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Living a satisfying life is an important goal for people with substance use disorder (SUD). However, making decisions about the future, imagining future scenarios, and setting and attaining goals related to that future after treatment is a complex task. As several studies have shown, people with SUD experience multiple barriers to designing their future life at the individual, program, and social support levels. Using a life design approach, the aim of this study was to investigate the role career adaptability and self-determination play in life satisfaction for adults with SUD. More specifically, a partial mediation model focused on career adaptability and life satisfaction through enhanced self-determination was tested in a sample ( n = 134) of people with SUD. Findings suggest that career adaptability is indirectly related to life satisfaction, mediated by self-determination. These results have important implications for practice in vocational rehabilitation and career counseling for people with SUD.

A three-wave mediational analysis with two parallel mediators was performed on prospective data provided by all 1,354 (1,170 boys, 184 girls) members of the Pathways to Desistance study. In the analysis, baseline variety of offending scores (Wave 0) served as the independent variable, Wave 2 variety offending scores served as the dependent variable, and Wave 1 self-efficacy for conventional behavior and general confidence in avoiding future legal trouble served as mediators. Controlling for age, sex, race, parental socioeconomic status, callous/unemotional traits, and moral disengagement, it was determined that only self-efficacy for a conventional lifestyle successfully mediated the past delinquency–future delinquency relationship. From both a theoretical and practical standpoint, the current results indicate that efficacy expectancies specific to participating in a conventional lifestyle are more important in preventing subsequent delinquency than simple confidence in one’s ability to avoid future legal trouble.

Background: Although mental health (MH) is overall strongly associated with psychological distress (PD), this association is very weak for the sample with high PD. This relationship remains understudied. Aim: This study examines the association between MH and PD and whether this association is mediated by social network (SN) factors for individuals with high PD. Method: Data were taken from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia study ( N = 756). MH was measured using the MH sub-scale of the general health survey (Short Form (SF)-36) and PD was measured using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10). The SN measures were derived from the self-completion questionnaire. Using bootstrap mediation analysis, we tested whether the association between MH and PD is mediated by SN factors. Result: The correlation between MH and PD was r = −.410 ( p Conclusion: This study has practical implications for the design of social policies that attempt to reduce social isolation and enhance social connectedness to protect MH.

Peer mentoring programs frequently are implemented on college campuses to enhance first-year college student retention; however, few studies have examined characteristics of peer mentors that are associated with more supportive mentor–mentee relationships, leaving college personnel with a limited understanding of how to improve these vital programs. Accordingly, in this prospective study, we examined whether mentors’ attachment style and self-efficacy to mentor predicted peer mentors’ ( n = 76) or mentees’ ( n = 999) ratings of mentor-provided support. Results showed that mentor self-efficacy mediated the relation between an avoidant attachment style and mentor-reported support; that is, peer mentors with a more avoidant attachment style reported lower self-efficacy to mentor and, in turn, endorsed providing lower levels of support for mentees. Mentor–mentee contact, however, was the only predictor of mentees’ ratings of mentor support. Future research should aim to extend these preliminary findings so as to inform the selection, training, and supervision of peer mentors in college settings, with the ultimate goal of enhancing first-year student retention.

Background: Using longitudinal data from the Survey of Mid-Life Development in the United States, this study examined the role of systemic inflammation in mediating the link between multimorbidity and increases in and onset of functional limitations over a 17–19 year follow-up period. Methods: Participants completed questionnaire assessments of chronic conditions and functional limitations. Interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, and fibrinogen were assayed in serum. Structural equation models were used to predict increases in and onset of functional limitations associated with baseline multimorbidity status; mediation by inflammation was also determined. Results: Multimorbidity ( versus 0–1 conditions) predicted more functional limitations and greater odds of onset of limitations over time. Significant indirect effects showed that inflammation partially mediated the link between multimorbidity and changes in, but not onset of, limitations. Discussion: These results show that inflammation, a nonspecific marker of multiple disease conditions, explains in part the degree to which multimorbidity is disabling.

After a brief consideration of the definition and importance of mediation, statistical tests for mediation are reviewed, including the joint significance of the two effects involved in the mediation, the Sobel test and its variants, resampling with the bootstrap, Bayesian estimation using MCMC simulation, and the effect ratio. A structural-equation-modeling (SEM) perspective on mediation then introduces the alternative scenarios that could yield a false-positive mediation finding. Design-based, partial solutions are advanced for problems of measurement, uncontrolled common causes, and temporal ordering that can confound mediation analysis. Next, the issue of heterogeneity of effects and statistical interactions in mediation analyses are addressed, including a discussion of moderated mediation and mediated moderation. Finally, the relation of mediation analysis to experimentation is discussed, with attention to the possibility of creatively integrating SEM-based mediation analysis and experimental design.

To understand the conditions that give rise to parenting self-efficacy in Japan and the United States, the authors have investigated its relation to the perceptions of support available to mothers of children in the final year of preschool ( N = 235; n = 121 in United States, n = 114 in Japan). Hierarchical regression analysis indicates that in both countries, women who experience higher parenting self-efficacy report more positive childhood memories of parental support and greater satisfaction with husband’s and friends’ support. Mothers in the United States are significantly more self-efficacious than are mothers in Japan, even after controlling for the effects of the support predictors. A follow-up mediational analysis reveals that Japanese women’s lower levels of parenting self-efficacy are partially attributable to their low satisfaction with husband’s support.

Self‐esteem has been found to be related to the certainty with which specific self‐conceptions are held. This study tested a number of competing accounts for this relationship, using a more rigorous idiographic approach. Specifically, it was thought that the relationship between self‐esteem and self‐certainty might be mediated by self‐concept clarity, the positivity of specific self‐conceptions, and impression management concerns. However, none of these fully mediated the relationship between self‐esteem and self‐certainty. Participants with higher self‐esteem were more certain of their central self‐conceptions than were those with lower self‐esteem. This was true even though participants were allowed to generate their most relevant and central self‐conceptions themselves. Discussion focuses on the role of social information in the possibly direct relationship between self‐esteem and self‐certainty. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Based on the values-as-truisms hypothesis and inoculation theory, two experiments tested whether providing cognitive defenses for the value of equality induces resistance against a message attacking this value. Experiment 1 found that participants who generated cognitive support in an active-supportive or an active-refutational defense were less persuaded by a subsequent message attacking equality than were participants who engaged in no prior defense. Experiment 2 examined the effects of an active-refutational defense and a passive-refutational defense, which simply asked participants to read reasons supporting or opposing equality. Results indicated additive effects of the active and passive defenses, such that participants were most resistant to the anti-equality message when they were given both defenses. Mediational analysis across both experiments revealed that the defenses increased counterargumentation of the anti-equality message, which led to increased post-attack importance of equality and predicted more favorable equality-relevant attitudes and values.

To test Harackiewicz and Sansone's prediction that task-specific target goals would enhance intrinsic motivation when they were congruent with higher order purpose goals, we varied performance and mastery-oriented target goals in neutral and performance-oriented purpose goal contexts and included a no-goals control group. Results provided strong support across three measures of intrinsic motivation, indicating that performance target goals undermined interest relative to mastery target goals in a neutral context but that performance target goals enhanced intrinsic motivation relative to mastery target goals in performance purpose goal contexts. Process analyses revealed that competence valuation and task involvement mediated these effects.