5.

The Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters: Psychometric properties of the Spanish translation in the adolescent population.
By Méndez, Francisco X.; Hidalgo, María D.; Inglés, Cándido
European Journal of Psychological Assessment. 18(1), 2002, 30-42.

Analyzed the psychometric properties of the Spanish translation of the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters (MESSY; J. L. Matson, A. F. Rotatori and W. J. Helsel, 1983), a self-report rating scale which assesses the degree of appropriate social behavior. The MESSY was applied to 634 Ss (aged 12-17 yrs). Exploratory factor analysis isolated 4 factors which accounted for 33.28% of the variance: Aggressiveness/Antisocial Behavior (AAB), Social Skills/Assertiveness (SSA), Conceit/Haughtiness (CH), and Loneliness/Social Anxiety (LSA). The internal consistency was high. Correlations with the Assertiveness Scale for Adolescents, the Teenage Inventory of Social Skills, and the Assertiveness Scale for Children and Adolescents, were statistically significant. Inappropriate social behavior measured with the MESSY correlated positively with the Psychoticism and Neuroticism scales, and negatively with the Extraversion scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Female Ss obtained lower scores in AAB and in CH, and higher scores in SSA, displaying greater appropriate social behavior than male Ss. No significant gender differences were found in LSA, the only factor in which a worsening with age and a significant age interaction was found.

7.

Anger regulation in disadvantaged preschool boys: Strategies, antecedents, and the development of self-control.
By Gilliom, Miles; Shaw, Daniel S.; Beck, Joy E.; Schonberg, Michael A.; Lukon, JoElla L.
Developmental Psychology. 38(2), Mar 2002, 222-235. http://www.apa.org/journals/dev.html.

Emotion regulation strategies observed during an age 3 1/2 frustration task were examined in relation to (a) angry affect during the frustration task, (b) child and maternal characteristics at age 1 1/2, and (c) indices of self-control at age 6 in a sample of low-income boys (Ns varied between 189 and 310, depending on the assessment). Shifting attention away from sources of frustration and seeking information about situational constraints were associated with decreased anger. Secure attachment and positive maternal control correlated positively with effective regulatory strategy use. Individual differences in strategy use predicted self-control at school entry, but in specific rather than general ways: Reliance on attention-shifting strategies corresponded with low externalizing problems and high cooperation; reliance on information gathering corresponded with high assertiveness.

8.

Changes in women's assertiveness in response to status and roles: A cross-temporal meta-analysis, 1931-1993.
By Twenge, Jean M.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 81(1), Jul 2001, 133-145. http://www.apa.org/journals/psp.html.

Across two meta-analyses, American women's assertiveness rose and fell with their social status from 1931 to 1993. College women and high school girls' self-reports on assertiveness and dominance scales increased from 1931 to 1945, decreased from 1946 to 1967, and increased from 1968 to 1993, explaining about 14% of the variance in the trait. Women's scores have increased enough that many recent samples show no sex differences in assertiveness. Correlations with social indicators (e.g., women's educational attainment, women's median age at first marriage) confirm that women's assertiveness varies with their status and roles. Social change is thus internalized in the form of a personality trait. Men's scores do not demonstrate a significant birth cohort effect overall. The results suggest that the changing sociocultural environment for women affected their personalities, most likely beginning in childhood.

10.

Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising findings.
By Costa, Paul Jr.; Terracciano, Antonio; McCrae, Robert R.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 81(2), Aug 2001, 322-331. http://www.apa.org/journals/psp.html.

Secondary analyses of Revised NEO Personality inventory data from 26 cultures (N =23,031) suggest that gender differences are small relative to individual variation within genders; differences are replicated across cultures for both college-age and adult samples, and differences are broadly consistent with gender stereotypes: Women reported themselves to be higher in Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Warmth, and Openness to Feelings, whereas men were higher in Assertiveness and Openness to Ideas. Contrary to predictions from evolutionary theory, the magnitude of gender differences varied across cultures. Contrary to predictions from the social role model, gender differences were most pronounced in European and American cultures in which traditional sex roles are minimized. Possible explanations for this surprising finding are discussed, including the attribution of masculine and feminine behaviors to roles rather than traits in traditional cultures.

