A cross-cultural study of personality: Swedish and English children

Five hundred and thirty-one Swedish boys and 559 Swedish girls completed the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (J.EPQ) translated into Swedish by the authors (A.-L.v.K. and L.v.K.). Factor comparisons indicated virtually identical factors of Psychoticism (P) Extraversion (E), Neuroticism (N) and social desirability—Lie (L)—in Sweden as in England. Slight item additions produced scales with adequate reliabilities. Sex differences were in line with most studies, i.e. boys scoring higher than girlson Psychoticism (P) but lower on Neuroticism (N) and Lie (L). Finally, the only significant cross-cultural difference between Swedish and Engish children proved to be on Neuroticism (N) where the Swedish children had much lower scores than the English children.     

Work motivation among high school students before and during the economic recession in the Swedish labour market

In 1990, 2349 high school pupils from 21 high schools in the Stockholm, Uppsala and Södertälje regions answered a questionnaire concerning how important different characteristics of work were in their future job. The questionnaire also included an open question, “How would you describe an ideal job?” In 1993 the same questionnaire was answered by 1171 high school students. The two measurement occasions were separated by economic changes leading, from a condition of economic security and full employment, to a condition characterised by economic insecurity and high unemployment especially among young people. Results showed that the economic insecurity of 1993 lowered the students' ratings of the importance of all characteristics of work with the exception of the security of work. A strong gender factor influenced the ratings. Thus, the female students rated the importance of the characteristics of work higher than the male students did. The only exception concerned “good pay”, which was rated higher by the male. In 1993 these effects were less pronounced, although still evident. The motivational structure seemed to be unaffected by the economic insecurity. The same four motivational factors, i.e. (1) the expressive work goals, (2) the working conditions, (3) the benefits of work and (4) the social aspects of work, appeared in the analyses of both measurement occasions.     

Action,the foundation for cognitive development

It is argued that action constitutes the foundation for cognitive development. Action is a principal component of all aspects of cognitive development including social understanding. It reflects the motives of the child, the problems to be solved, the goals to be attained, and the constraints and possibilities of the child’s body and sensory‐motor system. Actions are directed into the future and their control is based on knowledge of what is going to happen next. The child’s sensory‐motor system is especially designed to facilitate the extraction of this knowledge. In addition, the infant is endowed with motives that ensure that these innate predispositions are transformed into a system of knowledge for guiding actions. By acting on the world, infants develop their cognition.