Self-concept of African-American male youth: Self-esteem and ethnic identity

The role of perceived efficacy, parent support, and community involvement in the self-esteem and ethnic identity of 68 African-American male youth were investigated in this research. The results provided support for the distinctiveness of ethnic identity and self-esteem. A sense of mastery was positively associated with both self-esteem and ethnic identity. Parent support was associated with self-esteem, while community involvement and an appreciation of African-American heritage were positively related to ethnic identity. Implications for future research and the evaluation of prevention and support programs for youth are discussed.     

Internet accessibility and usage among urban adolescents in Southern California: implications for web-based health research.

The World Wide Web (WWW) poses a distinct capability to offer interventions tailored to the individual's characteristics. To fine tune the tailoring process, studies are needed to explore how Internet accessibility and usage are related to demographic, psychosocial, behavioral, and other health related characteristics. This study was based on a cross-sectional survey conducted on 2373 7th grade students of various ethnic groups in Southern California. Measures of Internet use included Internet use at school or at home, Email use, chat-room use, and Internet favoring. Logistic regressions were conducted to assess the associations between Internet uses with selected demographic, psychosocial, behavioral variables and self-reported health statuses. The proportion of students who could access the Internet at school or home was 90% and 40%, separately. Nearly all (99%) of the respondents could access the Internet either at school or at home. Higher SES and Asian ethnicity were associated with higher internet use. Among those who could access the Internet and after adjusting for the selected demographic and psychosocial variables, depression was positively related with chat-room use and using the Internet longer than 1 hour per day at home, and hostility was positively related with Internet favoring (All ORs = 1.2 for +1 STD, p < 0.05). Less parental monitoring and more unsupervised time were positively related to email use, chat-room use, and at home Internet use (ORs for +1 STD ranged from 1.2 to 2.0, all p < 0.05), but not related to at school Internet use. Substance use was positively related to email use, chat-room use, and at home Internet use (OR for "used" vs. "not used" ranged from 1.2 to 4.0, p < 0.05). Self-reported health problems were associated with higher levels of Internet use at home but lower levels of Internet use at school. More physical activity was related to more email use (OR = 1.3 for +1 STD), chat room use (OR = 1.2 for +1 STD), and at school ever Internet use (OR = 1.2 for +1 STD, all p < 0.05). Body mass index was not related to any of the Internet use-related measures. In this ethnically diverse sample of Southern California 7(th) grade students, 99% could access the Internet at school and/or at home. This suggests that the Internet is already a potential venue for large scale health communication studies. Adolescents with more psychosocial risk factors or detrimental health behaviors were more likely to use the Internet. Therefore, if used properly, Internet interventions could effectively address the high risk populations. Additional research is needed to gain a more complete understanding of the positive and negative consequences of Internet use among adolescents.     

Worse than feared? Failure induction modulates the electrophysiological signature of error monitoring during subsequent learning

This study examined how self-relevant failure influences error monitoring—as reflected in the error-related negativity (Ne/ERN) —and behavioral adaptation during subsequent feedback-based learning. We applied two phases (pre- and posttest) of a probabilistic learning task. Between pre- and posttest, participants were assigned to one of two groups receiving either failure feedback or no feedback during a visual search task described as diagnostic of intellectual abilities. To disentangle the effects of failure and motivational disengagement due to prolonged task performance, we linked the posttest to intelligence (Experiment 1) or described it in neutral terms (Experiment 2). Failure induction was associated with an increase in Ne/ERN amplitude at posttest in both experiments, although there were no differences in overall performance. In contrast, the Ne/ERN decreased from pre- to posttest in the no-failure-feedback group, particularly in Experiment 2. Furthermore, failure feedback affected error-related behavioral adjustments, suggesting a shift toward a reactive, error-driven mode of behavior control. These findings emphasize the importance of affective-motivational state in error processing and subsequent behavioral adaptation.     

When do employees cross boundaries? Individual and contextual determinants of career mobility

This study investigates the joint effects of individual characteristics and the labour market on career mobility. We propose that level of education, openness to experience, and a favourable labour market relate positively to employees crossing organizational, industrial, and occupational boundaries. Management programme alumni (N = 503) provided information through an online survey about their career histories, their level of education, and their openness to experience. Additionally, we used the unemployment rate as an indicator for yearly changes in the labour market. The results of our cross-classified multilevel analysis indicate that both individual characteristics and the labour market are determinants of career mobility. Level of education had a positive effect on organizational and industrial boundary crossing, and changes in the labour market related to organizational boundary crossing. Against our assumptions, openness to experience had no effect on career mobility, and none of the predictors were related to occupational boundary crossing. Our results demonstrate the importance of investigating career mobility from a boundary perspective combined with a focus on both individual and contextual characteristics. The dominance of education compared to personality and the difficulty of explaining occupational mobility open new research avenues and yield practical implications for employees, career counsellors, and organizations.     

Fluctuating confidence: the dynamic consequences of true/false affirmatives and denials on how a listener appraises their personal past

The present study examined the mnemonic consequences of true/false denials and affirmatives on how a listener appraises their personal past. To this end, participants (listeners) rated the extent to which they were confident certain events occurred during their childhood. They rated these events both before and after a confederate (speaker) denied or affirmed the occurrence of four different childhood events each, for a total of eight “rehearsed” events. For each set (denials and affirmatives) of events, half were true and half were false. In turn, this created four types of events (two each): true denials, true affirmatives, false denials, and false affirmatives. Additionally, half of the participants were told that the speaker was provided independent information about the veracity of the event’s occurrence (“expert” condition). Overall, listeners were less confident in the occurrence of false denial events, but more so when they believed the speaker to be more knowledgeable of the listeners memories, more confident in false affirmative events and, counter intuitively, more confident in the occurrence of true denial events. These results underscore the importance of a nuanced approach to the mnemonic consequences of true and false denials and affirmations in the course of social interactions.     

Telehealth and in‐person training outcomes for novice discrete trial training therapists

The efficacy and efficiency of telehealth and in‐person training were compared while teaching seven undergraduate students to implement components of discrete trial training. A multiple‐baseline design across skills with elements of multiple probe and delayed multiple baseline combined with an alternating‐treatments design was used to evaluate the effects of behavioral skills training (BST) on (a) implementing a multiple stimulus without replacement preference assessment, (b) setting up an instructional context, (c) delivering antecedent prompts, and (d) delivering consequences for accurate and inaccurate responding. Two skills were trained via telehealth and two skills were trained in‐person using BST procedures with a mock student. All participants provided high acceptability ratings for both training procedures. Results also showed that telehealth training was as efficacious and efficient as in‐person training for all skills across all participants. Five of six participants showed high levels of maintenance of the newly acquired skills; these five also exhibited the skills during a novel instructional task.