11.

Rule compliance and peer sociability: A study of family process, school-focused parent-child interactions, and children's classroom behavior.
By Adams, Gerald R.; Ryan, Bruce A.; Ketsetzis, Maria; Keating, Leo
Journal of Family Psychology. 14(2), Jun 2000, 237-250. http://www.apa.org/journals/fam.html.

This study examined the associations among family processes (cohesion, control, and conflict), school-focused parent-child interactions (support and pressure about achievement), and the child's own characteristics (assertiveness, frustration tolerance, intellectual effectiveness, and self-esteem) as correlates of rule compliance and peer sociability in the classroom. The sample consisted of 161 Grade 4 and 151 Grade 7 children. Family processes and parent-child interactions about school issues were associated with children's personal characteristics, which, in turn, predicted children's rule compliance and peer sociability. Some differences were found between the 4th- and 7th-grade samples; however, many variables consistently predicted the same outcomes across grades.

12.

Chronic pain and psychodynamic body therapy: A controlled outcome study.
By Monsen, Kirsti; Monsen, Jon T.
Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training. 37(3), Fal 2000, 257-269.

Forty patients (aged 29-57 yrs) with pain disorders participated in a controlled study. Half of the patients were treated with psychodynamic body therapy (PBT) for 33 sessions, and the other half received treatment as usual or no treatment. All patients were evaluated before therapy (T1), at the end of therapy (T2), and at 1-year follow-up (T3) with a visual-analogue-pain scale (subjective experience of pain), symptom checklist, inventory of interpersonal problems, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, and the affect-consciousness interview. The study demonstrated that at T2 the pain was significantly reduced in the PBT group compared to the controls, and 50% of the PBT patients reported no pain. The findings further showed a significant and substantial change on level of somatization, depression, anxiety, denial, assertiveness, and social withdrawal, and increased affect consciousness. The results remained stable at T3, and the PBT patients even continued their improvement on some scales during follow-up.

13.

Generalization effects of coping-skills training: Influence of self-defense training on women's efficacy beliefs, assertiveness, and aggression.
By Weitlauf, Julie C.; Smith, Ronald E.; Cervone, Daniel
Journal of Applied Psychology. 85(4), Aug 2000, 625-633. http://www.apa.org/journals/apl.html.

Concern for personal safety is a pervasive stressor for many women. Developing competencies in physical self-defense may empower women to engage more freely in daily activities with less fear. This study assessed the effects of physical self-defense training on multiple aspects of women's perceived self-efficacy and other self-reported personality characteristics. Training powerfully increased task-specific (self-defense) efficacy beliefs as well as physical and global efficacy beliefs. Training increased self-reported assertiveness, and posttraining decreases in hostility and aggression were found on several of the subscales of The Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992), indicating that training did not have an aggression-disinhibiting effect. In the experimental condition, most of the effects were maintained (and some delayed effects appeared at follow-up.

14.

Assertiveness predicts threat and challenge reactions to potential stress among women.
By Tomaka, Joe; Palacios, Rebecca; Schneider, Kimberly T.; Colotla, Maria; Concha, Jeannie B.; Herrald, Mary M.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 76(6), Jun 1999, 1008-1021. http://www.apa.org/journals/psp.html.

In this study assertiveness as a moderator of stress reactions among women was examined. Specifically, the experimenters examined how high and low assertive women cognitively appraised, affectively and physiologically responded to, and behaviorally coped with the stress of giving an impromptu speech. High assertive women appraised the speech stressor as challenging, whereas low assertive women appraised the stressor as threatening. High assertive women also had a challenge pattern of autonomic response during the task, compared with the threat response of low assertive women. Afterward, the high assertive women reported experiencing less stress and negative emotion and greater positive emotion than did the low assertive women. Overall, the high assertive women's stress-related reactions indicated challenge, whereas the low assertive women's reactions indicated threat (see J. Tomaka, J. Blascovich, R. M. Kelsey, & C. L. Leitten, 1993).

19.

