“If It Helps,I’ll Carry On”: Factors Supporting the Participation of Native and Immigrant Youth in Belgium and Germany

In this article we propose looking into some factors for Civic Participation and the intention to continue to participate among local (Study I) and immigrant (Study II) young people living in Belgium and Germany. In Study I, 1,079 young people (M_age = 19.23, 44.9% males) completed a self-report questionnaire asking about their Civic Participation. Multiple linear regressions reveal (a) evidence of a pool of variables significantly linked to Civic Participation: Institutional Trust, Collective-Efficacy, Parents’ and Peers’ Support, Political Interest, Motivations and (b) that Civic Participation, along with the mediation of the Participation's Efficacy, explains the Intention to Continue to Participate. An explanatory model was constructed on participation and the Intention to Continue to Participate on behalf of the native youth. This model is invariant between the two countries. In Study II, 276 young Turkish immigrants (M_age = 20.80, 49.3% males) recruited in Belgium and Germany filled out the same questionnaire as in Study I. The same analysis was conducted as for Study I, and they provided the same results as the native group, highlighting the invariance of the model between natives and immigrants. Applicative repercussions are discussed.     

Direct Perception Requires an Animal-Dependent Concept of Specificity and of Information

Specificity and information are at center stage in ecological psychology. Nevertheless, the usual theorizing on these concepts may have made the problem of accounting for perception and action more difficult by so far underestimating the role of animals as both meaning-detectors and meaning-determiners. The usual understanding of information and specificity in ecological psychology seems neither necessary nor even compatible with ecological premises and empirical findings. I argue that a reframing of these concepts to fully take animals into account is necessary to explain perception of action-specific meanings. The reframing proposed converges on ideas from developmental systems theory and in no way concedes to inputs-followed-by-processing-followed-by-representation models. Fully acknowledging the animal for properly defining information over the animal-environment system poses no threat lawfulness, realism, or direct perception. It also invites serious consideration of self-organization and interactivism as sources for further development of ecological science.     

Expressed Emotion,Parental Stress,and Family Dysfunction Among Parents of Nonclinical Italian Children

Expressed emotion (EE) is an index of the amount of emotion typically displayed by a family member or caretaker characterized by high emotional involvement, hostility or criticism. The aims of the current study were (a) to examine EE, stress and helplessness in childcare, and family functioning in mothers and fathers of elementary and junior high school children without clinical mental health problems living in a “nonclinical” family context; (b) to assess relationships between child age, gender, socio-economic status and EE; and (c) to investigate whether there are some factors—in a “normal family” context—that play a crucial role in the quality of EE. EE, assessed using the Five Minute Speech Sample (FMSS), and questionnaires assessing parenting alliance, family functioning, parenting stress index, and the parent’s state of helplessness in caring for the child were completed by a community-based Italian sample of mothers and fathers of children (N = 381) aged 6–14 years (M = 9.8, SD = 2.25). As expected, low rates in all FMSS variables were found for mothers and fathers, without significant differences between them. Mothers and fathers who showed high EE scores reported higher family non-adaptive functioning. Mothers also reported higher parental stress and higher Helplessness in caring for the child. Mothers’ stress and fathers’ reports of higher family non-adaptive functioning were the most consistent predictors of EE. Further research is needed to highlight associations between EE and family functioning.     

Is naming faces different from naming objects? Semantic interference in a face- and object-naming task

A current debate regarding face and object naming concerns whether they are equally vulnerable to semantic interference. Although some studies have shown similar patterns of interference, others have revealed different effects for faces and objects. In Experiment 1, we compared face naming to object naming when exemplars were presented in a semantically homogeneous context (grouped by their category) or in a semantically heterogeneous context (mixed) across four cycles. The data revealed significant slowing for both face and object naming in the homogeneous context. This semantic interference was explained as being due to lexical competition from the conceptual activation of category members. When focusing on the first cycle, a facilitation effect for objects but not for faces appeared. This result permits us to explain the previously observed discrepancies between face and object naming. Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1, with the exception that half of the stimuli were presented as face/object names for reading. Semantic interference was present for both face and object naming, suggesting that faces and objects behave similarly during naming. Interestingly, during reading, semantic interference was observed for face names but not for object names. This pattern is consistent with previous assumptions proposing the activation of a person identity during face name reading.     

Connecting Personal History and Organizational Context: Suggestions for Developing Educational Programs for Youth Soccer Coaches

Literature underscores the complex role of coaches in sport organizations, especially in youth sectors. Their need for support, not only on the technical level, is emerging. In recent years an interesting international debate has evolved regarding what education is most suitable to support coach development. The article intends to enter this debate by proposing an educational model for youth soccer coaches. This educational proposal is the outcome of reflection that originated from various experiences with about 110 Italian youth soccer coaches over the past six years. The first part is dedicated to a review of the literature on coaching education, and the second to the educational model presented (e.g., theoretical background, characteristics, setting, outcomes, and considerations regarding the management of this educational process). The strength of this model was precisely to have put some recurrent issues in dialogue with the specific organizational contexts in which the educational programs were implemented.     

Life Design Counseling outcome and process: A case study with an adolescent

This article aims to explore the relationship between clients' narrative transformation and the promotion of vocational decidedness and career maturity in a mid-adolescent case of Life Design Counseling (LDC). To assess LDC outcomes the Vocational Certainty Scale and the Career Maturity Inventory — Form C were used before and after the intervention. To intensively analyze the process of LDC change two measures of narrative change were used: the Innovative Moments Coding System (IMCS), as a measure of innovation emergence, and the Return to the Problem Coding System (RPCS), as a measure of ambivalence towards change. The results show that the three LDC sessions produced a significant change in vocational certainty but not in career maturity. Findings confirm that the process of change, according to the IMCS, is similar to the one observed in previous studies with adults. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Interpretations of Spinoza in early Russian Marxism

Studies in East European Thought - The roots of the controversial readings of Spinoza during Soviet times date back to the history of Russian Marxism. Spinoza was a most influential figure whom...     

Does the character-based dimension of stories impact narrative processing? An event-related potentials (ERPs) study

Cognitive Processing - This event-related potentials (ERPs) study investigated online processes of integration of information relating to characters in narrative comprehension. The final sample...