Executive coaching : investigating effects of leader-empowering behaviours and psychological empowerment

Executive coaching is a rapidly expanding approach to leadership development which has grown at a rate that warrants extensive examination of its effects (Wasylyshyn, 2003). This thesis has therefore examined both behavioural and psychological effects based on a nine month executive coaching intervention within a large not-for-profit organisation. The intervention was a part of a larger ongoing integrated organisational strategy to create an organisational coaching culture. In order to examine the effectiveness of the nine month executive coaching intervention two studies were conducted. A quantitative study used a pre and post questionnaire to examine leaders and their team members‘ responses before and after the coaching intervention. The research examined leader-empowering behaviours, psychological empowerment, job satisfaction and affective commitment. Significant results were demonstrated from leaders‘ self-reports on leader-empowering behaviours and their team members‘ self-reports revealed a significant flow on effect of psychological empowerment. The second part of the investigation involved a qualitative study which explored the developmental nature of psychological empowerment through executive coaching. The examination dissected psychological empowerment into its widely accepted four facets of meaning, impact, competency and self-determination and investigated, through semi-structured interviews, leaders‘ perspectives of the effect of executive coaching upon them (Spreitzer, 1992). It was discovered that a number of the common practices within executive coaching, including goal-setting, accountability and action-reflection, contributed to the production of outcomes that developed higher levels of psychological empowerment. Careful attention was also given to organisational context and its influence upon the outcomes.

Equitable remedies for elder financial abuse in inter vivos transactions

Elder law is a growing area of legal practice due to the increasing numbers and proportions of older people in Australian society. The older generation has greater access to financial resources by way of retirement capital than ever before. Coupled with the current generation’s high level of debt and an increasing dependence on inheritances to meet these debts, this has created an environment in which the potential for elder financial abuse is increasing. This article examines how equitable remedies can be used as an avenue of redress for elder financial abuse. The effectiveness of these remedies, and in particular the prospect of a costs order being awarded against the perpetrator of the abuse in successful claims, may act as a deterrent and assist in preventing elder financial abuse from occurring.

The prevalence and correlates of postcoital dysphoria in women

This study examined the lifetime and 4-week prevalence of postcoital dysphoria (PCD) and its relationship with psychological distress and reports of past sexual abuse. Amongst 222 female university students, 32.9% reported having ever experienced PCD while 10% reported experiencing PCD in the previous four weeks. Multiple regression analyses revealed support for the hypothesis that lifetime and 4-week prevalence of PCD would be positively correlated with psychological distress. Lifetime prevalence of PCD, but not 4-week prevalence, correlated with reports of childhood sexual abuse. These factors explained only minimal variance in PCD prevalence, prompting further research into this significantly under-investigated sexual difficulty.

Psychoanalytic perspectives on substance use and antisocial personality disorder

Psychoanalysis and related psychodynamic psychotherapies have historically had a limited engagement with substance use and antisocial personality disorders. This in part reflects an early preoccupation with ‘transference neuroses’ and in part reflects later de-emphasis of diagnosis and focus on therapeutic process. Nonetheless, psychoanalytic perspectives can usefully inform thinking about approaches to treatment of such disorders and there are psychoanalytic constructs that have specific relevance to their treatment. This paper reviews some prominent strands of psychoanalytic thinking as they pertain to the treatment of substance abuse and antisocial personality disorders. It is argued that, while Freudian formulations lead to a primarily pessimistic view of the prospect of treatment of such disorders, both the British object relations and the North American self psychology traditions suggest potentially productive approaches. Finally the limited empirical evidence from brief psychodynamically informed treatments of substance use disorders is reviewed. It is concluded that such treatments are not demonstrably effective but that, since no form of psychotherapy has established high efficacy with substance use disorders, brief psychdynamic therapies are not necessarily of lesser value than other treatments and may have specific value for particular individuals and in particular treatment contexts.

Sh-h-h-h : representations of perpetrators of sexual child abuse in picturebooks

Children’s picturebooks dealing with the topic of child sexual abuse first appeared in the early 1980s with the aim of addressing the need for age-appropriate texts to teach sexual abuse prevention concepts and to provide support for young children who may be at risk of or have already experienced sexual abuse. Despite the apparent potential of children’s picturebooks to convey child sexual abuse prevention concepts, very few studies have addressed the topic of child sexual abuse in children’s literature. Based on a larger study of 60 picturebooks about sexual child abuse published over the past 25 years, this paper critically examines eight picturebook representations of the perpetrators of sexual child abuse as a way to understand how potentially dangerous adults are explained to the young readers of these texts.

Psychological interventions for alcohol misuse among people with co-occurring depression or anxiety disorders: A systematic review

Abstract OBJECTIVE: Depression, anxiety and alcohol misuse frequently co-occur. While there is an extensive literature reporting on the efficacy of psychological treatments that target depression, anxiety or alcohol misuse separately, less research has examined treatments that address these disorders when they co-occur. We conducted a systematic review to determine whether psychological interventions that target alcohol misuse among people with co-occurring depressive or anxiety disorders are effective. DATA SOURCES: We systematically searched the PubMed and PsychINFO databases from inception to March 2010. Individual searches in alcohol, depression and anxiety were conducted, and were limited to 'human' published 'randomized controlled trials' or 'sequential allocation' articles written in English. STUDY SELECTION: We identified randomized controlled trials that compared manual guided psychological interventions for alcohol misuse among individuals with depressive or anxiety disorders. Of 1540 articles identified, eight met inclusion criteria for the review. DATA EXTRACTION: From each study, we recorded alcohol and mental health outcomes, and other relevant clinical factors including age, gender ratio, follow-up length and drop-out rates. Quality of studies was also assessed. DATA SYNTHESIS: Motivational interviewing and cognitive-behavioral interventions were associated with significant reductions in alcohol consumption and depressive and/or anxiety symptoms. Although brief interventions were associated with significant improvements in both mental health and alcohol use variables, longer interventions produced even better outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: There is accumulating evidence for the effectiveness of motivational interviewing and cognitive behavior therapy for people with co-occurring alcohol and depressive or anxiety disorders.

