Psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC) among Icelandic schoolchildren

A psychometric assessment of the Icelandic version of the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC) was undertaken among Icelandic schoolchildren, between 10 and 15 years of age. In a first study 625 children between 10 and 15 years of age filled in the MASC. A confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the four-factor structure of the instrument was justified. Further, means and standard deviations of the total scale and the subscales were similar to the original normative data reported by March (1997). In a second study the MASC, the Children Depression Inventory (CDI) and the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS) were administered to a sample of 249 schoolchildren between 10 and 15 years of age. The results supported the convergent and divergent validity of the MASC. Together the two studies show satisfactory psychometric properties of the Icelandic version of the MASC in a normal population.     

Executive functioning in normal aging: a study of action planning using the Zoo Map Test

A particularly important aspect of executive functioning involves the ability to form and carry out complex plans, that is to say planning. This study aimed to investigate planning in 18 older and 16 younger normal participants using an ecological planning subtask derived from the Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome test battery, the "Zoo Map Test." There are two trials. The first trial consists of a "high demand" version of the subtask in which the participants must plan in advance the order in which they will visit designated locations in a zoo (formulation level). In the second, or "low demand" version, the participant is simply required to follow a concrete externally imposed strategy to reach the locations to visit (execution level). The two-way ANOVAs mainly showed more difficulties in elderly adults than in younger adults, more difficulties in formulation level than in execution level, and lastly a greater difference between formulation and execution in older participants than in younger adults. These results suggest that elderly participants have some problems developing logical strategies whereas they are able to execute complex predetermined plans.     

Anticipating upcoming words in discourse: evidence from ERPs and reading times

The authors examined whether people can use their knowledge of the wider discourse rapidly enough to anticipate specific upcoming words as a sentence is unfolding. In an event-related brain potential (ERP) experiment, subjects heard Dutch stories that supported the prediction of a specific noun. To probe whether this noun was anticipated at a preceding indefinite article, stories were continued with a gender-marked adjective whose suffix mismatched the upcoming noun's syntactic gender. Prediction-inconsistent adjectives elicited a differential ERP effect, which disappeared in a no-discourse control experiment. Furthermore, in self-paced reading, prediction-inconsistent adjectives slowed readers down before the noun. These findings suggest that people can indeed predict upcoming words in fluent discourse and, moreover, that these predicted words can immediately begin to participate in incremental parsing operations.     

Cognitive coping with the threat of rape: vigilance and cognitive avoidance

Individual differences in women's avoidant and vigilant style in coping with the threat of rape were explored in four studies. In the first study, 97 women read a rape scenario and completed measures of cognitive vigilance and avoidance. They also provided ratings of fear of rape and anticipated coping problems in case of sexual assault. Vigilance was associated with significantly higher levels of fear of rape and anticipation of more severe coping problems. No effects were found for cognitive avoidance. Study 2 replicated these findings with a sample of 275 women. In addition, it showed that high vigilance was associated with significantly more rape-preventive behaviors. Study 3, including 172 women, was an online study on the effect of cognitive coping style on fear of rape, anticipated coping problems, and two behavioral measures of rape avoidance. High vigilance was related to higher levels of fear of rape, anticipation of more severe coping problems, and more rape-preventive behaviors. Finally, Study 4 (N=210) showed that individual differences in cognitive coping style affected rape-related affect and behavior in the absence of a rape scenario, underlining the chronic salience of the threat of rape for women. Vigilance was positively related to fear of rape, rape-avoidance behavior, and anticipated coping problems. In contrast, a negative relationship was found between cognitive avoidance and fear of rape, rape-avoidance strategies, and anticipated coping problems. Across the four studies, no evidence was found for an interactive effect of cognitive avoidance and vigilance, as suggested by the construct of repression versus sensitization. The findings are discussed in the light of previous research on repression-sensitization in coping with threatening information.     

