Psychological and Social Characteristics Associated with Religiosity in Women’s Health Initiative Participants

Measures of religiosity are linked to health outcomes, possibly indicating mediating effects of associated psychological and social factors. We examined cross-sectional data from 92,539 postmenopausal participants of the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study who responded to questions on religious service attendance, psychological characteristics, and social support domains. We present odds ratios from multiple logistic regressions controlling for covariates. Women attending services weekly during the past month, compared with those not attending at all in the past month, were less likely to be depressed [OR = 0.78; CI = 0.74–0.83] or characterized by cynical hostility [OR = 0.94; CI = 0.90–0.98], and more likely to be optimistic [OR = 1.22; CI = 1.17–1.26]. They were also more likely to report overall positive social support [OR = 1.28; CI = 1.24–1.33], as well as social support of four subtypes (emotional/informational support, affection support, tangible support, and positive social interaction), and were less likely to report social strain [OR = 0.91; CI = 0.88–0.94]. However, those attending more or less than weekly were not less likely to be characterized by cynical hostility, nor were they less likely to report social strain, compared to those not attending during the past month.     

Early learning shapes the memory networks for arithmetic: evidence from brain potentials in bilinguals

Language and math are intertwined during children's learning of arithmetic concepts, but the importance of language in adult arithmetic processing is less clear. To determine whether early learning plays a critical role in the math-language connection in adults, we tested retrieval of simple multiplication in adult bilinguals who learned arithmetic in only one language. We measured electrophysiological and behavioral responses during correctness judgments for problems presented as digits or as number words in Spanish or English. Problems presented in the language in which participants learned arithmetic elicited larger, more graded, and qualitatively different brain responses than did problems presented in participants' other language, and these responses more closely resembled responses for digits, even when participants' other language was more dominant. These findings suggest that the memory networks for simple multiplication are established when arithmetic concepts are first learned and are independent of language dominance in adulthood.     

Conceptualizing Professional Diaspora: International Medical Graduates in Canada

This paper applies the concept of diaspora to the analysis of the creation and maintenance of an ethnically diverse community of internationally educated medical graduates residing in Canada. Traditionally, the research on diaspora concerns ethnic communities that preserve their homeland ties while residing in foreign countries. We suggest, however, that ethnic roots are not imperative for the analysis of diasporic communities when other forms of shared values and meanings can become a basis for creation of collective identity. Reconfiguring both the homeland and host country as places of geographical and professional belonging provides opportunity to conceptualize an ethnically diverse group of immigrant physicians residing in Canada as professional diaspora. Probing the interviews with 67 international medical graduates living in Canada, we demonstrate (1) how they create medical diaspora, (2) what myths and sensitivities they share in constructing their professional and/or geographic homelands, and (3) the relationship they develop with their hosting society. We suggest that in spite of the increasing mobility of internationally educated health care providers, the analysis of professional diasporas could become a useful tool for analyzing complex relationships between home countries, hosting countries, and international travelers.     

Grounding compositional symbols: no composition without discrimination

The classical computational conception of meaning has been challenged by the idea that symbols must be grounded on sensorimotor processes. A difficult question arises from the fact that grounding representations cannot be symbolic themselves but, in order to support compositionality, should work as primitives. This implies that they should be precisely identifiable and strictly connected with discriminable perceptual features. Ideally, each representation should correspond to a single discriminable feature. The present study was aimed at exploring whether feature discrimination is a fundamental requisite for grounding compositional symbols. We studied this problem by using Integral stimuli, composed of two interacting and not separable features. Such stimuli were selected in Experiment 1 as pictures whose component features are easily or barely discriminable (Separable or Integral) on the basis of psychological distance metrics (City-block or Euclidean) computed from similarity judgments. In Experiment 2, either each feature was associated with one word of a two-word expression, or the whole stimulus with a single word. In Experiment 3, the procedure was reversed and words or expressions were associated with whole pictures or separate features. Results support the hypothesis that single words are best grounded by Integral stimuli and composite expressions by Separable stimuli, where a strict association of single words with discriminated features is possible.     

Factor analysis of a Venezuelan fear survey schedule

A Fear Survey Schedule, developed for use by university students in Venezuela, was administered to 871 first-year students at the Simón Bolivar University, Caracas, and subjected to several analyses to identify its factorial structure. Five factors were identified in the male group: Fear of aversive interpersonal events; of Violence and physical assault; of Loss of self-control; of Injuries and surgical operations; and of Animals and insects. Seven factors were identified in the female group, four of them coincided with the male group: Fear of interpersonal events; of Animals and insects; of Injuries and surgery; of Responsibility; of Death and physical threats; of Doctors and hospitals; of Violence and physical assault. The results were compared to those obtained with similar fear surveys of North American and Israeli University students.     