The use of semantic priming as a paradigm for the detection of faking on self-report psychological tests

It is recognised that individuals do not always respond honestly when completing psychological tests. One of the foremost issues for research in this area is the inability to detect individuals attempting to fake. While a number of strategies have been identified in faking, a commonality of these strategies is the latent role of long term memory. Seven studies were conducted in order to examine whether it is possible to detect the activation of faking related cognitions using a lexical decision task. Study 1 found that engagement with experiential processing styles predicted the ability to fake successfully, confirming the role of associative processing styles in faking. After identifying appropriate stimuli for the lexical decision task (Studies 2A and 2B), Studies 3 to 5 examined whether a cognitive state of faking could be primed and subsequently identified, using a lexical decision task. Throughout the course of these studies, the experimental methodology was increasingly refined in an attempt to successfully identify the relevant priming mechanisms. The results were consistent and robust throughout the three priming studies: faking good on a personality test primed positive faking related words in the lexical decision tasks. Faking bad, however, did not result in reliable priming of negative faking related cognitions. To more completely address potential issues with the stimuli and the possible role of affective priming, two additional studies were conducted. Studies 6A and 6B revealed that negative faking related words were more arousing than positive faking related words, and that positive faking related words were more abstract than negative faking related words and neutral words. Study 7 examined whether the priming effects evident in the lexical decision tasks occurred as a result of an unintentional mood induction while faking the psychological tests. Results were equivocal in this regard. This program of research aligned the fields of psychological assessment and cognition to inform the preliminary development and validation of a new tool to detect faking. Consequently, an implicit technique to identify attempts to fake good on a psychological test has been identified, using long established and robust cognitive theories in a novel and innovative way. This approach represents a new paradigm for the detection of individuals responding strategically to psychological testing. With continuing development and validation, this technique may have immense utility in the field of psychological assessment.

Methods used in cross-cultural comparisons of psychological symptoms and their determinants

This paper is the second in a series of reviews of cross-cultural studies of menopausal symptoms. The goal of this review is to compare and contrast methods which have been previously utilized in Cross-Cultural Midlife Women's Health Studies with a view to (1) identifying the challenges in measurement across cultures in psychological symptoms and (2) suggesting a set of unified questions and tools that can be used in future research in this area. This review also aims to examine the determinants of psychological symptoms and how those determinants were measured. The review included eight studies that explicitly compared symptoms in different countries or different ethnic groups in the same country and included: Australian/Japanese Midlife Women's Health Study (AJMWHS), Decisions At Menopause Study (DAMeS), Four Major Ethnic Groups (FMEG), Hilo Women's Health Survey (HWHS), Penn Ovarian Aging Study (POAS), Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN), Women's Health in Midlife National Study (WHiMNS), and the Women's International Study of Health and Sexuality (WISHeS). This review concludes that mental morbidity does affect vasomotor symptom prevalence across cultures and therefore should be measured. Based on the review of these eight studies it is recommended that the following items be included when measuring psychological symptoms across cultures, feeling tense or nervous, sleeping difficulty, difficulty in concentrating, depressed and irritability along with the CES-D Scale, and the Perceived Stress Scale. The measurement of these symptoms will provide an evidence based approach when forming any future menopause symptom list and allow for comparisons across studies.

Tracking employees' twists and turns : describing a mixed methods approach to assessing change in the psychological contract

The psychological contract is a key analytical device utilised by both academics and practitioners to conceptualise and explore the dynamics of the employment relationship. However, despite the recognised import of the construct, some authors suggest that its empirical investigation has fallen into a 'methodological rut' [Conway & Briner, 2005, p. 89] and is neglecting to assess key tenets of the concept, such as its temporal and dynamic nature. This paper describes the research design of a longitudinal, mixed methods study which draws upon the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative modes of inquiry in order to explore the development of, and changes in, the psychological contract. Underpinned by a critical realist philosophy, the paper seeks to offer a research design suitable for exploring the process of change not only within the psychological contract domain, but also for similar constructs in the human resource management and broader organisational behaviour fields.

Government community service contracts : restraining abuse of power

The use of grant contracts to deliver community services is now a significant feature of all Australian government administrations. These contracts are the primary instrument governing the provision of such services to citizens and are largely outside the usual parliamentary review mechanisms and constraints. This article examines the extent of the erosion of fundamental constitutional principles facilitated by the use of private contracts, by applying the principles used in scrutiny of delegated legislation to standard form federal and State community service contracts. It reveals extensive executive power which, if the relationship were founded in legislative instruments rather than in private contract, would have to be justified to Parliament at least and possibly not tolerated.

Safeguarding rural Australia: addressing masculinity and violence in rural settings : unintentional violent harm including injuries in an Australian rural context : analysis of secondary data analysis

This report is an update of an earlier one produced in January 2010 (see Carrington et al. 2010) which remains as an ePrint through the project’s home page. This report focuses on our examination of extant data which have been sourced with respect to unintentional serious and violent harm, including injuries, to males living in regional and remote Australia . and which were available in public data bases at production. Such harm typically might be caused by, for example, transport accidents, occupational exposures and hazards, burns and so on. Thus unintentional violent harm can cause physical trauma the consequences of which can lead to chronic conditions including psychological harm or substance abuse.