Employment as a Poverty Trap

Using an experiment conducted with 384 young Israelis, the authors find that if young people are actually working as unskilled workers, the status quo bias increases the premium that they require for giving up their jobs and seeking more education. This excess premium may make some individuals choose to remain employed as unskilled workers rather than pursue higher education. Such a decision may trap them in a life of poverty. The authors maintain that their results prompt a reexamination of the widely held belief that early employment is an advantage for young people.     

The Order of Dominance Among Conceptual Capacities: An Experimental Test of Heidbreder'S Hypothesis

College freshmen in an educational opportunity program were trained in an orientation program by behavior rehearsal techniques to cope with the social demands of some in-class and out-of-class situations. At the end of their freshman year, data were available on 48 male and 51 female black students and 23 male and 21 female white students. Trainees earned better grades than controls on the campus where training was offered but not at smaller branch campuses. Results suggest the importance of para-academic skills of meeting assignments and knowing when, where, and how to seek help. Academic performance may be enhanced by training in campus and classroom social skills.     

Efficacy of cognitive training programs based on new software technologies in patients with Alzheimer-type dementia

The study aims to assess the efficacy of the Big Brain Academy (BBA), a computerized cognitive training program (CT) based on video games, compared to the Integrated Psychostimulation Program (IPP), a classical CT tool for patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). A total of 45 patients with AD at the mild stage were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions. Two treatment groups were established, in which patients received either a stimulation program with BBA (EABB) or a traditional stimulation program (EAPI), based on paper-and-pencil tasks, for twelve weeks. A third group, the control group (EANT), did not receive any treatment during this period. The differential effectiveness of the programs was evaluated through pre-post design, considering neuropsychological, behavioral, and functional standard measures as outcome variables. The EABB group showed significantly slower rates of cognitive decline compared to the EAPI and EANT groups. Furthermore, the EABB group reported significantly greater decrease in depressive symptoms in comparison with the EAPI and EANT groups. The BBA program was more effective than IPP to reduce cognitive decline and depressive symptoms in patients with AD.     

Involuntary strategy-dependent dual task performance

Previous studies showed that some dual tasks can be performed simultaneously without costs. Yet, a variable SOA between the inputs to such tasks leads to strategic, often involuntary, prioritization of one of the two tasks. Here we explore the boundary conditions for this involuntary or exogenous strategy. In Experiment 1, subjects were initially trained on dual task performance where the input to the two tasks is presented simultaneously (0 SOA). We used two tasks that under such conditions can be performed without costs and indeed subjects displayed perfect sharing of the tasks. Subjects then performed the same two tasks but with a variable SOA (0, 50, 150, 800?ms). This manipulation led to a serial-like performance of the two tasks even in trials with 0 SOA. In Experiment 2, subjects participated in eight sessions. Within each session, they performed in alternation blocks with a fixed 0 SOA and blocks with a variable SOA. Subjects displayed perfect sharing in the pure 0 SOA blocks but performed the two tasks serially in the mixed SOA blocks despite receiving identical instructions. These findings demonstrate that task context is a powerful factor in dual task performance and may lead subjects to involuntarily exhibit dual task costs even in conditions where they can perform the tasks without any costs. Moreover, these findings strongly suggest that costs observed in PRP studies reflect the use of such exogenous strategies rather than a general structural dual task limitation.     

A Measure of the Stability of Activities in a Family Environment

The Stability of Activities in the Family Environment (SAFE) measure was developed to assess aspects of the construct of family stability. An earlier version of the SAFE was revised to improve its psychometric properties and better elaborate the construct that underlies the measure. College students completed the revised SAFE and other measures of family functioning with respect to their families of origin and measures of current adjustment. Findings support the reliability, internal consistency, and factor structure of the SAFE. It is suggested that the results of the factor analyses and findings that different aspects of family stability demonstrated different patterns of relationships to indices of family functioning, are consistent with the presumption guiding the development of the SAFE that families achieve stability in diverse ways. The validity of the SAFE was further supported by its relationship to measures of current self-esteem and depression.     

A serial test of the laterality of familiar face recognition

The purpose of the present study was to address the issue of laterality of familiar face recognition. Seventy-two participants judged familiar faces presented laterally or centrally for their "faceness," familiarity, occupation, and name (which represent four stages of familiar face processing) using one of three response modes-verbal, manual, or combined. The pattern of reaction times (RTs) implied a serial process of familiar face recognition. Centrally presented stimuli were recognized faster than laterally presented stimuli. No RT differences were found between the left and right visual fields (VFs) across all judgments and response modes. The findings were interpreted as supporting the notion that there are no significant hemispheric differences in familiar face recognition.     

Functional neuroimaging studies of human emotions

Neuroimaging studies with positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging have begun to describe the functional neuroanatomy of human emotion. Taken separately, specific studies vary in task dimensions and in type(s) of emotion studied, and are limited by statistical power and sensitivity. By examining findings across studies in a meta-analysis, we sought to determine if common or segregated patterns of activations exist in different emotions and across various emotional tasks. We surveyed over 55 positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging activation studies, which investigated emotion in healthy subjects. This paper will review observations in several regions of interest in limbic (eg, amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex) and paralimbic (eg, medial prefrontal cortex, insula) brain regions in emotional responding.     

Counseling young people contemplating intermarriage

Pastoral Psychology -     

Mental pain: a multidimensional operationalization and definition

An operationalization of mental pain is presented in three studies. The first study describes the operationalization of mental pain and the factor structure of the items produced by a content analysis of self-reports yielding a scale with nine factors: the experience of irreversibility, loss of control, narcissistic wounds, emotional flooding, freezing, estrangement, confusion, social distancing, and emptiness. Study 2 tested the relationship between mental pain and depression and anxiety in a normal population. Study 3 focused on the relationship between mental pain and coping. Mental pain is conceptualized as a perception of negative changes in the self and its functions that are accompanied by negative feelings. It is suggested that it can be meaningfully applied to the study of different mental states, life conditions, and transitions in life.