Exploring Ethnic,Gender, and Sexual Orientation Variables in Supervision: Do They Really Matter?

This study explored discussions of cultural variables in supervision and their influence on supervisory satisfaction and working alliance. Results indicated limited discussions occurred, but when these discussions did occur, supervisees reported enhanced supervisory working alliance and increased satisfaction with supervision. These findings highlight the importance of supervisors initiating discussions of cultural variables. Este estudio exploró discusiones sobre variables culturales y su influencia en la satisfacción y alianza de supervisión. Los resultados indicaron discusiones limitadas, pero cuando estas ocurrieron, los supervisados reportaron un aumento en la alianza de trabajo y satisfacción con la supervisión. Estos resultados hacen notable la importancia de que los supervisores inicien discusiones sobre los variables culturales.     

Are inductively derived categories of facial activity reliable when applied to high-risk infants tested before term age?

The techniques of facial coding employed with full-term infants have been applied to studies of premature infants tested before 40 weeks postconceptional age. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the methodological wisdom of using the coding strategies that were developed for older populations of infants with high-risk, premature infants who are tested while still in the hospital. As a first step, we tested the eight most commonly used categories of facial activity. The results were not encouraging; the meanr(β) was .61 and the mean κ was .52. On the basis of our assessment of the limitations in using these traditional facial categories, we developed six new categories of action. This time the results were more positive; the meanr(β) was .92 and the mean κ was .80. The new catalog appears to be a reliable representation of a range of facial behaviors observed in infants who are tested well before term age.     

Assessing the impact of dispositional resistance to change on organizational attraction

In recent years there has been an increasing interest among researchers and practitioners to analyze what makes a firm attractive in the eyes of university students, and if individual differences such as personality traits have an impact on this general affect towards a particular organization. The main goal of the present research is to demonstrate that a recently conceptualized narrow trait of personality named dispositional resistance to change (RTC), that is, the inherent tendency of individuals to avoid and oppose changes (Oreg, 2003), can predict organizational attraction of university students to firms that are perceived as innovative or conservative. Three complementary studies were carried out using a total sample of 443 college students from Mexico. In addition to validating the hypotheses, our findings suggest that as the formation of the images of organizations in students' minds is done through social cognitions, simple stimuli such as physical artifacts, when used in an isolated manner, do not have a significant impact on organizational attraction.     

Relation between resilience and personality traits: The role of hopelessness and age

Resilience refers to the process by which individuals use the ability to cope with challenges to successfully adapt to adverse situations, inclining towards the future and hope. The main aim of this study was to analyze the relation between resilience, personality traits, and hopelessness. Furthermore, we conducted comparisons between two age groups: young and older adults. The sample comprised 439 Spanish participants (66.7% women; M = 43.73, SD = 26.41; age range = 18–98 years). The Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, NEO-Five Factor Inventory, and Beck Hopelessness Scale were used to measure the main study variables. The results revealed a negative relation between resilience and neuroticism, and a positive association with the other personality traits. Additionally, levels of resilience were found to be negatively related to hopelessness. The group of older adults showed significantly lower resilience levels than the young adults, although age was not a significant predictor of resilience. Neuroticism, extraversion, openness, and hopelessness were the only predictors of resilience for the current study. This work contributes to the study of resilience and related factors, by attempting to understand the role of resilience and resistance to risk and how individuals tackle challenges over time, with important implications for mental health.     

Neural recruitment related to threat perception differs as a function of adolescent sleep

Detecting threat cues in the environment is an important aspect of social functioning. This is particularly true for adolescents as social threats become more salient and they navigate increasingly complex relationships outside of the family. Sleep relates to socioemotional processing throughout development, but the neurobiological relevance of sleep for threat perceptions in adolescence remains unknown. In the present study, 46 human adolescents (aged 14–18 years; 26 female) made judgments while undergoing a brain scan about whether unfamiliar, affectively neutral, computer‐generated faces were threatening. Prior to the scan, several indices of sleep were assessed nightly for two‐weeks using actigraphy. Sleep duration and poor sleep quality (defined as less efficiency, more awakenings, longer awakenings), factors influenced by biological and psychosocial changes during adolescence, elicited distinct neural activation patterns. Sleep duration was positively associated with activation in visual and face processing regions (occipital cortex, occipital fusiform gyrus), and this activation was linked to increased threat detection during the threat perception task. Sleep quality was negatively related to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation, which moderated the relation between reaction time (RT) and exposure to faces. Findings suggest reduced threat perception for adolescents with shorter sleep durations and more impulsive responding (as evinced by less consistent RT) for adolescents experiencing worse quality sleep. This study identifies an association between sleep and neural functioning relevant for socioemotional decision making during adolescence, a time when these systems undergo significant development.     

