Sense Of Personal Competence Research Articles

A sense of personal competence and coping with stressful situations of minors from probation centers

The role of personal competences in human life, especially of young people, plays a significant role. And coping with stress is one of them. Therefore, the aim of the research was to establish the relationship between the sense of personal competence and coping with stressful situations by juveniles from probation centers. The KompOs Scale by Z. Juczyński and the JSR Scale by Z. Juczyński and N. Ogińska-Bulik were used to collect the material, and 106 juveniles from probation centers took part in the research. The obtained results indicate that the juvenile respondents are characterized by an average level of personal competences and active coping with stress, which is important from the point of view of planning educational and social rehabilitation interactions. The optimal level of intensity of these variables allows us to satisfactorily establish and maintain interpersonal relationships and, in difficult, problematic or conflict situations, to deal with them effectively without harm to ourselves and other people.

Transformational Leadership and Employee Psychological Needs

The notion of transformational leadership is a critical component of management study. This type of leadership demands a leader to be able to understand and monitor followers' psychological needs and ideals, as well as to motivate them to work. Four aspects define transformational leadership: individual concern, intellectual stimulation, inspiring motivation, and charisma or idealized impact. A transformative leader's position is intrinsically motivating. The authors highlight the relevance of the fundamental psychological desire for relatedness with others, as well as the sense of personal competence and autonomy in completing a particular activity, within the idea of self-determination. Recent study indicates that perceived transformative leadership helps employees satisfy their basic psychological requirements. Satisfying each of these requirements has a direct influence on the accomplishment of good results and corporate goals. Positive outcomes most frequently reported include employee trust in the organization, positive feedback from managers, belief in one's own ability to contribute to the organization, identifying opportunities for advancement, a sense of security, job satisfaction, and a high level of enthusiasm for work. Transformational leadership enables the business to embrace shared motivating concepts, empowers managers, and elicits support from followers in their attempts to establish a strong and stable organizational culture.

Wybrane zasoby osobiste a nasilenie symptomów depresyjnych u dzieci ? badanie pilotażowe

Introduction. Depression is one of the most serious mental problems in children and adolescents. Over recent years, there has been an increase in the incidence of depression and a reduction in the age of onset of the first symptoms of the disease. Aim. To investigate the relationship of the locus of control and a sense of self-efficacy with the intensity of symptoms depression in children. Material and methods. The study was designed for 45 students (24 boys and 21 girls) attending the 5th grade primary school. Each child completed the Children’s Depression Inventory (Kovacs), Scale Sense of Personal Competence (self-efficacy) (Juczyński) and the Scale of Locus of Control ? Primary Schools (Mathiak, Seget, Karzel). Pearson’s were conducted to investigate correlation the variables with the intensity of depressive symptoms. Results. The prevalence rate of depressive symptoms in the group of investigate children was high and amounted to 37.8%. Both variables remained in correlation to the intensity of childhood depression. It was found that as the internal sense of control increased, the intensity of depressive symptoms decreased. Children with high level of self-efficacy of their own competence have manifest fewer depressive symptoms. Conclusions. Many children in the untreated group manifest symptoms of depression. high self-efficacy and internal sense of control are conducive to maintaining mental health in children. The promotion of these personal resources should constitute an important element of preventive strategies and programs, because strengthening the health potential of children will balance and reduce the impact of risk factors.

General, Health-Specific, and Housing-Specific Self-Efficacy Scales: Preliminary Reliability and Validity Evidence with Homeless or Vulnerably Housed Adults

Self-efficacy (SE) refers to one’s sense of personal competence and is a key element of human agency. Among individuals who are homeless or vulnerably housed, SE has the potential to provide important information about an individual’s ability to seek out and make use of resources and persevere in the face of multiple challenges. SE is understudied as a personal variable in research with homeless samples. Thus, it is important to identify appropriate measures of general and domain-specific SE for this population and evaluate their psychometric properties. Three relevant SE scales are the Generalized Self Efficacy Scale, Perceived Health Competence Scale, and Housing Self-Efficacy Scale. The purposes of this study were to examine the internal structure and score reliability for each of these SE scales, report performance on and intercorrelations among the SE scales, and examine the relationship of demographic variables to SE scale scores, with a sample of adults who were homeless or vulnerably housed. Strict unidimensionality was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis. Model fit was examined using fit indices and residual polychoric correlation matrices. Essential unidimensionality was evaluated using exploratory factor analysis and the ratio of first to second eigenvalues. Internal consistency estimates of reliability were obtained using ordinal alpha. None of the SE measures were found to be strictly unidimensional but all three measures were found to be essentially unidimensional. This finding supported the use of total scores for each measure. Ordinal alphas ranged from .87 to .93 for the three SE measures and thus were satisfactory. Correlations among the three measures ranged from .36 to .45. Demographic variables showed little relationship to the three SE measures. The study findings provided initial psychometric evidence to support the use of these three SE measures with a homeless or vulnerably housed adult sample.

