The Psychometric Properties of the Arabic Version of the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (BERS)

Strengths perspective is a relatively new approach in the field of social work. Unlike the pathological approach used earlier in assessment, strengths perspective focuses on the assessment of clients' strengths and resources that could be utilized to help them overcome problematic situations. The present study reports on the standardization of an Arabic version of the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (BERS) and examines its factor structure, reliability and validity. A probability sample of 533 Kuwaiti parents of students from public and private schools was drawn to respond to a questionnaire designed to determine the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the BERS. To assess its criterion, convergent, and divergent validity, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was utilized. It was found that the scale was valid and the factors appeared to be highly stable and reliable. The findings of this study provide support to the suitability of the scale to be utilized by both researchers and practitioners. Use of the pathological or disease model has been dominant in many fields of practice, such as psychiatry, education, and social work (De Jong, et al., 2002; Corcoran, et al., 2004). This type of perspective has greater emphasis on disease entities and weaknesses, and is more likely to lead to detrimental consequences. To illustrate, (Snyder, et al., 2006) point out that by amplifying clients' liabilities and shortcomings, mental health professionals tend to behave in a manner to confirm the diagnostic results, and clients apt to think and act in accord with the assigned labels. In the same vein, (Seligman, et al., 2000) state that “working exclusively on personal weaknesses and on damaged brains, however, has rendered science poorly equipped to effectively prevent illness” (p.7–8). All in all, perspectives that are risk‐focused share the inclination to encourage concentrating on what is wrong and overlooking what is right (Faller, 2000; Lafferty, et al., 2003). As a result, they fall short in the pursuit of promoting human functioning. To abate the costly consequences of the pathological model, the strengths perspective has been introduced in the arena of practice. Rather than competing with the pathological model, the strengths perspective is meant to be complementary in nature. It is based on the assumptions that even the troubled persons possess strengths and resources capable of increasing their productivity and satisfaction in life (De Jong, et al., 2002; Lopez, et al., 2003; Snyder, et al., 2006). There are voluminous studies attesting to the usefulness of the strengths perspective. (Ingram, 2005) points out that strengths can be readily infused into preventive interventions. Likewise, people who are troubled have the desire to build their strengths, and correct their weaknesses (Duckworth, et al., 2005). More importantly, incorporating the strengths dimension into the helping process is expected to enable mental health professionals to view clients through more comprehensive lenses (Snyder, et al., 2006). Unfortunately, the development of assessment tools tapping human strengths and virtues are in the early stages, and they need further validation. As an essential component of the helping process, assessment is concerned with understanding and helping people (Walsh, et al., 2001), and serves many purposes, such as problem clarification, diagnosis, intervention planning, and intervention evaluation (Merrell, 1999). It has been noted by (Lopez, et al., 2003) that most assessment tools lack investigation of strengths and success. However, a few scales have been developed recently toward this end, some of which included dimensions tapping states or trait considered assets, while others developed specifically to tap strengths (Early, 2001). (Gilgun, 1999) has developed the Clinical Assessment Package for Assessing Clients' Risks and Strengths (CASPARS) which gives equal consideration to weaknesses and strengths of the clients. This scale is meant to be clinical, so it has to be filled out by practitioners only. Unlike this scale, (Goodman, 2001) has developed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), which can be completed by parents, teachers, or youth. The utility of both scales is dubious due to the under representation of strengths items, and the limiting of their application to professionals. Choosing the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale to prepare an Arabic version is justified by the extensive research documenting its sound psychometric properties as well as its utility with regard to decision making of child placement (e.g., Epstein, 1999; Epstein, et al., 1999; Epstein, et al., 2002; Epstein, et al., 2002; Oswald, et al., 2001). Since there were two editions of the BERS, it is important to point out that the former was addressed in this investigation. The BERS is a psychometrically sound, norm‐referenced, standardized instrument that assesses the strengths of children with emotional or behavioral disorders (Epstein, et al., 2001). The scale consists of 52 items divided into five factor‐analytically derived subscales. The sub‐scales assess five major areas of functioning: 1) Interpersonal Strengths (14 items) which measures ability to control emotions and behaviors in social situations, such as reacting to disappointment in a calm manner; 2) Family Involvement (10 items) which measures participating and relations with family, such as participating in family activities; 3) Interpersonal Strengths (11) items which assesses the child's perception of competence and accomplishment, such as demonstrating a sense of humor; 4) School Functioning (9 items) which addresses competence in school and classroom tasks, such as paying attention in class; and 5) Affective Strengths (7 items) which focuses on the ability to accept affection from others and to express emotions, such as acknowledging painful feelings. Each item is rated on a scale of 0 to 3, in which 0 = not at all like the child, 1 = not much like the child, 2 = like the child, and 3 = very much like the child. According to this rating, higher scores indicate greater perceived emotional and behavioral strengths. The BERS underwent a three‐step validation process. To establish the scale's content validity, a sample of 250 parents and professionals were asked to list up to ten behaviors and emotions characteristic of child emotional and behavioral strengths, which resulted in 1200 statements. After inappropriate and redundant statements were deleted, 190 statements remained and were then rated by 396 parents and professionals, which reduced the list to 127 statements. Second, the list was tested for its ability to discriminate between children with more emotional and behavioral strengths and those with less emotional and behavioral strengths using a sample of 110 children with emotional/behavioral disorders and 148 without emotional/behavioral disorders. This test led to deleting 47 items that did not discriminate between the two groups. Finally, the remaining 80 items were then analyzed using principal components extraction and varimax rotation. The remaining 68 items were normed on a representative national sample of 2,176 children as well a second national sample of 861 children with emotional/behavioral disorders. A final factor analysis was conducted and resulted in the present 52 items. To assess t he convergent validity of the BER S, studies were conducted to compare the BERS with the Walker‐Maconnell Scale of Social Competence and School Adjustment‐Adolesent Version, the Achen‐bach's Teacher Report Form (TRF), and the Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD) (Harniss, et al., 1999). The two studies suggested that the BERS had moderate to high correlations with all scales. In terms of reliability, inter‐rater and test‐retest reliability were evaluated in two separate studies by Epstein, et al., and Ryser (1999). In both studies, teachers or teachers' aides rated individuals with emotional/behavioral disorders. The studies suggested that the BERS possessed stability over time and demonstrated consistency between raters. Correlation in both studies was over .80, while half were over .90. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the BERS is reliable and valid with a culturally different population. This study was carried out on a relatively large national Kuwaiti sample to determine if strengths dimensions were similar across cultures or culturally specific. To gather empirical evidence on the psychometric properties of the Kuwaiti version of the scale, factor analysis reliability coefficients, convergent and criterion related validity were calculated.     

