<P>Major Depressive Disorder has been conceptualized from a number of theoretical perspectives. The present study aims to provide a theoretically integrated understanding of depression vulnerability. Cognitive and interpersonal theories of depressive vulnerability were considered simultaneously in a sample of undergraduate research participants. Study procedures included an attachment elicitation exercise, which was preceded by completion of a self-report measure of depressive and anxious affect. The attachment elicitation exercise was followed by self-report measures of relationship behavior, adult attachment style, cognitive vulnerability, depressive symptomatology, and additional self-report measures of affect. Results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that the effects of insecure attachment and cognitive personal style on relational behavior are complex. Anxiously attached, sociotropic individuals appear to utilize more passive-aggressive behaviors (i.e., negativity) to negotiate conflict and avoidantly attached, autonomous individuals reported engagement in more overt, distancing behaviors (i.e., negative escalation and withdrawal). Moreover, significant interactions between avoidant attachment and autonomy suggested that the greatest impact on behavior occurred when autonomy was high and avoidant attachment was low. It appears that avoidant attachment may suppress some of the negative emotional expressions or behaviors of highly autonomous individuals. Contrary to expectations, insecure attachment and cognitive personal style did not predict pre- to post-changes in depressive affect, although these relationships were significant for both pre-stress induction affect and post-stress induction affect. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.</P>

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) occurs in 10-69% of the worlds population (World Health Organization, 2002). Women are at much greater risk of experiencing IPV than men. Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse has a psychological impact, not only upon the individual, but family members and future inter-familial generations. The symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, such as feelings of helplessness and emotional numbing may impede a womans decision making and help-seeking activities. Additionally, it has been found that about half of women who experience abuse have children, and that children witnessing IPV are at a greater risk for abuse, behavioral problems, and psychological problems. The following study addresses how women consider their children in their decision making processes. Two-hundred semi-structured interviews were analyzed using NVivo8 computer software (2008), inter-rating reliabilities, and grounded theory. Themes regarding the stay-leave decision making process for women with children are presented. Additionally, quantitative analysis was used to examine significant differences between women with children and women without children on the variables of length of time spent in the relationship and on the severity of violence experienced by women. Results indicate that women with children remain in violent relationships longer and endure a higher frequency of severe abuse.

The field of educational technology is continually looking to more precisely understand the relationship between leadership, technology-related beliefs, technology resources, supportive environment and technology implementation in classrooms. Previous research has identified relationships between these factors. However, the types of predictors examined, the quality of the dependent variables used and the sophistication of the statistical tools used have sometimes been lacking. This research evaluated these factors within the context of the IMPACT project a three-year technology-enrichment intervention. Utilizing the last year of the data from this project, this cross-sectional study used structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the causal relationship between leadership, beliefs, technology resources, supportive environment and technology implementation, which is divided into planning, instruction and student use in classrooms. Differentiating technology implementation is an important contribution of this research as previous studies focused on a particular technology and a specific type of application. We found that teachersâ beliefs about technology had the strongest positive relationship with technology implementation. Leadership was found to indirectly influence technology implementation through teachersâ their beliefs about technology. When developing technology based interventions, policy makers should include evidence of the technologyâs effectiveness to influence teachersâ beliefs about that technology. This study provides a unique look at technology implementation using a large scale intervention with a comparison group and differentiated forms of technology implementation.

