Responses of dairy heifers to the visual cliff formed by a herringbone milking pit: evidence of fear of heights in cows (Bos taurus)

The ability of cows (Bos taurus) to perceive depth has never been experimentally investigated. If cows can perceive depth, the milking pit in commercial milking facilities may be fear provoking for dairy cows, as past research has shown that most land-dwelling species possess an instinctive fear of heights. In the current study, 12 dairy heifers (1-year-old cows) were exposed to a milking pit (depth-exposed group) and 13 heifers (control group) were exposed to a standard change in the environment while they moved through a milking facility over a 5-day treatment period. Heifers in the depth-exposed group showed a higher heart rate (p < .05) and stopped more often (p < .05) than did those in the control group; persistence of heart rate but not of behavioral responses on repeated exposures indicated that some habituation to the depth stimulus had occurred. Depth exposure had no effect on cortisol concentrations or on ease of handling. These results indicate that heifers responded differently to a change in depth than they did to a standard change in the environment and provide evidence of both depth perception and acute fear of heights in cows.     

Caring for Someone with Depression: Attitudes and Clinical Practices of Australian Mental Health Workers

Many people who support a person with depression report struggling with the carer role and being dissatisfied with the inclusivity and lack of support provided by clinicians. However, little is known about what influences the support provided to Australian carers of people with depression. To investigate this, 119 Australian mental health workers completed a self‐report questionnaire to gather information on their attitudes towards, barriers experienced and current clinical practices when working with carers of people with depression. Participants' attitudes towards family members and carers were generally positive. Reported inclusive clinical practices varied. Participants identified a number of barriers to inclusive practice that were predominantly organisational in nature. Participants who perceived more barriers reported providing more clinical interventions. Attitudes and barriers were associated with the inclusive clinical practice of participants who worked with mental health consumers, but not participants who worked with family members and carers. Even among this sample of self‐selecting clinicians, there was room for significant improvement in rates of carer inclusive practice. Further research should explore not only what inhibits but also what enables the participation of family members and carers in the care and treatment process for people with depression.     

Development and validation of a Christian-based Grief Recovery Scale

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a Christian-based Grief Recovery Scale (CGRS) which was used to measure Christians recovering from grief after a significant loss. Taiwanese Christian participants were recruited from churches and a comprehensive university in northern Taiwan. They were affected by both the Christian faith and Chinese cultural beliefs. The CGRS is developed through replicated factor analyses in three stages. The final version of the CGRS retains 35 Likert-type items and consists of six factors: spiritual well-being; recovering meaning and sense of control; ongoing physical and emotional responses; reassuring faith; strongly missing a deceased loved one; and life disturbance. The evidence for CGRS reliability and validity is highlighted. Implications for research and counselling practice are suggested.     

Who Belongs to Me? Social Relationship and Personality Characteristics in the Transition to Young Adulthood

Not much is known about how social network characteristics change in the transition out of school and what role Big Five personality plays in this context. The aim of this paper was twofold. First, we explored changes in social network and relationship characteristics across the transition out of secondary school. Second, we examined within‐person and between‐person effects of personality on these social network changes. Results based on a series of multilevel models to a longitudinal sample of 2287 young adults revealed four main findings. First, social networks increased in size, and this increase was mainly due to a larger number of nonkin. Stable social networks during the transition consisted mainly of family ties but were generally characterized by high closeness. Second, extraversion and openness consistently predicted network size, whereas agreeableness predicted network overlap. Third, increases in emotional closeness were found only for kin; closeness was generally lower for unstable relationships. Fourth, changes in emotional closeness were related to personality, particularly neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness for stable relationships; for unstable relationships, however, closeness was related to extraversion and openness. The article concludes by discussing the role of personality for social relationship development and the active moulding of social networks in young adulthood. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Exploring career decision-making styles across three European countries

Career decisions are amongst the most important we make. Unsurprisingly, much published research exists on this particular aspect of career behaviour. However, the overwhelming majority of studies have been carried out on young people making initial career decisions. This paper extends our understanding by examining how mid-career adults in three European countries (Denmark, France and Italy) actually make career decisions. Characteristic patterns of behaviour recur when individuals approach points of transition or of crisis; each of these transitioning styles is illustrated by an iconic case. Emergent findings support the growing body of evidence that challenges the dominant policy and practice orthodoxy, which places rationality at the centre of the process, by recognising the importance of emotion and context.     

Time for temporal team mental models: Expanding beyond “what” and “how” to incorporate “when”

Although often ignored, establishing and maintaining congruence in team members’ temporal perceptions are consequential tasks that deserve research attention. Integrating research on team cognition and temporality, this study operationalized the notion of a temporal team mental model (TMM) at two points in time using two measurement methods. Ninety eight three-person teams participated in a computerized team simulation designed to mimic emergency crisis management situations in a distributed team environment. The results showed that temporal TMMs measured via concept maps and pairwise ratings each positively contributed uniquely to team performance beyond traditionally measured taskwork and teamwork content domains. In addition, temporal TMMs assessed later in teams’ development exerted stronger effects on team performance than those assessed earlier. The results provide support for the continued examination of temporal TMM similarity in future research.