Resilience, stressful life events, and depressive symptomatology among older Chinese adults

Objective: The association between exposure to stressful life events (SLEs) and late-life depression is well-documented. However, the role of resilience as a buffer against the adverse mental health effects of SLEs in late life has not been convincingly demonstrated. In this paper, the moderating effect of resilience in the relationship between SLEs and depressive symptomatology in older Chinese adults is investigated.Method: A population sample of 385 community-dwelling older Chinese adults aged ≥60 years responded to questionnaires on resilience (Connor–Davidson resilience scale), depressive symptomatology (Geriatric Depression Scale, GDS-15) and SLEs.Results: Increased numbers of SLEs (β = 0.343, p < .001) and lower levels of resilience (β = –0.137, p < 0.001) were significantly associated with higher levels of depressive symptomatology. There was a significant interaction of resilience and number of SLEs on depressive symptomatology (p = 0.003). The sense of personal competence and optimism was the principal underlying resilience dimension moderating the relationship for both the young–old (aged 60–69) and the old–old (aged 70 and above).Conclusion: The finding of significant interaction supported the role of resilience in moderating the adverse effect of SLEs in terms of depressive symptoms among older Chinese adults.

A Review of the Strategies Adopted by Some Poor Nations to Alleviate Poverty

Being poor is a situation of having to live in inadequacy, lack, scarcity, destitution and deficiency of economic, political and social resources. Poverty kills the moral of the people, it destroys hope and happiness and it creates resentments and envy for the rich. When people do not get what they desire to make them comfortable in life, it’s like the best part of them have been taken away. Poverty is affecting relationships within the families must especially the relationship between man and women. Many lose their self-esteem and sense of personal competence. Child abuse and prostitution are outcome of poverty, arm robbery, street begging and other vices associated with poverty. Many developed nations have been pledged with what is described above. The aim of this study is to examine the five poorest countries of the world and their poverty reduction strategies adopted by their countries or leaders. The main contributing factors of poverty and their underlying effects were discussed in this study. The methodology used for collecting data was secondary source. The study concluded that there are some poverty alleviation strategies which, if adopted; it will make the achievement of poverty alleviation possible. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n27p318

The Locus of Control and the Sense of Personal Competence in Young Athletes Practicing Martial Arts

Abstract Introduction. The locus of control and the sense of competence are the psychological resources relevant to the taking-up and continuation of actions in certain situations. They are important regulating factors of the relationships between the man and the environment. It seems that, in such a specific field as martial arts are, these characteristics are useful and their identification and targeted strengthening desirable. The aim of the research presented in this paper was to gather knowledge about the sense of competence and self-control of young people practicing martial arts, as well as the relationship between these variables. Materials and methods. A total of 39 people aged 14-19 years participated in this research. All of them practiced martial arts. They had an average of more than two years training. Data were collected through the (KBPK) Locus of control Questionnaire (by G. and A. Krasowicz Kurzyp-Wojnarski) and the Personal Competence Scale KompOs (by Z. Juczyñski), and a questionnaire designed specifically for this research. Results. Statistical analyses conducted for the study have showed that the respondents represent a transient sense of locus of control, and average levels of personal competence in the field of strength and perseverance. Out of the measured variables, the locus of control in the event of success and a sense of strength were relatively highest. These variables also proved to be interdependent. Analysis also allowed for identification of many other relationships between the variables. Conclusions. Our findings may provide a clue for a possible modification of programs mentally preparing young athletes for martial arts sports. They may also act as suggestions sensitise trainers to specific psychosocial needs of young athletes.