Training data from 1441 graduates of the U.S. Army Special Forces Qualifications Course (SFQC) offered an opportunity to test a multidimensional model of training performance. A three-factor model based partially on the Kraiger, Ford, & Salas (1993) framework was operationalized with level-of-performance training criteria (Sackett & Mullen, 1993) and successfully confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The model utilized the BE KNOW DO terminology from the U.S. Army?s leadership model to describe the cognitive, skill-based, and affective training outcome factors. Several alternative models were tested and found not to be identified, suggesting the Kraiger et al. (1993) version provided the best description of performance. Additionally, the BE KNOW DO model was successfully confirmed for two individual phases of the SFQC training separated in time. Therefore, structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses were conducted to determine the relationship of similar constructs over time. Each construct from the initial training phase was found to predict its counterpart in the later phase. The degree of relationship varied for the constructs, suggesting some were more influenced by time and situation. Two performance modeling issues?the specificity of performance constructs and the impact of overfitting a model to the idiosyncratic characteristics of the initial sample on cross-validation?were investigated as well. Results related to the specificity of modeling performance content were inconclusive. Both the one- and three-factor construct models failed to provide adequate fit. The over-modified model provided a worse fit upon cross-validation in 11 out of 12 cases, demonstrating the importance of cross-validating modified models. An integration of the training evaluation and job performance literatures is presented and serves as the rationale for proposing a general three-factor performance model. The idea that all performance can be described in terms of three factors regardless of the context, content, situation, measurement method, or performance level should be investigated. Future directions for practice and research are discussed.

Since the mid-1980s, direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising has changed the way a pharmaceutical company markets prescription medications. DTC advertising has steadily become an integral way of communicating information about prescription drugs to end users and research has shown that the helpInternet is growing as a potential source of drug information. The current study examined the effects of colored highlighting validity (Valid, Invalid and No highlighting) and placement (Top, Middle and Bottom) of target risk keywords in web pages using two kinds of visual search tasks. The two tasks were the same except that in one a target was always present and in the other the target was either present or absent. For both tasks dependent variables were response time and accuracy. The results indicate that valid highlighting significantly reduced response time and increased accuracy across both tasks. Invalid highlighting was not significantly different compared to no highlighting for both tasks in terms of response time or accuracy. Results for both tasks also showed that placement of target keywords on a web page had a significant effect. Top and middle placements significantly reduced response time and increased accuracy compared to placement at the bottom. Findings suggest that valid highlighting and placement above the fold (Top and Middle) of a web page could facilitate consumers locating risk information. In general highlighting has benefits when the sought information is validly highlighted but has no cost when non-target information is highlighted instead. The present findings confirm the results found in studies in other domains. Implications for potential application of highlighting and placement and for future research are discussed.

Cross-cultural values measurement is a maturing subdiscipline with increasing applicability to the international business environment. However, the utility of cultural values measurement in societies could be enhanced by refining the conceptualization and measurement of relevant cultural features. Measuring values in large, populous, heterogeneous societies may be subject to considerable imprecision. This study conceptually and operationally defined two constructs to enrich cross-cultural values applications: cultural tightness and societal culture strength. This study investigated the construct validity of cultural tightness at multiple levels of analysis. Some evidence supported the distinction of cultural tightness from existing and related constructs. A measure of cultural tightness was not found to relate to societal culture strength but did predict several measures of cultural emergence. I conclude that construct validity is possible despite limited confirmation for hypotheses proposing its construct validity. Likewise, cluster analysis demonstrated only a modest pattern of societal clustering of any of these variables. Recommendations for future research and organizational implications are discussed.

Employee creativity has been receiving increasing attention from organizations that wish to differentiate themselves in today?s competitive global marketplace (Cummings & Oldham, 1997). An important element that can serve to either enable or hinder employee creativity is employees? perceptions of how conducive their work environment is to being creative, or what has been termed the organization?s climate for creativity (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron, 1996). Because organization members? perceptions of the work environment serve as the basis for the climate for creativity, perceptual differences can have important implications for organizations that are striving to enable employee creativity. Recent research by Kwaśniewska and Nęcka (2004) found that employee perceptions of climate for creativity, as measured by the Barriers for Creativity in the Workplace Questionnaire (BCWQ), were significantly affected by managerial status. However, the BCWQ was never confirmed to display measurement equivalence, and therefore the authors? findings may not be interpretable as the group differences could be the result of measurement artifacts (Horn & McArdle, 1992; Reise, Widaman, & Pugh, 1993; Vandenberg, 2002). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the climate for creativity, as measured by the KEYS®: Assessing the Climate for Creativity Scale (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron, 1996), displayed measurement equivalence across three distinct managerial levels including supervisors (N = 2,100), middle managers (N = 15,829), and executives (N = 2, 960). Both confirmatory factor analyses (CFA), and the differential functioning of items and tests (DFIT; Raju, van der Linden, & Fleer, 1995), which is based on item response theory (IRT), were used to assess measurement equivalence in this study. Using the eight factor structure proposed by Rosenberg and Craig (2006), both the CFA and IRT analyses found that the KEYS scale displayed measurement equivalence across all managerial levels. Specifically, the CFA analyses found that the full 78 item KEYS scale displayed configural, metric, and scalar equivalence across all comparison groups. Additionally, two DFIT indices were used to determine that there was no differential functioning found at either the item (NCDIF) or the test (DTF) level when using the full KEYS scale. Results are discussed in terms of implications for practitioners and researchers as well as directions for future research.