Behavioral Ecology and Archaeology

Behavioral ecology is the study of adaptive behavior in relation to social and environmental circumstances. Analysts working from this perspective hold that the reproductive strategies and decision-making capacities of all living organisms—including humans—are shaped by natural selection. Archaeologists have been using this proposition in the study of past human behavior for more than 30 years. Significant insights on variation in prehistoric human subsistence, life history, social organization, and their respective fossil and archaeological consequences have been among the more important results.     

The Ethnoarchaeology of Juvenile Foragers: Shellfishing Strategies among Meriam Children

Recognizing children's contribution to the archaeological record may be crucial for our ideas about the role of children in human evolution. Despite this, analyses of children's activities and how they might shape archaeological patterns are almost entirely absent from discussions about site formation processes. This may in turn result from the assumption that children are either inconsequential in their foraging activities or that identifying children's activities archaeologically will be difficult if not impossible. This challenge drew our attention toward children's intertidal gathering among the Meriam of the Eastern Torres Strait as a possible agent of patterned and predictable variability in shell middens. We present an analysis of differences between the prey choice and field processing strategies of children and adults and explore an hypothesis for predicting their archaeological effects on faunal assemblage variability.     

Private Body and Social Order: Problems of Sex among Pre-Modern Middle Eastern Jews

This article centres on a case that was brought to the Jewish court in Egypt around the middle of the seventeenth century. The protagonist was a man who was diagnosed with melancholy. The proposed cure, coitus, led the arbiter, Rabbi Mordechai Halevi, to discuss the ethical dilemma concerning its realisation, because the man's wife lived in Istanbul. The article contains two inter-related parts. The first analyses the legal case as a meeting of complementary interests. The second discusses the aetiology and the prevalence of two parallel diseases that were mentioned in the case: sperm-retention melancholy and suffocation of the womb. The article examines the social functions of these diseases, against the background of cultural perceptions of sexuality and gender in the Jewish communities of the pre-modern Middle East, thus shedding new light on patients as historical agents.     

Emotional and relational approaches to masculine knowledge

In this article I experiment with emotional and relational approaches to further understand the ways that masculine privilege operates in the academy. In doing so, I build on longstanding feminist geographical discussions of masculine knowledge. I argue that emotional and relational more-than-human approaches to examining knowledge offer valuable opportunities to explore the ways that masculine privilege operates through the discipline and lay bare normative Enlightenment (humanist, Cartesian, masculine, Eurocentric) constructions that shape current hegemonic knowledge systems.     

