Effects of personality, rearing styles and social values on adolescents’ socialisation process

This study was designed to investigate the relationships of the socialisation process with the Big-Five personality traits, empathy, parent-rearing styles and social values. The main aim was to detect which variables predict better socialisation outcomes. A socialisation battery for adolescents (BAS-3), the Big-Five Questionnaire (BFQ), Bryant’s Index of Empathy (IECA), the Egna Minnen av Barndoms Uppfostran-My memories of upbringing (EMBU) and a Social Values Inventory (SVI) were applied to 832 Spanish adolescents. Also, 134 parent couples agreed to fill out the version of the socialisation battery for adolescents’ parents (BAS-2). Results show that personality dispositions, parent-rearing styles and social values were related to socialisation reported by children. Patterns of relationships showed that different variables account for different socialisation outcomes. However, when these variables were related to the socialisation outcomes reported by parents, relationships were considerably lower. The implications of the present study are discussed.     

Perceptions of Wellness From Adults With Mobility Impairments

The purpose of this study was to describe the perceptions of wellness from adults with mobility impairments by using phenomenological‐heuristic inquiry. The primary research question was, how do adults with mobility impairments perceive wellness? Eight participants were interviewed, and 6 core themes emerged: overcoming barriers, pain management, psychological wellness, physical activity and nutrition, social connectedness and family support, and spirituality. Implications for counselors and counselor educators and suggestions for future research are presented.     

Using Motivational Monitoring to Evaluate the Efficacy of Self-disclosure and Self-involving Interventions

Self-disclosures and self-interventions are generally considered useful, although their role remains controversial. This is mainly due to the heterogeneity of research findings on this topic, characterized by the lack of a clear definition of self-disclosure and of systematic and effective methods to evaluate the short- and long-term effects of such interventions. To clarify the concept of self-disclosure, it is essential to understand whether its definition comprehends different interventions, which may have different effects. An accurate and reliable evaluation of such effects may allow clinicians and researchers to differentiate among different kinds of self-disclosures. In this theoretical article, we propose a method to evaluate the clinical efficacy of self-disclosures interventions. This method is based upon the monitoring of motivational systems (Liotti, 2005), which allows therapists to assess the cooperative attunement between patient and therapist in real-time. Our central assumption is that the evaluation of the cooperative attunement between patient and therapist, as well as the patient’s metacognitive functioning, is primary to assess the use of clinical interventions. Indeed, these factors – either acting on their own or synergistically – are the mark, the essence, and the reflection of the therapeutic alliance, which is the strongest predictor of treatment’s outcome.

     

Are crossmodal correspondences relative or absolute? Sequential effects on speeded classification

Crossmodal correspondences have often been demonstrated using congruency effects between pairs of stimuli in different sensory modalities that vary along separate dimensions. To date, however, it is still unclear the extent to which these correspondences are relative versus absolute in nature: that is, whether they result from pre-defined values that rigidly link the two dimensions or rather result from flexible values related to the previous occurrence of the crossmodal stimuli. Here, we investigated this issue in a speeded classification task featuring the correspondence between auditory pitch and visual size (e.g., congruent correspondence between high pitch/small disc and low pitch/large disc). Participants classified the size of the visual stimuli (large vs. small) while hearing concurrent high- or low-pitched task-irrelevant sounds. On some trials, visual stimuli were paired instead with “intermediate” pitch, that could be interpreted differently according to the auditory stimulus on the preceding trial (i.e., as “lower” following the presentation of a high pitch tone, but as “higher” following the presentation of a low pitch tone). Performance on sequence-congruent trials (e.g., when a small disc paired with the intermediate-pitched tone was preceded by a low pitch tone) was compared to sequence-incongruent trials (e.g., when a small disc paired with the intermediate-pitch tone was by a high-pitched tone). The results revealed faster classification responses on sequence-congruent than on sequence-incongruent trials. This demonstrates that the effect of the pitch/size correspondence is relative in nature, and subjected to trial-by-trial interpretation of the stimulus pair.     

