Appraisals of self and situation as determinants of upward influencing tactics

This study considers subordinate upward influencing as a proactive behavior and applies this lens to an investigation into the contributions of appraisals of self and situation in predicting tactic choice. One hundred seventy‐eight employees assessed the frequency with which they used influencing tactics in interactions with their direct line manager. The results indicated that favorable appraisals of self were associated with increased use of rationality and unfavorable appraisal of situation were associated with increased the use of ingratiation, assertiveness, and upward appeal. While the use of rationality could be explained within approaches to positive proactive work behaviors, the use of the remaining five tactics could not. The results are interpreted within a wider perspective of proactive discretionary behaviors.     

Occupational Therapists' Perception of the Tree Theme Method™ as an Intervention in Psychosocial Occupational Therapy

This study investigated how occupational therapists experience utilization of the Tree Theme Method, an intervention based on creative activities and life-story telling and making. The Tree Theme Method is comprised of five sessions in which the therapist asks the client to paint symbolic trees, with specific themes representing their present life situation, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and the future. Nine occupational therapists in mental health care were asked about their experiences when using the Tree Theme Method. The informants formed two focus groups and each group was interviewed twice. Qualitative content analysis was used to identify five categories including: (1) therapeutic frames, (2) therapist requirements, (3) client requirements, (4) the therapeutic relationship, and (5) the Tree Theme Method as a multi-dimensional process. Overall the informants were satisfied with the intervention with some variation as to therapists' perception about the helpfulness of the tool. The Tree Theme Method was experienced as a structured method of starting a therapeutic process and initiating a therapist–client relationship. The therapeutic attitude, self-knowledge, and expert knowledge seemed to be important prerequisites for the therapists when using the Tree Theme Method intervention.     

From geometry to phenomenology

Richard Tieszen [Tieszen, R. (2005). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXX(1), 153–173.] has argued that the group-theoretical approach to modern geometry can be seen as a realization of Edmund Husserl’s view of eidetic intuition. In support of Tieszen’s claim, the present article discusses Husserl’s approach to geometry in 1886–1902. Husserl’s first detailed discussion of the concept of group and invariants under transformations takes place in his notes on Hilbert’s Memoir Ueber die Grundlagen der Geometrie that Hilbert wrote during the winter 1901–1902. Husserl’s interest in the Memoir is a continuation of his long-standing concern about analytic geometry and in particular Riemann and Helmholtz’s approach to geometry. Husserl favored a non-metrical approach to geometry; thus the topological nature of Hilbert’s Memoir must have been intriguing to him. The task of phenomenology is to describe the givenness of this logos, hence Husserl needed to develop the notion of eidetic intuition. The author wishes to thank Academy of Finland for financial assistance that enabled her to work on this article.     

Overshadowed cues have reduced ability to retroactively interfere with other cues

The present series of experiments explores the interaction between retroactive interference and cue competition in human contingency learning. The results of two experiments show that a cue that has been exposed to a cue competition treatment (overshadowing) loses part of its ability to retroactively interfere with responding to a different cue that was paired with the same outcome. These results pose problems for associative models of contingency learning and are also difficult to explain in terms of current theories of causal reasoning. Additionally, it is proposed that in light of the interaction between interference and cue competition, interference could be used as an indirect measure for the study of cue competition effects.     

Quality of Life and General Health Perception in Women with Obesity

The purpose of this study was to determine the differences in general health status and quality of life between patients who present “non-normative eating behaviours” (namely, binge eating disorder, night eating syndrome, sweet /fat food cravings and continuous nibbling) and patients without these eating behaviour characteristics. A cohort of 168 women with obesity, all candidates to bariatric surgery, aged between 15 and 65 (M = 39.04; SD = 10.86), with a body mass index ranging between 30.37 and 80.65 (M = 48.79; SD = 8.37), was studied. Participants answered to a clinical interview, to SF-36 and to ORWELL-97, after their informed consent. Results suggest that women with obesity reporting binge eating disorder, night eating syndrome and continuous nibbling show poorer general health status and worst quality of life than those who do not present these “non-normative eating behaviours”. Moreover, the general health status and the quality of life of patients with sweet/fat food cravings do not differ from those who do not report this eating behaviour. Nevertheless, patients reporting the eating behaviours studied do not differ from the others regarding their body mass index.     