A comment on sampling error in the standardized mean difference with unequal sample sizes: avoiding potential errors in meta-analytic and primary research

The authors discuss potential confusion in conducting primary studies and meta-analyses on the basis of differences between groups. First, the authors show that a formula for the sampling error of the standardized mean difference (d) that is based on equal group sample sizes can produce substantially biased results if applied with markedly unequal group sizes. Second, the authors show that the same concerns are present when primary analyses or meta-analyses are conducted with point-biserial correlations, as the point-biserial correlation (r) is a transformation of d. Third, the authors examine the practice of correcting a point-biserial r for unequal sample sizes and note that such correction would also increase the sampling error of the corrected r. Correcting rs for unequal sample sizes, but using the standard formula for sampling error in uncorrected r, can result in bias. The authors offer a set of recommendations for conducting meta-analyses of group differences.     

Context in selection of men and women in hiring decisions: gender composition of the applicant pool

The hypothesis that the sex composition of an applicant pool affects the hiring probabilities of individual job applicants was tested using gender-distinctive information on accepted and rejected job applicants in The Netherlands. The evidence supports this hypothesis, although the effect sizes are moderate. Both men and women have a lower probability of being hired when the applicant pool contains fewer applicants from their own sex.     

Transitions in caregivers' use of paid home help: associations with stress appraisals and well-being

This study examines the associations between transitions in paid home care and stress appraisals and psychological well-being of family caregivers of dementia relatives. The sample consisted of 264 caregivers who completed up to 3 interviews during 1 year. Longitudinal analyses (i.e., generalized estimating equations) showed that the onset of paid home care was associated with increases in feelings of worry and strain and a worsening in positive affect. Ending paid home care was strongly associated with a decrease in depressive symptoms, whereas sustained use of paid home care was related to reduced overload. Several possible mechanisms for the complex relationship of paid home care and family caregivers' stress appraisals and well-being are discussed.     

Why do Qualia and the Mind Seem Nonphysical?

In this article, I discuss several of the factors that jeopardize our understanding of the nature of qualitative experiences and the mind. I incorporate the view from neuroscience to clarify the naïve view from the first person perspective. I suggest that the most misleading factor in the understanding the nature of the mind and conscious processes is the transparency of experiences and the imperceptibility of the neurobiological processes that realize them. Transparency reflects the biological advantages provided to organisms by avoiding the proliferation of superfluous sensing and the regress implied in sensing the sensors and analyzers ad infinitum. The downside of simplicity and the price for biological efficiency is that through introspection, we cannot perceive the inner workings of the brain. Thus, the view from the first person perspective creates the pervasive illusion that the mind is nonphysical. Sensing the environment requires encoding information into neural surrogates, which I conceive as contingent processes that when incorporated into conscious processes become qualitative experiences. They are cognitive shortcuts with a variable degree of isomorphism, which partially falsify reality. Thus, the what-it-is-like is not the what-it-is. The first person perspective seemings should be corrected by the objective approach provided by neuroscience. To compensate for the contingency of experiences, organisms learn to rely on the aboutness of associated phenomenal concepts. Experiences have high biological value, because even in the absence of language, they allow organisms to make intelligent choices. Qualia are also necessary to ground words and language, which are essential to develop higher forms of cognition.     

Pragmatism and Developmentalism in Brazilian Educational Thought in the 1950s/1960

This article proposes to analyse some aspects of the appropriation of New School thinking in Brazil, particularly Deweyan pragmatism, in the 1950s and 1960s. The analysis is based on the assumption that the developmentalist ideology that punctuated the debate on the economic, political and social restructuring of the country in these two decades constituted fertile ground for the return and expansion of pragmatist thinking amongst Brazilian educators, articulating itself, sometimes in contradictory ways, with this ideology. The focus of the analysis will be on the writings of the group of educators which circulated around the figure of Anísio Teixeira, at the time director of the National Institute for Pedagogic Studies (INEP), an organ linked to the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), which set itself the task of producing research that would support public policy in the field of education, as well as constituting itself as a center for teacher education and the stimulus and development of innovative experiences in the public school system. The appropriation of Deweyan pragmatism, in this context, had a triple perspective: pragmatism as scientific method, implying a specific conception of science, particularly the social sciences, with emphasis on the application of scientific knowledge in the solution of practical problems; as a way of democratic life; and as a synonym for experimentalism, in the sphere of schooling.