Examining the Psychometric Properties of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale in Two Spanish Multi‐occupational Samples

The aim of this study was to provide some evidence of reliability and validity of the 15‐item Spanish version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) between two multi‐occupational samples. In two different studies, 525 human services employees (study 1; males = 233; females = 292) and 409 multi‐occupational employees (study 2; males = 179; females = 230) completed the Spanish UWES. In study 1, our results revealed satisfactory levels of reliability for each subscale. In addition, the confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the three‐factor model fitted better than the one‐factor model and supported the theoretical three‐factor structure (vigor, dedication, and absorption). Furthermore, results from the multi‐sample analysis found strict factorial invariance of the Spanish UWES across gender, suggesting that the UWES factors show the same composition and interpretation in both groups. In study 2, our results once again confirmed the same three‐factor structure for the Spanish UWES. We found support for theoretically proposed two‐factor model including: (1) emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and (2) all three dimensions of engagement plus personal accomplishment. We also found evidence of convergent, discriminant, and incremental validity with respect to burnout, life satisfaction, and perceived stress. In short, our results provide empirical support for structural validity of the Spanish UWES in multi‐occupational workers.     

Repetition priming within and between languages in verb generation: evidence for shared verb concepts

Although translation equivalents for concrete nouns are known to have shared core conceptual representations in bilingual memory (Francis, 1999), the status of translation-equivalent verbs has not been systematically tested. Three repetition-priming experiments using a verb generation task were used to determine whether verbs have shared representations across languages and to identify the processes facilitated in repeated verb generation. In Experiment 1 fluent Spanish-English bilingual speakers exhibited repetition priming both within and between languages, but between-language priming was weaker. In Experiment 2 performance of non-bilingual English and Spanish speakers was equivalent to that of bilingual speakers responding in their dominant language. Experiment 3 used manipulations meant to isolate noun comprehension, verb concept selection, and verb production. The between-language priming in Experiments 1 and 3 indicates that verb concepts are shared across languages and that verb concept selection exhibits facilitation. Experiment 3 showed that the greater within-language priming was due primarily to facilitation of verb production processes.     

Reactions to the Fairness of Promotion Methods: Procedural justice and job satisfaction

Fairness in promotions is a core issue for organizations as it is directly related to some of the most important organizational outcomes. However, the majority of the existing research about this question has been focused on entry‐level selection, and there is a gap in knowledge in the context of promotions. This paper focuses on how workers’ perceptions of promotion systems affect organizational justice and job satisfaction. In the present study, 213 employees and supervisors from 31 different private sector organizations complete a survey regarding procedural justice (PJ), job satisfaction, transparency, promotion systems, and some demographic variables. The results show that participants who perceived organizational promotion methods as transparent reported a high level of perceived PJ, and that the methods they see as fairer are those based on assessment of performance. In addition, transparency is considered as an important antecedent of PJ. Moreover, the interaction between organizational rank and gender moderates the relationship between transparency and promotion systems with PJ. Finally, organizational justice is strongly related with job satisfaction.     

Lactation deficit in OFA hr/hr rats may be caused by differential sensitivity to stress compared with Wistar and Sprague Dawley rats

OFA hr/hr (OFA) rats present a major lactation deficit that impairs offspring survival. To explore whether abnormal stress responsiveness causes this deficit, we compared their hormonal (prolactin, progesterone, and corticosterone) responses to stress (room change and 2-min ether exposure) with those of Wistar and Sprague Dawley (SD) rats. We tested responses during the estrous cycle, pregnancy, lactation, after ovariectomy, and ovarian steroid hormone priming, and responses to suckling. We evaluated hypothalamic expression of receptors for prolactin (PRLRlong) and the isoforms of receptors for progesterone (PRA and B) and estrogen (ERα and β) in late pregnancy. We tested whether administration of an anxiolytic (diazepam) improved lactation. Ether exposure increased circulating levels of the three hormones in the three strains of rats, cycling and ovariectomized, but was less effective in pregnancy and lactation. Elevated estrogen level (estrus and estradiol-treated ovariectomized rats) potentiated the prolactin response more in SD and OFA rats than in Wistar rats. Elevated progesterone level (late pregnancy, lactation, progesterone-treated ovariectomized rats) inhibited the prolactin response less in OFA than in SD or Wistar rats. Ether exposure inhibited the prolactin and oxytocin responses to suckling only in OFA rats. Diazepam treatment increased pup survival rate and the prolactin response to suckling. Hypothalamic total PR mRNA content, assayed by RT-PCR, was higher in pregnant OFA rats compared with SD and Wistar rats, but the PRB/PRA protein ratio determined by Western blot was lowest in Wistar rats, intermediate in OFA rats, and highest in SD rats. The heightened sensitivity to stress of lactating OFA rats may contribute to their lactational deficit and be caused by a combination of hypoprolactinemia and reduced inhibitory capacity of progesterone.     

