Child’s Personality and Perception of Parental Relationship as Correlates of Optimal Experience

The study was designed to assess the influence of child’s personality and perception of parental relationship on children’s optimal experiences. We proposed functional and dysfunctional models to analyze the increase or the decrease of the children’s flow experience. The sample of this study included 909 middle class children, aged 9–12 (M = 11.02, SD = 1.08), both sexes, from Argentina. When we analysed the psychological factors that could be related to the flow state in childhood, we found out that the child’s perception of a functional parental relationship, in which there is either acceptance or moderate control, indirectly affects the flow experience, through child’s personality—extraversion, openness to experience, and conscientiousness. Functional personality traits have an important positive effect on optimal experience when they are considered as a unit. In the dysfunctional model of flow, the results showed that the child’s perception of parental pathological control had an important positive effect on neuroticism and –through this—a negative effect on flow. The child’s perception of parental negligence did not have a significant effect on neuroticism; however, neuroticism still maintained its negative effect on flow.     

Measuring Psychological Development With the Rorschach

The aim of this study was to develop and to provide an initial validation of a Rorschach index measuring developmental progress and growth. The Developmental Index (DI) was created in a 3-step, sequential strategy with adult and child data in which we (a) selected potential DI variables from quantitative research literature and from data available to us, (b) identified an optimal group of DI variables and created the DI equation using an independent nonpatient sample, and (c) provided an initial cross-validation of the DI using an independent clinical sample. Age and age rank categorization groups from normative data associated with the Wechsler intelligence scales (Wechsler, 2003, 2008) and contrasts between adults and children served as criteria for development. These samples include a large amount of data from a diverse international subject pool using the Comprehensive System of the Rorschach. Interim validity checks were undertaken to ensure the analytic strategy was sound. The DI includes 12 variables with individual weights determined by regression analysis. The initial independent cross-validation of the DI with a clinical sample revealed that it discriminated well between children and adults. Thus, initial support for this scale as a measure of psychological development across cultures and geography was established, but future research is needed. Clinical implications and specific research needs are presented.     

Web of Science production quality indicators of ten professors' at the area of personality, assessment and psychological treatment: additional contributions to Olivas-Ávila y Musi-Lechuga study

Rankings of scientific productivity are increasingly relevant both from an individual and a collective perspective. Therefore, making sure they are based on reliable and exhaustive information is really important. This study clearly shows that available rankings change dramatically when internationally acknowledged bibliometric indices are considered. Data from the 10 Professors belonging to the 'Personality, Assessment, and Psychological Treatment' Department considered in the recent analysis by Olivas-ávila y Musi-Lechuga ( Psicothema 2010. Vol. 22, no 4, pp. 909-916) are revisited here for illustrative purposes.     

Justice sensitivity and the processing of justice‐related information

We investigated how Justice Sensitivity (JS) shapes the processing of justice‐related information. We proposed that due to frequently perceiving and ruminating about injustices, persons high in JS develop highly accessible and differentiated injustice concepts that shape attention, interpretation and memory for justice‐related information. Three studies provided evidence for these assumptions. After witnessing injustice, persons high in JS attended more strongly to unjust stimuli than to negative control stimuli (Study1) and interpreted an ambiguous situation as less just than persons low in JS (Study2). Finally, they displayed a memory advantage for unjust information (Study3). Results suggest that JS involves the availability and accessibility of injustice concepts as parameters of cognitive functioning and offer explanations for effects of JS on justice‐related behaviour. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Epistemic akrasia and the fallibility of critical reasoning

There is widespread disagreement about whether epistemic akrasia is possible. This paper argues that the possibility of epistemic akrasia follows from a traditional rationalist conception of epistemic critical reasoning, together with considerations about the fallibility of our capacities for reasoning. In addition to defending the view that epistemic akrasia is possible, we aim to shed light on why it is possible. By focusing on critical epistemic reasoning, we show how traditional rationalist assumptions about our core cognitive capacities help to explain the possibility of epistemic akrasia.     

