Memory for a dialectical and a nondialectical prose passage in young and older adults

Age differences in adults' processing of a dialectical or nondialectical prose passage were explored. Twenty young and 20 older adults read a dialectical or mechanistic passage and were tested for free recall and recognition after a 30-min delay (filled with vocabulary and paradigm belief scale). Older (vs. young) adults had significantly lower formistic and mechanistic scores and showed greater relative preference for relativistic and dialectical beliefs (paradigm scale). There were no age differences in amount of free recall or number of correct responses (hits) on recognition, but older adults produced more spontaneous dialectical distortions in recall of the mechanistic passage and more paradigm-congruent false alarms on recognition. There was also a move from absolute toward dialectical thinking on the paradigm scale and, among males, on the recognition measure. Dialectical scores (paradigm scale) were positively correlated, and mechanistic scores negatively correlated, with number of dialectical distortions on free recall (mechanistic passage), while dialectical scores were positively correlated with number of dialectical false alarms (dialectical passage).     

Religion and atrocity: the influence of religion on perpetrators,bystanders and victims during the Holocaust

Historical accounts of the Holocaust rarely pay regard to the impact of religion on the individual decision‐making process. Yet questions about how individuals perpetrated atrocities in the Final Solution stimulated research by Festinger, Kohlberg and Milgram which have contributed to developments in our understanding of decision making. It is the contention of this article that religion played an important role in individual thinking. The Holocaust occurred in the heart of Christian Europe, in societies that were actively religious. Thus, this article explores primary and secondary sources for evidence of the impact of religion on people at the time. Hilberg’s framework of perpetrators, bystanders and victims provides the structure for consideration. In each section issues are raised about the impact of religion in both interpreting and responding to events.     

Testing times: careers market policies and practices in England and the Netherlands

Careers work is a very political business. Since the early 1990s, successive governments in England and the Netherlands have persistently challenged those working in the careers sector to demonstrate the educational, social and economic value and impact of their work. In this context, the marketisation of career guidance policies and practices has expanded, with a growing assumption that market-based goods and services ensure greater responsiveness to consumer choice and offer better and/or more innovative services for lower prices. In this article, we do not intend to give a comparison of trends in England and the Netherlands. We only examine the impact of market principles applied to career guidance provision in both countries. Findings indicate such provision for young people is on a steady decline. Lessons learned from these two nations indicate that a market for quality career services does not exist in schools and colleges. As a result, marketisation and privatisation of career services have led to an impoverished and fragmented supply of services. Greater attention by governments in career guidance policies for young people (and adults) is necessary to reduce the widening gap between ‘the haves and have nots’ in society. Failure to reduce labour market mismatch through new forms of careers dialogue is not only damaging and costly for individuals, families and employers, but for the taxpayer too.     

The politics of time: Conservatives differentially reference the past and liberals differentially reference the future

Conservatives are thought to favor certainty and value tradition (suggesting a focus on the past), whereas liberals are thought to favor change (suggesting a focus on the future), even when it is associated with some degree of uncertainty. On this basis, two studies contrasted references to the past versus the future in language usage. Study 1 analyzed 600 texts from conservative and liberal websites. After adjusting for normative differences, a cross‐over interaction was obtained: Conservative posts referenced the past to a greater extent than the future and liberal posts referenced the future more than the past. A conceptually parallel cross‐over interaction was obtained in Study 2, which analyzed 145 State of the Union addresses. The temporal orientation of conservatives and liberals, then, appears qualitatively different.     