Perceived Stress and Proactive Coping of College Students

Stress can affect both academic and functional performance. Students at college level may experience problems with peers, pursue a demanding academic overload and face tough competition, financial problems, choosing a career within the available options that would cause stress. Added to this, they also experience stressful situations like relationship problems, conflict with parents, friends, self-esteem and identity issues. Enhancing coping skills will be helpful for students to avoid the damaging effects of perceived stress such as overeating, drinking, and smoking or give up their goal. The ability to control and manage their stress will provide the students with a great opportunity to acquire new skills and will also facilitate their personal growth.Proactive CopingProactive coping differ from other coping forms since it incorporates and utilizes social and non-social resources; it employs vision of success, and it uses positive emotional strategies. Proactive coping also include goal setting and tenacious goal pursuit. Proactive coping is different from reactive, anticipatory and preventive coping. Reactive coping refers to harm or loss experienced in the past, whereas anticipatory coping pertains to imminent threat in the near future. Preventive coping refers to an uncertain threat potential in the distant future, whereas proactive coping involves upcoming challenges that are seen as potentially self-promoting. The distinction between these four perspectives of coping is advantageous because it moves the focus away from mere responses to negative events toward a broader range of risk and goal management that includes the active creation of opportunities and the positive experience of stress (Schwarzer & Taubert, 2002; Schwarzer & Knoll, 2003).General Perceived Self-efficacyPerceived competence is crucial, when confronting with stressful situation. Self-efficacy makes a difference in how people feel, think and act (Bandura, 1997). Efficacious people are able to persevere in the face of challenges because they believe they can change situations and behaviors to produce more positive outcomes. A strong sense of competence facilitates cognitive processes and academic performance. Self-efficacy levels can enhance or impede the motivation to act. Individuals with high self-efficacy choose to perform tasks that are more challenging. General self-efficacy aims at a broad and stable sense of personal competence to deal effectively with a variety of stressful situations (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995; Schwarzer, 2000).Rationale for the StudyThough eustress is essential for better performance, it is witnessed that stress has many negative consequences. Students often use less desirable coping strategies such as alcohol, smoking, and using illegal drugs (Pierceall & Keim, 2007). It is felt that there is a need for stress management to improve student's performance and overall academic improvement. Kelly and Louise (2007) suggested that proactive coping does influence the likelihood of stress-related growth. Intervention programmes improved proactive coping competencies significantly (Chritina et al., 2007). Self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1997), is an important prerequisite to change coping behaviour. Receiving elaborative feedback promotes ones' self-efficacy, while receiving knowledge of correct response improved performance. High self-efficacious person applied highlevel learning strategies, such as elaborative strategies and critical thinking (Wang & Pei-Yi, 2008). To confront with a stressful situation we should perceive our own competence. Hence, selfefficacy levels can the motivation to act. In this context, it is imperative to explore the relationship between perceived stress, proactive coping and general self-efficacy of college students.Hypotheses of ths studyThe hypotheses of the study are;* Male and female students differ significantly in their perceived stress, proactive coping and general self-efficacy. …

The Relationship Between Continuing Education and Perceived Competence, Professional Support, and Professional Value Among Clinical Psychologists

Continuing education is one of the means by which professionals maintain and increase their level of competence. However, the relationship between continuing education and the professional's sense of personal competence and other practice-related variables remains unclear. This study examined practicing psychologists' continuing education activities and how these relate to feelings of perceived competence, professional value, and professional support. Psychologists (n = 418) licensed to practice in Quebec were surveyed by pencil-and-paper mail-in survey concerning their continuing education activities, as well as their perceptions of their competence in practice, and their feelings of being professionally valued and professionally supported. Results indicated that feelings of competence in practice were related to professional reading, taking courses/workshops, years being licensed, and attending psychology conferences/conventions. Feelings of professional value were related to age and participating in psychology networking groups, and feelings of professional support were related to participating in case discussion groups, supervision groups, and psychology networking groups. The results showcase the complexity of professional development. Although relationships were found between continuing education activities and the 3 factors of interest, these relationships were moderate. Findings are discussed in the context of their value to individual psychologists, as well as to psychology licensing and regulatory boards, such as promoting participation in those activities related to feelings of competence and support.

Effects of gender role on personal resources and coping with stress

This current study investigates the relationship between the endorsement of masculine and feminine gender role orientation in accordance with Bem's indices and both personal resources and coping with stress. The Bem Sex Role Inventory, the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Life Orientation Scale-Revised, the General Self-Efficacy Scale and the Personal Competence Scale were completed by 308 employees of a city transport company (123 females and 185 males). Results reveal that androgynous individuals, masculine women and masculine men, possess stronger psychological resources compared with undifferentiated and feminine individuals. and feminine individuals. Moreover, satisfaction with life, femininity, the sense of personal competence and optimism are significant predictors of coping (in descending order of influence). significant predictors of coping (in descending order of influence). Masculinity is a significant positive predictor only in problem-oriented coping. These findings may have implications for the conservation of personal resources as well as for stress management interventions.

