The General Factor of Personality (GFP) Relates to Other Ratings of Character and Integrity: Two validity studies in personnel selection and training of the Dutch armed forces

In two studies, we tested whether scores on the general factor of personality (GFP) are associated with other ratings of character and integrity. In Study 1, a total of 3,670 applicants for a military job filled out personality surveys and went through a selection interview. GFPs extracted from two different personality surveys showed meaningful relationships with the job suitability judgments based on the interviews. In Study 2, supervisors rated the integrity of participants (N = 167) who followed a 4‐month military training at the Royal Dutch Military Police. GFPs extracted from three different surveys were correlated with integrity. The findings imply that the GFP is associated with behavioral outcomes, and that the GFP is potentially relevant for personnel selection and appraisal.     

The Effect of Smiling and of Head Tilting on Person Perception

A survey on alcohol and drug use was completed by 1,291 college students. As predicted from research on self-schemas, greater self-efficacy was associated with lower substance use among respondents who indicated having been treated for substance abuse but not among those who had not received treatment. Also, those who reported receiving treatment were more likely than the others to report having attended campus programs on substance abuse. These findings suggest that substance use and its control are important aspects of the self-definition of those who receive treatment for substance abuse.     

Motor imagery and ‘placebo-racket effects’ in tennis serve performance

ObjectivesThis study aimed at confirming whether Motor Imagery (MI) enhances tennis serve performance, and determining whether a placebo condition could affect the beneficial effects of MI.DesignThis study used a 3 × 2 factorial design. Three groups of tennis players were compared in service performance outcomes before and after a training session.MethodsTwenty-two tennis players were assigned into three groups: a control (C) and two experimental groups subjected to a similar MI intervention, one group using their regular own racket (MI group) while the other used a placebo racket (P group).ResultsAnalyses of Covariance revealed no significant group difference when comparing serve velocity after training session, but MI training improved serve accuracy and regularity. Combining placebo racket with MI further resulted in greater serve accuracy score as compared to MI alone. Players' perception of their serve quality improved after MI, and this effect was reinforced in the P group.ConclusionThese findings revealed that MI may be useful to achieve peak performance, and that the implement placebo effect might be a factor in sport performance, hence promoting the beneficial effects of alternative methods to improve tennis serve performance.     

The contribution of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in full and divided encoding: a paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation study

This research investigated the contribution of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in the attentional resources in episodic encoding for both verbal and non-verbal material. Paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulations (TMS) were used to interfere transiently with either the left or right DLPFC during encoding under full attention (FA) or under divided attention (DA) in a recognition paradigm using words and random shapes. Participants recognized fewer items after TMS over the left DLPFC than over the right DLPFC during FA encoding. However, TMS over the left DLPFC did not impair performance when compared to sham condition. Conversely, participants produced fewer items after TMS over the right DLPFC in DA encoding compared to sham condition, but not compared to TMS over the left DLPFC. These effects were found for both words and random shapes. These results suggest that the right DLPFC play an important role in successful encoding with a concomitant task regardless of the type of material.     

The Glasgow Voice Memory Test: Assessing the ability to memorize and recognize unfamiliar voices

One thousand one hundred and twenty subjects as well as a developmental phonagnosic subject (KH) along with age-matched controls performed the Glasgow Voice Memory Test, which assesses the ability to encode and immediately recognize, through an old/new judgment, both unfamiliar voices (delivered as vowels, making language requirements minimal) and bell sounds. The inclusion of non-vocal stimuli allows the detection of significant dissociations between the two categories (vocal vs. non-vocal stimuli). The distributions of accuracy and sensitivity scores (d’) reflected a wide range of individual differences in voice recognition performance in the population. As expected, KH showed a dissociation between the recognition of voices and bell sounds, her performance being significantly poorer than matched controls for voices but not for bells. By providing normative data of a large sample and by testing a developmental phonagnosic subject, we demonstrated that the Glasgow Voice Memory Test, available online and accessible from all over the world, can be a valid screening tool (~5 min) for a preliminary detection of potential cases of phonagnosia and of “super recognizers” for voices.     

Individuality in coo calls of adult male golden snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus roxellana) living in a multilevel society

Animal Cognition - Vocal individuality is a prerequisite for individual recognition, especially when visual and chemical cues are not available or effective. Vocalizations encoding information of...     

Is the learning of goal-directed displacement effector-independent?

The present experiment was designed to investigate whether the learning of goal-directed locomotion is effector independent. To answer this question a bilateral transfer of learning paradigm was used. We wanted to find out whether learning can be transferred from a trained effector system to an untrained one. Sixteen participants were asked to proceed through virtual hallways, while walking on a treadmill or handling of a joystick, in order to cross a pair of oscillating doors. Participants received 1050 training trials on the specific effector system before being transferred to the untrained one. Results indicated a clear transfer from handling to walking and only a moderate transfer from walking to handling. This asymmetrical transfer provides partial support in favor of the effector independent hypothesis. Both the theoretical implications of this work and the possible mediating effect of calibration are discussed.     

Two Forms of Catholic Apocalyptic Theology

While the emergence and development of apocalyptic forms of theology in Catholicism have been inhibited by particular theological styles as well as the powerful presence of the institutional church, it is the case that from the second half of the twentieth century on Catholicism has seen a number of forms of apocalyptic theology being well received. The two most influential forms have been provided by Johann Baptist Metz and Hans Urs von Balthasar. In this article I bring these two very different forms of apocalyptic into critical conversation with a view to coming to some provisional judgement regarding relative theological adequacy. The crucial issue is whether in the apocalyptic figurations of Metz and Balthasar the church is faithfully represented or undercut. I determine that Balthasar elaborates an apocalyptic form of theology in which the institutional church represents Christ and that Metz fundamentally undercuts the church. Still, the judgement of ‘Catholic’ adequacy or inadequacy is not solely based on the articulation of different views of the church largely because in neither case is the view of the church absolutely free standing. Not only is the conception of the church connected with other conceptions, for example, a view of God, Christ, community and person, but it is also influenced by how one interprets the Bible, understands tradition and engages philosophy. If apocalyptic and the church connect (Balthasar) or fail to connect (Metz), this will be in part due to very different decisions regarding these three features.     

Balthasar and the Eclipse of Nietzsche

This essay is about Hans Urs von Balthasar’s critical appropriation of Nietzsche as a prophetic and apocalyptic thinker whose thought presents a challenge to a tired European culture and a petrified form of Christianity. But it is also about a particular expiration date for this critical appropriation which can be dated to the 1940s. The bulk of the essay deals with two early texts of Balthasar in which Nietzsche is a dominant figure, that is, Balthasar’s dissertation, Geschichte des eschatologischen Problems in der modernen Literatur (1928) and Apokalypse der deutschen Seele (1939). The centrality of Nietzsche in these texts makes it all the more shocking that by the mid 1940s Balthasar’s engagement has essentially come to an end. The hypothesis put forward is not that the questions raised by Nietzsche have ceased to have pertinence, but that Heidegger, who had also from the beginning been an important figure for Balthasar, essentially takes over Nietzsche’s apocalyptic provocation and thereby eclipses him. Thereafter, Heidegger becomes not only the emblem of the best that Phenomenology can do, but also of a form of Nietzschianism that is more subtle and complex in its negotiations with Christianity and precisely for that reason more dangerous.