La pratique physique,un moyen de circonscrire les effets délétères du confinement en milieu carcéral : impact d’un programme d’activités physiques sur la santé perçue et le bien-être psychologique de détenus

To be in prison consists in enduring the enticements of multiple stressors and constraints leading to an unpredictable and often uncontrollable situation. This generates serious health troubles and distress in the population living in prison. Physical Exercise (PE) is well acquainted for its benefits in terms of health and as such it seems reasonable to suggest its contribution in ameliorating life conditions among detainees, although the literature on the subject is quite scanty. The present report shows that moderate PE may contribute actively in ameliorating the health status. Notably perceived stress and other psychological factors are significantly improved in a small and particular population of detainees, sex offenders.     

Peer relations among adolescents with female same-sex parents

This study examined associations among family type (same-sex vs. opposite-sex parents), adolescent gender, family and relationship variables, and the peer relations of adolescents. Participants included 44 adolescents parented by same-sex female couples and 44 adolescents parented by opposite-sex couples, matched on demographic characteristics and drawn from a national sample. On both self-reported and peer-reported measures of relations with peers, adolescents were functioning well, and the quality of their peer relations was not associated with family type. Regardless of family type, adolescents whose parents described closer relationships with them reported higher quality peer relations and more friends in school and were rated as more central in their friendship networks.     

Safeguarding Tradition: Psychological Type Preferences of Male Vergers in the Church of England

The current study explores the psychological type profile of vergers within the Church of England. A sample of 42 male vergers completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Form G). The study shows that vergers tend to prefer introversion over extraversion, sensing over intuition, thinking over feeling, and judging over perceiving. The type preferences of vergers are compared and contrasted with the type preferences of clergy and laity. These findings are explored within the context of the role of the verger within the Church of England.     

A spherical conceptualization of personality traits

This research utilizes the geometric structure of the two‐dimensional Interpersonal Circumplex (IPC), and adds the Five‐Factor Model (FFM) dimension of conscientiousness to create a three‐dimensional spherical model of personality; the interpersonal sphere (IPS). A sample of 250 participants was initially used to select items that conformed to the geometric locations of 26 different characteristics on the IPS. A separate sample of 251 participants confirmed the geometric structure of these characteristic measures using randomization tests. To demonstrate an application of this three‐dimensional model, the IPS was employed as a geometric taxonomy to map various personality constructs. The combined sample of 501 participants was used to cartographically locate 164 scales from the NEO Personality Inventory, (NEO‐PI‐R), the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), the California Psychological Inventory (CPI), the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ), and the Jackson Personality Inventory (JPI‐R) onto the IPS. The spherical conception of traits provided by the three‐dimensional IPS is discussed as both an extension of the FFM and the two‐dimensional IPC. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Factors related to perceived helpfulness in supporting highly distressed individuals through an online support chat.

The purpose of the study was to examine the contribution made by dimensions of session-impact factors (depth and smoothness), end-of-session factors of client's mood (positivity and emotional arousal), and several textual variables (use of positive and negative emotional words; helper's and client's writing lengths) to perceived helpfulness of emotional support conversations carried on by trained, paraprofessional helpers through an Internet chat with highly distressed individuals. Two studies were conducted at an Israeli, exclusively online emotional support service for suicidal and highly distressed people who have undergone various negative experiences (SAHAR). Study 1 compared 40 chat conversations deliberately indicated by clients as having been helpful at the termination stage of session with 40 other conversations, using expert judgments of session-impact factors, as well as objective word counts for textual variables. Study 2 examined correlations between helpers' evaluation of the sessions' helpfulness to clients in 60 (other) chat support conversations and session-impact factors and textual variables. The findings of Study 1 showed that all four impact factors significantly differentiated between helpful and other conversations, while textual variables did not. In Study 2, the results showed that all four session-impact factors positively correlated with session helpfulness, yielding multiple R = 0.54, as well as the length of helper's and client's writing. The implications of these studies are similar to offline counseling sessions: deep, smooth conversations that yield positive responses and arouse clients' emotions in online support are more helpful than shallow, bumping conversations that leave clients emotionally indifferent. Longer writing, by both helpers and clients, seems to be an important factor, as well.     

Stripes within words affect reading

In a series of eight studies it is shown that the first peak in the horizontal autocorrelation of the image of a word (which captures the similarity in shape between the neighbouring strokes of letters) determines (i) the appearance of the words as striped; (ii) the speed with which the words are read, both aloud and silently; and (iii) the speed with which a paragraph of text can be searched. By subtly distorting the horizontal dimension of text, and thereby reducing the first peak in the horizontal autocorrelation, it is shown that the speed of word recognition can be increased. The increase in speed is greater in poor readers.     

Children do show negative priming: further evidence for early development of an intact selective control mechanism

Reactions to stimuli that were shortly before presented as distractors are usually slowed down; this phenomenon is known as negative priming. Negative priming is an accepted index for tapping into selective control mechanisms. Although this effect is well established for adults, it has been claimed that children do not show negative priming. Recently, however, V. E. Pritchard and E. Neumann challenged this view and concluded that selective control mechanisms are already fully developed in young children. The authors of the present study analyzed differences between older studies, in which no negative priming had been observed, and the Pritchard and Neumann (2004) study. In sum, the present study yielded further evidence for an intact selective control mechanism in young children. The authors also linked this empirical finding to the broader literature on negative priming by a direct comparison with an adult sample.     

The relationship between psychological type and the three major dimensions of personality

Five hundred and fifty-four undergraduate students attending a university-sector college in South Wales, United Kingdom, completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (Form G) and the short-form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The results showed a number of statistically significant relationships between the two models of personality and drew attention to two substantively significant relationships. In Eysenckian terms, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator constructs of introversion and extraversion translated as “neurotic introversion” and as “stable extraversion.” The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator constructs of judging and perceiving translated as “low psychoticism” and “high psychoticism”. Based on their interpretation of findings, the authors argue that the MBTI and the Eysenckian models should be viewed as interacting in a dynamic and informative fashion, not as unrelated, totally disparate models.