ASPIRATIONS FAILURE, DISADVANTAGE TRAPS AND INCLUSIVE REGIONAL POLICY

This paper examines the implications for regional policy of new research on the role played by a failure in the ‘capacity to aspire’ [Appadurai, A. (2004), ‘The capacity to aspire’, in Rao, V. and Walton, M. (eds), Culture and Public Action, Washington, DC: World Bank.] in perpetuating disadvantage traps. After a brief review of the magnitude of the challenge that regional policy needs to confront, it provides a summary of the theoretical and empirical literature on poverty and aspirations failure (and the associated loss of agency, beliefs and self-efficacy). The key implication for the design of an inclusive regional policy is that it needs to address simultaneously the sources of external constraints (such as the availability of resources or adequate infrastructure) and mitigate the aspirations failure inherently linked to persistent disadvantage.

Self-Efficacy and College Readiness of Senior High School Students of a Catholic High School

Efficacy beliefs are the foundation of human agency. Beliefs influenced students’ motivation to learn. Students' self-efficacy beliefs could be improved as long as one has a clear idea about the sources of self-efficacy beliefs. Students enable them to grow as self-efficient individuals and overcome problems they face in educational stages or their future life if provided with the opportunity and training on self-efficacy beliefs. Hence, this paper describes the level of efficacy and degree of college readiness of senior high students of a Diocesan Catholic School in Antique during the School Year 2019-2020. Likewise, it explores the significant difference between students’ demographics, self-efficacy, and college readiness. Moreover, it determines the correlation between self-efficacy and college readiness of the students; and whether self-efficacy influenced college readiness.

Agency beliefs are associated with lower health information avoidance

Background: Avoiding health information is relatively common and is associated with lower knowledge of health risks and lower engagement in protective health behaviour. Health information avoidance likely limits the effectiveness of health communication interventions. Objective: To identify beliefs associated with avoiding health information. Design: Two cross-sectional studies. Setting: Two representative samples of adults residing in the USA. Method: We tested whether low health agency beliefs and low perceptions of threat underlie the tendency to avoid diabetes or colorectal cancer health information in two samples. Results: An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of our variables indicated that beliefs could be grouped into two sets of constructs that mapped onto agency (locus of control, fate) and two that mapped onto threat perception (dread, perceived risk). Information avoidance was common. In the two samples, 30% and 34% indicated they preferred to avoid information about diabetes and 20% and 19% indicated they preferred to avoid colorectal cancer information. Results were largely consistent across studies and diseases. In final adjusted regression models, beliefs indicating lower health agency were consistently associated with more avoidance. Some threat perception variables (worry about getting the disease and having a family history of the disease) were associated with less avoidance; absolute and comparative perceived risk were not. Conclusion: Given that health information avoidance likely undermines a wide range of health communication and self-regulation strategies, future health communication efforts might be advanced by developing intervention approaches that involve enhancing perceived control over health prior to delivering health messages.

Aware of the Future?

Futures Consciousness refers to the capacity that a person has for understanding, anticipating, and preparing for the future. Although the concept is widely used in the field of futures research, no quantitative tool exists yet that assesses it. Drawing from a recent five-dimensional model that considers Time perspective, Agency beliefs, Openness to alternatives, Systems perception, and Concern for others as interrelated sub-dimensions of a general construct of Futures Consciousness, we developed a composite 20-item scale that measures Futures Consciousness as an interindividual difference. The psychometric properties of this new scale were examined through a dual approach of exploratory and confirmatory factorial analyses with a total of 1,301 participants in three languages (English, French, and Finnish). The scale’s structure proved satisfactory and fitted the hypothesized five-dimensional model in all three languages. Measures of internal and external validity (convergent and concurrent) also indicated good psychometric properties. Notably, individuals’ scores were positively related to the adoption of several social future-oriented behaviors such as pro-environmental and civic behavior. As such, the developed scale proves a reliable tool that could be of use for scholars and practitioners in futures studies as well as psychology.

