Perceptions of and satisfaction with retirement: a comparison of six European union countries

The main aim of this study was to assess perceptions of and satisfaction with retirement among 1,686 recently retired people from 6 European Union countries. The authors compared their responses to a set of questions taken from the Retirement Satisfaction Inventory (F. J. Floyd et al., 1992). The first significant result was that Belgian, British, Finnish, French, and Spanish retirees all expressed very similar assessments of life satisfaction, whereas Portuguese retirees expressed a lower level of satisfaction. The 2nd result was that the major determinants of overall satisfaction in the 6 countries were (a) health and resources and (b) anticipated satisfaction. Finally, the data revealed that cultural background only accounted for a limited amount of variance in overall satisfaction with retirement.     

Parent and Child Anxiety Sensitivity: Relationship in a Nonclinical Sample

Little is known about the relationship between parent and child anxiety sensitivity (AS), particularly in nonclinical samples. The present study examined this association in 207 healthy parent-child pairs including 244 children (mean age = 12.3 years, 103 girls) and 226 parent figures (175 mothers). Sequential multiple linear regression revealed that parent AS was significantly associated with child AS in girls, but not in boys. Parent AS accounted for 9% of incremental variance in child AS, after controlling for child age, parent depression, and parent anxiety. Analyses of parent AS dimensions indicated that the social concerns dimension accounted for 14% of incremental variance in child AS in girls only. Parent anxiety and depression showed no association with child AS, once parent AS was taken into account. The findings indicate that parent AS, especially AS social concerns, demonstrates a significant relationship with child AS in this nonclinical sample of girls.     

Aging, source memory, and emotion

In 2 experiments we assessed younger and older adults' ability to remember contextual information about an event. Each experiment examined memory for 3 different types of contextual information: (a) perceptual information (e.g., location of an item); (b) conceptual, nonemotional information (e.g., quality of an item); and (c) conceptual, emotional information (e.g., safety of an item). Consistent with a large literature on aging and source memory, younger adults outperformed older adults when the contextual information was perceptual in nature and when it was conceptual, but not emotional. Age differences in source memory were eliminated, however, when participants recalled emotional source information. These findings suggest that emotional information differentially engages older adults, possibly evoking enhanced elaborations and associations. The data are also consistent with a growing literature, suggesting that emotional processing remains stable with age (e.g., Carstensen & Turk-Charles, 1994, 1998; Isaacowitz, Charles, & Carstensen, 2000).     

Equating tasks and sustaining attention in children and adults: the methodological and theoretical utility of d' matching

The present study develops a method to create task equivalency for children and adults in vigilance research. Experiment 1 employed the signal detection index of perceptual sensitivity (d') to calibrate vigilance tasks for 32 children (ages 7-8) and 32 adults. The results of Experiment 1 suggest that task equivalency across groups can be attained, and a vigilance decrement was observed for children. In Experiment 2, the task parameter of event rate was manipulated across two vigils. Again, 32 children (ages 7-8) and 32 adults participated. The results suggest that a reverse event rate effect emerged for both children and adults. In addition, developmental differences in response to the event rate manipulation and with respect to the vigilance decrement emerged: Children benefited less from the manipulation and were more likely to demonstrate a vigilance decrement than were adults. No developmental differences emerged for the sensitivity decrement. The results are explained with reference to how task demands interact with participant arousal, and implications for development and for future research are discussed.     

Simultaneous classification and multidimensional scaling with external information

For the exploratory analysis of a matrix of proximities or (dis)similarities between objects, one often uses cluster analysis (CA) or multidimensional scaling (MDS). Solutions resulting from such analyses are sometimes interpreted using external information on the objects. Usually the procedures of CA, MDS and using external information are carried out independently and sequentially, although combinations of two of the three procedures (CA and MDS, or multidimensional scaling and using external information) have been proposed in the literature. The present paper offers a procedure that combines all three procedures in one analysis, using a model that describes a partition of objects with cluster centroids represented in a low-dimensional space, which in turn is related to the information in the external variables. A simulation study is carried out to demonstrate that the method works satisfactorily for data with a known underlying structure. Also, to illustrate the method, it is applied to two empirical data sets.     

