Does identification predict community involvement? Exploring consequences of social identification among the Jewish minority in Poland

Previous research indicated that people who strongly identify with their own group are more involved in the group's actions. The current study examines the relation between three dimensions of group identification (affect, ties, centrality) and forms of community involvement among members of the Jewish minority in Poland. The strength of ingroup ties predicted involvement in the ethnic minority community. The link between identification and involvement was mediated by the cultural dominance. The reported study was the first quantitative survey of the Jewish community in post‐War Poland. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Men's attraction to women's bodies changes seasonally

Humans exhibit seasonal variation in hormone levels, behaviour, and perception. Here we show that men's assessments of women's attractiveness change also seasonally. In five seasons (from winter 2004 to winter 2005) 114 heterosexual men were asked to assess the attractiveness of the same stimuli: photos of a female with three different waist-to-hip ratios; photos of female breasts, and photos of average-looking faces of young women. For each season, the scores given to the stimuli of the same category (body shape, breast, and face) were combined. Friedman's test revealed significant changes for body shape and breast attractiveness assessments across the seasons, but no changes for face ratings. The highest scores for attractiveness were given in winter and the lowest in summer. We suggest that the observed seasonality is related to the well-known 'contrast effect'. More frequent exposure to women's bodies in warmer seasons might increase men's attractiveness criteria for women's body shape and breasts.     

Modelling relations between sensory processing, speech perception, orthographic and phonological ability, and literacy achievement

The general magnocellular theory postulates that dyslexia is the consequence of a multimodal deficit in the processing of transient and dynamic stimuli. In the auditory modality, this deficit has been hypothesized to interfere with accurate speech perception, and subsequently disrupt the development of phonological and later reading and spelling skills. In the visual modality, an analogous problem might interfere with literacy development by affecting orthographic skills. In this prospective longitudinal study, we tested dynamic auditory and visual processing, speech-in-noise perception, phonological ability and orthographic ability in 62 five-year-old preschool children. Predictive relations towards first grade reading and spelling measures were explored and the validity of the global magnocellular model was evaluated using causal path analysis. In particular, we demonstrated that dynamic auditory processing was related to speech perception, which itself was related to phonological awareness. Similarly, dynamic visual processing was related to orthographic ability. Subsequently, phonological awareness, orthographic ability and verbal short-term memory were unique predictors of reading and spelling development.     

Of Seeds and Sprouts: Defilement and its Attachment to the Life-stream in the Sarvāstivāda H[rdot]daya Treatises

The notions of selflessness (anātmaka) and karman are two key concepts in Buddhist philosophy. The question how karman functions with respect to the rebirth of a worldling who is, actually, devoid of a self, was a major philosophical issue in early Buddhist doctrine. Within the Sarvāstivāda school, the Vaibhā[sdot]ikas became the representative of an interpretation of this problem that hinges on the notion of ‘possession’ (prāpti). Their theory was contradicted by the Sautrāntikas, whose interpretation is based on the notion of ‘seed’ (bīja). The Sarvāstivāda H[rdot]daya treatises, compiled in a time period spanning from the beginning of the common era to the fourth century AD, i.e. the period of the rise of the Sautrāntika school, are a particularly interesting set of works, as they reflect the gradual development of these two major theories.     

Effects of category learning on the stimulus selectivity of macaque inferior temporal neurons

Primates can learn to categorize complex shapes, but as yet it is unclear how this categorization learning affects the representation of shape in visual cortex. Previous studies that have examined the effect of categorization learning on shape representation in the macaque inferior temporal (IT) cortex have produced diverse and conflicting results that are difficult to interpret owing to inadequacies in design. The present study overcomes these issues by recording IT responses before and after categorization learning. We used parameterized shapes that varied along two shape dimensions. Monkeys were extensively trained to categorize the shapes along one of the two dimensions. Unlike previous studies, our paradigm counterbalanced the relevant categorization dimension across animals. We found that categorization learning increased selectivity specifically for the category-relevant stimulus dimension (i.e., an expanded representation of the trained dimension), and that the ratio of within-category response similarities to between-category response similarities increased for the relevant dimension (i.e., category tuning). These small effects were only evident when the learned category-related effects were disentangled from the prelearned stimulus selectivity. These results suggest that shape-categorization learning can induce minor category-related changes in the shape tuning of IT neurons in adults, suggesting that learned, category-related changes in neuronal response mainly occur downstream from IT.     