The process of health visiting and its contribution to parental support in the Starting Well demonstration project

Significant resources are being directed at interventions designed to attenuate the effects of deprivation on children's health and development. The Starting Well demonstration project, established in two deprived areas within a Scottish city, aimed to show that a programme of planned activities to support families could improve child health. The project was subject to a main quantitative evaluation and several additional qualitative and mixed-method evaluations. The present paper draws on findings from one of the qualitative studies that sought to gain insight into how interventions provided by health visitors were operationalised and how they were perceived by parents. The particular focus of this paper is how the process of health visiting resulted in parents' perceptions of being supported. A longitudinal design captured variation in work undertaken by health visitors and temporal changes in maternal experiences of child rearing. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 mothers and their health visitors at two time points, i.e. when infants were 3-4 and 9-10 months old. Sampling was 'purposive', and included first-time and experienced mothers. The findings reported here are based on 59 interviews carried out during 2002 and 2003. The analysis involved a thematic approach focused on programme implementation, and participant perceptions about process and benefit. Parental perceptions of being supported were exemplified by increased confidence in infant care, reduced anxiety regarding infant care needs, increases in knowledge and sense of personal competence in parenting practices, reduced isolation, and advocacy for those experiencing problems. A selection of the interactional processes that resulted in these forms of perceived support are reported, including methods of providing information, cautious and tactful questioning of maternal decision-making, and encouragement of successful parenting practice. The implications for practice, service delivery and targeting at the individual level are noted.

Building Self-Esteem in the Early Years

This article looks at the practical ways of building self-esteem in the early years. It describes the concepts of self-esteem and characteristics of children with high self-esteem and those with low self-esteem. The practical ways of building self-esteem are discussed under the five essential components of self-esteem pointed out by Reasoner and Dusa (1991), which include sense of security, identity, belonging, purpose, and personal competence. Key words: self-esteem, sense of security, sense of identity, sense of belonging, sense of purpose, sense of personal competence

Toward Empowerment: ReVisioning Family Support Groups

ABSTRACT Family support groups (FSG) have been recognized as an important and viable means for responding to the needs of family caregivers. How these groups work, however, is not well understood. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory study was to explore the impact of attending a family support group on the caregiving experience from the perspective of the family member. Personal, semi-structured interviews took place with eleven family members who had participated in at least one FSG. Data was analyzed for themes, using a constant comparative categorizing strategy. This analysis suggests that attending a FSG impacts the caregiving experience in four important ways: helping the family member to construct a self-identity as a ‘caregiver’; promoting a sense of personal competence; fostering the use of formal support groups; and creating a community context within which to experience the caregiving role. Cumulatively, these have the potential to contribute to a sense of empowerment for the family member by helping him or her to reposition the caregiving experience as more than a personal issue and promoting the emergence of a more collective voice.

The organization of social action.

