Quality of Life in Flemish Families with a Child with an Intellectual Disability: a Multilevel Study on Opinions of Family Members and the Impact of Family Member and Family Characteristics

This study examined family members’ opinions regarding their family quality of life (FQOL). Parents (n = 97) and youngsters (n = 24) of 63 families with a child with an intellectual disability (ID) receiving home-based support completed the Beach Center FQOL Scale. Multilevel models detected substantial variability in FQOL scores and in most subscale scores both within and between families. The observed differences were partly explained by the respondent’s age, the parents’ employment situation, and the support needs of the child with an ID. Role of the family member and gender of the parent could not explain this variability. By including and comparing multiple family members’ opinions, this study contributes to the methodological and conceptual discussions about measuring FQOL.     

Synchrony effects in automatic and controlled retrieval

Using a speeded retrieval procedure, we investigated time-of-day effects in automatic and controlled retrieval. Morning-type adults were tested at either peak (early morning) or off-peak (late afternoon) times on a speeded implicit (Experiment 1) or explicit (Experiment 2) stem completion task. In Experiment 1, retrieval strategies were identified by changes in response speed between a practice phase with rapid retrieval and an implicit memory test phase. Performance based on controlled retrieval (shown by slowdown participants) showed more priming at peak than at off-peak times of day, a finding confirmed in Experiment 2, in which the participants were given intentional retrieval instructions when the materials switched. In contrast, performance based on automatic retrieval (shown by nonslowdown participants) did not differ across peak and off-peak times. The finding suggests a robust synchrony effect in controlled retrieval, but not in automatic retrieval, which does not appear to vary across the day.     

汉语词汇产生中音、形、义三种信息激活的时间进程

采用图-词干扰范式和图片命名方法,探讨语音、语义、字形在汉语词汇产生中激活的时间进程与特点。选择与目标图片名称(如“羊”)具有同音(“阳”)、语义相联(“牛”)、字形相似(“丰”)或无关控制(“冷”)等四种关系的干扰字,依SOA条件呈现在将要被命名的图片上,发现图片命名时间受干扰字的影响：语义干扰效应存在于较早期的SOA(0ms)条件中,在较晚期SOA(150ms)时有很大的减弱;语音促进效应和字形促进效应同时强烈地存在于早期和晚期SOA。实验发现了词条选择(语义激活)和音位编码(语音提取)在激活时间上的重叠现象,与传统的独立两阶段模型的预期存在明显矛盾,倾向于支持交互作用理论的观点。     

Touch screen assays of behavioural flexibility and error characteristics in Eastern grey squirrels (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Sciurus carolinensis</Emphasis>)

Behavioural flexibility allows animals to adjust their behaviours according to changing environmental demands. Such flexibility is frequently assessed by the discrimination–reversal learning task. We examined grey squirrels’ behavioural flexibility, using a simultaneous colour discrimination–reversal learning task on a touch screen. Squirrels were trained to select their non-preferred colour in the discrimination phase, and their preferred colour was rewarded in a subsequent reversal phase. We used error rates to divide learning in each phase into three stages (perseveration, chance level and ‘learned’) and examined response inhibition and head-switching during each stage. We found consistent behavioural patterns were associated with each learning stage: in the perseveration stage, at the beginning of each training phase, squirrels showed comparable response latencies to correct and incorrect stimuli, along with a low level of head-switching. They quickly overcame perseveration, typically in one to three training blocks. In the chance-level stage, response latencies to both stimuli were low, but during initial discrimination squirrels showed more head-switches than in the previous stage. This suggests that squirrels were learning the current reward contingency by responding rapidly to a stimulus, but with increased attention to both stimuli. In the learned stage, response latencies to the correct stimulus and the number of head-switches were at their highest, whereas incorrect response latencies were at their lowest, and differed significantly from correct response latencies. These results suggest increased response inhibition and attention allowed the squirrels to minimise errors. They also suggest that errors in the ‘learned’ stage were related to impulsive emission of the pre-potent or previously learned responses.     

大学生的冲动性特质与自杀意念的关系:一个有调节的中介模型

以应激-易感模型为依据考察冲动性特质与自杀意念的关系,并在此基础上提出一个有调节的中介模型,探讨负性生活事件影响的中介作用以及家庭环境的调节作用。采用巴瑞特冲动性量表、青少年生活事件量表、家庭环境量表、贝克自杀意念量表对902名大学生进行集体施测,旨在考察负性生活事件的影响对大学生冲动性特质与自杀意念的中介作用以及家庭环境的调节作用,结果表明:(1)冲动性特质和负性生活事件的影响能正向预测大学生的自杀意念;(2)负性生活事件的影响在冲动性特质和自杀意念之间起中介作用;(3)负性生活事件影响的中介作用和冲动性特质的直接作用受家庭环境的调节。这些结果对于综合解释环境与个体因素对自杀意念的作用与机制具有重要意义。     

Emotional context at learning systematically biases memory for facial information

