Only sane: Autistic barriers in “boring” patients

This paper addresses needs of patients whom Winnicott called boring. Although often functioning well in the work world, they lack a rich inner life and a capacity for intimacy. Thus, psychotherapy is particularly problematic for them. To develop a model for working with this group of patients, the authors elaborate the concept of autistic barriers from British object relations theory, and suggest a changing role for the therapist in four successive phases of the treatment.     

New Well-being Measures: Short Scales to Assess Flourishing and Positive and Negative Feelings

Measures of well-being were created to assess psychological flourishing and feelings—positive feelings, negative feelings, and the difference between the two. The scales were evaluated in a sample of 689 college students from six locations. The Flourishing Scale is a brief 8-item summary measure of the respondent’s self-perceived success in important areas such as relationships, self-esteem, purpose, and optimism. The scale provides a single psychological well-being score. The measure has good psychometric properties, and is strongly associated with other psychological well-being scales. The Scale of Positive and Negative Experience produces a score for positive feelings (6 items), a score for negative feelings (6 items), and the two can be combined to create a balance score. This 12-item brief scale has a number of desirable features compared to earlier measures of positive and negative emotions. In particular, the scale assesses with a few items a broad range of negative and positive experiences and feelings, not just those of a certain type, and is based on the amount of time the feelings were experienced during the past 4 weeks. The scale converges well with measures of emotions and affective well-being.     

A Note on the Dimensionality of Quality of Life Scales: An Illustration with the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS)

A case is made that measures used in quality of life and happiness research will be essentially unidimensional: inherently tapping minor dimensions. This is illustrated using Diener’s Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). It is shown that the SWLS does not meet the standard of strict unidimensionality, but that the interpretation of the total scale score is not compromised because the additional dimensions are relatively minor. In the context of the example, a multi-step strategy is described that allows researchers to test for essential unidimensionality. Throughout the article, essential unidimensionality is contrasted with the received view of strict unidimensionality and confirmatory factor analysis methods.

Social care and support for elderly men and women in an urban and a rural area of Nepal

This study has aimed to describe the care and support for urban and rural elderly people of Bhaktapur district, Nepal. Efforts were made to identify the feeling of some features of general well-beings associated to mental health, person responsible for care and support, capability to perform daily routine activities, sources of finance and ownership to the property. More than half of the respondents were found having single or multiple features of loneliness, anxiety, depression and insomnia. The rate of point prevalence loneliness was found higher in the above 80 years of age, urban respondents. Almost 9 in 10 respondents were capable themselves to dress, walk and maintain personal hygiene and majority of them were assisted by spouse, son/daughter-in-laws. Family support was common sources of income and ownership to the property was absolutely high.     

Paternal Hostility and Maternal Hostility in European American and African American Families

The authors examined the hypothesized influence of maternal and paternal hostility on youth delinquency over time. The investigation addressed significant gaps in earlier research on parental hostility, including the neglect of father effects, especially in African American families. Using prospective, longitudinal data from community samples of European American (n = 422) and African American (n = 272) 2‐parent families, the authors examined the independent effects of paternal and maternal hostility on youth delinquency. The results indicated that paternal hostility significantly predicted relative increases in youth delinquent behaviors above and beyond the effects of maternal hostility; conversely, maternal hostility did not predict youth delinquency after controlling for paternal hostility. Multiple‐group analyses yielded similar results for both ethnic groups and for boys and girls. These results underscore the importance of including both parents in research on diverse families. Neglecting fathers provides an incomplete account of parenting in relation to youth development.     

The affective and cognitive context of self-reported measures of subjective well-being

Researchers attempting to understand the experience of subjective well-being have relied heavily on self-report measurement. Recent research focused on this method has demonstrated that a number of factors, such as the current mood of the respondent and the cognitive and social context surrounding the response, can significantly influence response to items inquiring about global subjective well-being or satisfaction with life. In the present study, several measurement strategies (e.g., single-item measures, multiple-item scales, and memory search tasks) were compared with regard to their susceptibility to such influences. Although some evidence for effects due to item-placement or transient mood were found, all of the global measures of subjective well-being and life satisfaction has significant convergence with peer-reports, and the single-item measures showed good temporal reliability across a one-month interval. The data provide evidence for a significant degree of stability in subjective well-being and life satisfaction.     

The relationship between income and subjective well-being: Relative or absolute?

Although it appears that income and subjective well-being correlate in within-country studies (Diener, 1984), a debate has focused on whether this relationship is relative (Easterlin, 1974) or absolute (Veenhoven, 1988, 1991). The absolute argument advanced by Veenhoven states that income helps individuals meet certain universal needs and therefore that income, at least at lower levels, is a cause of subjective well-being. The relativity argument is based on the idea that the impact of income or other resources depends on changeable standards such as those derived from expectancies, habituation levels, and social comparisons. Two studies which empirically examine these positions are presented: one based on 18 032 college studies in 39 countries, and one based on 10 year longitudinal data in a probability sample of 4 942 American adults. Modest but significant correlations were found in the U.S. between income and well-being, but the cross-country correlations were larger. No evidence for the influence of relative standards on income was found: (1) Incomechange did not produce effects beyond the effect of income level per se, (2) African-Americans and the poorly educated did not derive greater happiness from specific levels of income, (3) Income produced the same levels of happiness in poorer and richer areas of the U.S., and (4) Affluence correlated with subjective well-being both across countries and within the U.S. Income appeared to produce lesser increases in subjective well-being at higher income levels in the U.S., but this pattern was not evident across countries. Conceptual and empirical questions about the universal needs position are noted. Suggestions for further explorations of the relativistic position are offered.     

The construction of data to reflect the research objective,and how randomisation tests make such data usable

When comparing the central values of two independent groups, should a t-test be performed, or should the observations be transformed into their ranks and a Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test performed? This paper argues that neither should automatically be chosen. Instead, provided that software for conducting randomisation tests is available, the chief concern should be with obtaining data values that are a good reflection of scientific reality and appropriate to the objective of the research; if necessary, the data values should be transformed so that this is so. The subsequent use of a randomisation (permutation) test will mean that failure of the transformed data values to satisfy assumptions such as normality and equality of variances will not be of concern.     

Self-managed Supervision

The growth of professional supervision in social work has been accompanied by complex attempts to theorise key elements of supervisory practice and highlight the need to further examine what constitutes supervisory support in current regulatory environments. Changes in human service organisations resulting from new public management generate a need to theorise broader patterns of support available to human service workers. This article draws on an electronic, mixed-method self-reporting study of advice and support-seeking behaviours of 193 human service professionals in 3 South Australian organisations. The findings indicate the fluidity of current professional supervision practice, with workers seeking professional wisdom, identifying practice direction, and debriefing with a range of colleagues within and outside their organisation. Accordingly, the article confirms that supervisors should no longer be thought of as the sole providers of professional advice and support for human service workers and conceptualises the workers as active agents shaping their own learning.     

Evidence-based practice knowledge and utilization among social workers

In this study the researchers examined the knowledge, skills, and use of Evidence-Based Practice in a sample of social workers from different practice settings. Using an electronic survey, data were collected from a group of social work practitioners (N = 200). Participants in their 30s and 40s demonstrated the most knowledge and use of Evidence-Based Practice. In addition, a high percentage of social workers reported to be knowledgeable about social work research databases; a smaller percentage actually used online resources in their practice. Through this study the researchers add to what is currently known about social workers' perceptions, knowledge, and use of Evidence-Based Practice.