This study employed a non-random, quasi-experimental design to assess the impact of a diabetes prevention and health promotion program on the health behavior of older African American adults in a church setting. Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) (Bandura, 1986, 1977) and Socio-ecological (McLeroy et al., 1988) and PRECEDE- PROCEEDE Planning (Green & Kreuter, 1999) models were utilized as guiding frameworks. A modified curriculum from the Lifestyle Balance: Healthy Eating and Being Active Diabetes Prevention program was used. Significant decreases were found in fasting blood sugar over the eight-week period for both program participants and the comparison group. However, there was not an increase in diabetes knowledge, daily moderate-vigorous exercise levels or self-efficacy for physical activity for individuals who participated in the program from Time 1 to Time 2. The findings are discussed relative to their contributions to health-related research and interventions with African Americans and the role of African-American churches as a conduit for health messages and behavior change.

eLearning courses are often perceived by their audiences to not be engaging enough to warrant the time and cognitive resources necessary to complete them. Flow Theoryâs assessment of optimal experiences (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) provides insight into understanding user engagement by analyzing the interactions between user skill and task challenge. By designing courses that help users maintain a state of flow through a balance of user skill and task challenge, eLearning courses may better manage the struggle between frustration and boredom and lead to higher levels of engagement. This study investigates a novel technique for measuring task engagement by capturing user behavior data with little-to-no interference with the task. Results indicate that the measurement tool could potentially be used to extrapolate when cognitive overload occurs by helping to identify where in a task a person may reach a point of disengagement, and where they may choose to remain engaged. Implications and future research goals are discussed.

Interest group psychological sense of community (PSOC) is understudied. As a result the extant literature on this phenomenon ranges from incomplete to unfounded. Therefore, the goal of this research is to investigate two assumptions posited by previous research. The first of which is the assumption that the Sense of Community Index (SCI) is measurement tool that best fits interest group PSOC data, and the second is the presumption that disparate interest groups conceptualize the PSOC construct similarly. To test the aforementioned assumptions of interest group PSOC, North American community gardens (N=110) and Australian Rules Football teams (N=107) completed an online survey assessing community perceptions. Through exploratory factor analysis newly designed PSOC items were allowed to freely compete with SCI items to create groups of observable measures best defined by PSOCâs four theoretical factors: membership, mutual influence, needs attainment and shared emotional connection. Confirmatory factor analysis was used showing a better fit of the new PSOC scale (AIC=274.51) than the SCI (AIC=281.51) test fit of model to PSOC data. An independent sample t test showed that community gardeners (M=5.32, SD=.82) experienced a less robust PSOC than USAFL players (M=5.63, SD=.91), t(216)= -2.66, p<.05, r2=.03). Then CFA was used once more to inspect factorial invariance between interest communities and the âgeneric interest communityâ. The results showed the change between configural and constrained models were non-significant for garden communities [â[Ï2(6)=12.50, p>.05] and Australian Rules football communities[â[Ï2(6)=7.90, p>.05]. The results of this study offer empirical support for a new interest group PSOC scale, the Interest Group Sense of Community Scale (IGPSOC), and offers insight on assumptions of conceptual plurality across distinctive interest groups.