What gaze adds to arrows: Changes in attentional response to gaze versus arrows in childhood and adolescence

From early ages, gaze acts as a cue to infer the interests, behaviours, thoughts and emotions of social partners. Despite sharing attentional properties with other non-social directional stimuli, such as arrows, gaze produces unique effects. A spatial interference task revealed this dissociation. The direction of arrows was identified faster on congruent than on incongruent direction-location trials. Conversely, gaze produced a reversed congruency effect (RCE), with faster identifications on incongruent than congruent trials. To determine the emergence of these gaze-specific attentional mechanisms, 214 Spanish children (4–17 years) divided into 6 age groups, performed the aforementioned task across three experiments. Results showed stimulus-specific developmental trajectories. Whereas the standard effect of arrows was unaffected by age, gaze shifted from an arrow-like effect at age 4 to a gaze-specific RCE at age 12. The orienting mechanisms shared by gaze and arrows are already present in 4-year olds and, throughout childhood, gaze becomes a special social cue with additional attentional properties. Besides orienting attention to a direction, as arrows would do, gaze might orient attention towards a specific object that would be attentionally selected. Such additional components may not fully develop until adolescence. Understanding gaze-specific attentional mechanisms may be crucial for children with atypical socio-cognitive development.     

From Theory of Rhetoric to the Practice of Language Use: The Case of Appeals to Ethos Elements

In their book Commitment in Dialogue, Walton and Krabbe claim that formal dialogue systems for conversational argumentation are “not very realistic and not easy to apply”. This difficulty may make argumentation theory less well adapted to be employed to describe or analyse actual argumentation practice. On the other hand, the empirical study of real-life arguments may miss or ignore insights of more than the two millennia of the development of philosophy of language, rhetoric, and argumentation theory. In this paper, we propose a novel methodology for adapting such theories to serve as applicable tools in the study of argumentation phenomena. Our approach is both theoretically-informed and empirically-grounded in large-scale corpus analysis. The area of interest are appeals to ethos, the character of the speaker, building upon Aristotle’s rhetoric. Ethotic techniques are used to influence the hearers through the communication, where speakers might establish, but also emphasise, weaken or undermine their own or others’ credibility and trustworthiness. Specifically, we apply our method to Aristotelian theory of ethos elements which identifies practical wisdom, moral virtue and goodwill as components of speakers’ character, which can be supported or attacked. The challenges we identified in this case and the solutions we proposed allow us to formulate general guidelines of how to exploit rich theoretical frameworks to the analysis of the practice of language use.

     

Effects of Parental Acceptance-Rejection on Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors: A Longitudinal,Multicultural Study

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Grounded in Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Theory, this study assessed children’s (N?=?1315) perceptions of maternal and paternal...     

Caregiver Socialization of Reappraisal and Children’s Cognitive Flexibility Jointly Predict Latinx Children’s Anxiety

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Anxiety disorders are among the most common forms of psychopathology in childhood and represent a particularly concerning issue for Latinx children. Research...     

The Role of Culture and Contextual Risk for Maternal Parenting and Children’s Behavior Regulation in Chile and Germany

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Children’s behavior regulation development takes place in diverse sociocultural settings. In this study, we take a multilayer ecological perspective and...     

Innovative problem-solving in a threatened gull species,the Olrog’s Gull (Larus atlanticus)

Animal Cognition - Innovation, a process that plays an important role in the ecology and evolution of species, is considered an expression of behavioral flexibility in animals. Here we analyzed...