Pressure-induced phase transition in nanocrystalline La0.9Mn0.8Fe0.2O3.15 perovskite studied by Mössbauer spectroscopy

We report here on a pressure-induced phase transition in nanocrystalline La-deficient perovskite oxide, synthesised through the sol–gel technique, using Mössbauer spectroscopy, electrical resistivity and X-ray diffraction measurements at room temperature. At ambient pressure, the high-spin Fe³⁺ ion is distributed in two different environments. Below 0.6 GPa, a sudden dip in the resistivity curve and a single-environment Fe³⁺ doublet in the Mössbauer pattern are indicative of lattice compaction. A high-spin to low-spin Fe³⁺ transition at 2.1 GPa, and an orthorhombic to monoclinic structural transformation at 4.9 GPa, as revealed through Mössbauer patterns, are also associated with sudden dips in the electrical resistivity. X-ray diffraction patterns support the results.     

Preparing for Deployment: Examining Family- and Individual-Level Factors

Deployment can be a significant source of stress for military families. Understanding how families prepare in the face of such stress, and which families are more versus less likely to prepare, is a priority of the Department of Defense. However, there has been scant research on how families prepare for deployments and the factors associated with engagement in preparation activities. The current study is a cross-sectional examination of the proportion of households engaging in deployment preparation activities and family-level and individual-level factors that are associated with these activities in a large and representative sample of married, deployable service members and their families from all military services and components (n = 1,621). Overall, results showed that families reported high rates of engaging in preparation activities, with particularly strong engagement in financial and legal preparation tasks. Talking about deployment to prepare a spouse or child was also relatively highly endorsed but not as frequently cited compared to other logistical preparation activities. Older spouses, officers, active component families, and those with higher marital satisfaction reported greater participation in preparation activities. Families with greater socioemotional difficulties, as indexed by child emotional problems or greater depressive symptoms in the service member or spouse, as well as those with lower spouse-reported marital satisfaction, were more likely to seek professional help. Evaluating the effectiveness of programs in reaching the families that may be least likely to prepare, as well as examining the longitudinal association between deployment preparation and postdeployment family adjustment, is an important area for further inquiry.     

Personality and Health, Subjective Well-Being, and Longevity

ABSTRACT Personality traits can be employed to guide understanding of trajectories to health and longevity, but long-term longitudinal study and multifaceted assessment of healthy aging are crucial. Following up on the life span study initiated by Lewis Terman, we assessed 4 validated factors of personality in young adulthood in 1940, constructed a multifactor measure of participants' healthy aging in 1986, and collected death certificates through 2007 (to determine longevity) on a sample of 1,312 Terman participants (732 men). Neuroticism predicted worse physical health and subjective well-being in old age and, for women, higher mortality risk, but for men, neuroticism predicted decreased mortality risk. For both sexes, extraversion predicted old-age social competence, whereas conscientiousness predicted men's old-age productivity. Differential patterns of association between personality traits and healthy aging components are informative about individual personality characteristics and long-term health outcomes.     

Heritable variation for latent inhibition and its correlation with reversal learning in honeybees (Apis mellifera)

Latent inhibition (LI) in honeybees (Apis mellifera) was studied by using a proboscis extension response conditioning procedure. Individual queens, drones, and workers differed in the degree to which they revealed LI. The authors hypothesized that individual differences would have a substantial genetic basis. Two sets of progeny were established by crossing virgin queens and individual drones, both of which had been selected for differential expression of inhibition. LI was stronger in the progeny from the queens and drones that had shown greater inhibition. The expression of LI was also dependent on environmental factors that are most likely associated with age, foraging experience outside of the colony, or both. Furthermore, there was a correlated response in the speed at which progeny reversed a learned discrimination of 2 odors. These genetic analyses may reveal underlying mechanisms that these 2 learning paradigms have in common.     

Exploring the Relationship of Religiosity,Religious Support,and Social Support Among African American Women in a Physical Activity Intervention Program

Religious belief has been linked to a variety of positive mental and physical health outcomes. This exploratory study will address the relationship between religious involvement and social connectedness among African American women. Results from a physical activity intervention research project (N = 465) found that total religious support and social support were significantly negatively correlated with total religiosity, while total general social support was significantly positively correlated with total religious support. Overall, the study indicates that more research is needed on ways to encourage interaction between the positive dimensions of both religiosity and social support to bring about healthy behaviors.     

Visual mental rotation of possible and impossible objects

Participants were tested on two visual mental rotation tasks using three-dimensional "possible" and "impossible" shapes. Both types of stimuli can be easily encoded by their parts and how they are spatially organized. However, while possible shapes can also be easily encoded as a global image, it is more difficult to encode impossible shapes in such a way. Participants visually rotated both types of stimuli at comparable rates, reflecting that local representations were used in the process of visual mental rotation.     

The Minimum Competency Exam Requirement,Teachers' and Students' Expectations and Academic Performance

This paper analyzes whether the minimum competency exam requirement for high school graduation affects students' academic performance directly or affects the educational process by moderating the effect of teachers' expectations on students' mathematics test score gains, proficiency levels, and high school graduation. Tenth-grade students and their mathematics teachers from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 are analyzed. Contingent, negative associations were found between the minimum competency exam requirement and both mathematics proficiency and performance. The requirement was also not found to be associated with the odds of earning a diploma. In the case of mathematics achievement, teachers' expectations were a more important predictor of learning gains and proficiency than were students' expectations. Students' expectations better predicted who earns a diploma. The minimum competency exam requirement was found to moderate the association between teachers' expectations and mathematics achievement but did not affect the relation between teachers' expectations and high school graduation.     

Age changes in processing speed as a leading indicator of cognitive aging

Bivariate dual change score models were applied to longitudinal data from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging to compare the dynamic predictions of 2-component theories of intelligence and the processing speed theory of cognitive aging. Data from up to 5 measurement occasions covering a 16-year period were available from 806 participants ranging in age from 50 to 88 years at the first measurement wave. Factors were generated to tap 4 general cognitive domains: verbal ability, spatial ability, memory, and processing speed. Model fitting indicated no dynamic relationship between verbal and spatial factors, providing no support for the hypothesis that age changes in fluid abilities drive age changes in crystallized abilities. The results suggest that, as predicted by the processing speed theory of cognitive aging, processing speed is a leading indicator of age changes in memory and spatial ability, but not verbal ability.     

Crossing disciplinary boundaries: Applying financial portfolio theory to model the organization of the self-concept

Portfolio theory (from the field of finance) provides an explicit means for understanding the relationship between individual components of a complex system and their relationship to the overall structure and behavior of that system over time. This paper models the self-concept as a portfolio (self-portfolio) composed of multiple self-schemas of differing degrees of evaluative valence. The self-schemas are organized according to their mean level of activation over time and their associated variability of activation over time. Using simulation data (Study 1) and also daily self-ratings provided by a sample of college students (n = 65) collected via the internet over a 60 day interval (Study 2), the organizational structure of the individual self-schemas and their mean levels of variability in activation over time are shown to give rise to the overall evaluative valence of the self-concept and the way in which it changes over time. Implications of applying models from outside of psychology to study phenomena of interest to scientific psychology are discussed.