AbstractThis review provides a comprehensive and integrated framework for the processes of social action and empowerment at the level of the individual, the group, and the community. Concepts from personality, social, community and organizational psychology are used as the basis for understanding the complex processes involved in empowerment and social action. These two concepts are organized and integrated in meaningful and useful ways that open up new ways of looking at social action and social organization.The development of a framework for empowerment as it relates to social action is vital to understanding these concepts (Perkins & Zimmerman, 1995; Speer & Hughey, 1995; Zimmerman, 1995). In this paper, I provide a framework for the structural and functional properties of empowerment and social action at the level of the individual, group, and community by integrating research from peace, community, political, and organizational psychology. Community psychology has described some of the interrelations of these processes at the three social levels (Fawcett et al., 1994, 1995; McMillan, Florin, Stevenson, Kerman, & Mitchell, 1995; Rich, Edelstein, Hallman, & Wandersman, 1995) as has organizational psychology (Ragins & Sundstrom, 1989). My intent is not so much to describe different types of activism in detail but to relate the structural and functional properties of various types of empowerment and social action at these social levels and to integrate them in a unifying framework which, hopefully, will broaden our understanding of empowerment and social action.Concepts of EmpowermentEmpowerment, psychological empowerment, and social action need to be distinguished from one another. Empowerment refers to the process by which people, organizations, and communities gain mastery over their lives (Wolff, 1987). It becomes evident through social power at the individual, organizational, and community levels (Speer & Hughey, 1995). At the level of the individual, empowerment is the person's freedom to decide what goals to pursue and the capacity to pursue them without excessive frustration (Prilleltensky, 1994). Empowerment is associated with feelings of competence to change a situation and with expectations of positive outcomes for one's efforts (Florin & Wandersman, 1990; Prilleltensky, 1994; Zimmerman & Rappaport, 1988). Psychological empowerment is the connection between a sense of personal competence, a desire for, and a willingness to take social action (Zimmerman & Rappaport, 1988). It is a more limited concept than empowerment in that an effect or impact need not occur. Psychological empowerment can lead to actual empowerment when environmental support is available. Social action is participation in social issues to influence their outcome for the benefit of people and the community. Social action can, under favourable circumstances, produce actual empowerment, impact, or social change.Zimmerman (1995) viewed psychological empowerment as including not only intrapersonal components, such as self-perceptions of abilities, but also interactional ones, such as the individual's skills in dealing with the sociopolitical environment. The intrapersonal component includes the individual's perceived control, competence, and efficacy to influence a social or political system (Zimmerman, Israel, Schulz, & Checkoway, 1992). The interactional component includes the skills, awareness, and understanding that people have about their community and sociopolitical issues, including social norms, values, and supports which enable them to master a social or political system. Behavioural components include actions taken to influence the social and political environment including participation in community organizations and activities. Intrapersonal and interactional components of empowerment are important determinants of community participation (Zimmerman et al., 1992; Zimmerman & Rappaport, 1988), disarmament activism (Horvath, 1996b; Nemiroff & McKenzie-Mohr, 1992), and effectiveness in the workplace (Spreitzer, 1995). …

Strategies that foster empowerment

Empowerment is an ideology that has emerged in reaction to inadequacies in systems of care for persons with serious mental illness. The empowerment ideology is based on the principle that psychiatric consumers can gain control over their lives, reduce their reliance on professionals, and take action on their own behalf. Empowerment can be divided into three general attributes: self-determination, social engagement, and a sense of personal competence. Scales that have been developed to assess empowerment are measures of attitudes and not direct measures of behavior; further empirical definition and validation of the empowerment concept are needed. Strategies and programs that foster empowerment include the clubhouse model of rehabilitation, self-help groups, consumers who work as providers, participatory action research, and advocacy activities. Traditional therapies may also enhance individuals' empowerment. Clinicians need to be sensitive to issues of stigma and disenfranchisement and to the social context of consumers' lives. Consumer empowerment may also be fostered by emphasizing consumer strengths and competencies and by promoting consumer involvement in services planning and delivery.

The Nature and Support of Adolescent Mothers' Life Aspirations

The Nature and Support of Adolescent Mothers' Life Aspirations* Phame M. Camarena,** Kris Minor, Theresa Melmer, and Cheryl Ferrie Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 58 young mothers from a rural region of upper midwest to examine how mothers construct life aspirations in face of new parent roles. The majority of participants reported that parenting demands had resulted in an adjustment of expectations rather than a dramatic change in either level or nature of aspirations. Although all of mothers reported some support for pursuing life goals, this support was generally weak and inconsistent. Access to resources and firm encouragement to pursue aspirations now characterized participants with most resilient stories of adjustment. Although negative consequences of early parenting have been well documented, societal image of teenage parents has become too stereotyped and fails to recognize diversity of adolescent parents' experiences (Chase-Lansdale, Brooks-Gunn, & Paikoff, 1992). One of these stereotypes is belief that early parenting dooms young mothers to a life of unfulfilled dreams and aspirations. The consistent link between adolescent pregnancy and relatively low levels of educational and employment achievement certainly does lend some support to this belief (e.g., Barbour, Richardson, & Bubenzer, 1993; Hayes, 1987). These connections, however, are not necessarily causal in nature since many of factors that predict adolescent childbirth are linked to educational and employment aspirations prior to pregnancy (Melhuish & Phoenix, 198788; Upchurch, 1993). The resultant picture of adolescent mothers' aspirations is, therefore, somewhat difficult to disentangle. What is clear, however, is that life aspirations are an important component of adolescent mothers` adjustment. As suggested by Blinn (1990), aspirations for family. education, and work become highly salient to adolescent mothers as they are to reevaluate their visions of future. Both long and short term choices that most adolescents face now take on a new sense of urgency for adolescent parent as priorities shift to account for future of new child (White & Cummings, 1995). The Significance of Aspirations The importance of aspirations and for adjustment during adolescence generally are manifest conceptually in two different ways. First, they provide a yardstick or standard to help adolescents weigh degree to which different choices will help or hinder their chances of achieving desired goals. Second, as a motivational force they influence degree to which effort is expended on tasks that make achievement of aspirations and possible. For adolescent mothers forced to confront new parenting demands, a clear set of aspirations and may provide an important protection as a guide through difficult choices and serve as a buffer against discouragements and stressors they experience. Evidence for this power of aspirations as a protective factor for populations. generally, and adolescent mothers, specifically, is found in both Kauai and Baltimore longitudinal studies. The Kauai study (Werner & Smith, 1992) was designed to examine factors that protected an at risk sample of individuals born in Hawaii in 1955 from prenatal development into young adulthood. Although Werner and Smith describe a number of different factors that distinguished adolescents and young adults who had overcome their earlier high status, they concluded that greatest differences could be found in goals they had set for their adult lives and their sense of personal competence and determination (pp. 69-70). These same factors were highlighted as being central parts of the paths that led to improvement for adolescent mothers in this sample (p. 95). In a similar vein, Baltimore study followed a sample of primarily African American urban adolescent mothers from birth of child to young adulthood to trace developmental paths of both mother and child (Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, & Morgan, 1987; Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, & Chase-Lansdale, 1989). …

