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This study compared the strength of competing causal models in explaining the relationship between perceived support, enacted support, and social anxiety in adolescents. The social causation hypothesis postulates that social support causes social anxiety, whereas the social selection hypothesis postulates that social anxiety causes social support. The reciprocal model combines the two hypotheses by arguing that the causal relationship between social support and social anxiety is largely reciprocal. This study tests a modification of the reciprocal model by specifying perceptions of support as a mediating construct. Two waves of data with an interval of three months were collected on 357 college students. Structural equation modeling was used to compare the reciprocal and mediated reciprocal causal models. The study found some support for the mediated reciprocal model, but the magnitude of the relationships were weaker than expected. Limitations and suggestion for future research are discussed.

Three groups of subject-matter experts reviewed the content validity of the Newcomer Socialization Questionnaire. Its psychometric properties were supported in a study of 492 employed students; the study was replicated with 320 newly hired workers. Socialization dimensions were positively correlated with job satisfaction and organizational commitment but not job performance. (Contains 33 references.) (SK)

Studied the effect of various instructional sets on reducing the claiming of knowledge of fictitious agencies in a survey of awareness of public agencies completed by 1,068 registered voters. Warning respondents that the list contained fake agencies reduced overclaiming but providing a memory retrieval strategy had no effect on overclaiming. (SLD)

Demonstrated through telephone interviews of 507 adults that estimates of agency services awareness in typical needs-assessment studies are probably inflated by a response bias labeled "agency awareness overclaiming," a respondent reporting an awareness of service agencies that do not exist or with which the respondent is not really familiar. (SLD)

Nearly 5,000 older adults provided data for this study, which used factor analysis to identify the following four dimensions of agency awareness: in-home services, aging network services, financial services, and other services. Then, 18 variables assessing the various dimensions of the behavioral model were included in multiple regression equations predicting each of the awareness dimensions. The regression equations only accounted for 7% to 13% of the variance of the various service awareness dimensions.

Purpose: The main goal of this study was to determine how well the disability questions of both the 1990 and 2000 Census correlated with a standard measure of disability. If the census questions were to correlate moderately well with a standard measure of disability, then Area Agencies on Aging (AAA) and other organizations would be able to use census information in estimating service needs for their catchment (service) area. Design and Methods: Questionnaires containing both the census disability questions and a standard measure of disability were mailed to 4,508 older adults; 1,514 completed surveys were returned. In order to assess reliability, 472 of the respondents who completed the mail survey were reinterviewed by phone. All three disability measures were collapsed into the following three categories: no needs, instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) needs only, and activities of daily living (ADL) needs. Results: All three disability measures exhibited moderate to good test-retest reliability. Using a standard measure of disability as the criterion, validity for the 1990 Census measure was quite low (Kappas of approximately 0.35). Validity for the 2000 Census measure was moderate to good (Kappas of approximately 0.60). Implications: These results suggest that the 2000 Census disability questions may be sufficiently valid for planning purposes. However, additional research with more representative samples of older adults is needed. Key Words: ADL, IADL, Planning, Needs assessment

This study used the behavioral model to predict two measures of service knowledge: agency awareness and perceived availability of services. A random sample of nearly 5,000 older Missourians provided data on the two dependent variables and 22 predictor variables. Agency awareness and perceived availability of services only correlated .35 with each other. The full behavioral model only explained 8% of the variance of agency awareness and 14% of the variance of perceived availability of services. As a group, enabling variables explained more variance of both measures of service knowledge than predisposing or need variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]