Suicide attempts and family history of suicide in three psychiatric populations

The influence of a family history of suicide on suicide attempt rate and characteristics in depression, schizophrenia, and opioid dependence was examined. One hundred sixty inpatients with unipolar depression, 160 inpatients with schizophrenia, and 160 opioid-dependent patients were interviewed. Overall, a family history of suicide was associated with a higher risk for suicide attempt, with high-lethality method, with repeated attempts, and with number of attempts, while the interaction between family history and diagnostic group was not significant. Thus, a positive family history of suicide was a risk factor for several suicide attempt characteristics independent of psychiatric diagnosis.     

Self-determination and conflict in romantic relationships

Four studies examined associations between E. L. Deci and R. M. Ryan's (1985, 2000) construct of autonomy, responses to relationship disagreements, and dissatisfaction after conflict. In Study 1, diary data showed that trait autonomy predicted relationship autonomy, which in turn predicted relative satisfaction after disagreements. In Study 2, trait autonomy predicted relationship autonomy, which was associated with less defensive and more understanding responses to conflict. Studies 3 and 4 examined whether one's partner's relationship autonomy uniquely predicted reported and observed behavior during conflict. Autonomous reasons for being in the relationship (of both self and partner) predicted both reported and observed responses to conflict and feelings of satisfaction.     

Pragmatism and Developmentalism in Brazilian Educational Thought in the 1950s/1960

This article proposes to analyse some aspects of the appropriation of New School thinking in Brazil, particularly Deweyan pragmatism, in the 1950s and 1960s. The analysis is based on the assumption that the developmentalist ideology that punctuated the debate on the economic, political and social restructuring of the country in these two decades constituted fertile ground for the return and expansion of pragmatist thinking amongst Brazilian educators, articulating itself, sometimes in contradictory ways, with this ideology. The focus of the analysis will be on the writings of the group of educators which circulated around the figure of Anísio Teixeira, at the time director of the National Institute for Pedagogic Studies (INEP), an organ linked to the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), which set itself the task of producing research that would support public policy in the field of education, as well as constituting itself as a center for teacher education and the stimulus and development of innovative experiences in the public school system. The appropriation of Deweyan pragmatism, in this context, had a triple perspective: pragmatism as scientific method, implying a specific conception of science, particularly the social sciences, with emphasis on the application of scientific knowledge in the solution of practical problems; as a way of democratic life; and as a synonym for experimentalism, in the sphere of schooling.     

Mother-infant relationships in baboons (Papio hamadryas): predictors of differences and discontinuities in developmental pathways

This study uses hierarchical linear regression modeling to analyze sources of variation in the developmental pathways of mother-infant relationships and to search for behavioral discontinuities. The data come from 23 mother-infant dyads of baboons (Papio hamadryas), whose interactions were recorded longitudinally during the infants' 1st year of life. The infant's sex and the mother's age and reproductive experience accounted for part of the variation observed in the developmental pathways of 11 of 20 behavioral measures analyzed; however, some of them did so only in some periods but not in others. The authors proposed that this can reflect the occurrence of reorganizations or discontinuities in the mother-infant relationship that can be related to important life events such as the mother's resumption of sexual activity.     

Promises and perils of public deliberation: contrasting two national bioethics commissions on embryonic stem cell research

National bioethics commissions have struggled to develop ethically warranted methods for conducting their deliberations. The National Bioethics Advisory Commission in its report on stem cell research adopted an approach to public deliberation indebted to Rawls in that it sought common ground consistent with shared values and beliefs at the foundation of a well-ordered democracy. In contrast, although the research cloning and stem cell reports of the President's Council on Bioethics reveal that it broached two different methods of public deliberation--balancing goods and following an overarching moral principle--it adopted neither. Thereupon its primer mover, Leon Kass, influenced particularly by the approach of Leo Strauss, sought to develop a method of public deliberation guided by tradition and practical wisdom. When this failed, the Council fell back on a method that took account of shared fundamental values of a free democracy--a method remarkable akin to that employed by the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Respect for diverse reasonable conceptions of the good in a democratic polity requires national bioethics commissions to seek and incorporate that which is valuable in opposing positions.