Point-Counterpoint

In an article concerning the "Clumsy Child" (Pediatr Rev. 1989; 10:247-253), Taft and Barowsky provide an overview of mild motor dysfunction and emphasize the potential impact of clumsiness on a child's later learning abilities and emerging sense of personal competence, peer acceptance, and self-esteem. One of our readers expressed concern about some of the global predictions included in this article, cautioned about the dangers of overidentification of pathology in young children, and noted that family and social context variables have been demonstrated to be better predictors of school difficulties than early motor inefficiencies. Calling for more careful assessment of a child's life situation as well as his or her motor abilities, the reader warned about the iatrogenic consequences of overzealous identification of deviation in the preschool period.

Citizen participation, perceived control, and psychological empowerment.

The research integrates the citizen participation literature with research on perceived control in an effort to further our understanding of psychological empowerment. Eleven indices of empowerment representing personality, cognitive, and motivational measures were identified to represent the construct. Three studies examined the relationship between empowerment and participation. The first study examined differences among groups identified by a laboratory manipulation as willing to participate in personally relevant or community relevant situations. Study II examined differences for groups defined by actual involvement in community activities and organizations. Study III replicated Study II with a different population. In each study, individuals reporting a greater amount of participation scored higher on indices of empowerment. Psychological empowerment could be described as the connection between a sense of personal competence, a desire for, and a willingness to take action in the public domain. Discriminant function analyses resulted in one significant dimension, identified as pyschological empowerment, that was positively correlated with leadership and negatively correlated with alienation.

Age, Deprivation, and Personal Competence

There is difficulty in developing conceptual models that apply through-out the adult years. For example, that of Campbell et al. (1976) accounts for the behavior of people aged 18-54, but not those older. Their findings of positive response bias in satisfaction with conditions of everyday living, not only in the old but also in the poorly educated and those with low incomes, suggests that concepts of deprivation and sense of personal competence are needed in a model that will include the elderly. The inadequacy of the Campbell et al. model for older persons may derive from age-related differences in these variables. In this study of four samples of people 60 and older (the group whose data most poorly fit the Campbell et al. model), sense of personal competence and situational deprivation accounted for statistically significant and meaningful amounts of variance in domain satisfactions and in overall well-being, supporting the need to include them in explanatory models relevant to older people.

Parent Satisfactions-Dissatisfactions and Their Correlates

A structured interview study of a random sample of white, middle-class mothers and fathers in two Milwaukee suburbs revealed that the majority reported high satisfactions with parenthood and family life and the belief that their families were of central importance to them. Variables that differentiated satisfied mothers from dissatisfied mothers suggest that these dissatisfactions were either (a) in the realm of general psychological depression or (b) deep dissatisfaction with the traditional female role rather than environmental factors such as employment, housing, and income. Variables that discriminated the male groups suggest that dissatisfied fathers are especially likely to have anxieties about their male adequacy. A sense of personal competence as a parent and high marital satisfaction were strongly associated with parental satisfaction for both groups. Findings are compared to results from other studies. Implications for policy, practice, and further research are discussed.