Spatial offloading in multiple task monitoring

Coordinating multiple tasks requires a high degree of cognitive control, and individuals with limited executive functions often show difficulties in everyday multitasking. We tested the hypothesis that demands on executive control can be alleviated by internally representing the temporal pattern of goals and deadlines as spatial relations. In two experiments, participants completed a multitasking session by monitoring deadlines of four clocks running at different rates, along with separate tasks of executive functioning and spatial ability. In Experiment 1, individual and gender-related differences in spatial ability (mental rotation) predicted multitasking performance, beyond the contributions of both the updating and inhibition components of executive functioning, and even when spatial cues were eliminated from the layout of the monitoring task. Experiment 2 extended these findings by showing that concurrent spatial load impaired task monitoring accuracy, and that these detrimental effects were accentuated when spatial abilities were compromized due to fluctuation in female sex hormones. These findings suggest that multiple task monitoring involves working memory-related functions, but that these cognitive control demands can be offloaded by relying on spatial relation processes.     

Toward the Fullness of Christ: A Catholic Vision of Ecumenism

This article locates the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's recent document Dominus Iesus against the background of great ecumenical advance in North America and elsewhere and a series of highly encouraging ecumenical statements published by John Paul II. Its most contentious statement is a reiteration and clarification of the Vatican II teaching in Lumen Gentium that the church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. It distinguishes among churches in the proper sense, with valid episcopate and eucharist, and defective ecclesial communities. The church of Christ cannot subsist in them but only in the Catholic Church. The article points out, nevertheless, that since all these bodies are recognized as having elements of the church, the operation of grace is still ecclesial and not individual and secondly that a pneumatologically orientated Christology sees ecumenism as a response in grace to the divine economy.     

Sex differences in romantic attachment: a meta-analysis

This article presents the first meta-analysis of sex differences in the avoidance and anxiety dimensions of adult romantic attachment, based on 113 samples (N = 66,132) from 100 studies employing two-dimensional romantic attachment questionnaires (Experiences in Close Relationships, Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised, and Adult Attachment Questionnaire). Overall, males showed higher avoidance and lower anxiety than females, with substantial between-study heterogeneity. Sex differences were much larger in community samples (bivariate D = .28) than in college samples (D = .12); web-based studies showed the smallest sex differences (D = .07) in the opposite direction. Sex differences also varied across geographic regions (overall Ds = .10 to .34). Sex differences in anxiety peaked in young adulthood, whereas those in avoidance increased through the life course. The relevance of these findings for evolutionary models of romantic attachment is discussed, and possible factors leading to underestimation of sex differences are reviewed.     

Psychometric properties of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index in Spanish child and adolescent population

This article analyses the dimensions of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980). The sample comprised 721 Spanish participants between 9 and 16 years old. Diverse exploratory factor analyses were conducted as the basis for the final confirmatory factor analysis, through self-report. The results supported a structure with 5 first-order main factors (Intellectual empathy, Positive emotional empathy, Disorganized emotional empathy, Virtual empathy, and Impassiveness), where the two first factors are nested in a second-order dimension: "Considerate Social Style". The psychometric characteristics of the instrument were adequate. The proposed model is a new alternative to conceptualize the factor structure of empathy.     

Building the boundaries of a science: First representations of Italian social psychology between 1875 and 1954

The present study embraces the critical traditions of "New History" and of social representations theory articulated with the mainstream historiographical tradition of a bibliometric approach. The historical analysis deals with the early representations of Italian social psychology articulated and disseminated by some of the main Italian scientific-cultural and philosophical journals. We examined seven journals published between 1875 and 1954, and gathered 2,030 texts dealing with the various forms of social and collective psychology. We have applied a grid of content analysis whose data have been transcribed to a numerical file. At the same time, we have created a textual file containing the titles of the contributions as well as the names of the authors and scholars reviewed. The two files have been processed by SPAD-T for a correspondence analysis in which both lexical data and category variables have been considered as active variables. Through the scree-test, two factors that explain 18.90% of the variance have been singled out. Their combination has produced a factorial plan able to highlight three distinct areas differently characterized from journals and years. The results are also discussed with regard to the contextual historical frame.