Authentic leadership and its relationships with work engagement and organizational citizenship behaviors in military units: The role of identification as a mediating variable

The objective of the study is to explore the relationship of authentic leadership with work engagement and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) in military units, measuring the mediating effect of personal identification with the leader and social identification with the military unit. We used the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique to analyze data from a sample of 225 Spanish military troops. The results showed that social identification with the military unit influenced the relationship of authentic leadership with the outcome variables.     

Persistent coordination patterns in a complex task after 10 years delay: Subtitle: How validate the old saying “Once you have learned how to ride a bicycle,you never forget!”

Motor learning studies have for a long time focused on performance variables (in terms of speed or accuracy) in assessing learning, transfer and retention of motor skills. We argue, however, that learning essentially resides in changes in coordination variables (in terms of qualitative organization of behavior) and that relevant tests for assessing the effectiveness of learning and retention should consider these variables. The aim of this experiment was to test the retention of a complex motor skill, after a long-term delay. Ten years ago, five participants were involved in an experiment during which they practiced for 39 sessions of ten 1-min trials on a ski-simulator. All participants volunteered for a retention test, ten years after, for one session of ten 1-min trials. Analyses focused on the oscillations of the platform of the simulator. Performance was assessed in terms of amplitude and frequency. Coordination was accounted for by an analysis of dynamical properties of the motion of the platform, and especially the nature of the damping function that was exploited for sustaining the limit cycle dynamics. Results showed a significant decrement in performance variables. In contrast, all participants adopted from the first trial onwards the coordination mode they learned 10 years ago. These results confirm the strong persistence of coordination modes, once acquired and stabilized in the behavioral repertoire. They also support the importance of coordination variables for a valid assessment of learning and retention.     

Phenomenology,psychopathology, and short‐term therapeutic outcome of 102 infants aged 0 to 12 months consecutively referred to a community‐based 0 to 3 mental health clinic

Infants ages 0 to 1 year consecutively referred for psychiatric treatment during the year 2005 were followed, and variables associated with diagnosis and short‐term outcome were assessed. Infants were evaluated using the Psychiatric Infant Navigator Chart and Evaluation that includes nosological diagnoses [Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood, (DC 0–3), Zero to Three, 1994] as well as risk and protective factors, treatment procedure, and outcomes. Seventy‐six percent of the infants had an Axis I diagnosis, with anxiety disorders and a mixed disorder of emotional expressiveness being the most frequent. Twenty‐five percent had an Axis II diagnosis. Multiple correspondence analyses showed that two dimensions corresponding grossly to DC 0–3 Axes I and II emerged. They emphasized three clinical profiles characterized by (a) good infant functioning, parent's awareness of their own difficulties, and a good outcome; (b) moderate child symptoms, overinvolved relating, and a good/intermediate outcome; (c) severe child symptoms, underinvolved relating, and a less favorable short‐term outcome, signaling the risk for developmental disorders. Among the associated risk factors were cumulative parental stress, maternal psychopathology, and family dysfunction. Clinical implications of these findings indicated that infants under the age of 1 year who are referred for mental health evaluation and intervention are a heterogeneous group in terms of both severity and prognosis. Clinicians should differentiate subgroups of young children to detect those infants at risk for persistent psychopathology.     

Emotion and recognition memory: the discrimination of negative information as an adaptive process

We studied the effect of emotion generated by IAPS (International Affective Picture System) pictures on incidental recognition of these pictures for short retention periods (15 min). Memorization distraction tasks and reaction time tasks were used together with short exposure times (2 seconds per picture) in order to prevent a high recognition rate that would impede testing for the effect of emotion on discrimination parameters (A′) and response bias (B′′D) (ceiling effect). We used 80 pictures representing the medium and high levels of two-dimensional emotional space. The results showed greater discrimination and a more conservative response style to unpleasant and medium arousal level pictures. These pictures produced higher confidence and lower response times in the recognition phase. The results can be explained by the negative content of the pictures and activation level effects on attentional processing and memory, and can be interpreted as a phenomenon that is evolutionarily adaptive.     

Translation and validation of the Spanish version of the "Echelle de Satisfaction des Besoins Psychologiques" in the sports context

The aim of the present research was to translate and to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Satisfaction of Psychological Needs Scale, using a sample of 284 athletes (204 male and 78 female). Results of the confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the correlated three-factor structure of the scale. Furthermore, the results showed evidence of convergence validity with the Basic Psychological Needs in Exercise Scale. The predictive validity was tested using a structural equation model in which task orientation climate predicted the three basic psychological needs and these, in turn, intrinsic motivation. Likewise, we documented evidence of reliability, analyzed as internal consistency and temporal stability. Results partially support the use of the Spanish version of the scale in sports.     

Neurobiological degeneracy: Supporting stability,flexibility and pluripotentiality in complex motor skill

This paper investigated neurobiological degeneracy of the motor system that emerged as a function of levels of environmental constraint. Fourteen participants performed a breaststroke-swimming task that required them to develop a specific biomechanically expert pattern and in turn provide the basis for a suitable task vehicle to study the functional role of movement variability. Inter-limb coordination was defined based on the computation of continuous relative phase between elbow and knee oscillators. Unsupervised cluster analysis on arm–leg coordination revealed the existence of different patterns of coordination when participants achieved the same task goal under different levels of environmental constraints (i.e. different amounts of forward resistances). In addition, clusters differed in terms of higher order derivatives (e.g., joint angular velocity, joint amplitude), suggesting an effective role for degeneracy in learning by allowing the exploration of the key relationships between motor organization and interacting constraints. There is evidence to suggest that neurobiological degeneracy supports the potential for motor re-organization to enhance motor learning.     

Longitudinal effects of two individual career counseling interventions on clients’ career decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic over a 1-year follow-up

This study assessed the effects of two individual career counseling interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic over a 1-year follow-up. Participants (n = 71) engaged either in four individual humanistic–psychodynamic (during winter 2021) or cognitive career counseling (during winter 2022) sessions at a university counseling clinic. Latent growth models indicated that clients experienced a significant reduction in their career decision difficulties and psychological distress and a significant increase in their life satisfaction over sessions and the 12 months following. Clients who received cognitive career counseling sessions experienced larger effects. Results highlight the utility of individual career counseling in times of crisis.