Increasing assertiveness skills to reduce HIV risk among women living with a severe and persistent mental illness.
By Weinhardt, Lance S.; Carey, Michael P.; Carey, Kate B.; Verdecias, R. Nicki
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 66(4), Aug 1998, 680-684. http://www.apa.org/journals/ccp.html.

This study examined whether training women living with a severe mental illness to be assertive in sexual situations would decrease their risk for HIV infection. Twenty female outpatients were randomly assigned to either a 10-session assertiveness training intervention or a waiting-list control condition. All participants completed measures of HIV-related information, motivation, skills, and sexual risk behavior pre- and postintervention and at 2- and 4-month follow-ups. Compared with controls, women in the intervention group increased their assertiveness skill, HIV knowledge, and frequency of condom-protected intercourse. It is concluded that assertiveness training for women living with a severe mental illness can serve as 1 part of a comprehensive HIV-risk-reduction program for this vulnerable population.

20.

Personality dimensions in spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta).
By Gosling, Samuel D.
Journal of Comparative Psychology. 112(2), Jun 1998, 107-118. http://www.apa.org/journals/com.html.

Personality ratings of 34 spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) were made by 4 observers who knew the animals well. Analyses suggest that (a) hyena personality traits were rated with generally high reliability; (b) 5 broad dimensions (Assertiveness, Excitability, Human-Directed Agreeableness, Sociability, and Curiosity) captured about 75% of the total variance; (c) this dimensional structure could not be explained in terms of dominance status, sex, age, or appearance; and (d) as expected, female hyenas were more assertive than male hyenas. Comparisons with previous research provide evidence for the cross-species generality of Excitability, Sociability, and especially Assertiveness. Discussion focuses on methodological issues in research on animal personality and on the potential contributions this research can make for understanding the biological and environmental bases of personality.

21.

Predicting police officer performance using the Inwald Personality Inventory: An illustration from Appalachia.
By Mufson, Diane W.; Mufson, Maurice A.
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice. 29(1), Feb 1998, 59-62. http://www.apa.org/journals/pro.html.

Psychologists in rural areas are sometimes called on to assist in police officer selection. In the present study, the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI) was used to predict police officers' performance. Ratings for 33 officers hired over 4 years, along with IPI scores, were tested statistically. Four variables--elevated scores on the Driving Violations and Lack of Assertiveness scales and lowered scores on the Type A and Rigid Type scales--significantly predicted officers who were rated poorly or terminated. Although the specific findings may not generalize to other rural areas, this exploratory study suggests that the IPI may be useful in such evaluations.

23.

What motivates fairness? The role of subordinate assertive behavior on manager's interactional fairness.
By Korsgaard, M. Audrey; Roberson, Loriann; Rymph, R. Douglas
Journal of Applied Psychology. 83(5), Oct 1998, 731-744. http://www.apa.org/journals/apl.html.

This study investigated the proposition that a subordinate's communication style can affect a manager's fairness behavior during decision making and, consequently, can affect the subordinate's attitudes toward the decision, manager, and organization. Two studies were conducted to test these propositions in the context of performance appraisal decisions. First, a laboratory study demonstrated that appraisers engage in more interactionally fair behavior when interacting with an assertive appraisee than with an unassertive appraisee. Second, a quasiexperimental field design showed that training employees on assertiveness, when coupled with self-appraisal, is associated with positive attitudes toward the appraisal and trust in the manager. Implications for understanding the causes of fair behavior and improving the fairness of decisions are discussed.

25.

Sexual Assertiveness Scale (SAS) for women: Development and validation.
By Morokoff, Patricia J.; Quina, Kathryn; Harlow, Lisa L.; Whitmire, Laura; Grimley, Diane M.; Gibson, Pamela R.; Burkholder, Gary J.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 73(4), Oct 1997, 790-804. http://www.apa.org/journals/psp.html.