Critical Consciousness: An Alternative Pathway for Positive Personal and Social Development

This paper presents a conceptual model of the integrative psychological construct of critical consciousness (CC), defined as a moral awareness which propels individuals to disembed from their cultural, social, and political environment, and engage in a responsible critical moral dialogue with it, making active efforts to construct their own place in social reality and to develop internal consistency in their ways of being. The ontogeny of CC is analyzed in terms of the synergistic interaction between its two main components, structural developmental and moral motivation. The paper describes the cross-cultural interview research which allowed the elaboration of the CC developmental pathway. It posits the dimension of moral motivation as distinguishing the CC pathway, and illustrates the continuum between predominantly moral and expediency motivation through brief case vignettes. The paper differentiates three developmental macrolevels of CC, and illustrates through case vignettes two alternatives of social consciousness at the level of conventional morality—CC and non-CC. Some possible sources of moral motivation in personal history and biography are discussed.     

Indirect majority and minority influence: An exploratory study

In a 2 × 2 design, 85 subjects were asked to estimate the size of angles (direct influence) that were either 90 or 85°, after being confronted with incorrect judgements of a majority (88 per cent) or a minority (12 per cent) of people estimating the angles at 50°. Additionally, pre- and post-test measures were used to establish indirect influence on subjects' judgements pertaining to acute angles (i.e. on the estimation of the length of lines constituting the angles, and on the imaginary weight of figures represented by these angles). Overall, little direct influence is observed. This may partly be due to the introduction of a denial of the credibility of the source in all conditions. In fact, some evidence of direct influence is only found in the majority–85° angles condition. An instance of indirect influence (on the estimation of length of lines) appeared as the result of a majority stance when the angles in the experimental phase were 90°. When these angles were 85°, indirect minority influence (on the estimation of weight of figures) was observed. These effects had been predicted on the basis of the hypothesis stating that indirect majority influence would be possible when subjects expected consensus on the correct response (in the 90° angles condition), without being able to reach consensus at the manifest level (because of the denial and the restriction imposed by the clear shape of 90° angles). Indirect minority influence was hypothesized to be stronger in a situation that allows for diverse responses (i.e. for 85° angles).     

Atypical development of language and social communication in toddlers with Williams syndrome

Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder which results in an uneven cognitive profile. Despite superior language compared to other syndromes in the phenotypic outcome, toddlers with WS are as delayed in their language onset and early linguistic development as are toddlers with other syndromes. The cause of this delay in WS is as yet unknown. In a series of experiments, we examined whether atypical socio‐interactive precursors to language could contribute to the explanation of the late language onset and atypical developmental pathways observed in WS. Experiment 1 showed that despite superficially good social skills, toddlers with WS were only proficient at dyadic interaction. They were impaired in triadic interaction, essential for the referential uses of language, and showed none of the correlations between socio‐interactive markers and language seen in the typical controls. Experiment 2 focused on the comprehension and production of referential pointing. Again, the WS group was impaired, despite vocabulary levels higher than those of typically developing controls. Finally, Experiment 3 examined fine motor skills. The WS lack of pointing could not be explained in terms of motor impairments, since the WS toddlers were proficient at fine motor control, such as the pincer grip. Overall, our data indicate that the early stages of WS language follow an atypical pathway. The findings challenge the frequent claims in the literature that individuals with Williams syndrome have preserved linguistic and social skills.     

Development of a scale to measure leadership capacity of players in sports teams

This study describes the process of developing a scale to measure the leadership capacity of players in sports teams. Research into sports leadership has focused almost exclusively on the formal leadership of the coach, in which the studies by Chelladurai, with his five-factor model, have become an essential point of reference. Nevertheless, hardly any research has been carried out into the leadership that certain players exercise over the other team members. For this purpose, a sample of 143 male basketball players was used; these participants were asked to evaluate the characteristics of the sports leader over a total of 54 indicators. Firstly, explanatory factor analysis was performed with participants' responses, using principal axis and oblique rotation methods. The factor structure obtained was then subjected to confirmatory factorial analysis, enabling us to propose a Sports Leader Evaluation Scale (EELD, in Spanish) with 18 items grouped into 3 factors, denominated empathy and responsibility, assertiveness, and impulsiveness. Satisfactory fit indices were obtained for the model, for the reliability of items and for the internal consistency of factors.