A Translational Paradigm to Study the Effects of Uncontrollable Stress in Humans

Theories on the aetiology of depression in humans are intimately linked to animal research on stressor controllability effects. However, explicit translations of established animal designs are lacking. In two consecutive studies, we developed a translational paradigm to study stressor controllability effects in humans. In the first study, we compared three groups of participants, one exposed to escapable stress, one yoked inescapable stress group, and a control group not exposed to stress. Although group differences indicated successful stress induction, the manipulation failed to differentiate groups according to controllability. In the second study, we employed an improved paradigm and contrasted only an escapable stress group to a yoked inescapable stress group. The final design successfully induced differential effects on self-reported perceived control, exhaustion, helplessness, and behavioural indices of adaptation to stress. The latter were examined in a new escape behaviour test which was modelled after the classic shuttle box animal paradigm. Contrary to the learned helplessness literature, exposure to uncontrollable stress led to more activity and exploration; however, these behaviours were ultimately not adaptive. We discuss the results and possible applications in light of the findings on learning and agency beliefs, inter-individual differences, and interventions aimed at improving resilience to stress-induced mental dysfunction.

Application of the Modified College Impact Model to Understand Chinese Engineering Undergraduates’ Sustainability Consciousness

The college impact model provides a valuable framework for explaining various college student learning outcomes. However, few quantitative studies have examined the effectiveness of college impact model in explaining engineering undergraduates’ sustainability consciousness, a critical learning outcome in engineering education. This study proposes a modified college impact model to test the structural links among curriculum experiences, sustainable agency beliefs, and engineering undergraduates’ sustainability consciousness, and to explore the moderating effect of gender on the structural model. Data are collected from 1804 senior engineering students enrolled in five traditional engineering disciplines at 14 first-class engineering universities in China. Structural equation modeling was used for testing the research model. The results demonstrate that (1) curricular emphasis has a significant direct impact on all three dimensions of students’ sustainability consciousness, while instructional practice has a significant direct influence on the sustainability knowingness dimension; (2) both curricular emphasis and instructional practice have a significant indirect influence on sustainability consciousness through the full or partial mediation of sustainable agency beliefs; and (3) gender moderates several paths in the structural model. Theoretical and practical implications are provided, and suggestions for future research are offered.

Navigating the social world_July 24 2020

Social evaluation occurs at personal, interpersonal, group, and intergroup levels, with competing theories and evidence. Five models engage in adversarial collaboration, to identify common conceptual ground, ongoing controversies, and continuing agendas: Dual Perspective Model (Abele & Wojciszke, 2007); Behavioral Regulation Model (Leach et al., 2007); Dimensional Compensation Model (Yzerbyt et al., 2005); Stereotype Content Model (Fiske et al., 2002); and Agency-Beliefs-Communion Model (Koch et al., 2016). Each has distinctive focus, theoretical roots, premises, and evidence. Controversies dispute dimensions: number, organization, definition, and labeling; their relative priority; and their relationship. Our first integration suggests two fundamental dimensions: Vertical (agency, competence, “getting ahead”) and Horizontal (communion, warmth, “getting along”), with respective facets of ability and assertiveness (Vertical) and friendliness and morality (Horizontal). Depending on context, a third dimension is conservative versus progressive Beliefs. Second, different criteria for priority favor different dimensions: processing speed and subjective weight (Horizontal); pragmatic diagnosticity (Vertical); moderators include number and type of target, target-perceiver relationship, context. Finally, the relation between dimensions has similar operational moderators. As an integrative framework, the dimensions’ dynamics also depend on perceiver goals (comprehension, efficiency, harmony, compatibility), each balancing top-down and bottom-up processed, for epistemic or hedonic functions. One emerging insight is that the nature and number of targets each of these models typically examines alters perceivers’ evaluative goal, and how bottom-up information or top-down inferences interact. This framework benefits theoretical parsimony and new research.