Four studies were conducted to develop and validate the Sexual Assertiveness Scale (SAS), a measure of sexual assertiveness in women that consists of factors measuring initiation, refusal, and pregnancy-sexually transmitted disease prevention assertiveness. A total of 1,613 women from both university and community populations were studied. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that the 3 factors remained stable across samples of university and community women. A structural model was tested in 2 samples, indicating that sexual experience, anticipated negative partner response, and self-efficacy are consistent predictors of sexual assertiveness. Sexual assertiveness was found to be somewhat related to relationship satisfaction, power, and length. The community sample was retested after 6 months and 1 year to establish test-retest reliability. The SAS provides a reliable instrument for assessing and understanding women's sexual assertiveness.

26.

The effectiveness and practicality of occupational stress management interventions: A survey of subject matter expert opinions.
By Bellarosa, Cinzia; Chen, Peter Y.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. 2(3), Jul 1997, 247-262. http://www.apa.org/journals/ocp.html.

96 stress management subject matter experts (SMEs) (aged 27-67 yrs) evaluated 6 widely used occupational SM interventions (relaxation, physical fitness, cognitive restructuring, meditation, assertiveness training, and stress inoculation) on the basis of 10 practicality criteria and 7 effectiveness objectives. Relaxation was evaluated overall as the most practical intervention, while meditation and stress inoculation were judged as the least practical. Physical fitness was chosen to be the most effective intervention, while both meditation and assertiveness training were rated overall as the least effective. The findings also revealed that the SMEs considered history of success and duration of effect, rather than "relevance to program objectives," as the most important factors when selecting stress management interventions. Incongruence between effectiveness ratings and actual choices of interventions are discussed.

27.

The "If only I were thin . . ." Treatment Program: Decreasing the stigmatizing effects of fatness.
By Robinson, Beatrice E.; Bacon, Jane G.
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice. 27(2), Apr 1996, 175-183. http://www.apa.org/journals/pro.html.

The authors describe an innovative treatment program for fat women designed to increase the number and variety of their daily activities and decrease their fat phobic attitudes and depression, thereby increasing their self-esteem. Data on 47 female clients who completed the Fat Phobia Scale, the Restricted Activities Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory-Short Form, and the Self-Esteem Scale, before and after treatment, indicate improvement on all four instruments. The therapy approach, which focused on (a) increasing clients' daily activities, (b) examining individual eating patterns, (c) redefining standards of beauty, and (d) teaching assertiveness skills to confront the prejudice and discrimination faced by fat people, is presented in detail.

28.

Patterns of personality change across the life span.
By Jones, Constance J.; Meredith, William
Psychology and Aging. 11(1), Mar 1996, 57-65. http://www.apa.org/journals/pag.html.

Six aspects of personality were examined for a sample of 211 individuals across either a 30- or 40-year time span. Latent curve analyses found an underlying pattern of lifetime change for self-confidence, cognitive commitment, outgoingness, and dependability. An underlying pattern of lifetime stability was found for assertiveness. No shared systematic underlying pattern could be fit to individuals' lifetime trajectories for warmth. Although individuals shared a single underlying pattern of change or stability for 5 of the 6 dimensions of personality considered here, they also showed differences in the degree and direction of personality change.

29.

Can pretraining experiences explain individual differences in learning?
By Smith-Jentsch, Kimberly A.; Jentsch, Florian G.; Payne, Stephanie C.; Salas, Eduardo
Journal of Applied Psychology. 81(1), Feb 1996, 110-116. http://www.apa.org/journals/apl.html.

This study examined the effects of having experienced negative events related to the purpose of a training program on learning and retention. Participants were 32 private pilots who participated in an assertiveness-training study. The purpose of the training was to prevent aviation accidents caused by human error. Structured telephone interviews were conducted to determine whether participants had previously experienced 3 types of negative events related to the purpose of training. Results indicated a linear relationship between these negative events and assertive performance in a behavioral exercise 1 week after training. The same negative events, however, were not significantly related to the performance of untrained participants in the same behavioral exercise. It is suggested that previous experiences influenced posttraining performance by increasing motivation to learn.

32.

Career decision-making and career search activities: Relative effects of career search self-efficacy and human agency.
By Solberg, V. Scott; Good, Glenn E.; Fischer, Ann R.; Brown, Steven D.; et al
Journal of Counseling Psychology. 42(4), Oct 1995, 448-455. http://www.apa.org/journals/cou.html.

