27 research outputs found
Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (New York: American Psychological Association & Oxford University Press, 2004)
Reviewed by Gordon J. Hilsman
Preventing adolescentsā externalizing and internalizing symptoms : effects of the Penn Resiliency Program
This study reports secondary outcome analyses from a past study of the Penn Resiliency
Program (PRP), a cognitive-behavioral depression prevention program for middle-school
aged children. Middle school students (N = 697) were randomly assigned to PRP, PEP
(an alternate intervention), or control conditions. Gillham et al., (2007) reported analyses
examining PRPās effects on average and clinical levels of depression symptoms. We
examine PRPās effects on parent-, teacher-, and self-reports of adolescentsā externalizing
and broader internalizing (depression/anxiety, somatic complaints, and social
withdrawal) symptoms over three years of follow-up. Relative to no intervention control,
PRP reduced parent-reports of adolescentsā internalizing symptoms beginning at the first
assessment after the intervention and persisting for most of the follow-up assessments.
PRP also reduced parent-reported conduct problems relative to no-intervention. There
was no evidence that the PRP program produced an effect on teacher- or self-report of
adolescentsā symptoms. Overall, PRP did not reduce symptoms relative to the alternate
intervention, although there is a suggestion of a delayed effect for conduct problems.
These findings are discussed with attention to developmental trajectories and the
importance of interventions that address common risk factors for diverse forms of
negative outcomes.peer-reviewe
Happy Soldiers are Highest Performers
17 USC 105 interim-entered record; under review.The article of record as published may be found at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-021-00441-xWe examined the prediction of affective well-being to work performance in the United States Army. We found that high positive affect (PA), low negative affect (NA), and high optimism predicted awards for performance and heroism in a sample of 908,096 U.S. Army soldiers (mean age 29.60 years old, SD = 9.16 years; with over 1ā4 of a million ethnic minor- ities and over 150,000 women). Baseline high PA, low NA, and high optimism predicted awards over a four-year follow up window, in which 114,443 soldiers (12.60%) received an award. Each well-being variable predicted future awards for both women and men, for enlisted soldiers as well as officers, for several ethnicities, for varying levels of education, and controlling for a number of other potential explanatory variables. The effects of high positive and low negative affect were additive, with each predicting significantly beyond the other. Comparing the soldiers highest vs. lowest in well-being predicted an almost four- fold greater award recognition in the high group. Awards were predicted by both high and low arousal positive emotions, as well as low sadness and low anger. The relations between PA, NA, and optimism with award attainment were curvilinear, with the greatest difference in award attainment occurring between low and moderate levels of affective well-being, with little effect between moderate and high well-being.Identified in text as U.S. Government work
The Person-Event Data Environment: leveraging big data for studies of psychological strengths in soldiers
The Department of Defense (DoD) strives to efficiently manage the large volumes of administrative data collected and repurpose this information for research and analyses with poliy implications. This need is especially present in the United States Army, which maintains numerous electronic databases with information on more than one million Active-Duty, Reserve, and National Guard soldiers, their family members, and Army civilian employees. The accumulation of vast amounts of digitized health, military service, and demographic data thus approaches, and may even exceed, traditional benchmarks for Big Data. Given the challenges of disseminating sensitive personal and health information, the Person-Event Data Environment (PDE) was created to unify disparate Army and DoD data bases in a securecloud-based enclave. This electronic repository serves the ultimate goal of achieving cost efficiencies in psychological and healthcare studies and provides a platform or collaboration among diverse scientists.This paper provides an overview of the uses of the PDE to perform command surveillance and policy analysis for Army leadership. The paper highlights the confluence of both economic and behavioral science perspective selucidating empirically-based studies examining relations between psychological assets, health, and healthcare utilization. Specific examples explore the role of psychological assets in major cost drivers such as medical expenditures both during deployment and state side, druguse, attrition from basic training, and low reenlistmentrates. Through creation of the PDE, the Army and scientific community can now capitalize on the vast amounts of personnel, financial, medical, training and education, deployment, and security systems that influence Army-wide policies and procedures
The U.S. Army Person-Event Data Environment: A MilitaryāCivilian Big Data Enterprise
This report describes a groundbreaking militaryācivilian collaboration that benefits from an Army and Department of Defense (DoD) big data business intelligence platform called the Person-Event Data Environment (PDE). The PDE is a consolidated data repository that contains unclassified but sensitive manpower, training, financial, health, and medical records covering U.S. Army personnel (Active Duty, Reserve, and National Guard), civilian contractors, and military dependents. These unique data assets provide a veridical timeline capturing each soldierās military experience from entry to separation from the armed forces. The PDE was designed to afford unprecedented cost-efficiencies by bringing researchers and military scientists to a single computerized repository rather than porting vast data resources to individual laboratories. With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center joined forces with the U.S. Army Research Facilitation Laboratory, forming the scientific backbone of the militaryācivilian collaboration. This unparalleled opportunity was necessitated by a growing need to learn more about relations between psychological and health assets and health outcomes, including healthcare utilization and costsāissues of major importance for both military and civilian population health. The PDE represents more than 100 times the population size and many times the number of linked variables covered by the nationās leading sources of population health data (e.g., the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey). Following extensive Army vetting procedures, civilian researchers can mine the PDEās trove of information using a suite of statistical packages made available in a Citrix Virtual Desktop. A SharePoint collaboration and governance management environment ensures user compliance with federal and DoD regulations concerning human subjectsā protections and also provides a secure portal for multisite collaborations. Taking similarities and differences between military and civilian populations into account, PDE studies can provide much more detailed insight into health-related questions of broad societal concern. Finding ways to make the rich repository of digitized information in the PDE available through militaryācivilian collaboration can help solve critical medical and behavioral issues affecting the health and well-being of our nationsā military and civilian populations
Individual and experiential predictors of character development across the deployment cycle
The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/08902070211012931How soldiers adapt to and change in response to the deployment experience has received a great deal of attention.