Assessing Attachment to Parents and Peers in Middle Childhood: Psychometric Studies of the Portuguese Version of the People in My Life Questionnaire

The People in My Life questionnaire (PIML) is one of the few available self-report measures for assessing children’s representations of the relationship with attachment figures (parents and peers) in middle childhood. The current study presents validation studies of the PIML in a sample of Portuguese children aged between 8 and 12 years (N?=?314) and adolescents aged between 13 and 18 years (N?=?281). The original factor structure, composed of a second-order factor of attachment and three first-order factors (Trust, Communication, and Alienation), was confirmed for both scales (Parents Attachment and Peers Attachment) in the sample of children and replicated in the sample of adolescents using confirmatory factor analyses. The Portuguese version of the PIML showed adequate internal consistency and correlated as expected with measures of intrapersonal and interpersonal functioning (internalizing and externalizing problems, prosocial behavior, quality of life, self-compassion, and emotion regulation strategies). The PIML proved to be a psychometrically robust measure of children’s representations of their relationships with parents and peers, representing an important advance in the measurement of attachment in middle childhood.     

Psychometric Assessment of the Child Surgery Worries Questionnaire Among Portuguese Children

Worries are common in surgical patients, especially in children. The present study analyzed the factor structure and the psychometric properties of a Portuguese version of the Child Surgery Worries Questionnaire (CSWQ-P) in a Portuguese sample of 490 children. Exploratory factor analysis, conducted via principal axis factoring with oblimin rotation, provided evidence for a four-factor structure of the 21 item questionnaire. A confirmatory factor analysis was also conducted, showing the good fit of this solution. The CSWQ-P proved to have one more subscale than the original Spanish version CSWQ. Correlations with the children’s trait anxiety provided evidence of convergent validity for the CSWQ-P. Females also scored higher on worries than males on all subscales. Psychometric properties of this revised version of the CSWQ provided support for use with young children, and indicate the CSWQ-P has value for use in healthcare practice and in clinical research.     

The glass is not yet half empty: agitation but not <Emphasis Type="Italic">Varroa</Emphasis> treatment causes cognitive bias in honey bees

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are prone to judge an ambiguous stimulus negatively if they had been agitated through shaking which simulates a predator attack. Such a cognitive bias has been suggested to reflect an internal emotional state analogous to humans who judge more pessimistically when they do not feel well. In order to test cognitive bias experimentally, an animal is conditioned to respond to two different stimuli, where one is punished while the other is rewarded. Subsequently a third, ambiguous stimulus is presented and it is measured whether the subject responds as if it expects a reward or a punishment. Generally, it is assumed that negative experiences lower future expectations, rendering the animals more pessimistic. Here we tested whether a most likely negatively experienced formic acid treatment against the parasitic mite Varroa destructor also affects future expectations of honey bees. We applied an olfactory learning paradigm (i.e., conditioned proboscis extension response) using two odorants and blends of these odorants as the ambiguous stimuli. Unlike agitating honey bees, exposure to formic acid did not significantly change the response to the ambiguous stimuli in comparison with untreated bees. Overall evidence suggests that the commonest treatment against one of the most harmful bee pests has no detrimental effects on cognitive bias in honey bees.     

The Minho Word Pool: Norms for imageability,concreteness, and subjective frequency for 3,800 Portuguese words

Words are widely used as stimuli in cognitive research. Because of their complexity, using words requires strict control of their objective (lexical and sublexical) and subjective properties. In this work, we present the Minho Word Pool (MWP), a dataset that provides normative values of imageability, concreteness, and subjective frequency for 3,800 (European) Portuguese words—three subjective measures that, in spite of being used extensively in research, have been scarce for Portuguese. Data were collected with 2,357 college students who were native speakers of European Portuguese. The participants rated 100 words drawn randomly from the full set for each of the three subjective indices, using a Web survey procedure (via a URL link). Analyses comparing the MWP ratings with those obtained for the same words from other national and international databases showed that the MWP norms are reliable and valid, thus providing researchers with a useful tool to support research in all neuroscientific areas using verbal stimuli. The MWP norms can be downloaded along with this article or from http://p-pal.di.uminho.pt/about/databases.     

Estimating the effect of emotional intelligence in wellbeing among priests

Background/Objective: Emotional intelligence is a variable which has been the subject of significantly increased research in recent years. Relationships have been shown with both physical and psychological problems. The aim of this study is to analyse the direct and indirect effect that emotional intelligence exerts over the manifestation of physical and psychological clinical symptomatology and to severe disorders such as burnout syndrome in a professional group in which social function is fundamental. Method: So that, 881 Latin-American catholic priests (M_age = 45.89; SD_age = 11.58) were evaluated using the Trait Meta-Mood Scale-24, the Maslach Burnout Inventory-22 and the General Health Questionnaire-28. Results: Using path analysis, emotional intelligence, especially Attention and Emotional Clarity, shows a high effect on psychological and somatic issues. Conclusions: Thus, both specific disorders and general well-being are related to emotional intelligence. Providing effective emotional intelligence training sessions seems to be able to reduce possible physical and emotional disorders.