The nature of the relationship between 3 human agency indices (assertiveness, instrumentality, and interpersonal facility), career search self-efficacy, and 3 career indices (vocational identity, career decision needs, and career activities performed) is examined. Data from 426 college men and women were analyzed using hierarchical regression to assess whether career search self-efficacy was able to mediate the relationship between human agency and each career index. For all 3 career indices, the mediator hypothesis was supported. No support was found for human agency mediating the relationship between career search self-efficacy and the career indices, nor for human agency moderating the relationship between career search self-efficacy and career indices. Implications for conducting counseling intervention programs focusing on development of career search self-efficacy expectations are discussed.

36.

Effects of stress inoculation training on anxiety, stress, and academic performance among adolescents.
By Kiselica, Mark S.; Baker, Stanley B.; Thomas, Ronald N.; Reedy, Susan
Journal of Counseling Psychology. 41(3), Jul 1994, 335-342. http://www.apa.org/journals/cou.html.

The effectiveness of a preventive stress inoculation program for adolescents that consists of a blend of progressive muscle relaxation, cognitive restructuring, and assertiveness training was examined. Trainees were compared with an empirically derived control group on measures of anxiety, stress, and academic performance. Compared with controls, the training program participants showed significantly greater improvements on self-report measures of trait anxiety and stress-related symptoms at posttest. These improvements were maintained at a 4-wk follow-up assessment. There were no significant differences between the 2 groups in academic achievement at either posttest or follow-up.

38.

Sexually aggressive men's perceptions of women's communications: Testing three explanations.
By Malamuth, Neil M.; Brown, Lisa M.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 67(4), Oct 1994, 699-712. http://www.apa.org/journals/psp.html.

Tested 3 explanations of findings that sexually aggressive men perceive women's communications differently than less aggressive men. The 1st suggests that aggressors are incompetent in decoding women's negative emotions. The 2nd posits that they fail to make subtle distinctions between women's friendliness and seductiveness and between assertiveness and hostility. The 3rd explanation contends that sexual aggressors use a suspicious schema and therefore discount the veridicality of women's communications. These explanations were tested using videotaped scenarios in which a woman's responses to a man's advances were systematically varied. The data were most supportive of the suspicious schema explanation. These findings are integrated with other research on the characteristics of sexual aggressors and on the perceptions of aggressive children and of maritally violent men. Implications for interventions are also discussed.

40.

Marital quality and gender differences in parent^child interaction.
By Kerig, Patricia K.; Cowan, Philip A.; Cowan, Carolyn P.
Developmental Psychology. 29(6), Nov 1993, 931-939. http://www.apa.org/journals/dev.html.

This microanalytic study of family interaction establishes links among marital quality, gender, and parent-child relationships. Dyadic conversational exchanges between 38 mothers and fathers and their 3.5-yr-old 1st-born son or daughter were analyzed. Marital quality was related to gender differences in both parent and child behavior, with less maritally adjusted fathers of daughters showing the most negativity toward their children. Sequential analyses showed that gender differences in parents' and children's responses to one another were also mediated by marital quality. Mothers in less satisfied marriages were the least accepting of daughters' assertiveness and were more likely to reciprocate the negative affect of sons. Daughters of parents lower in marital satisfaction were less compliant with their fathers. Implications of these findings for understanding gender differences in the effects of marital conflict on parenting and child development are discussed.

41.

Assertiveness training for disabled adults in wheelchairs: Self-report, role-play, and activity pattern outcomes.
By Glueckauf, Robert L.; Quittner, Alexandra L.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 60(3), Jun 1992, 419-425. http://www.apa.org/journals/ccp.html.

