In the Wake of Violence: Enacting and Witnessing Hope Among People

In the territory of violence and despair, hope is rare. Recent work on hope has shifted attention from hope as a feeling to hope as a practice that people can do together. This case report of a family exposed to domestic violence highlights the role played by a South African police officer in the mother's actions to separate from the context of violence. As a witness to the violence, the police officer acted from an ethic of justice and an ethic of compassion. Outsider witnessing of a counseling session resulted in the recruiting of a community of acknowledgement for the mother, the police officer, and an Assistant Commissioner of Police. Listening carefully and doing hope together gave rise to alliances against practices of violence. As a step of accountability, the authors used reflexive practices to question their responses and to avoid colonizing practices.     

Individual Differences in Mediators and Reactions to a Personal Safety Threat Message

Individual differences in processing information about a personal threat message about bisphenol A (BPA) risk were examined using the threat orientation model (Thompson &; Schlehofer, 2008 Thompson , S. C. , &; Schlehofer , M. M. ( 2008 ). Control, denial, and heightened sensitivity reactions to personal threat: Testing the generalizability of the threat orientation approach . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 34 , 1070 – 1083 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Adults (N = 448) read a risk message concerning BPA in plastics. Threat orientations, intentions to protect oneself from BPA risk, and emotional and cognitive reactions to the message were measured. Individuals with different approaches to threat reached different conclusions about the message and used different information in that process. These findings suggest that consideration of individual differences could improve the predictive ability of existing theoretical models and the effectiveness of health and safety messages.     

Contrastación de teorías de representación y razonamiento sobre silogismos lineales

Resumen

El objetivo de esta investigación es la comprobación de la capacidad predictiva de los distintos modelos existentes sobre razonamiento y representación en silogismos lineales: modelo de la imagen, lingüístico-proposicional, mixto y de niveles de representación. Se utilizaron 64 tipos de silogismos lineales con el fin de cumplir los requisitos mínimos necesarios para utilizar la metodología empleada. Aunque los resultados obtenidos no presentan diferencias estadísticamente significativas entre los dos modelos con mayor capacidad predictiva, el modelo de niveles de representación supera al modelo mixto.     

Desarrollo cognitivo y comunicación intencional preverbal: un estudio longitudinal multivariado

Resumen

A partir de la revisión de las investigaciones sobre las relaciones entre la aparición de la intención comunicativa y el desarrollo sensoriomotor, se planteó la conveniencia de realizar un estudio empírico que permitiera profundizar en el estudio de estas relaciones desde una perspectiva de análisis multivariado. Para ello se realizó un estudio longitudinal de 16 sujetos, con tres momentos de medida (en torno a los ocho, diez y doce meses de edad). Los sujetos fueron evaluados mediante la aplicación de las escalas Uzgiris y Hunt (1975) y grabados en dos situaciones de interacción diàdica, una libre con su madre y otra semiestructurada de carácter elicitador. La conducta comunicativa de los niños fue registrada mediante un sistema de codificación diseñado con tal fin (Sarriá, 1991). Los datos fueron analizados mediante análisis de correlaciones y análisis de correspondencias múltiples. Los resultados obtenidos no apoyan la hipótesis de la homología local sobre la interdependencia de determinadas capacidades cognitivas y el desarrollo comunicativo planteada por Bates, Benigni, Bretherton, Camaioni y Volterra (1979), sino más bien sugieren una hipótesis de diferenciación entre los dominios de adaptación al mundo físico y el social-comunicativo, en el período de aparición de la intención comunicativa.     

Organizational Support,Job Resources,Soldiers’ Motivational Profiles,Work Engagement,and Affect

The authors examined the relationships between soldiers’ motivational profiles and work correlates. Results showed that the profiles differentially related to perceived organizational support and work engagement in both samples, as well as to communication, supervisor support, and positive and negative affect in Sample 2. Specifically, soldiers with the highest autonomous motivation scores displayed the highest levels of perceived organizational support and work engagement. Moreover, the highest levels of autonomous motivation were associated with the highest levels of communication, supervisor support, and positive affect. Finally, soldiers with low to moderate levels of autonomous motivation reported higher levels of negative affect than those characterized by high autonomous motivation scores. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

The annihilation by glide of prismatic loops in walls

Two mechanisms are conjectured for the non-diffusional refinement of prismatic dislocation loops. These mechanisms offer an alternative to the widely accepted concept of spontaneous disintegration below some critical dipole height. In one, a loop array is refined by reaction with a mobile dislocation having the same Burgers vector. Loop shrinkage then depends on the geometry of the array and on the position of the plane of incidence. In principle, any loop array can be refined via this mechanism provided that all the loops have the same sign. An alternative mechanism may take place in dense walls formed of randomly arranged dipolar loops of both signs. As the wall is densified by impacting dislocations that push pre-existing loops on their glide prism against each other, refinement occurs conservatively when two loops of opposite sign come into contact.     