Emotion influences memory in many ways. For example, when a mood-dependent processing shift is operative, happy moods promote global processing and sad moods direct attention to local features of complex visual stimuli. We hypothesized that an emotional context associated with to-be-learned facial stimuli could preferentially promote global or local processing. At learning, faces with neutral expressions were paired with a narrative providing either a happy or a sad context. At test, faces were presented in an upright or inverted orientation, emphasizing configural or analytical processing, respectively. A recognition advantage was found for upright faces learned in happy contexts relative to those in sad contexts, whereas recognition was better for inverted faces learned in sad contexts than for those in happy contexts. We thus infer that a positive emotional context prompted more effective storage of holistic, configural, or global facial information, whereas a negative emotional context prompted relatively more effective storage of local or feature-based facial information     

Presentism and the Notion of Existence

The aim of this paper is to make presentism a dynamic view of reality by basing it on a notion of dynamic existence, that is, on a notion of existence which has a dynamic character. The paper shows that both of the notions of existence which are used in metaphysical theories of time (in presentism and eternalism) have a static character and, while such a notion is useful for eternalists, it is useless for presentists if they want to make their view able to remain in agreement with our everyday experience and self-consistent. It is demonstrated that both empirical and theoretical arguments indicate that the presentist should replace the notion of this static existence with the notion of a dynamic existence and that this maneuver allows the presentist to treat his/her existential thesis as equivalent to the thesis that time flows. Not only does this strategy allow us to express presentism in a simple, homogenous way which remains in agreement with our experience, but also permits us to solve some of the difficult problems which presentism faces, such as, for example, the objection of triviality and the question about the rate of time passage. Moreover, such an approach to presentism allows us to solve fundamental metaphysical problems concerning time such as the problem of the openness of the future and the fixity of the past, direction of causation, and relations between presentism and persistence through time by endurance.     

The Practicality of Ancient Virtue Ethics: Greece and China

Virtue ethics has been charged with being unable to provide solutions to practical moral issues. In response, the defenders of virtue ethics argue that normative virtue ethics exists. The debate is significant on its own, yet both sides of the controversy approach the issue from the assumption that moral philosophy has to tell us what we should do. In this essay, I would like to examine the question regarding the practicality of virtue ethics in a different way. Virtue ethics is an ancient approach shared by both ancient Greek philosophers and classic Chinese Confucians, and indeed, ancient Greeks call ethics “practical science.” How, then, do the ancients themselves view the issue of practicality? This essay shows that there is a notion of practicality which is prominent in both ancient Greek and ancient Chinese virtue ethics but is neglected in today’s ethics. According to this notion, ethics is to transform one’s life. The essay also raises a prospect of the revival of this notion.     

Mencius’ refutation of Yang Zhu and Mozi and the theoretical implication of Confucian benevolence and love

Confucianism defined benevolence with “feelings” and “love.” “Feelings” in Confucianism can be mainly divided into three categories: feelings in general (seven kinds of feelings), love for one’s relatives, and compassion (Four Commencements). The seven kinds of feeling in which people respond to things can be summarized as “likes and dislikes.” The mind responds to things through feelings; based on the mind of benevolence and righteousness or feelings of compassion, the expression of feelings can conform to the principle of the mean and reach the integration of self and others, and of self and external things. The “relations between the seven kinds of feelings and the Four Commencements,” however, was not developed into a theoretical idea in Confucianism. After Confucius, the relationship between the universality of natural sympathies and the gradation of love for relatives gradually became an important subject in Confucian ideas of benevolence and love. By “refuting Yang Zhu and Mozi,” Mencius systematically expounded on this issue. Love had two ends: self-love and natural sympathies, between which existed the love for relatives. These two ends were not the two extremes of Yang’s self-interest and Mozi’s universal love. Love for relatives not only implied a gradation, but also contained universality and transcendence that came from self-love. Love for relatives, natural sympathies and self-love had a kind of tension and connectivity between two dynamic ends. The Confucian idea of benevolence and love hence demonstrated differences and interconnectivity. An accurate understanding of such “feelings” and “love” is important for us to grasp Confucian thoughts on benevolence and its realization.     

Ability to Manage Resources in the Impression Management Process: The Mediating Effects of Resources on Job Performance

Purpose

Based on the conservation of resource (COR) theory, we hypothesize that one’s ability to manage resources will moderate the relationship between the use of positive impression management (IM) and other desired resources, such that those able to manage resources will have higher levels of social resources (reputation and leader–member exchange) when expending energy through the use of positive IM tactics. Additionally, we expect higher levels of these social resources will lead to higher performance ratings.

Design/Methodology/Approach

We conducted a two-study replication. In Study One (n = 213), data were collected at two time points. Dyadic data were collected in Study Two (n = 83) to demonstrate consistent relationships across two different study designs.

Findings

Our findings indicate that the ability to manage resources is associated with higher levels of social resources, such as reputation and high quality LMX, which are ultimately associated with positive workplace outcomes, specifically job performance.

Implications

The ability to manage one’s resources is a crucial individual capability that allows individuals to secure positive work outcomes. This research highlights the utility of resources management initiatives that organizations might want to provide to their workers, such as equipment, support personnel, and the autonomy to pace oneself during hectic endeavors.

Originality/Value

We investigate an individual difference in the COR process, which is lacking in the current literature (Hobfoll and Shirom 2000). Further, this research examines COR consequences beyond stress-related outcomes. Lastly, our research highlights the value of examining IM in light of COR theory.