Fakability of Implicit and Explicit Measures of the Big Five: Research findings from organizational settings

This study investigates the extent to which response distortion occur when implicit measures of personality traits are used in applied settings. Two groups composed of 58 security guards and 45 semiskilled workers, respectively, completed five Implicit Association Tests (IATs) for assessing the Big Five personality traits as a part of a personnel assessment program. They additionally completed a self‐report measure of the same personality dimensions. Scores on the Big Five IATs and self‐ratings of personality were obtained also by 52 volunteers who responded anonymously for research purposes. Results showed that participants under evaluative testing conditions scored significantly higher than volunteers on explicit measures of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. On the contrary, no significant differences were found in the Big Five IATs. Practical implications of findings and future research directions are discussed.     

Attachment and Relational Psychoanalysis: Bowlby According to Mitchell

In our contribution we would like to highlight that the model formulated by Mitchell in his last book entitled Relationality seems to suggest that he had come to realize that he could not exclude attachment theory entirely from his theoretical framework. Some of the most interesting interpretations of it—post-Bowlbian interpretations—regarded the dynamics of early attachment as a fundamental model of emotional regulation. We think that in Italy there has always been a significantly widespread sensitivity toward developmental and attachment themes also in more strictly psychoanalytic contexts, hence the specific slant of our reading of the most recent developments in relational psychoanalysis.     

Influences of Work-Family Interface on Job and Life Satisfaction

Research investigating the relationship between family and work domains, according to a reductionist approach, has traditionally focused on the negative aspects of the work-family relationship. However, over the past 15 years a number of studies have also focused on the positive aspects of family and work relationships and on the interactions between the work-family interface and outcomes such as job and life satisfaction. These research studies have made it possible to capture different facets of the relationship between family and working life, and to clarify the specific nature of these interactions. In the present study, we tested a model that included positive and negative interactions between work and family as predictors of job and life satisfaction. We also examined the role of some of the potential moderators (work engagement, organizational and family support) of these relationships, using a sample of 427 Italian employees working in public administration. In our analysis, we first tested the factorial structure of the work-family interface measure (Kinnunen et al. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 47, 149–162 2006). Factor analysis confirmed a four-factor model: negative work-to-family interface, negative family-to-work interface, positive work-to-family interface, and positive family-to-work interface. Secondly, we analyzed the relationship between the work-family interface, job satisfaction and life satisfaction. Path analysis showed that the factors involved in the work-family interface influenced directly and indirectly life satisfaction, job satisfaction and work engagement. This analysis also showed that work engagement had a direct strong effect on job satisfaction and a direct weaker effect on life satisfaction. This pattern of findings is consistent with a causal sequence in which the work-family interface (WIF) and family-work interface (FIW) can increase or reduce a satisfaction-specific domain. Our results highlight the importance of using a theoretical and empirical model that integrates and focuses on both the positive and negative aspects of the work-family relationship. Moreover, this pattern demonstrates the potential consequences of this influence on employees’ working life and general well-being.     

Framing the EU as Common Project vs. Common Heritage: Effects on Attitudes Towards the EU Deepening and Widening

The present study investigated the effects of framing the European Union (EU) as a common project vs. a common heritage on participants’ attitude towards EU integration (Experiment 1) and EU enlargement (Experiment 2). An additional aim was exploring whether the different frames affected the strength of identification with the EU, and if the framing effect on attitudes was mediated by participants’ identification with the EU and/or by their message evaluation (Experiment 3). Results showed that a common project-based frame was more effective than a common heritage-based frame in promoting positive attitude toward EU integration and enlargement, as well as participants’ identification with the EU, which mediated the framing effect on both attitudes; the mediation of participants’ message evaluation was not significant. The procedure of the last experiment was replicated on a British sample (Experiment 4), showing a similar pattern of results.     

