This study tested whether each of the four main aspects of rational thinking decreased expected relationship dissatisfaction when imagining having a serious disagreement with either a romantic partner or closest friend. The four features, common to cognitive theories of therapy, were the tendency not to exaggerate negative effects, not to demand…

This study assessed racial variations in how adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism relate to psychological functioning in a sample of 150 Black and 150 White female college students. Comparative results indicated that Black women, as compared with White women, reported less adaptive perfectionism, less life satisfaction, greater stress, and…

This investigation reports on the development and initial validation of the Psychosocial Costs of Racism to Whites Scale (PCRW), which operationalizes the idea that racism has a host of psychosocial costs for White individuals. Data from 727 participants were collected in 3 interrelated studies that subjected the items to the rigors of both…

The authors examined the role of undesired self-discrepancies in predicting emotional distress among Asian and European Americans, whether undesired self-discrepancies are stronger predictors of distress for Asian than for European Americans, and whether optimism and pessimism mediate the relations between ideal, ought, and undesired…

A total of 432 students from grades 7-9 in Canadian schools reported their experiences of cyber-harassment, which is a form of harassment that occurs through the use of electronic communications such as e-mail and cell phones. More than two-thirds of students (69%) have heard of incidents of cyber-harassment, about one quarter (21%) have been…

Recent studies have shown that self-esteem may play an important role in the onset of disaffection among secondary age pupils. It has been suggested that low-achieving pupils deal with the threat posed to their self-esteem by poor academic achievement by re-organising their domain-specific evaluations so that investment is increased in potentially…

This article investigated whether cynicism and depersonalization are two different dimensions of burnout or whether they may be collapsed into one construct of mental distance. Using confirmatory factor analyses in two samples of teachers (n = 483) and blue-collar workers (n = 474), a superior fit was found for the four-factor model that contained…

This study addresses the controversy of whether adopted adolescents are at risk for more mental health problems than the nonadopted and specifically evaluates differences in suicide ideation and depression. Same gender comparisons were made between 346 adopted adolescents and nearly 14,000 others living with biological parents, with nationally…

This study examines college students' beliefs about health, prescriptions, doctors, and the influence those beliefs have on adherence to prescribed medication regimens. After a brief review of attitudinal factors that influence adherence to prescription medicine directions, the authors discuss measurement issues and explain the reasons for their…

This study compared suicide potential and suicide attempts in 50 Pakistani and 50 American psychiatric patients all of whom reported a positive history of suicide attempts during the past 1-5 years. It further explored the role of nationality, gender, diagnosis, and marital status in respondents' potential for suicide and suicide attempts. The…

Recent evidence suggests that the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) is composed of two orthogonal factors, one representing traits such as dominance and low anxiety (PPI-I) and a second that reflects more socially deviant aspects of psychopathy (PPI-II). To assess whether response sets differentially affect these factors, the present…

In three samples consisting of community and undergraduate men and women and incarcerated men, we examined the criterion validity of two distinct factors of psychopathy embodied in the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) as indexed by primary trait scales from the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ). Consistent with the PPI…

School refusal behavior is a common problem seen by mental health professionals and by educators but little consensus is available as to its classification, assessment, and treatment. This study assessed 143 youth with primary school refusal behavior and their parents to examine diagnoses that are most commonly associated with proposed functions…

According to the Trivers-Willard (T-W) hypothesis there is an interaction between individual status and investment in offspring such that high-status individuals invest more in boys, and low-status individuals invest more in girls. Parental investment may be both physiological and affect the sex ratio of offspring, or it may be psychological and…

This study tested a theoretical model concerning religious, passive, and active coping; pain; and psychological adjustment among a sample of 200 Latinos with arthritis. Respondents reported using high levels of religious coping. A path analysis indicated that religious coping was correlated with active but not with passive coping. Religious coping…