Winnicott and Lacan: a missed encounter?

Winnicott was able to say that Lacan's paper on the mirror stage "had certainly influenced" him, while Lacan argued that he found his object a in Winnicott's transitional object. By following the development of their personal relations, as well as of their theoretical discussions, it is possible to argue that this was a missed encounter--yet a happily missed one, since the misunderstandings of their theoretical exchanges allowed each of them to clarify concepts otherwise difficult to discern.     

Stripping the Political Cynic: A Psychological Exploration of the Concept of Political Cynicism

The high level of political cynicism in contemporary society is often considered a serious threat to democracy. The concept, however, has received only scant attention in psychology. The current work introduces political cynicism and extensively explores its psychological implications by investigating the concept's validity, predictive utility and status as a dispositional variable. Our results revealed that political cynicism is empirically distinguishable from the closely related constructs of social cynicism and political trust. Furthermore, political cynicism was found to strongly related to a wide range of political variables, such as voting intentions, political normlessness and political estrangement, as well as to broad social attitudes and racial prejudice. Finally, we show that political cynicism yields limited but meaningful relationships with Neuroticism and Agreeableness, although social cynicism is more clearly related to the Five‐Factor Model personality dimensions. It is therefore concluded that political cynicism can be reliably measured and distinguished from closely related concepts and that it yields meaningful relationships with other relevant psychological variables. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impact of the 1998 football World Cup on suicide rates in France: results from the national death registry

Our objective was to determine whether the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup in 1998 had a short-term impact on the number of suicides in France. Exhaustive individual daily data on suicides from 1979 to 2006 were obtained from the French epidemiological center on the medical causes of death (CepiDC-INSERM; France). These data were analyzed using the seasonal ARIMA model. The overall effect of the World Cup was tested together with potential specific impact on days following the French team games. Between 11th June and 11th July, a significant decline of 95 suicides was observed (-10.3%), this effect being the strongest among men and people aged between 30 and 44. A significant decrease was also observed for the days following French team games (-19.9%). Our results are in favor of an effect of nationwide sport events on suicidal behaviors and are consistent with other studies. Many of the theories explaining the relationship between sports and suicide are related to sense of belongingness and social integration, highlighting the importance of social link reinforcement in suicide prevention.     

Conséquences d’une catastrophe naturelle touchant le lieu de travail sur l’épuisement professionnel : Le cas du personnel d’un hôpital gériatrique

The Hautmont tornado has occurred on august 03, 2008, in the North of France. It was caused major destructions in this town and particularly in this city hospital. A tornado is a major natural phenomenon that causes destructions and disasters. In the literature, natural disaster and their destructive consequences are associated with psycho-traumatic disorders, among which is posttraumatic stress. The purpose of this research was to study the psychological impact of this tornado on a particularly vulnerable population: employees of a hospital. Thirty eight employees were interviewed one year after the Tornado. The results of this study showed that this disaster had many psychological repercussions. Many cases of posttraumatic stress disorders and cases of burnout were present independently of job strain level.     

Tensile deformation behaviour of Zr-based glassy alloys

This paper presents a study of the deformation behaviour of a glassy phase in two Zr-based alloys, Zr₆₅Ni₁₀Cu₅Al_7.5Pd_12.5 and Zr₆₅Al_7.5Ni₁₀Pd_17.5, performed in situ in a transmission electron microscope. In contrast to the case of shear localisation and formation of 10–20 nm thick shear bands in deformed bulk glassy samples studied earlier, it is found that in thin (electron-transparent) samples the glassy phase in front of a crack deforms more homogeneously and no nanocrystallisation takes place. The reasons for such behaviour are discussed. According to the observed results, one can conclude that the studied metallic glasses can be intrinsically ductile in submicrometre-sized volumes.     

Volunteer work in youth organizations: predicting distinct aspects of volunteering behavior from self‐ and other‐oriented motives

This study examined the impact of motivational underpinnings of volunteerism on self‐reported volunteer behaviors and satisfaction. Data from 153 volunteers in youth organizations supported a two‐dimensional structure of self‐ and other‐oriented motives. Self‐oriented motives were more important in explaining in‐role volunteer behavior, while other‐oriented concerns were also important in predicting extra‐role volunteer behavior and satisfaction. These findings are discussed in the context of a functional approach to volunteerism and linked to recent findings regarding the role of self‐ and other‐oriented motives from the organizational literature. Suggestions for recruiting and motivating young volunteers in youth development organizations are presented.     

When motivation backfires: Optimal levels of motivation as a function of cognitive capacity in information relevance perception and social judgment

Motivation and cognitive capacity are central variables in major models of social judgment and persuasion. However, the exact nature of their interplay in judgment processes has remained ambiguous. The present paper reports on two experimental studies tackling this issue. In Study 1 we demonstrated a cross-over pattern of means for the interaction effect of motivation and cognitive capacity on judgment, with high motivation being beneficial under high cognitive capacity but detrimental under low cognitive capacity. This effect was explained by the participants’ subjective perception of information relevance. In Study 2, the role of information relevance was further investigated, showing that for highly motivated participants, judgment was differently affected by information with low versus high relevance when cognitive capacity was high but not when it was low. In the discussion, we elaborate on these effects, advocating a more dynamic perspective on (social) judgment, acknowledging the conditional (opposite) effects of motivation, in function of cognitive capacity.     

Low‐price guarantees as advertisement strategy and compensation policy: The more,the better?

Companies sometimes employ a “lowest price or more than the difference back” policy (i.e., a price‐beating guarantee). We investigated whether such a policy is more effective to attract and retain customers than when the exact price difference is promised (i.e., a price‐matching guarantee). The first study revealed that about 60% of the marketers and shop owners in our sample thought that beating price differences is a more effective strategy than matching price differences. However, the four subsequent studies challenged this assumption. Specifically, the advertisement as well as the provision of price‐beating refunds did not have an incremental positive effect on customers' general attitudes in terms of trust, brand perception, loyalty, and shopping intentions beyond the level that was already reached by price‐matching refunds. Moreover, our mediation analyses revealed that the null effect of price‐matching versus price‐beating was mediated by fairness perceptions. From a theoretical perspective, these results are in line with a fairness account, which holds that people do not only evaluate the economic value of an outcome, but also take equality considerations into account. Because price‐beating is literally more expensive than price‐matching, from a practical point of view, companies should be informed that the employment of a price‐beating guarantee is a cost‐ineffective advertisement strategy and compensation policy.