Personal intelligence expressed: A theoretical analysis.

An individual's cumulative life decisions help determine that person's well-being. To make good decisions requires knowing something about who one is and who one wants to be. It seems plausible that personality may draw on a specifically tailored intelligence that supports its own self-understanding and contributes to such life decisions. This personal intelligence (PI) helps the individual meet his or her own personal needs and to fit in with (or stand out from) the environment. What are people high in PI actually like relative to those lower in the skills? Drawing on a 2008 theory of PI-related abilities, the author reviews several literatures to examine what features distinguish the behavior of people high in PI from those lower in such skills. The feature list sets the stage for future research in distinguishing high-PI individuals from low-PI individuals according to their life expressions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

From paper to pixels: A comparison of paper and computer formats in psychological assessment

Internet based data collection methods have many advantages for psychological assessment when compared with more traditional paper formats, including, reduced costs, and greater convenience for both the researcher and the participant. However, prior to the wide-spread adoption of these methods, equivalence with paper tests formats must be established. The present study compared questionnaire data from the computer with that from a traditional paper format in a sample of college students both directly and through an opinion survey. Three types of questionnaires that represent distinct areas commonly assessed in psychological research included: quality of life (SF-36), depression (BDI-II) and personality (NEO). A within-subjects design counterbalanced order across the computer and paper formats. Overall the findings showed no differences for the Neuroticism and Extraversion facts of the NEO, for the BDI and for the subscales and composite scores of the SF-36. Significant differences were found between the paper and computer formats for the Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness facets of the NEO. Additionally, the computer was perceived to be convenient, user-friendly, comfortable, and secure. Results suggest that a computerized format is an efficient way to conduct quality of life research, especially for the assessment of distress levels and quality of life.     

医院环境空间心理需求与管理创新

从医院环境空间、心理需求和管理创新三个方面出发,分析了空间环境对病人生理、心理和行为的影响,指出医院公共空间的设置应契合使用者对医院总体空间的使用需求,从而提高医疗建筑的质量,实现以人为本的理念。     

Using comparison data to differentiate categorical and dimensional data by examining factor score distributions: Resolving the mode problem.

Factor-analytic research is common in the study of constructs and measures in psychological assessment. Latent factors can represent traits as continuous underlying dimensions or as discrete categories. When examining the distributions of estimated scores on latent factors, one would expect unimodal distributions for dimensional data and bimodal or multimodal distributions for categorical data. Unfortunately, identifying modes is subjective, and the operationalization of counting local maxima has not performed very well. Rather than locating and counting modes, the authors propose performing parallel analyses of categorical and dimensional comparison data and calculating an index of the relative fit of these competing structural models. In an extensive Monte Carlo study, the authors replicated prior results for mode counting and found that trimming distributions' tails helped. However, parallel analyses of comparison data achieved much greater accuracy, improved base rate estimation, and afforded consistency checks with other taxometric procedures. Two additional studies apply this approach to empirical data either known to be categorical or presumed to be dimensional. Each study supports this new method for factor-analytic research on the latent structure of constructs and measures in psychological assessment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological perspectives on acting.

Psychologists know surprisingly little about the cognitive and affective underpinnings of acting, and this stands in sharp in contrast to what has been learned about the psychological skills involved in music and the visual arts. In this article, the author discusses findings on the childhood precursors of acting talent and outlines a program of research she is initiating to test the hypothesis that acting training fosters strength in reading others' mental states, feeling others' feelings, and regulating one's own emotions in an adaptive manner. This research has implications for understanding the malleability of these outcomes and expertise in these abilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental reactions to children’s negative emotions: Prospective relations to Chinese children’s psychological adjustment.

The prospective relations between five types of parental reactions to children’s negative emotions (PRCNE) and children’s psychological adjustment (behavioral problems and social competence) were examined in a two-wave longitudinal study of 425 school-age children in China. Parents (mostly mothers) reported their own PRCNE. Parents, teachers, and children or peers reported on children’s adjustment. Parental punitive reactions positively predicted externalizing problems (controlling for baseline), whereas emotion- and problem-focused reactions were negatively related to internalizing problems. Parental minimizing and encouragement of emotion expression were unrelated to adjustment. Concurrent relations were found between PRCNE and parents’ authoritative and authoritarian parenting dimensions. However, PRCNE did not uniquely predict adjustment controlling for global parenting dimensions. The findings have implications for cultural adaptation of parent-focused interventions for families of Chinese origin. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Methodological issues in the validation of implicit measures: Comment on De Houwer, Teige-Mocigemba, Spruyt, and Moors (2009).

J. De Houwer, S. Teige-Mocigemba, A. Spruyt, and A. Moors’s (see record 2009-05290-001) normative analysis of implicit measures provides an excellent clarification of several conceptual ambiguities surrounding the validation and use of implicit measures. The current comment discusses an important, yet unacknowledged, implication of J. De Houwer et al.’s analysis, namely, that investigations addressing the proposed implicitness criterion (i.e., does the relevant psychological attribute influence measurement outcomes in an automatic fashion?) will be susceptible to fundamental misinterpretations if they are conducted independently of the proposed what criterion (i.e., is the measurement outcome causally produced by the psychological attribute the measurement procedure was designed to assess?). As a solution, it is proposed that experimental validation studies should be combined with a correlational approach in order to determine whether a given manipulation influenced measurement scores via variations in the relevant psychological attribute or via secondary sources of systematic variance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Linking care felt to engagement in innovative behaviors in the workplace: The mediating role of psychological conditions.

This study examines the relationships between care felt and engagement in innovative behaviors at work. We posit that when an individual perceives that coworkers care for him or her (i.e., care felt), this cultivates psychological conditions such as safety, meaningfulness, and availability, which result in a higher level of motivation and by implication engagement in innovative behaviors at work. A sample of 218 employees took part in the assessment of the relationship between the psychological conditions linked to care felt (measured at Time 1) and motivation and engagement in innovative behaviors (measured at Time 2). The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) indicate that care felt is positively linked to psychological conditions. The latter is positively related directly and indirectly (through motivation) to engagement in innovative behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Main, mediating, and moderating effects of social support on the well-being of survivors of intimate partner violence across 2 years.

Intimate partner violence is a serious and pervasive social problem with deleterious consequences for survivors’ well-being. The current study involved interviewing 160 survivors 6 times over 2 years to examine the role of social support in explaining or buffering these negative psychological consequences. The authors examined both between- and within-persons variability to explore women’s trajectories regarding their experiences of abuse, social support, depression, and quality of life (QOL). Findings revealed the complex role of social support on women’s well-being. Evidence was found for main, mediating, and moderating effects of social support on women’s well-being. First, social support was positively related to QOL and negatively related to depression. Social support also partially explained the effect of baseline level and subsequent change in physical abuse on QOL and depression over time, partially mediated the effects of change in psychological abuse, and moderated the impact of abuse on QOL. The buffering effects of social support were strongest at lower levels of abuse. Implications for future research and intervention are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)