Evaluating perception in driving simulation experiments

The use of driving simulation for vehicle design and driver perception studies is expanding rapidly. This is largely because simulation saves engineering time and costs, and can be used for studies of road and traffic safety. How applicable driving simulation is to the real world is unclear however, because analyses of perceptual criteria carried out in driving simulation experiments are controversial. On the one hand, recent data suggest that, in driving simulators with a large field of view, longitudinal speed can be estimated correctly from visual information. On the other hand, recent psychophysical studies have revealed an unexpectedly important contribution of vestibular cues in distance perception and steering, prompting a re-evaluation of the role of visuo-vestibular interaction in driving simulation studies.     

Ambivalence and Self‐Deception: Reframing the Debate

A multitude of scholars have recently argued that inherently ambivalent reactions ought to be accepted, and our drive toward overcoming them resisted, in order to preserve a reflectively accurate account of oneself. By contrast, I argue that a genuine commitment to overcome ambivalence aims less at avoiding than acknowledging and understanding, as well as possibly resolving, whatever conflicts led us to become ambivalent in the first place. On the other hand, certain forms of ‘reflective ambivalence’ are especially vulnerable to the very kind of self‐deception they aim to prevent.     

New protocol for dissociating visuospatial working memory ability in reaching space and in navigational space

Several studies have demonstrated that the processing of visuospatial memory for locations in reaching space and in navigational space is supported by independent systems, and that the coding of visuospatial information depends on the modality of the presentation (i.e., sequential or simultaneous). However, these lines of evidence and the most common neuropsychological tests used by clinicians to investigate visuospatial memory have several limitations (e.g., they are unable to analyze all the subcomponents of this function and are not directly comparable). Therefore, we developed a new battery of tests that is able to investigate these subcomponents. We recruited 71 healthy subjects who underwent sequential and simultaneous navigational tests by using an innovative sensorized platform, as well as comparable paper tests to evaluate the same components in reaching space (Exp. 1). Consistent with the literature, the principal-component method of analysis used in this study demonstrated the presence of distinct memory for sequences in different portions of space, but no distinction was found for simultaneous presentation, suggesting that different modalities of eye gaze exploration are used when subjects have to perform different types of tasks. For this purpose, an infrared Tobii Eye-Tracking X50 system was used in both spatial conditions (Exp. 2), showing that a clear effect of the presentation modality was due to the specific strategy used by subjects to explore the stimuli in space. Given these findings, the neuropsychological battery established in the present study allows us to show basic differences in the normal coding of stimuli, which can explain the specific visuospatial deficits found in various neurological conditions.     

Taming the runabout imagination ticket

The ‘puzzle of imaginative use’ (Kind and Kung in Knowledge through imagination, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016) asks: given that imagination is arbitrary escape from reality, how can it have any epistemic value? In particular, imagination seems to be logically anarchic, like a runabout inference ticket: one who imagines A may also imagine whatever B pops to one’s mind by free mental association. This paper argues that at least a certain kind of imaginative exercise—reality-oriented mental simulation—is not logically anarchic. Showing this is part of the task of solving the puzzle. Six plausible features of imagination, so understood, are listed. Then a formal semantics is provided, whose patterns of logical validity and invalidity model the six features.

     

Illness Perception and Well-Being Among Persons with Multiple Sclerosis and Their Caregivers

This study jointly examined illness beliefs held by persons with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) and caregivers in relation to well-being. A group of 68 PwMS and their caregivers completed the Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire, Psychological Well-being Scales, Satisfaction with Life Scale and Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule. Findings revealed that PwMS’ well-being was primarily predicted by their own illness beliefs, and that also caregivers’ well-being was primarily predicted by their own beliefs. Across the two groups, well-being was positively associated with their belief that they understood the disease, and inversely associated with their representations of negative emotions. In addition, among PwMS, well-being was inversely associated with the number of symptoms they specifically attributed to their illness, while among caregivers, well-being was positively associated with beliefs that treatment could control the disease. Based on the study findings, psychoeducational and cognitive-behavioral strategies are suggested to promote well-being among PwMS and caregivers.