Wednesday, February 1, 2006 
3:30 - 4:30 pm
Room: Psy 153

Development and Validation of Scales to
Assess the Differential Impact of Traumatic Events in Sri Lankans

Presenter:    
Gaithri A. Fernando, Ph.D.
California State University, Los Angeles

Summary:

The recent tsunami disaster has affected a large number of Sri Lankan families. 
This recent source of traumatic loss is over and above the traumatic losses that
families in Sri Lanka have experienced as a result of the long ethnopolitical conflict
between Tamil separatist militants and the Sri Lankan army.  One question to consider
is whether the impact of the natural disaster has a differential impact on survivors
compared to the impact of the human-made tragedy.  Interventions could then be
targeted to ameliorate the different types of distress experienced by Sri Lankans
surviving the different tragedies.  This study was conducted to assess whether there
are event-specific symptoms among the survivors of the different disasters.  162 adults
from three different communities were assessed with an existing measure of trauma
(PTSD Checklist) and a locally developed scale (Sri Lankan Index of Psychosocial
Status; SLIPPS). The respondents were also selected as a function of exposure to
trauma: those who have not been directly affected by either disaster, those who have
experienced a war-related trauma (bomb blast, torture, mine explosion, shooting etc.)
and those who experienced the tsunami wave. Findings revealed that both scales
reliably assess traumatic loss in Sri Lankans; the SLIPPS may be more appropriate
for assessing general psychosocial distress as well as trauma-related distress.

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Wednesday, February 15, 2006
3:30 - 4:30 pm
Room: Psy 153

Presenter:
Karol Dean, PhD
Mount St. Mary’s College
Los Angeles, California

Summary:
Sexual aggression researchers have developed a fairly consistent model for
statistically predicting sexual aggression in normal college males on the basis
of personality characteristics. However, since this model was developed with
cross-sectional data, it has been difficult to assess the usefulness of these
predictors across time. Using a longitudinal data set, this presentation will be
based on regression analyses examining whether personality characteristics
and pre-college experiences can satisfactorily predict college sexual aggression.
Personality predictor variables to be considered include negative masculinity,
acceptance of violence, and sexual dominance. Experiences that may predict
later aggression include childhood delinquency, promiscuity, and witnessing
family violence. Measures of these factors will be related to self-reported
sexual aggression during the course of the longitudinal study. The implications
of personality and experiential indicators of sexual aggression as predictors
over time will be discussed.

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Wednesday, March 1, 2006
3:30 - 4:30 pm
Room: Psy 153

Looking sideways: The implications of ego involvement on
achievement and leadership in sport

Presenter:  
T. Michelle Magyar, California State University, Long Beach

Summary: 
Drawing from the sport psychology literature, leadership is traditionally
thought of as a behavioral process in which coaches can influence their
athletes toward the accomplishment of established goals (Chelladurai,
1984; Chelladurai & Riemer, 1998). By focusing only on the behavioral
mechanisms of leadership, this common approach neglects to consider
the social and cognitive dimensions of the leadership process. Furthermore,
the inherent hierarchical power structure of a sport team positions the
coach in the central leadership role exceedingly above his/her athletes,
and thus, the less clearly defined leadership role of the athlete receives
little empirical scrutiny. The purpose of this study is to adopt a social
cognitive approach in the examination of peer leadership by testing the
relationships between achievement goals and leadership in athletes
(Duda, 2001; Nicholls, 1984, 1989).  A summary of the research on
leadership specific to athletes will be presented, followed by a brief
introduction to a current trend in industrial/organizational leadership research
that emphasizes leadership efficacy. A synthesis of the theoretical tenets of
achievement goal theory is then provided as the backdrop from which a
social cognitive conceptual model is proposed to test the hypothesized
personal and situational achievement goal determinants of leadership in athletes.
Participants were 375 female intercollegiate rowers, ages 18-37 years
(M = 19.63, SD, = 1.56), from 17 collegiate rowing programs located in the
United States. All participants completed the Task and Ego Orientation in
Sport (TEOSQ; Duda & Nicholls, 1992), the Perceived Motivational Climate
in Sport Questionnaire-2 (PMCSQ-2; Newton & Duda, 1999), and measures
of efficacy beliefs and leader effectiveness (Magyar, 2002). Results from the
correlation and regression analyses demonstrate preliminary support for the
integration of achievement goals with efficacy beliefs that emulate athletes’
perceptions of effective peer leadership in sport. Overall, the current findings
fill a significant void in the sport psychology literature and provide a better
understanding of what characteristics athletes value in a peer leader.

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Wednesday, March 15, 2006
3:30 - 4:30 pm
Room: Psy 153

Presenter:    
John Jung, California State University, Long Beach
Psychology

Summary:
This is a personal account based on my experiences growing up in a laundry operated
by the only Chinese family in a small Georgia city prior to the rise of the civil rights
movement.  The presentation first describes the history of prejudice against Chinese in
America to provide a context needed to understand the political, economics and cultural
factors that led to as many as 19 of my great-great-grandfather’s male descendants to
emigrate to the American South where they ran laundries starting in the 1920s up to the
present.  How did their kinship ties lead them to the same occupation in the same region
and how did their network help them endure their solitary lives?  The second part of the
presentation considers the psychological effects of ethnic isolation, especially in the South
with its long tradition of racial intolerance, on my ethnic identity?  How did my immigrant
parents shape a Chinese identity for me that at times made me more vulnerable to, and at
other times shielded me from, the real, and imagined, prejudicial treatments from blacks
and whites alike? Moving to San Francisco when I was 15 to be among more Chinese,
I discovered it was not a panacea.  I had to learn new ways of ‘being Chinese,’ and while
I escaped the racial barriers separating blacks and whites in the South, I then encountered
the racial barriers in California between Chinese and whites.

 

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Wednesday, March 29, 2006
3:30 - 4:30 pm
Room: Psy 153

Acculturation and Mental Health in the Mexican-American Community

Richard H. Mendoza, Ph.D.
California School of Professional Psychology at
Alliant International University, Los Angeles

Summary:
The Mexican-American population is very large (27.1 million), growing at a rapid rate
(doubling about every 28 years) and culturally and psychologically very diverse.  The
presentation focuses on how acculturation can be used as a tool to assess and describe
cultural and psychological diversity within the Mexican-American community.  Results
of recent findings that indicate that some psychological disorders and symptoms are
acculturation-specific (rather than universal or culture-specific) will be summarized.
Examples of how types of psychological misdiagnosis may also be acculturation-specific
will be included.

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DATE CHANGE

Wednesday, April 26, 2006
3:30 - 4:30 pm
Room: Psy 153

Cognitive and neuroimaging evidence for the role of HIV-HCV
co-infection in central nervous system impairment in HIV

Presenter:    
Robert Paul, PhD (CSULB Alumni)
Associate Professor of Psychology, Brown University

Summary:
The goals of this presentation are to review viral and host factors associated with
the expression of cognitive abnormalities associated with human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV). The prevalence of mild to moderate cognitive difficulties associated
with HIV continues to increase despite the availability of highly active antiretroviral
therapy (HAART). In this presentation we will review several viral (e.g., clade diversity)
and host (e.g., disease co-morbidities) factors that may influence the expression of
cognitive symptoms in HIV. A particular focus will be on the impact of co-infection
with hepatitis C, which is present in approximately 50% of HIV-positive substance
abusers. Cognitive and neuroimaging data (diffusion tensor imaging) will be presented
that suggest an important role for HIV-HCV co-infection in the expression of CNS
abnormalities in this population.

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Maps and directions to CSULB and Psychology Dept

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