Recognition memory for pictorial material in subclinical depression

Depression has been associated with impaired recollection of episodic details in tests of recognition memory that use verbal material. In two experiments, the remember/know procedure was employed to investigate the effects of dysphoric mood on recognition memory for pictorial materials that may not be subject to the same processing limitations found for verbal materials in depression. In Experiment 1, where the recognition test took place two weeks after encoding, subclinically depressed participants reported fewer know judgements which were likely to be at least partly due to a remember-to-know shift. Although pictures were accompanied by negative or neutral captions at encoding, no effect of captions on recognition memory was observed. In Experiment 2, where the recognition test occurred soon after viewing the pictures, subclinically depressed participants reported fewer remember judgements. All participants reported more remember judgements for pictures of emotionally negative content than pictures of neutral content. Together, these findings demonstrate that recognition memory for pictorial stimuli is compromised in dysphoric individuals in a way that is consistent with a recollection deficit for episodic detail and also reminiscent of that previously reported for verbal materials. These findings contribute to our developing understanding of how mood and memory interact.     

Reasoning about XML with temporal logics and automata

We show that problems arising in static analysis of XML specifications and transformations can be dealt with using techniques similar to those developed for static analysis of programs. Many properties of interest in the XML context are related to navigation, and can be formulated in temporal logics for trees. We choose a logic that admits a simple single-exponential translation into unranked tree automata, in the spirit of the classical LTL-to-Büchi automata translation. Automata arising from this translation have a number of additional properties; in particular, they are convenient for reasoning about unary node-selecting queries, which are important in the XML context. We give two applications of such reasoning: one deals with a classical XML problem of reasoning about navigation in the presence of schemas, and the other relates to verifying security properties of XML views.     

Age-related quantitative and qualitative changes in decision making ability

The "frontal aging hypothesis" predicts that brain senescence affects predominantly the prefrontal regions. Preliminary evidence has recently been gathered in favour of an age-related change in a typically frontal process, i.e. decision making, using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), but overall findings have been conflicting. Following the traditional scoring method, coupled with a qualitative analysis, in the present study we compared IGT performance of 40 young (mean age: 27.9+/-4.7) and 40 old (mean age: 65.4+/-8.6) healthy adults and of 18 patients affected by frontal lobe dementia of mild severity (mean age: 65.1+/-7.4, mean MMSE score: 24.1+/-3.9). Quantitative findings support the notion that decision making ability declines with age; moreover, it approximates the impairment observed in executive dysfunction due to neurodegeneration. Results of the qualitative analysis did not reach statistical significance for the motivational and learning decision making components considered, but approached significance for the attentional component for elderly versus young normals, suggesting a possible decrease in the ability to maintain sustained attention during complex and prolonged tasks as the putative deficit underlying impaired decision making in normal aging.     

Personal homepage construction as an expression of social development

In 2 studies, the authors explored preadolescent and adolescent use of personal homepages in relation to mastery and identity formation. In Study 1, the authors attempted to determine the prevalence of personal homepage and online journal (blog) construction among a random sample (N=500) of preadolescents and adolescents. Adolescents were more likely to create personal homepages or blogs than preadolescents. Creation was related to feelings of mastery, expressions of identity, and a means to socialize. In Study 2, the authors explored the relationship of homepages to mastery and identity formation by content analysis of a random sample of homepages. Results suggest children use personal homepages to express and explore their forming identities.     

Future Thinking in Young Children

ABSTRACT— The study of future thinking is gaining momentum across various domains of psychology. Mentally projecting the self forward in time (i.e., mental time travel) is argued to be uniquely human and of vital importance to the evolution of human culture. Yet it is only recently that developmentalists have begun to study when, and how, this capacity emerges. I begin by outlining the concept of mental time travel, along with newly developed methodologies to test children's ability to mentally project the self into the future. Data suggest that this ability is in place by ages 4 or 5 but also reveal conditions under which children may experience difficulty accurately predicting their future desires. I conclude by discussing how the research on children's mental time travel can be used to further our understanding of the development of future-oriented behaviors, including planning and delaying gratification.