Eating Attitudes of Native American and African American Women: Differences by Race and Acculturation

Thirty-tour Native American and twenty-eight African American women responded to eating disorders and acculturation measures. African Americans appeared to have greater concern about their body weight and shape than Native Americans. Among all, those who were more acculturated to the U.S. white culture reported more concerns than those who were less acculturated. Also, normal weight women tended to have higher anorexia scores than overweight women as well as a diagnosed anorexic group. Open-ended questions elicited feelings about U.S. symbols of beauty, one\u27s physical self, and usage of standard English. The conceptualization of acculturation to white society and acculturative stress is used to understand the study

Spousal Caregiver Narratives and Credible Authority: Uncertainty in Illness of Spousal Caregivers

This article is taken from a larger longitudinal study that used caregiver interviews, caregiver surveys, and caregiver statistical information of one community. The interviews were conducted with six spousal caregivers to examine the narratives produced by spouses actively caring for their partners with dementia. The spousal caregivers were interviewed multiple times over approximately 12 to 18 months. The author was the caregiver counselor and had worked in the community in social services for fifteen years. The narratives were analyzed using a phenomenological approach that allowed the development of descriptions of uncertainty and sharing caregiver narratives with a specialized audience. The duality of caregiver uncertainty based on making decisions for and about cognitively impaired care recipients is evident in diagnosis, safety, end-of-life decisions, and the caregivers’ health. The choice of professional listeners as the audience when talking about uncertainty in illness relates to the importance of credible authority in reducing caregiver uncertainty

Preface

Preface This work evolved from the 1993 Buros-Nebraska Symposium on Testing and Measurement: Multicultural Assessment, held by the Buros Institute of Mental Measurements, Department of Educational Psychology, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Among the symposium presenters, Stanley Sue, Juris Draguns, Guiseppe Costantino and Thomas Malgady, Janet Helms, Robert Carter, Sandra Choney and John Behrens, Joseph Ponterotto, Gargi Roysircar Sodowsky, and Donald Pope-Davis accepted the Buros Institute\u27s invitation to contribute chapters to an envisioned multicultural assessment volume. The authorssome with the assistance of new collaborators-painstakingly revised their papers. They added measurement and statistical analyses that they have not previously published, advanced the theory-building of their respective topics, and wrote integrative literature reviews, thus providing substantive chapters for this book. With reference to the few multicultural and cross-cultural assessment books, book chapters, and journal reviews that are currently available in professional psychology, this book is an essential complement to them. Its uniqueness is that it responds to the paucity of measurement research in multicultural counseling. This collection might be characterized as recording multicultural assessment\u27s empirical beginnings, a fairly unchartered territory. Select multicultural instruments that are paper-and-pencil attitude and projective tests, developed recently and cited in refereed journals, are presented. New data are treated to multivariate statistics, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, structural equation modeling, cluster analyses, reliability estimation, and norm transformations. Tests are shown to be construct-related to multicultural theories and/ or criterion- related to sociocultural variables. That is, instrument validity is supported through the theoretical groundedness of obtained results, through theory-building based on data interpretation, or through criterion predictions. Test bias of mainstream instruments are discussed statistically as well as conceptually. Differences in test scores are given an interpretation different from the conclusion that deviant scores indicate deficits. Clinical judgement is shown to be subject to individual bias and to clinicians\u27 immersion in their racial and cultural contexts and their inability to see their imposed bias. Decision trees, guidelines, and assessment reports are provided to illustrate qualitative methods for contextual diagnosis and integrative clinical judgement. Methods to identify social desirability in multicultural self-reports are discussed. Classical measurement theory is argued to overlook the multiplicity of person-environment reactivity that merits investigation in a multicultural society and in a majority-minority sociopolitical system

Epilogue

The book has shown the use of a combination of approaches to understand the nature of a problem: traditional diagnosis and standardized assessment, cultural and racial explanations as alternative hypotheses, clinical judgement based on a decision-tree involving cross-cultural and indigenous frameworks, quantitative-qualitative methods of data analyses, and the use of multicultural paper-and pencil and projective tests. The attitudes and cognitive-affective tests presented or referenced in the book, in addition to being formally administered, could be used as springboards for collaborative discussions with clients and psychology trainees in order to gain a better understanding of their values and assumptions and, by inference, their modes of problem-solving in a multicultural society. We look forward to these new instruments\u27 future refinements, psychometric enhancements, and diverse sampling of subjects. The measurement of acculturation attitudes is important in counseling and clinical psychology. Its importance to applications has been affirmed by the 1994 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), and the 1993 APA Guidelines for Service Providers to Ethnic, Linguistic, and Culturally Diverse Populations, the latter stating that psychologists must document culturally relevant factors in client records, including number of generations in the country, number of years in the country, fluency in English, community resources, level of education, and level of stress related to acculturation. Because a multicultural book is incomplete without addressing issues of acculturation, Appendices A and B provide measurement and research information on acculturation scales. Appendix A summarizes select psychometric properties of and predictions for frequently referenced acculturation scales developed for Hispanic/Latino and Asian groups in the U.S. Appendix B summarizes select counseling psychology studies showing the effects of acculturation on client reactions. At the end of each Appendix is a reference list of the authors of the instruments and related research studies. We hope this work, Multicultural Measurement in Counseling and Clinical Psychology, will add to the long and colorful history of psychological assessment

Advocating Offering Health Communication Certificates: Answering America’s Needs

This paper discusses the need for curriculum development in health communication and specifically advocates for creation of health communication certificates. Related learning outcomes are discussed through the reporting of results of student questionnaires related to course materials