34 physically disabled adults participated in an 11-wk assertiveness training (AT) program. Ss were randomly assigned to either AT or a waiting-list (WL) condition. Each was asked to complete 3 self-report measures, a role-play test, and a social and recreational activity diary. The AT Ss showed significant improvements on both self-reported assertiveness and role-play performance from pre- to posttreatment, whereas WL controls showed no changes on these measures. No significant changes in frequency of social or recreational activities were found at posttest for either AT or control Ss. A mixed pattern of results was shown at 6-mo follow-up. Posttest gains were maintained across all self-report measures of assertiveness and acceptance of disability, whereas role-play performance approached baseline levels at 6-mo follow-up. Overall results support the use of AT in enhancing perceived social efficacy and interpersonal skill of physically disabled adults in wheelchairs.

42.

What does a man want?
By Graham, Stanley R.
American Psychologist. 47(7), Jul 1992, 837-841. http://www.apa.org/journals/amp.html.

Discusses the changing roles and expectations held of men in modern society and the confusion this has engendered, a confusion that at times may be linked with resulting domestic and societal problems. The author discusses the emergence of the men's movement and the quest for a clearer masculine identity and a greater connection and communication between men. Also treated is the inability of many men to engage in intimacy. Psychology has provided some healing techniques to bridge the gap between men and women (e.g., sensitivity training for men and assertiveness training for women), but the author cites the need for training in good manners, decency, and good will.

43.

Interpersonal problems: Variables influencing participants' perception of group climate.
By Kivlighan, Dennis M.; Angelone, Edgar O.
Journal of Counseling Psychology. 39(4), Oct 1992, 468-472. http://www.apa.org/journals/cou.html.

The relationship between group members' interpersonal problems and their perception of group climate was explored. 61 group participants, fulfilling a class requirement for group participation, completed the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems and repeated administrations of the Group Climate Questionnaire--Short Form. Hypotheses linking these 2 sets of variables were formulated from interpersonal theory. A canonical analysis showed that as hypothesized, group members who perceived themselves as too dominant experienced the group climate as more avoiding and tense. Moreover, those who perceived themselves as too cold, also as hypothesized, and as not having problems with assertiveness, contrary to the hypothesis, perceived the group climate as less engaged, conflictual, and anxious. Implications of the results are discussed.

45.

Social competence promotion with inner-city and suburban young adolescents: Effects on social adjustment and alcohol use.
By Caplan, Marlene; Weissberg, Roger P.; Grober, Jacqueline S.; Sivo, Patricia J.; et al
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 60(1), Feb 1992, 56-63. http://www.apa.org/journals/ccp.html.

Assessed the impact of school-based social competence training on skills, social adjustment, and self-reported substance use of 282 6th and 7th graders. Training emphasized broad-based competence promotion in conjunction with domain-specific application to substance abuse prevention. The 20-session program comprised 6 units: stress management, self-esteem, problem solving, substances and health information, assertiveness, and social networks. Findings indicated positive training effects on Ss' skills in handling interpersonal problems and coping with anxiety. Teacher ratings revealed improvements in Ss' constructive conflict resolution with peers, impulse control, and popularity. Self-report ratings indicated gains in problem-solving efficacy. Results suggest some preventive impact on self-reported substance use intentions and excessive alcohol use. In general, the program was found to be beneficial for both inner-city and suburban students.

47.

The judge as a mediator.
By Wall, James A.; Rude, Dale E.
Journal of Applied Psychology. 76(1), Feb 1991, 54-59. http://www.apa.org/journals/apl.html.

The effects that judges' mediations, the number of techniques and their assertiveness, are perceived to have on the out of court settlement of civil cases were examined. In the 1st study (a nationwide survey), 900 state judges read a civil case in which the number of mediation techniques (2 vs 10) and the assertiveness of the techniques (assertive vs nonassertive) were manipulated. Respondents' (71% response rate) data revealed that the perceived probability of settlement increased as more techniques were used and as the techniques used became more assertive. The 2nd study, of 1 judge's mediations for 1 yr (257 cases), corroborated these findings.

48.

Ease of retrieval as information: Another look at the availability heuristic.
By Schwarz, Norbert; Bless, Herbert; Strack, Fritz; Klumpp, Gisela; et al
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 61(2), Aug 1991, 195-202. http://www.apa.org/journals/psp.html.