Findings on the relationship between Internet addiction and psychological symptoms in Brazilian adults

This study evaluated the prevalence of Internet addiction (IA) and its association with negative psychological symptoms in Brazilian adults. A network analysis was conducted to estimate specific variables and their expected influence on IA. In this cross-sectional study, 15,476 adults (M_age = 37.5, SD = 9.59) completed an open web-based survey. Three questionnaires were used: the Internet Addiction Test (IAT), Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Based on IAT scores, participants were classified as No-Risk user (NRU), Low-Risk user (LRU) or High-Risk user (HRU). We observed that 4.8% of the participants were classified in the HRU group. In addition, their risk for severe symptoms of depression was 10 times higher and, for anxiety, seven times higher than that in the NRU group (p < .001). Time spent using smartphones was also significantly higher in the HRU group (M_hours = 5.1, p < .001). The main factors associated with IA were depression, gender and anxiety, but the variable “having children” was the most influential in the IA network. These findings suggest that psychiatric symptoms are the main factors associated with IA among the adult population.     

Validation of the Italian Remote Associate Test

The scientific approach to the study of creative problem-solving has shifted from using classic insight problems (e.g., the Nine-dots problem), toward sets of problems that have more robust psychometric properties, such as the Remote Associate Test (RAT). Because it is homogeneous, compact, quickly solvable, and easy to score, the RAT has been used more frequently in recent creativity studies. We applied the Item Response Theory (IRT) to develop an Italian version of this task. The final 51-item test was reliable (α = .89) and provided information over a wide range of ability levels, as revealed by the IRT analysis. The RAT correlated with five measures of creative performance: The Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM), three classic insight problems, a set of anagrams purposefully developed, the fluency and flexibility scores of the Alternative Uses Task (AUT), and the Creative Achievements Questionnaire (CAQ). The new measure provided is meant to encourage the study of creativity and problem-solving in the Italian language.     

Equivalence classes with requirements for short response latencies

Five adult humans were tested for emergent conditional discriminations under rapid-responding contingencies. During four-comparison matching-to-sample baseline training (AB and AC), limited-hold contingencies for responding to samples and comparisons were gradually restricted to the shortest duration consistent with at least 95% accuracy and no more than 5% failures to respond. The final limited-hold values were 0.4-0.5 s for samples and 1.2-1.3 s for comparisons; mean response latencies were 0.15-0.28 s for samples and 0.59-0.73 s for comparisons; inter-trial intervals were 0.4 s. With these fast-responding requirements, test blocks presented 72 probe trials interspersed among 72 baseline trials, all without programmed differential consequences. Four equivalence test blocks (BC and CB probes, which tested simultaneously for both symmetry and transitivity) were followed by four symmetry (BA and CA probes) test blocks. Three subjects' results documented emergent performances indicative of equivalence classes despite fast-responding requirements that severely limited the time available for mediating vocal or subvocal responses. For these three subjects, mean latencies were slightly shorter in baseline trials than in probes, and shorter on symmetry than on equivalence probes. These differences, however, were usually less than the differences among mean latencies on the different types of trials within the baseline and probed performances.     

Compatible Functions in Algebras Associated to Extensions of Positive Logic

In [4], Caicedo and Cignoli study compatible functions on Heytingalgebras and the corresponding logical properties of connectivesdefined on intuitionistic propositional calculus. In this paperwe study some aspects of compatible functions on the algebrasassociated to positive propositional calculus and successiveextensions of it: intuitionistic calculus itself, the modalsymmetric propositional calculus of Moisil and n-valued ukasiewiczpropositional calculus.     

Rorschach Comprehensive System data for a sample of 116 preadolescent and 117 adolescent nonpatients from Italy

This project provides information on how preadolescent and adolescent nonpatients perform on the Rorschach test, administered and scored following Exner's guidelines (2003). Lis, Salcuni, Parolin, and Superchi (2001) reported previously initial data for 51 adolescent nonpatients living in Italy who were administered this instrument by graduate and postgraduate students in a 2-year research course at the Psychotherapy School of the University of Padua, between July 1998 and February 2001. The current study is an extension of that work and includes information on additional adolescent nonpatients and preadolescent nonpatients, gathered between April 2001 and December 2006. The study thus includes information on 233 participants, 116 preadolescents (aged 12-14) and 117 adolescents (aged 15-18). Individuals were excluded if they had a major medical illness in the past 6 months, any psychiatric hospitalization, psychological treatment within the past 2 years, any felony conviction, or psychological testing within the past year. Interrater reliability statistics at the response level for scoring segments are reported both with percentage of agreement and iota. Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS) findings are presented.