Immigrant Skill Utilization: Trends and Policy Issues

Since 1996, the problem of underutilization of immigrant skills in Canada has grown significantly. University-educated immigrants are more numerous, and census analysis shows their access to skilled occupations in the professions and management decline between 1996 and 2006. The decline in access since 2001 coincided with increased program efforts, including foreign credential assessment, bridge training, and others. Policy differences among provinces, or in occupational groups targeted, also have had little impact on aggregate trends. The value (in today’s dollars) of work lost to the Canadian economy grew from about $4.80 billion annually in 1996 to about $11.37 billion in 2006.     

Inside the Creative Sifter: Recognizing Metacognition in Creativity Development

The parallels between cognitive development and creativity are neglected in the literature. Piaget's information transformations are personalized, meaning individual constructions can involve creativity. Vygotsky's work considers the implications and interactions of social influences, conventions, and personal implications for creative development. The Cognitive‐Creative Sifting Model is proposed to focus attention on these and other connections between cognitive development and creativity. Other common methods of assessing creativity are compared to the proposed model. It is argued that the model provides a foundation to evaluate individual creative potentials more holistically. Specifically, the conceptual elements of metacognition are described and their role in the development of creativity is suggested. It is argued that future researchers should pay particular attention to the interaction effects metacognition has with traditional measures of creativity focused on ideation and product evaluation.     

Mechanisms of Quality of Life and Social Support in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Cognitive and social factors are essential considerations in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patient management, but existing research is limited. This study aims to expand the IBD literature by examining the relationship between social supports and QoL, while examining mechanisms in these relationships. Consenting patients attending an IBD outpatient clinic were provided a survey package (N = 164). Regressions evaluated predictors of IBD-QoL, and catastrophizing and optimism were examined as mediators between social support and IBD-QoL. Diminished IBD-QoL was predicted by younger age, greater negative spousal responses, and less perceived spousal support. Mediation models showed helplessness catastrophizing to be the lone mediator, acting as a mechanism between both negative spousal responses and perceived spousal support with IBD-QoL. Social interaction variables are associated with IBD-QoL, but patients’ experience of helplessness acts to reduce their ability to benefit from social support. Patient care should consider supportive social and cognitive factors to improve IBD-QoL.     

Critical note on Williamson: A defence of the actualism‐possibilism debate

In his book Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Williamson argues that the traditional actualist‐possibilist debate should be abandoned as hopelessly unclear and that we should get on with the clearer contingentism‐necessitism debate. We think that Williamson’s pessimism is not warranted by the brief arguments he gives. In this paper, we explain why and provide a clear formulation of the traditional actualist‐possibilist debate.     

Describing a group in positive terms reduces prejudice less effectively than describing it in positive and negative terms

In a series of five experiments, we demonstrate that exposure to information related to an out-group's heterogeneity reduces prejudice more effectively than exposure to only positive characteristics of the out-group. We exposed participants to a poster that associated both positive and negative traits with an out-group (mixed condition), to a poster that associated only positive traits with the out-group (positive condition), or to no poster (control condition). Results revealed that participants in the mixed condition expressed less explicit prejudice (Experiments 1–2) and less implicit bias (Experiments 3–4) than participants in the other two conditions. The last experiment demonstrated that the mixed poster was more acceptable and created less reactance than the positive poster. The results suggest that a persuasive message highlighting both the positive and negative characteristics of the out-group reduces prejudice more effectively because it is easily acceptable and yet effectively modifies people's representation of the out-group.     

The General Factor of Psychosocial Development and its relation to the General Factor of Personality and Life History strategy

It was hypothesized that the eight Eriksonian psychosocial stages form a single latent variable or General Factor of Psychosocial Development (GFPD) and that this latent factor is associated with the General Factor of Personality (GFP) and Life History (LH) strategy to the extent that the variables form a higher order Super-K factor. Correlational analyses and confirmatory factor analyses each supported the hypothesized GFPD. Additionally, correlational and confirmatory factor analyses supported the hypothesis that the three variables form a single Super-K factor. The results of Study 3 suggest that the relationship between the psychosocial stages and between the GFPD, GFP, and LH strategy remained after controlling for social desirable response biases.     

Using Identity Style and Parental Identification to Predict Political Orientation

There has been a recent increase in interest in the psychological differences and antecedents related to political orientation. Personality, disgust sensitivity, attachment, and closeness to parents have all been found or have been theorized to be predictive of political orientation. These variables and the additional roles played by normative identity style and parental identification were examined. The results showed that normative identity style is associated with political orientation and that the role played by parental identification depends on the perceived parental political ranking, the gender of the parent, and the measure used to examine political orientation. No support was found for Lakoff’s (2002) model of parenting and political orientation.     

Increasing Sales Productivity Through Improved Sales Call Allocation Strategies

Abstract

Analytical tools have been found to greatly assist sales managers in making better sales call allocation decisions, but many of these approaches are either too simplified to provide meaningful results or too complex for many sales organizations to use. Recently a grid analysis approach has been suggested as a promising way to increase sales productivity by improving sales call allocations. We present several methodological improvements for developing the grid and report a successful application of grid analysis.