What predicts which soldiers are resilient and which soldiers decline in character strengths across the deployment
transition? We examined this question in two analyses drawing from the same data source of soldiers deploying for the
first time (Analysis 1: N Ā¼ 179,026; Analysis 2: N Ā¼ 85,285; MageĀ¼ 24.6ā24.7 years old, SD Ā¼ 4.87; 66.5ā66.9% White).
Specifically, we examined how individual (e.g. sociodemographic, military) and deployment (e.g. stressful experiences)
characteristics predict character development across the deployment cycle. Character strengths were assessed once
before and up to three times after soldiersā return from deployment. Reproducing previous work, we found evidence for
two classes of changeāa resilient class (āstable highā) and a recovery class (āpersistent lowā). The strongest predictor
of high, resilient character strength levels was better self-rated health at baseline. The findings are discussed in the
context of the mechanisms that drive character development, evidence for post-traumatic growth, and practical implications for the U.S. ArmyOffice of the Deputy Under Secretary of the ArmyArmy Analytics GroupResearch Facilitation LaboratoryRobert Wood Johnson Foundatio
The prevention of depressive symptoms in low-income, minority children: Two-year follow-up
We present 2-year follow-up data on the efficacy of the Penn Resiliency Program (PRP), a school-based depression prevention program, with low-income, racial/ethnic minority children. This program taught cognitive and social problem-solving skills to 168 Latino and African American middle school children who were at-risk for developing depressive symptoms by virtue of their low-income status. We had previously reported beneficial effects of the PRP up to 6 months after the conclusion of the program for the Latino children, but no clear effect for the African American children. In this paper, we extend the analyses to 24 months after the conclusion of the PRP. We continue to find some beneficial effects for the Latino children and no differentially beneficial effect for the African American children. Implications of findings and future research directions are discussed. Ā© 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
The Person-Event Data Environment (PDE): Leveraging Big Data for Studies of Psychological Strengths in Soldiers
The Department of Defense (DoD) strives to efficiently manage the large volumes of administrative data collected and repurpose this information for research and analyses with policy implications. This need is especially present in the United States Army, which maintains numerous electronic databases with information on more than one million Active-Duty, Reserve, and National Guard soldiers, their family members, and Army civilian employees. The accumulation of vast amounts of digitized health, military service, and demographic data thus approaches, and may even exceed, traditional benchmarks for Big Data. Given the challenges of disseminating sensitive personal and health information, the Person-Event Data Environment (PDE) was created to unify disparate Army and DoD databases in a secure cloud-based enclave. This electronic repository serves the ultimate goal of achieving cost efficiencies in psychological and healthcare studies and provides a platform for collaboration among diverse scientists. This paper provides an overview of the uses of the PDE to perform command surveillance and policy analysis for Army leadership. The paper highlights the confluence of both economic and behavioral science perspectives elucidating empirically-based studies examining relations between psychological assets, health, and healthcare utilization. Specific examples explore the role of psychological assets in major cost drivers such as medical expenditures both during deployment and stateside, drug use, attrition from basic training, and low reenlistment rates. Through creation of the PDE, the Army and scientific community can now capitalize on the vast amounts of personnel, financial, medical, training and education, deployment and security systems that influence Army-wide policies and procedures