War exposure and post-traumatic stress as predictors of Portuguese colonial war veterans' physical health

The relationship between war exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been largely investigated but the impact of the combat experience on physical health has only recently merited attention. The authors investigated the relationship between war exposure and psychological and physical health among 350 Portuguese colonial war veterans. The role of current PTSD symptoms as a mediator of these relationships was also investigated. The results showed that 39% of the veterans met criteria for current PTSD diagnosis and psychological distress was present in half of the sample. Pain, fatigue, and sleep problems were the most reported physical symptoms and mental health and gastro-intestinal problems, the most reported illnesses. Combat exposure variables were significant predictors of current health. The results indicated that veterans with higher exposure to war trauma maintained higher current levels of psychological distress and presented more physical health problems and physical symptoms than those less exposed. Mediation analyses showed that current PTSD was a full mediator of the relationship between war exposure and physical health outcomes.     

Assessing Psychosocial Impairment in the Pediatric Emergency Department: Child/Caregiver Concordance

The objective of this study was to examine the level of agreement between child- and caregiver-reports of the child’s psychosocial problems presenting to a Pediatric Emergency Department (PED) using a validated screening tool. This was an anonymous, prospective, cross-sectional, multi-informant (child and caregiver) study assessing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral problems and physical complaints in children and adolescents presenting to a PED. Three-hundred and fifty-eight children and adolescents (8–18 years old) and their caregivers participated. Children completed the Youth-Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC-Y), while their caregivers completed the Pediatric Symptom Checklist–35 (PSC-35) to measure psychosocial impairment. The child’s physical complaints (e.g., chief complaint, chronicity, other medical problems, medications) and demographic information were assessed using an investigator-developed patient background questionnaire completed by the caregivers. Physical complaints (e.g., chief complaint, chronicity, other medical problems, medications) were assessed using an investigator-developed patient background questionnaire. Agreement between child- and caregiver- reports was analyzed using Cohen’s kappa coefficient. Differences between child and caregiver-reported scores were determined by t-tests. Poor to moderate agreement was found between child- and caregiver-reports of attention problems (κ = .355), externalizing problems (κ = .340), internalizing problems (κ = .065), and total PSC score (κ = .410). Both children and caregivers should complete the psychosocial screener to maximize the accuracy of assessment and the identification of impairment.     

Testing equivalence with repeated measures: tests of the difference model of two-alternative forced-choice performance

Solving theoretical or empirical issues sometimes involves establishing the equality of two variables with repeated measures. This defies the logic of null hypothesis significance testing, which aims at assessing evidence against the null hypothesis of equality, not for it. In some contexts, equivalence is assessed through regression analysis by testing for zero intercept and unit slope (or simply for unit slope in case that regression is forced through the origin). This paper shows that this approach renders highly inflated Type I error rates under the most common sampling models implied in studies of equivalence. We propose an alternative approach based on omnibus tests of equality of means and variances and in subject-by-subject analyses (where applicable), and we show that these tests have adequate Type I error rates and power. The approach is illustrated with a re-analysis of published data from a signal detection theory experiment with which several hypotheses of equivalence had been tested using only regression analysis. Some further errors and inadequacies of the original analyses are described, and further scrutiny of the data contradict the conclusions raised through inadequate application of regression analyses.     

The question of the other in French phenomenology

I would like to show how with Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas, we have to do with three different ways of understanding the experience of the other. For Sartre it is a visual experience, the experience of being looked at by the other, so that the experience of the other is understood as a confrontation; for Merleau-Ponty, the experience of the other necessarily implies coexistence and what he calls “intercorporeality,” so that for him the other is never to be found in front, but instead beside me, in reciprocity with me; for Levinas, the experience of the other is the experience of a non-reciprocity, of an assymetrical relation, because the experience of the other is for him an ethical and not an ontological experience, and because this experience of the face of the other is the experience of a speaking and not in the first place corporeal presence. There are consequently three different ways of finding an access to the other : the look for Sartre, intercorporeality for Merleau-Ponty and the face for Levinas.     

Innovative moments and poor outcome in narrative therapy

Aims: To analyse a poor outcome case of narrative therapy with a woman victim of intimate violence. Method: The Innovative Moments Coding System: version 1 was applied to all sessions to track the innovative moments (i‐moments) in the therapeutic process. I–moments are the narrative details that occur in psychotherapeutic conversations that are outside the influence of the problematic narrative. This research aims to describe the processes involved in the stability of meanings in psychotherapy through a dialogical approach to meaning making. Findings: Contrarily to what usually occurs in good outcome cases, re‐conceptualization i‐moments are absent. Moreover, two specific types of i‐moments emerged with higher duration: reflection and protest. Qualitative analysis showed that the potential meanings of these i‐moments were surpassed by a return to the problematic narrative. Conclusion: The therapeutic stability seems to be maintained by a systematic return to the problematic narrative after the emergence of novelties. This process was referred from a dialogical perspective as a mutual in‐feeding of voices, one that emerges in the i‐moment and another one that supports the problematic narrative, which is maintained by an oscillation between these two types of voices during therapy.     