A longitudinal and multi-method examination of interest–occupation congruence within and across time

Remarkably little research has addressed change and stability in person–environment fit across time. The objective of the current study was to address this gap in the literature by investigating Holland interest–occupation congruence across time for a sample of college alumni (N = 167) that were tracked during the first third of their professional career. Congruence was examined in all its complexity, including a repeated assessment of both occupations and interests, the use of objective (O*NET) and subjective (self-report) environment assessment methods, and adopting sophisticated congruence calculation methods (i.e., Euclidean distance and profile correlation). This resulted in a total of 12 interest–occupation comparisons within and across time that could be related to general and career specific well-being. The results first indicated moderate levels of stability in interests and occupations across the 15-year time interval, yet also with room for change. Congruence analyses indicated significant interest–occupation fit at the beginning of the career and 15 years later, with the magnitude of congruence slightly varying depending on which occupation assessment and which congruence method was used. Profile correlation congruence did not change over time in absolute terms and evidenced relative stability. Euclidean distance indices had little relative stability over time but did manifest some absolute changes in levels of congruence. Finally, job change moderated the association between interest–occupation congruence and life satisfaction in such a way that higher levels of satisfaction were reported only when little job change was present.     

Optimism, stress, life satisfaction, and job burnout in restaurant managers

Researchers have suggested that dispositional optimism is related to both stress and stress outcomes. However, the nature of this relationship has not fully been explained. The authors contributed to a better understanding of this relationship by evaluating dispositional optimism, stress, overall life satisfaction, and job burnout in a sample of restaurant managers. Results indicated that stress and job burnout were significantly related; however, their relationship was not moderated by dispositional optimism, as would be suggested by the results of past research. The diminished personal accomplishment dimension of job burnout mediated the relationship between optimism and life satisfaction. Also, stress significantly impacted perceptions of diminished personal accomplishment and life satisfaction.     

Annotation Theories over Finite Graphs

In the current paper we consider theories with vocabulary containing a number of binary and unary relation symbols. Binary relation symbols represent labeled edges of a graph and unary relations represent unique annotations of the graph’s nodes. Such theories, which we call annotation theories, can be used in many applications, including the formalization of argumentation, approximate reasoning, semantics of logic programs, graph coloring, etc. We address a number of problems related to annotation theories over finite models, including satisfiability, querying problem, specification of preferred models and model checking problem. We show that most of considered problems are NPTime- or co-NPTime-complete. In order to reduce the complexity for particular theories, we use second-order quantifier elimination. To our best knowledge none of existing methods works in the case of annotation theories. We then provide a new second-order quantifier elimination method for stratified theories, which is successful in the considered cases. The new result subsumes many other results, including those of [2, 28, 21].     

Mindfulness in Iran and the United States: Cross-Cultural Structural Complexity and Parallel Relationships with Psychological Adjustment

In theory, mindfulness has a role to play in resolving intercultural conflicts. This suggestion rests upon the relatively untested presumption that mindfulness operates similarly across cultures. In a test of this presumption, university students from two countries that are often in conflict at the governmental level, Iran (N = 723) and the United States (N = 900), responded to the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (Brown and Ryan Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84(4):822–848, 2003), along with an array of other psychological measures. This Mindfulness Scale displayed structural complexities in both societies, but a measurement invariant subscale was nevertheless identified. Similar cross-cultural evidence of concurrent validity was obtained in relationships with wide-ranging measures of adjustment. Nonsignificant linkages with Public Self-Consciousness and Self-Monitoring demonstrated discriminant validity in both societies. These data identified mindfulness as a cross-culturally similar psychological process that could plausibly have a role in resolving intercultural conflicts.     

Predicting school adjustment from motor abilities in kindergarten

The present study assessed the relations between basic motor abilities in kindergarten and scholastic, social, and emotional adaptation in the transition to formal schooling. Seventy‐one five‐year‐old kindergarten children were administered a battery of standard assessments of basic motor functions. A year later, children's adjustment to school was assessed via a series of questionnaires completed by the children and their class teachers. The results indicate that in addition to the already documented association between visual–motor integration and academic achievement, other motor functions show significant predictive value to both scholastic adaptation and social and emotional adjustment to school. The results further suggest a better prediction of scholastic adaptation and level of disruptive behaviour in school when using an aggregate measure of children's ability in various motor domains than when using assessments of singular motor functions. It is concluded that good motor ability may serve as a buffer to the normative challenges presented to children in the transition to school. In contrast, poor motor ability emerges as a vulnerability factor in the transition to formal schooling. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.