三种决策的概念辨析对我国医疗决策实践的启示

在医疗决策领域,相对于共享决策,还有代理决策、支持决策两个SDM概念。系统回顾与比较了三种SDM决策类型的概念起源、定义特征及应用领域,同时梳理了三种概念之间的层次关系及内涵异同。三种SDM都是在“以患者为中心”文化驱动下的医疗决策类型,但其适用人群不同,且存在一定的隶属关系。基于中西方文化背景差异,进一步探讨了三种SDM概念对我国医疗决策实践的启示与建议,旨在为我国医疗决策工作的完善与提高提供更多依据。

     

Refusal Self‐Efficacy Among SMART Recovery Members by Affiliation Length and Meeting Frequency

Using the Brief Situational Confidence Questionnaire, the authors examined the refusal self‐efficacy of 105 Self‐Management and Recovery Training (SMART Recovery) members according to their affiliation length and meeting frequency. Results demonstrated that longer affiliation with SMART Recovery and higher meeting frequency significantly enhanced substance refusal self‐efficacy.     

The role of career adaptabilities for mid-career changers

Career adaptability is mediated by personality factors and socio-psychological processes, with learning playing an important role. Using a five-fold career adapt-abilities competency framework (defined here as control, curiosity, commitment, confidence and concern), which was developed from the international quantitative study that is the focus of this special edition, an explicitly qualitative study of the career biographies of mid-career changers from two European countries was undertaken. Data from 64 in-depth interviews with adults in contrasting labor markets from Norway and the UK were analysed deductively, using a career adapt-abilities framework. Results demonstrate the utility of the framework, as well as how adaptive adults used both formal and informal learning to develop career adapt-ability competencies, over time, across occupations and occupational sectors. A key conclusion relates to how this career adapt-abilities competency framework could be used to motivate adults in mid-career to adopt behaviors that help them effect positive career change.     

Peripheral oxytocin administration buffers autonomic but not behavioral responses to environmental stressors in isolated prairie voles

Negative social experiences such as social stressors and isolation influence mental and physical illnesses, including affective disorders and heart disease. Studies focused on socially monogamous prairie voles can provide insight into neurobiological systems that underlie the consequences of negative social interactions. Female prairie voles were exposed to 28 days of social isolation or pairing with a female sibling (control). Voles were administered daily oxytocin [20 μg/50 μl, subcutaneous (sc)] or saline vehicle (50 μl, sc) for 14 days and exposed to two behavioral stressors [elevated plus maze (EPM) and resident-intruder test]. Brain tissue was collected for analysis of central peptide levels in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN). Isolation produced autonomic changes [increased heart rate (HR) and decreased HR variability) during both acute stressors and increased anxiety behaviors in the EPM. Oxytocin injection prevented the autonomic consequences of the acute stressors in isolated prairie voles, but did not affect the behaviors tested under the present conditions. Oxytocin had no effect on the behavioral or autonomic responsiveness in paired prairie voles. Oxytocin injection may exert a beneficial effect on autonomic responses to stressors in isolated animals through increasing the number of oxytocin-containing neurons and decreasing the number of corticotropin-releasing hormone-containing neurons in the PVN. Oxytocinergic mechanisms may serve to compensate for autonomic responses associated with chronic isolation and exposure to both social and non-social acute stressors.     

Internet-delivered behavioral intervention to increase physical activity in persons with multiple sclerosis: Sustainability and secondary outcomes

Physical activity is associated with many benefits, but persons with multiple sclerosis (MS) are less physically active than the general population. There is a critical need for research on methods of increasing and sustaining the physical activity levels of this population. This randomized controlled trial examined the efficacy of an Internet-delivered and theory-based behavioral intervention that was supplemented with video coaching for increasing and sustaining physical activity over time in persons with MS. Physically inactive, ambulatory persons with MS (N?=?45) were randomly assigned to intervention (n?=?22) or control (n?=?23) conditions and completed a battery of questionnaires before, after, and three months after a 12-week intervention period. Data analyses were conducted in PASW 18.0. Partial eta squared ([Formula: see text]) effect size indicated that there was a large, statistically significant condition-by-time interaction on physical activity ([Formula: see text]). Cohen's d effect sizes indicated that the intervention group had a large increase in physical activity after the 12-week trial (d?=?.98) that was sustained over a three-month follow-up (d?=?.79). The current study supports the efficacy of a behavioral intervention for increasing and sustaining physical activity in a sample of persons with MS.