Experienced ease of recall was found to qualify the implications of recalled content. Ss who had to recall 12 examples of assertive (unassertive) behaviors, which was difficult, rated themselves as less assertive (less unassertive) than Ss who had to recall 6 examples, which was easy. In fact, Ss reported higher assertiveness after recalling 12 unassertive rather than 12 assertive behaviors. Thus, self-assessments only reflected the implications of recalled content if recall was easy. The impact of ease of recall was eliminated when its informational value was discredited by a misattribution manipulation. The informative functions of subjective experiences are discussed.

49.

Asian-American assertion: A social learning analysis of cultural differences.
By Zane, Nolan W.; Sue, Stanley; Hu, Li-tze; Kwon, Jung-hye
Journal of Counseling Psychology. 38(1), Jan 1991, 63-70. http://www.apa.org/journals/cou.html.

Examined cultural differences in assertiveness by using a social learning analysis to better articulate the influence of cultural variables. Differences in self-reported assertion responding between Asian and Caucasian-Americans were assessed across 9 different situations, and the differences were related to prior experiences, expectancy outcomes, or self-efficacy beliefs. The findings suggest that assertion differences among Asians and Caucasians are situationally specific, with most differences occurring in interactions with strangers. Ethnic differences in self-efficacy paralleled those found for self-reported assertive responding. Compared to Caucasians, Asians tended to experience greater anxiety and guilt, regardless of whether or not they reportedly were less assertive. Implications for counseling Asian-Americans using different assertion interventions are discussed.

50.

Culturally sensitive assertiveness training for ethnic minority clients.
By Wood, Peggy S.; Mallinckrodt, Brent
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice. 21(1), Feb 1990, 5-11. http://www.apa.org/journals/pro.html.

This article serves as a comprehensive resource to help bridge the gap of cultural understanding for those using assertiveness training with ethnic minority clients. Therapists providing cross-cultural assertiveness training must be certain that gaining such skills is a value shared by the client and not imposed by the therapist. A more culturally appropriate approach includes the following general assessment strategies: determining the etiology of the lack of assertiveness; using self-report inventories that avoid words, slang, or situations that may not be meaningful to the client; and the developing norms for the cultural group for which the inventory will be used. General treatment strategies may include "message matching," backup assertion, and discriminative cue learning. Specific strategies that are relevant for each cultural group are discussed.

51.

Personal assertiveness and the effects of social support among college students.
By Elliott, Timothy R.; Gramling, Sandy E.
Journal of Counseling Psychology. 37(4), Oct 1990, 427-436. http://www.apa.org/journals/cou.html.

Although research has established that socially supportive relationships are important factors in psychological adjustment under stress, social support research has not examined the interaction between interpersonal variables and social support. Personal assertiveness in particular is one interpersonal variable that theoretically could enhance the beneficial aspects of social support. Data collected from two independent samples of college students in an urban setting provide evidence that personal assertiveness significantly augments specific types of social relationships to predict psychological symptoms under stressful conditions.

52.

Effectiveness of booster sessions in the maintenance and enhancement of treatment gains following assertion training.
By Baggs, Kate; Spence, Susan H.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 58(6), Dec 1990, 845-854. http://www.apa.org/journals/ccp.html.

46 unassertive Ss were randomly assigned to assertion training (AT) or waiting-list control conditions. Ss receiving AT showed significantly greater improvements from pretreatment to posttreatment on 8 out of 10 questionnaire measures of assertiveness and 3 out of 5 direct behavioral observation measures compared with the waiting-list group. 27 Ss who had completed the AT program were then randomly assigned to 1 of 3 booster conditions, namely, monthly AT boosters (ATB), monthly attention placebo boosters (APB) or no boosters (NB). At the 3-mo follow-up there was minimal difference between booster conditions. By the 6-mo follow-up the results favored the ATB condition. Although the APB procedure was effective in preventing the relapse shown by the NB Ss, the ATB group actually showed further improvements on some measures of assertiveness during the 6-mo follow-up period.

53.

An attempt to establish the experimental construct validity of cognitive and behavioral approaches to assertiveness training.
By Cianni, Mary; Horan, John J.
Journal of Counseling Psychology. 37(3), Jul 1990, 243-247. http://www.apa.org/journals/cou.html.

