoking regulatory focus theory. Drawing on the notion that group identification effects rely on the content of group identity that the identification is based on, the authors suggest that group regulatory focus, as a critical group identity content, moderates the identification–creativity relationship in groups; the relationship is positive when the group's regulatory focus is highly promotion‐oriented, whereas it is negative when the group's regulatory focus is highly prevention‐oriented. Analyzing data from 65 workgroups in a cosmetics company in Korea, the authors show evidence that the identification–creativity relationship is positive in groups with a high promotion focus. The prediction regarding the prevention–focus moderation effect is not supported. The implications of the findings for both theory and practice are discussed.     

Selective attention to pitch amid conflicting auditory information: context-coding and filtering strategies

An auditory Eriksen-flanker task was used to study how conflicting information interferes with selective attention to task-relevant differences in pure-tone frequency. Across the observation intervals of the discrimination task, the relevant frequency differences between target tones were positive, but within an observation interval, they could appear to be small or negative relative to conflicting differences in flanker tones leading or trailing the target. Being correct required attending to the between-target and ignoring the target–flanker pitch relation (across and within observation-interval, respectively). The interference index was an elevation of conflict-laden frequency discrimination thresholds (FDTs), relative to no-conflict FDTs. When conflicting differences in frequency or level (but not in duration) trailed the relevant differences, interference (i.e., FDT elevation) was large and persistent, increased with the target–flanker time proximity, but decreased with extensive training. Interference occurs when the target–flanker pitch relation is more prominent than the one between targets, and the physical and/or perceptual effects of relevant and conflicting differences tend to cancel one another, as with the above conflicting differences. With untrained participants, the target–flanker pitch relation is most prominent in conditions fostering both the perceptual grouping of the target and flanker (e.g., close time proximity), and the recency and salience of the conflicting differences (e.g., trailing conflicting difference); conversely, by lessening such grouping and salience, prolonged training decreases or nullifies the interference. The interference observed herein does not arise because the relevant and the conflicting differences each prompt separate decisions or responses that are in mutual conflict; instead, it arises from the early-stage interaction between their perceptual effects.     

Time-dependent adhesion of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer film to a flat indenter tip characterized using a cohesive-zone law

The work of adhesion between a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer film and a flat diamond tip was measured by instrumented indentation. The results showed that the apparent work of adhesion between the tip and the PDMS film increases with increasing dwell time and retreating velocity; on the other hand, the indentation depth has no significant effect on adhesion. The indentation experiment was analysed with viscoelastic finite element simulations with rate-dependent cohesive elements, from which the time evolution of adhesion was quantitatively implemented into a rate-dependent cohesive-zone law.     

The Profession of Family Therapy in South Korea: Current Status and Future Directions

The authors present a brief overview of the family therapy field in South Korea. Since its introduction in the late 1970s, family therapy has been developing into a professional field with education and training institutions, practice settings, credentials, and practitioners holding memberships in various professional organizations. While such issues as family values and types, filial piety, violence, interethnic marriage, and social polarization have resulted in an increased demand for family therapy, such services are not readily accessible to Korean families in need. Efforts should be made in increasing number of competent family therapists by strengthening both academic and clinical requirements for credentialing. Efforts are also needed in increasing accessibility of family therapy services by making them more available within a variety of human service contexts.     

Reconnecting with the past in social media: The moderating role of social influence in nostalgia marketing on Pinterest

Nostalgia marketing practices in social media help brands link consumers with happier times from the past. A randomized 2 (evoked nostalgia: high vs. low) × 2 (social influence: high vs. low) between‐subjects factorial design experiment was conducted to examine the effects of nostalgia and social influence on consumers' judgments in the brand management context of Pinterest boards. The results revealed the strong main effect of evoked nostalgia on consumers' attitudes toward the Pinterest board and the brand, purchase intention, willingness to pass along branded pins, and brand–consumer relationship quality. Furthermore, this study discovered the significant moderating role of social influence for all dependent measures. Strongly (vs. weakly) evoked nostalgia generated more favorable responses only when social influence was high. In contrast, there were no significant differences between strongly and weakly evoked nostalgia when social influence was low. Theoretical contributions to the nostalgia literature and managerial implications for social media marketing are discussed.     

The Culture Specificity of Epistemological Beliefs about Learning

The present study analyzed the nature of epistemological beliefs about learning (learning beliefs) in Korea and the United States. Learning beliefs are implicit assumptions held by learners about the source and certainty of knowledge and the ways to obtain knowledge. For the comparative analysis of both the model and the nature of learning beliefs across two countries that differ in emphasis on individualism and collectivism, two attempts were made. First, Jehng, Johnson, and Anderson's (1993) study was replicated with university students from the US (N=496) and Korea (N=487). Second, the relationship between US students' learning beliefs and the two aspects of their self-construal (independent and interdependent) was analyzed by using a scale developed by Singelis (1994) which measures cultural orientation of individualism and collectivism at the individual level. Factor analyses of the US sample confirmed the conceptual model proposed by Jehng et al. The factor structure of the Korean sample, however, showed significant variation reflecting the collectivistic values of Korea. MANCOVA indicated that the two developmental factors, age and the amount of formal education, were related with American students' beliefs, but they were not with those of Korean students. MANCOVA revealed that US students' beliefs are significantly related with the independent self-construal, but not with the interdependent self-construal. The differences between the two samples in terms of the impact of formal education and self-construal on learning beliefs will be further discussed by focusing on the cultural differences between the two countries.