Cartesian Method and the Aristotelian-Scholastic Method

In book one of the Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius is portrayed as a man who suffers because he forgot philosophy. Scholars have underestimated the significance of this portrayal and considered it a literary device the goal of which is simply to introduce the discussion that follows. In this paper, I show that this view is mistaken since it overlooks that this portrayal of Boethius is the key for the understanding of the whole text. The philosophical therapy that constitutes the core of the ‘Consolation’ can in fact be properly evaluated only if we recognize the condition it is designed to cure. Through the portrayal of Boethius's forgetfulness, the ‘Consolation’ illustrates that it is the very nature of philosophical knowledge that makes it susceptible to being forgotten. Philosophical knowledge can (i) turn into misology, when it appears unable to solve certain problems, and (ii) be overrun by strong emotions. The therapy offered in the ‘Consolation’ is designed to make Boethius aware of the ‘fragility’ of philosophical knowledge and show him how to ‘strengthen’ it. He is taught how to more fully embody philosophy's precepts and that philosophy's inability to solve certain problems reveals not its failures but its limits.     

Temporal Aspects of Team Cognition: A Case Study on Concerns Sharing Within Basketball

This case study investigated team cognition in basketball. The focus was on how concerns in a real match situation were shared among teammates and how the sharedness evolved. The activity of five basketball players (M age = 17.60, SD = 0.89) was studied. The data were collected and processed according to a procedure defined for course-of-action analysis (Theureau, 2003). The results indicated that the instances when all the teammates shared the same typical concern were relatively rare, but temporal analysis revealed two kinds of convergence phenomena (simultaneous and progressive). In conclusion, shared understanding emerged within this team as essentially “local sharing of understanding.”     

Trauma-Related Negative Cognitions Mediate the Relationship Between Avoidant Personality Beliefs and Impeded Response to Psychotherapy for PTSD

There is strong research evidence for the association of personality pathology and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as trauma-related negative cognitions (TRNC) and PTSD symptoms. However, the relationship between personality pathology and TRNC in the context of PTSD is mostly unknown. In the present study, we aimed to examine whether avoidant and borderline personality beliefs (PB, indicator of personality pathology) could predict therapy outcome in PTSD, and whether the relationship between PB and therapy outcome could be mediated by TRNC. Sixty patients with PTSD were assessed for PB, TRNC and PTSD symptoms at baseline, and for PTSD symptoms at the termination of Prolonged Exposure Therapy. Baseline avoidant PB predicted significant variance in PTSD symptoms at termination over and above baseline PTSD symptoms (16% reduction in treatment effect per SD on avoidant PB). Moreover, TRNC at baseline fully mediated the relationships between baseline avoidant PB and PTSD symptoms at termination. This is the first study to show that avoidant PB predicts treatment response in PTSD, and that patients with avoidant beliefs are more vulnerable to have TRNC, which are associated with impeded therapy response. Our results highlight the importance of targeting both dysfunctional PB and TRNC in PTSD interventions.     

The study of organizational behaviour in family business

Family businesses (FBs)—enterprises that are significantly influenced by family members and kinship ties—are ubiquitous and play a crucial role across all world economies. Because of the embeddedness of family and business systems in FB, these organizational forms are theoretically distinct from their non-family counterparts. Curiously, FBs have been largely overlooked in the organizational behaviour (OB) literature. The limited available research at the interface of OB and FB highlights the importance of FB as a unique context to advance OB theories, and of OB as a promising discipline to increase our understanding of FB. In a selective review of literature focused on the four topics of values and goals, leadership and power, trust and justice, and conflict, we discuss how insights from the general theory of communal and exchange relationships open exciting avenues for research at the FB-OB interface. Rich fruits of intellectual harvest await scholars who focus on behavioural research in FB.