PART 1
Health Locus of Control
PART 2
CONCLUSIONS
METHODS
DISCUSSION
APPENDIXES
Materials
Three instruments were made use of in this study: The Psychosomatic Complaints Scale of Stress (PCS) (Greller, & Parsons, 1988), The Health Locus of Control Scale (HLC) (Wallston, et. al., 1976), and the Multi-group Acculturation Scale (MAS) (Stephenson, 1999). In addition, a demographics questionnaire was distributed (Appendix A).
The Psychosomatic Complaints Scale of Stress was developed as a "self-report measure of stress" (Greller, &Parsons, 1988). It contains 31 symptoms rated on a five point likert scale from "does not describe me at all", to "describes me well". It was normalized on subjects from a city police department occupying various positions: patrol and support, or administrative. Personal and job related pressures (stress) accounted for some variance, supporting the construct validity of the measure. Its internal consistency was .91. Scores on the Psychosomatic Complaints Scale of Stress had a range in this sample of 39-114, out of a possible 31-155 in this study. The mean was 67.55, SD=16.17.
The HLC was developed by Wallston, Wallston, Kaplan, and Maides (1976) to measure one's attitudes regarding one's perceived control over personal health. Subjects may have an internal or an external HLC. The questionnaire contains 11 items on a 6 point likert scale anchored by "Strongly Agree" and "Strongly Disagree". Higher scores indicate externality. The original sample mean yielded 35.57, ± 6.22 (Wallston et. al., 1976). Two samples of college students, N=185, N=94, achieved a mean of 34.49 and 33.08 respectively (Wallston et. al., 1976). Community residents, N=101 averaged 35.93, while hypertensive outpatients, N=38, averaged 40.05 (Wallston et al., 1976). The instrument has established test-retest reliability (Wallston et al., 1976). It's correlation with Rotter's I-E scale (Internal- External), a well established scale to measure generalized internality/ externality, is 10% (.33, p<.01) (Wallston et al., 1976). This was thought a good percentage because it indicated internality/ externality on one specific dimension, health, and would be expected to differ from a more generalized scale. For this sample, HLC had a range of 12-49 out of the possible 11-66. The mean HLC was 33.81, SD=7.01, which lies between the original college sample means of Wallston et al. (1976).
The MAS, developed by Stephenson (1999), is a 32 item questionnaire measuring one's degree of immersion in mainstream society, and society of origin. It is based on a 4 point likert scale anchored by "False" and "True". Subjects may fall into four categories based on their scores on two dimensions: Ethnic Society Immersion (ESI), and Dominant Society Immersion (DSI). These are: Assimilation, Integration, Separation, and Marginalization (a graphical model appears in the introduction). The means and standard deviations are used to determine which mode one belongs to as according to Stephenson's (1999) model. The coefficient alpha for Dominant and Ethnic Immersion ranges from .86 to .97 respectively. Subjects achieved means between 2.27-4 on the Dominant Society Immersion subscale of the MAS, out of a 1-4 possibility in this study. The mean score was 3.87, SD=.29. The Ethnic Society Immersion subscale had a greater range within the same possible parameters: 1.17- 4.0, with a mean of 3.01, SD=.93.
The demographics questionnaire (Appendix A) included questions for gender, race/ ethnicity, age and SES.