Cognitive, behavioral, and combined assertiveness treatments for dysfunctional job-interviewing skills were evaluated in a design that included high-demand and waiting list control treatments as well. Cognitive, behavioral, generalization, and control measures were used to determine the construct validity of hypothesized improvements. The cognitive treatment had no impact on any outcome variable. Some evidence to favor the behavioral treatment appeared on the cognitive assessment battery. However, given the failure of the behavioral treatment to register parallel changes on the behavioral battery, these cognitive improvements are not clearly attributable to behavioral theory.

55.

Dimensions of assertiveness: Differential relationships to substance use in early adolescence.
By Wills, Thomas A.; Baker, Eli; Botvin, Gilbert J.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 57(4), Aug 1989, 473-478. http://www.apa.org/journals/ccp.html.

We tested a multidimensioanl formulation of assertiveness and substance (tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana) use in 3 metropolitan-area school samples of adolescents aged 5,545) included inner-city = 1,430, and N = 675, N = 12-14 yrs. Three studies (N and suburban settings and included White, Black, and Hispanic students. Factor analysis of versions of the Gambrill-Richey Assertion Inventory indicated five indepenedent dimensions of assertive behavior. Multiple regression analyses indicated that a dimension of Substance-specific Assertiveness was inversely associated with substance use, whereas dimensions of Social Assertiveness and Dating Assertiveness was positively associated with substance use. A dimension of General Assertiveness was unrelated to substance use. Interaction effects indicated that relations were stronger for girls for Substance and Social Assertiveness and for boys for Dating Assertiveness. Implications of the findings for models of assertive behavior and for design of primary prevention programs are discussed.

56.

Conversation memory: The effects of speaker status on memory for the assertiveness of conversation remarks.
By Holtgraves, Thomas; Srull, Thomas K.; Socall, Daniel
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 56(2), Feb 1989, 149-160. http://www.apa.org/journals/psp.html.

We conducted three experiments to examine the effects of information about a speaker's status on memory for the assertiveness of his or her remarks. Subjects either read (Experiments 1 and 2) or listened to a conversation (Experiment 3) and were later tested for their memory of the target speaker's remarks with either a recognition (Experiment 1) or a recall procedure (Experiments 2 and 3). In all experiments the target speaker's ostensible status was manipulated. In Experiment 1, subjects who believed the speaker was high in status were less able later to distinguish between remarks from the conversation and assertive paraphrases of those remarks. This result was replicated in Experiment 2, but only when the status information was provided before subjects read the conversation and not when the information was provided after the conversation had been read. Experiment 2's results eliminate a reconstructive memory interpretation and suggest that information about a speaker's status affects the encoding of remarks. Experiment 3 examined this effect in a more ecologically representative context.

59.

Influence of assessment methods on self-efficacy and outcome expectancy ratings of assertive behavior.
By Arisohn, Brad; Bruch, Monroe A.; Heimberg, Richard G.
Journal of Counseling Psychology. 35(3), Jul 1988, 336-341. http://www.apa.org/journals/cou.html.

The study evaluated whether alternate assessment methods contribute to variability in self-efficacy and outcome expectancy ratings for refusal of unreasonable requests. Subject assertiveness plus two methods of scene presentation (i.e., printed vs videotape) and two methods of response generation (i.e., experimenter-prepared vs. subject thought-listed) were compared in a repeated measures design. All subjects were exposed to eight request situations that were matched for legitimacy level and target person. Each situation reflected one of four combinations of assessment methods and served to elicit either an efficacy or outcome expectancy rating. For self-efficacy ratings, there was a significant interaction that indicated that the printed scene plus experimenter-prepared response condition yielded significantly higher ratings than all of the other conditions. For outcome expectancy ratings, there was a main effect for response-generation method indicating that the thought-listing method led to lower expectancy of positive outcomes. Also, consistent with past research, assertive subjects reported more positive than negative outcome expectancies. These plus other findings are discussed relative to the cognitive assessment and self-efficacy literatures.