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Welcoming accountability is a responsive and responsible virtue that can be shown in relation to people or to God, a higher power, or transcendent guide. Our interdisciplinary team defined transcendent accountability (TA) and developed a 10-item scale using classical and item response theory methods. Across diverse US samples (total N = 990) the scale exhibited internal consistency, construct validity, incremental validity, known-groups validity, and test-retest reliability. TA showed positive correlations with religious and spiritual variables, transcendent virtues (gratitude to God, eschatological hope), human virtues (gratitude, accountability, forgiveness), relationality (agreeableness, empathy), responsibility (conscientiousness, self-regulation), values-congruent autonomy, meaning, and flourishing. It had inverse correlations with negative attitudes and symptoms (personality disorder, anxiety, depression), and weak associations with searching for meaning and social desirability. TA predicted unique variance in spiritual flourishing, meaning, and relational repair. Transcendent accountability is a valuable construct that complements gratitude to God (GTG) and advances positive psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embracing accountability to others for one's responsibilities within relationships is important for flourishing, yet underexamined. An interdisciplinary team defined the construct of accountability and developed an 11-item single-factor Accountability Scale. In national samples with US census demographic representation (total N = 1257), we conducted psychometric analyses using methods from classical test theory (exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses) and item response theory. The Accountability Scale demonstrated internal consistency, construct validity, test-retest reliability, and incremental validity. Accountability correlated positively with relational variables (agreeableness, empathy) responsibility-oriented variables (conscientiousness, self-regulation), virtues (gratitude, forgiveness, limitations-owning humility), relational repair, perceived meaning presence, and flourishing, inversely with symptoms (personality disorders, temper, anxiety, depression), and weakly with searching for meaning and social desirability. Accountability scores superseded demographic variables, conscientiousness, and agreeableness to predict relational repair, perceived presence of meaning in life, and flourishing. We offer the accountability construct and scale to advance human flourishing research and applied work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary objective: To examine the predictive associations of family satisfaction, functional impairment, pain, and depression on health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) among persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI) through structural equation modelling (SEM). Research design: Participants were part of a larger longitudinal study of adjustment following TBI. Direct and indirect effects of predictor variables on HRQoL were analyzed through SEM. Methods and procedures: The sample included 131 participants with TBI (89 men, 42 women) who had been discharged from an acute care hospital. The Sickness Impact Profile was administered to measure HRQoL at or beyond 24 months post-discharge. Predictor variable measures included the Functional Independence Measure, Family Satisfaction Scale and single items assessing the presence of pain and depression. Main outcomes and results: SEM revealed direct effects of functional impairment ( p < 0.001), family satisfaction ( p < 0.01), depression ( p < 0.05) and pain ( p < 0.01) on HRQoL. Indirect effects from functional impairment ( p < 0.05) and pain ( p < 0.05) to HRQoL through depression were also present. Conclusions: The presence of pain and depression, greater functional impairment and lower family satisfaction were predictively associated with lower HRQoL. Depression further mediated the effects of pain and functional impairment on HRQoL. The present study advances understanding of the ways in which pain, depression and functional impairment predict HRQoL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 246 college students, we found that ethnicity, religious affiliation, and religious or spiritual emphasis were significantly related to guilt. Ethnicities were compared, without regard to religion, on levels of interpersonal guilt, a construct that has been associated with a variety of psychological problems. There were significant differences found between ethnic groups, with Asian Americans higher in maladaptive interpersonal guilt than were European and Latin Americans. There were significant differences between groups of religious or spiritual affiliation, with Catholics and Protestants having higher levels of maladaptive interpersonal guilt than those with no religious affiliation. Within each ethnic group, we examined differences in guilt between religious groups, and between broader identification as religious (but not spiritual), spiritual (but not religious), spiritual and religious, or neither. There were significant differences between both religious affiliation groups and between broader religious or spiritual emphasis within ethnic groups, in interpersonal guilt. These results suggest that religious affiliation and religious or spiritual emphasis are important variables in the measurement of guilt, and guilt is an important construct in understanding people with religious and spiritual involvement. Clinical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highly religious couples constitute a substantial portion of marital therapy clients in the U.S. Married Christian individuals (N = 211) completed a survey of demographics and religiosity (religious values and Christian beliefs). They rated preferences and expectations for one of four marital therapy situations: Christian therapist using Christian practices (e.g., prayer or reference to Scripture), Christian therapist using psychological practices only, non-Christian therapist willing to use Christian practices, and non-Christian therapist using psychological practices only. High religious values and high Christian beliefs predicted ratings of marital therapy situations, where high was defined as one standard deviation above the mean of standardized norm groups. Low to moderate religious values or Christian beliefs did not predict ratings of marital therapy. It was concluded that highly religious couples present a special situation where the marketing, assessment, and practice of marital therapy might differ from therapy with other types of couples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]