湘西苗族童帽艺术

童帽是多姿多彩的湘西苗族服饰中一朵绚丽的小花。多年来,由于工作的关系,我有幸接触到了为数不少的湘西苗族童帽,深为其生动多变的造型,鲜艳明丽的色彩．丰富多样的装饰手法及深刻的民俗文化内涵所打动。顶顶童帽反映出湘西苗族妇女的审美情趣和民族意识。透过一顶顶的童帽,我们更可以感受到她们那浓浓的舔犊深情。     

情商对提高领导力的价值和作用

领导力的本质就是影响力,这种影响力除组织权力的外在要素外,更多的是来自领导自身情商的内在要素。情商是提高领导力(影响力)的基础,它体现在领导的自我认知力和学习力、领导的情绪控制力和调节力、领导的自我激励力和适应力、领导的人际感知力和平衡力、领导的人际沟通力和协调力等五个方面。     

Children and politics

R. W. Connell, The Child's Construction of Politics, Melbourne University Press, 1971, pp. 251, $3.75.     

Developmental Stress and Survival among the Mid Upper Paleolithic Sunghir Children: Dental Enamel Hypoplasias of Sunghir 2 and 3

The Sunghir 2 and 3 late juvenile to early adolescent immature skeletons, from the Mid Upper Paleolithic (Eastern Gravettian) of northern Russia, exhibit several episodes of dental enamel hypoplasias. Those of the older male Sunghir 2 relate principally to a stress episode in the third year post‐natal, although subsequent minor stress episodes may be indicated. They are not accompanied by other marked developmental abnormalities. The younger female Sunghir 3 exhibits at least three episodes of pronounced post‐natal stress through the third to fifth years post‐natal, followed by femoral and tibial growth arrest lines that formed shortly before her death at 9–11 years. These first decade post‐natal stress episodes of Sunghir 3 may be related to the same developmental condition that produced her abnormally bowed femora pre‐natally and/or to continued frailty related to that condition. Surviving these stress episodes for different lengths of time, both Sunghir 2 and 3 were awarded the most elaborate Paleolithic burial known. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Eric Sevareid and the Emotional Registers of Liberal Masculinity

A major broadcaster on both radio and television, Eric Sevareid published a memoir of his youth and wartime experiences in 1946. Not So Wild a Dream devoted considerable attention to the complicated emotional registers of male identity. The tensions between physical and mental labour, the revelation or concealment of personal feelings and the relationship between individual autonomy and community responsibility suffused Sevareid's recollections of youth and early manhood. The situational quality of his masculinity and the confessional imperative of his life writing contributes to the complex hermeneutics and intersectionalities of gender and history.     

农业院校大学生心理问题及对策分析

本文分析了农业院校大学生心理问题的四种表现,剖析了产生心理问题的四种原因,并结合多年的教学和学生工作实践,从五个方面提出了解决大学生心理问题的措施。     

The Behavioral Impact of Drinking and Driving Laws

All U.S. states have laws designed to discourage people from drinking and driving, but enforcement varies across the states. Existing studies offer conflicting evidence on the effectiveness of these strategies in deterring drinking‐and‐driving behavior. Deterrence theories imply that the mere existence of such laws has little impact on criminal behavior, but the perception of enforcement and the probability of being detected have a deterrent effect. To test these hypotheses, we develop a measure of the propensity to drink and drive using item response theory and national survey data. Inferential models test the impact of perceptions of enforcement, actual enforcement levels, and deterrence laws on criminal propensity. Results indicate that the existence of statutes impacts only those least likely to drink and drive, while perceptions of the likelihood of arrest and individual agreement with the goals of drinking and driving laws significantly reduce the propensity for almost everyone. Actual enforcement rates display no behavioral effect.     

Behavioral Geography and the Theoretical/Quantitative Revolution

Beginning with a position statement about the serendipitous nature of the emergence of both normative theory and quantitative methods in Geography, this chapter details the nature of the various contributions to both areas by Behavioral Geographers. Contributions to data collection and both qualitative and quantitative analysis are reviewed for the periods 1960 to the present. Particular emphasis is placed on contributions made by those interested in decision making and choice behavior, particularly in terms of the role of Spatial Cognition (theory and methods) in fostering and extending those dual "revolutions." Other themes emphasize the development of avenues of publication from the "gray literature" of Department Discussion Papers to the emergence of the journal Geographical Analysis and support by geographers for a variety of interdisciplinary journals. A final focus is on the great variety of themes pursued by the Behavioral Geographer of today, and some suggestions are made regarding possible avenues for future research.     

Pioneers of Affective Neuroscience and Early Concepts of the Emotional Brain

Views on the representation of emotion in the brain, as formulated about a century ago, are described, with a focus on the Vienna physiologist and psychologist Sigmund Exner, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, and the French physician Israel Waynbaum. All three can be characterized as forerunners in the field of “affective neuroscience”. By the turn of the century, they had developed a neural network theory of emotion which included a stage of pre-cortical processing. In spite of their otherwise very diverse theoretical backgrounds, their concepts of parallel processing routes were highly similar. It is interesting to note that their ideas were on line with present-day views on the neural substrates and physiological characteristics of emotional processing, although none of the three scientists could rely on the refined anatomical knowledge available nowadays.     

Problems and propositions

George Casper Homans. Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms. Rev. ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974. xi + 386 pp. Figures, tables, references, and index. $11.95.