Personality and interests as predictors of educational streaming and achievement

In this study Holland's RIASEC Model of vocational personalities and the Five-Factor Model of personality are used (i) to assess individual differences among study majors and (ii) to predict educational achievement. A sample of 934 last-year students who enrolled in different academic majors filled out Dutch/Flemish adaptations of the NEO-PI-R (Costa and McCrae, 1992) and the Self-Directed Search (Holland, 1977; 1979). The results show that both models are useful to describe differences among different majors. Conscientiousness proves to be a general predictor of grades and study career. For the other Big Five dimensions, except for Agreeableness, major and/or gender specific relationships with educational outcomes are observed. Holland's interest dimensions are not related to educational achievement, except for some moderate gender or major specific correlations with the Investigative and the Artistic scales. Suggestions for future research regarding educational streaming and counselling are discussed.     

A Meta-Analysis of Neuropsychological Effort Test Performance in Psychotic Disorders

Neuropsychology Review - Psychotic disorders are characterized by a generalized neurocognitive deficit (i.e., performance 1.5 SD below controls across neuropsychological domains with no specific...     

Perception of Organizational Ethical Climate by University Staff and Students in Medicine and Humanities: A Cross Sectional Study

Science and Engineering Ethics - We assessed students’ and employees’ perception of ethical climate at a university school of medicine compared to that of social sciences and...     

One-minute time interval estimation as a novel potent indicator of emotional concerns in cancer patients prior to starting chemotherapy

Our study explored the potential relationship between time estimation and issues that lead to distress in cancer patients prior to starting chemotherapy. Time estimation was assessed in 375 chemonaïve patients with solid tumors by evaluating each subject’s prospective estimation of how quickly one minute passed compared to the actual time. The median estimated value (40 s) was used to stratify the patients into the two categories of fast and slow time estimation. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network Distress Thermometer (DT) and Problem List (PL) were used at the beginning of treatment to evaluate levels of distress and patient concerns. A fast time estimation correlated significantly with gender and items reported in the emotional domain on the PL. Females exhibited significantly faster time estimation than males. Patients who reported fear, worry and loss of interest in usual activities estimated the one-minute interval significantly faster than patients who did not report such items. In the multivariate logistic regression model, patients who experienced fast time estimation had a higher risk of reporting items in the emotional domain. Time estimation is a novel potent indicator of emotional concerns on the PL. This test is an easily performed, time-saving, nonintrusive, ultrashort screening tool that is suitable even for patients who are not willing to reveal their emotional status via direct questionnaires.

     

Can implicit measures detect source information in crime-related amnesia?

Participants who are asked to simulate amnesia for a mock crime have a weaker memory for this event when they have to give up their role as a feigner, than those who are not asked to feign memory loss. According to the source monitoring framework (SMF), this memory-undermining effect of simulating amnesia for a crime would be due to misattribution of the right source of information. However, we know that the content of self-generated information (e.g., feigned version of the crime) might be preserved and recognised over time as a result of elaborative cognitive processing. In the present study, we aimed to contrast these two explanations. We showed participants a mock crime video and we instructed them to either feign amnesia (simulators) or confess the mock crime (confessors). Next, a free recall memory test was administered. After one week, participants were asked to perform a personalised source monitoring task using the autobiographical Implicit Association Test (aIAT). As predicted, we found that simulators were able to discriminate the content of their self-generated feigned story of the crime from the original version. Moreover, simulators were quicker than confessors at the aIAT task. Practical and theoretical implications of our results are discussed.     

Short review and book note

Michael Carrithers, The forest monks of Sri Lanka: an anthropological and historical study, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1983, pp. xii + 306. Rs 145

Philippe Besnard (editor), The sociological domain: The durkheimians and the founding of French sociology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. xii + 296. $44.50     

Frege on Indirect Proof

Frege's account of indirect proof has been thought to be problematic. This thought seems to rest on the supposition that some notion of logical consequence – which Frege did not have – is indispensable for a satisfactory account of indirect proof. It is not so. Frege's account is no less workable than the account predominant today. Indeed, Frege's account may be best understood as a restatement of the latter, although from a higher order point of view. I argue that this ascent is motivated by Frege's conception of logic.     

Development,Ethics, and the Ethics of Development

This article investigates three things: (1) what development might be, (2) how development and ethics might be related, and (3) what an ethics of development might look like. First, I show how if we move away from an essentialist metaphysics of being to a possibilist-functionalist metaphysics of becoming in our understanding of development, we can reconceptualize ethics as self-directed ontogeny. Thus, ethics turns out to be a part of development. Secondly, I sketch out the possibility of an ethics of development, showing how it should be based on three desiderata: (1) sustainability, promoting the long-term existence of the maximum human and non-human biodiversity, (2) democracy, promoting human-human relationships that are bidirectional and, to the extent possible, non-imposing, and (3) non-ethnocentrism, promoting true modernity; a modernity not predicated on a non-existent abstract universality but on concrete syncretism. The ultimate aim of this ethics of development is the optimization of individual and collective subjectivity and agency across time.     

Leader Member Exchanges: Distinction Between Two Factors

Abstract

The dimensionality of Graen's Leader Member Exchange concept was examined in a cross-sectional questionnaire study among 1147 Dutch nurses. The total sample was divided into two subgroups by means of stratified random selection (n1 = 574; n2 = 573) and analyses were performed in each subgroup separately. The factorial structure of a 12-item self-report Leader Member Exchange questionnaire was examined. Exploratory factor analysis on the data of subgroup 1 yielded two factors, which were labelled “consideration/coaching by the leader” and “filling an assistant position”. Confirmatory factor analyses with LISREL showed that a two-factor oblique model had the best fit in both subgroups. Equality of factor structures in both subgroups was clearly demonstrated. Differential validity of the two Leader Member Exchange factors was studied by correlating each factor with measures of job-related affect. In both subgroups, the consideration/coaching factor had a significantly stronger, positive relationship with job satisfaction and a significantly stronger, negative relationship with propensity to quit the job, whereas the assistant position factor had a significantly stronger, positive relationship with job-responsibility. Results concerning the relationships with effectiveness ratings were inconclusive. The results of this study indicate that the Leader Member Exchange concept is two-dimensional rather than unidimensional.