The direct and indirect relations between six types of prosocial behavior and physical aggression were examined. Data were gathered from 252 college students (M age = 21.67 years; 184 women) who completed measures of sympathy, prosocial behavior, and physical aggression. Structural equation modeling revealed that sympathy fully mediated the…

Although structural equation modeling (SEM) is one of the most comprehensive and flexible approaches to data analysis currently available, it is nonetheless prone to researcher misuse and misconceptions. This article offers a brief overview of the unique capabilities of SEM and discusses common sources of user error in drawing conclusions from…

The authors developed and tested new theoretical relations between approach and avoidance motivational traits and deviant work behaviors. Approach motivation was divided into 3 traits: personal mastery (i.e., desire to achieve), competitive excellence (i.e., desire to perform better than others), and behavioral activation system (BAS) sensitivity…

The authors bring together approaches from cognitive and individual differences psychology to model characteristics of reaction time distributions beyond measures of central tendency. Ex-Gaussian distributions and a diffusion model approach are used to describe individuals' reaction time data. The authors identified common latent factors for each…

This article proposes the Thurstonian paired comparison model to assess vocational preferences and uses this approach to evaluate the Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprise, and Conventional (RIASEC) model in the Basque Country (Spain). First, one unrestricted model is estimated in the Structural Equation Modelling framework using…

This study tested a model of the effects of different predictors on individuals' levels of fear of crime in Dallas neighborhoods. Given its dual focus on individual perceptions and community-level interactions, social capital theory was selected as the most appropriate framework to explore fear of crime within the neighborhood milieu. A structural…

This paper presents a new polychoric instrumental variable (PIV) estimator to use in structural equation models (SEMs) with categorical observed variables. The PIV estimator is a generalization of Bollen's (Psychometrika 61:109-121, 1996) 2SLS/IV estimator for continuous variables to categorical endogenous variables. We derive the PIV estimator…

This study examined the factor structure of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in urban inner-city and suburban general population samples of American youth. The SDQ was administered to 4,661 predominantly minority urban youth (mean age = 13.0 years, SD = 2.02) and 937 predominantly Caucasian suburban youth (mean age = 14.0 years,…

This study focused on parents' relationships and involvement in their children's lives and the effects on the students' school engagement and school performance. The study used the Wave I data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). The data on seventh and eighth grade students' school and family experiences were…

Following suggestions from prior research, this 2-wave longitudinal study examined whether parental solicitation and control influenced adolescents' later perceptions of privacy invasion. Data from 307 Dutch adolescents were tested with structural equation modeling (SEM). Differences in adolescents' invasion perceptions were examined in terms of…

Purpose: This study aims to examine the organizational socialization of women soldiers in the Italian Army. Design/methodology/approach: Following an interactionist interpretation of socialization, a model was tested to determine the influence of organizational socialization tactics, proactive behaviours, supervisor support on organizational…

Feminists have argued that traditional gender norms can obstruct women's sexual well-being (Amaro, 1995; Morokoff, 2000; Tolman, 2006; Walker, 1997). Therefore, we expected feminist ideology, by virtue of this critique, to be associated with women's sexual subjectivity and sexual well-being. To test this model, we analyzed data from a survey of…

In the present study, the relations of various aspects of working memory to various aspects of language problems in a clinical sample of 97 Dutch speaking 5-year-old children with severe language problems were studied. The working memory and language abilities of the children were examined using an extensive battery of tests. Working memory was…

Academic buoyancy is developed as a construct reflecting everyday academic resilience within a positive psychology context and is defined as students' ability to successfully deal with academic setbacks and challenges that are typical of the ordinary course of school life (e.g., poor grades, competing deadlines, exam pressure, difficult…

This study of the flow of online discussions examined how earlier messages affected later messages along five dimensions: (1) evaluations (agreement, disagreement, or unresponsive actions); (2) knowledge content (contribution, repetition, or null content); (3) social cues (positive, negative, or none); (4) personal information (number of visits);…