Portuguese-Canadian Emigrant Descendents in Multicultural Canada: Ambiguous Identity in a Sure-Footed Nation or Cultural Awareness in an Uncertain Country?

This paper examines the ways the descendents of Portuguese-Canadian immigrants contemplate and formulate their identities. Through qualitative, open-ended interviews, the research demonstrates how these individuals contest ideas of ‘being Portuguese’ and ‘being Canadian’ within the frameworks of the Canadian multicultural policy. Refusing to be positioned outside the nation and Anglo/Francophone conformity, these individuals produce their own meanings of identity by working through their own personally identified multiethnic bodies to the national body politic, where some of them see their own selves as intrinsically ‘multicultural’ and contributors to the very definition of a Canadian identity. Challenging the tropes of the Canadian multicultural narrative, these descendents, thus, develop nuanced models of cultural citizenship, illustrating that national identities are formed and transformed in relation to representation. Through the process of narrative analysis, my endeavour of this article are twofold: on one hand, to illuminate the role of these individuals who, as active actors, are shaped by the social worlds they delve in and, on the other, to explicate how the roles played out by these actors can contribute to the construction of ‘a Canadian identity’.     

Speaking to the trained ear: musical expertise enhances the recognition of emotions in speech prosody

Language and music are closely related in our minds. Does musical expertise enhance the recognition of emotions in speech prosody? Forty highly trained musicians were compared with 40 musically untrained adults (controls) in the recognition of emotional prosody. For purposes of generalization, the participants were from two age groups, young (18-30 years) and middle adulthood (40-60 years). They were presented with short sentences expressing six emotions-anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise-and neutrality, by prosody alone. In each trial, they performed a forced-choice identification of the expressed emotion (reaction times, RTs, were collected) and an intensity judgment. General intelligence, cognitive control, and personality traits were also assessed. A robust effect of expertise was found: musicians were more accurate than controls, similarly across emotions and age groups. This effect cannot be attributed to socioeducational background, general cognitive or personality characteristics, because these did not differ between musicians and controls; perceived intensity and RTs were also similar in both groups. Furthermore, basic acoustic properties of the stimuli like fundamental frequency and duration were predictive of the participants' responses, and musicians and controls were similarly efficient in using them. Musical expertise was thus associated with cross-domain benefits to emotional prosody. These results indicate that emotional processing in music and in language engages shared resources.     

Interpersonal distance regulates functional grouping tendencies of agents in team sports

The authors examined whether, similar to collective agent behaviors in complex, biological systems (e.g., schools of fish and colonies of ants), performers in team sports displayed functional coordination tendencies, based on local interaction rules during performance. To investigate this issue, they used videogrammetry and digitizing procedures to observe interpersonal interactions in common 4 versus 2 + 2 subphases of the team sport of rugby union, involving 16 participants aged between 16 and 17 years of age. They observed pattern-forming dynamics in attacking subunits (n = 4 players) attempting to penetrate 2 defensive lines (n = 2 players in each). Data showed that within each attacking subunit, the 4 players displayed emergent functional grouping tendencies that differed between the 2 defensive lines. Results confirmed that grouping tendencies in attacking subunits of team games are sensitive to different task constraints, such as relative positioning to nearest defenders. It was concluded that running correlations were particularly useful for measuring the level of interpersonal coordination in functional grouping tendencies within attacking subunits.     

Citizenship and withdrawal in the workplace: relationship between organizational citizenship behavior, intention to leave current job and intention to leave the organization

This study investigates the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and employee intention to leave the organization and current job using a sample of French employees. A survey was sent to 1,200 alumni of a business school in France. Participation in the study was voluntary. The participants were 355 working adults with French citizenship. This paper provides several interesting findings. While no relationship was found between altruism and intention to leave both the organization and the current job, sportsmanship, civic virtue and helping others emerged as the strongest predictors of intention to leave the organization and intention to leave the current job. Results are discussed.     

Duration discrimination by musicians and nonmusicians

This study investigated the effects of stimulus modality, standard duration, sex, and laterality in duration discrimination by musicians and nonmusicians. Seventeen musicians (M age = 24.1 yr.) and 22 nonmusicians (M age = 26.8 yr.) participated. Auditory (1,000 Hz) and tactile (250 Hz) sinusoidal suprathreshold stimuli with varying durations were used. The standard durations tested were 0.5 and 3.0 sec. Participants discriminated comparison stimuli which had durations slightly longer and shorter than the standard durations. Difference limens were found by the method of limits and converted to Weber fractions based on the standard durations. Musicians had lower, i.e., better, Weber fractions than nonmusicians in the auditory modality, but there was no significant difference between musicians and nonmusicians in the tactile modality. Auditory discrimination was better than tactile discrimination. Discrimination improved when the standard duration was increased both for musicians and nonmusicians. These results support previous findings of superior auditory processing by musicians. Significant differences between discrimination in the millisecond and second ranges may be due to a deviation from Weber's law and the discontinuity of timing in different duration ranges reported in the literature.