Values and love styles in Turkey and Great Britain: An intercultural and intracultural comparison

Little previous research has examined the relationship between values and love styles, and none has done so across cultures or intracultural regions. This research was the first attempt to explore the correlation between individual‐level values and love styles, and examined both within‐ and between‐cultural variations in love styles. In this study 224 participants from Turkey and Britain, from urban or rural locations, completed the Portrait Values Questionnaire and the Love Attitudes Scale measure of love styles. Pancultural analyses demonstrated significant correlations between certain value dimensions and love styles. In particular, agape (selfless love) was positively correlated with self‐transcendence, ludus (game‐playing love) was positively correlated with self‐enhancement, and pragma (realistic love) was positively correlated with conservation. The inclusion of location and nationality and their interactions with values in the multiple regression analyses significantly increased the variance explained by values for five of the six love styles. Multivariate analyses indicated that ludus, storge, mania, and pragma were all significantly higher among Turkish respondents; pragma, mania, and agape all higher amongst rural respondents. Eros was highest among rural British respondents; storge, pragma, and agape highest among rural Turks. When these culture effects were explored, conservation significantly mediated the relationship between the groups of more conservative rural Turks (versus other participants) and both pragmatic and storgic love styles. Findings are discussed in the light of disparities in values and relationship styles within cultures, and the need to include both intracultural and intercultural variations in cross cultural research.     

A system for automatic recording and analysis of motor activity in rats

We describe the design and evaluation of an electronic system for the automatic recording of motor activity in rats. The device continually locates the position of a rat inside a transparent acrylic cube (50 cm/side) with infrared sensors arranged on its walls so as to correspond to the x-, y-, and z-axes. The system is governed by two microcontrollers. The raw data are saved in a text file within a secure digital memory card, and offline analyses are performed with a library of programs that automatically compute several parameters based on the sequence of coordinates and the time of occurrence of each movement. Four analyses can be made at specified time intervals: traveled distance (cm), movement speed (cm/s), time spent in vertical exploration (s), and thigmotaxis (%). In addition, three analyses are made for the total duration of the experiment: time spent at each x–y coordinate pair (min), time spent on vertical exploration at each x–y coordinate pair (s), and frequency distribution of vertical exploration episodes of distinct durations. User profiles of frequently analyzed parameters may be created and saved for future experimental analyses, thus obtaining a full set of analyses for a group of rats in a short time. The performance of the developed system was assessed by recording the spontaneous motor activity of six rats, while their behaviors were simultaneously videotaped for manual analysis by two trained observers. A high and significant correlation was found between the values measured by the electronic system and by the observers.     

大学生脑科学素养现状调查

采用《大学生脑科学素养问卷》,对天津市1450名大学生脑科学素养现状进行了调查分析。结果显示:(1)大学生总体脑科学问卷正确率显著低于60%,其中,脑的功能、脑的组织结构和脑与学方面的得分更低;(2)书籍、网络和电视是大学生获取脑科学知识的重要渠道;(3)大学生对脑科学知识的总体关心程度偏低;(4)大学生脑科学素养水平受成长环境和父母文化程度因素的影响,存在年级和性别差异。     

Is it possible to be too happy? Happiness,personality, and psychopathology

The types of relationship between happiness, personality and psychopatholgy are assessed in an available sample (n = 321, adults, both sexes). Empirical results from two happiness scales and two questionnaires, one of personality (NEO-PI-R) and other of personality disorders (Loranger's scale), do not confirm the Diener's threshold hypothesis, that makes a distinction between optimum and maximum happiness; or the Seligman's supposition, that assumes that happiness has no limits; The main results are: a) negative affect (Neuroticism) is negatively related to happiness across its full range; b) Extraversion and Openness to experience are positively related to happiness across its full range; c) in the rest of the basic personality factors, relationships are not linear, though not in the sense anticipated by Diener, and d) in personality disorders, the tendencies observed diversify according to the type of disorder, and the type of happiness factor. On most occasions, the close relationship between personality disorders and the Neuroticism dimension is verified in a consistent manner. These results are discussed within the context of clinical psychology, and the general theory about happiness.     

The impact of mindfulness on well-being and performance in the workplace: an inclusive systematic review of the empirical literature

Work can be demanding, imposing challenges that can be detrimental to the physical and mental health of workers. Efforts are therefore underway to develop practices and initiatives that may improve occupational well-being. These include interventions based on mindfulness meditation. This paper offers a systematic review of empirical studies featuring analyses of mindfulness in occupational contexts. Databases were reviewed from the start of records to January 2016. Eligibility criteria included experimental and correlative studies of mindfulness conducted in work settings, with a variety of well-being and performance measures. A total of 153 papers met the eligibility criteria and were included in the systematic review, comprising 12,571 participants. Mindfulness was generally associated with positive outcomes in relation to most measures. However, the quality of the studies was inconsistent, so further research is needed, particularly involving high-quality randomized control trials.     

Illness representations,knowledge and motivation to perform presymptomatic testing for late-onset genetic diseases

This study addresses the relation between illness representations, knowledge and motivation to perform the presymptomatic testing (PST) of subjects at-risk for Familial Amyloydotic Polyneuropathy (FAP), Huntington’s disease (HD) and Machado–Joseph disease (MJD), compared with subjects at-risk for Hereditary Hemochromatosis (HH). The sample comprised a clinical group of 213 subjects at genetic risk for FAP, HD and MJD, and a comparison group of 31 subjects at genetic risk for HH, that answered three open-ended questions relating illness representations, knowledge about the disease, and motivation to perform PST. People at-risk for FAP, HD and MJD use more metaphors, make more references to the family, are more concerned with the future and feel more out of curiosity and to learn, than for HH. These subjects at-risk correspond to the profile of somatic individual or personhood, wherein the unsubjectivation of the disease can function as a coping mechanism.     

Interest as a Moderator in the Relationship Between Challenge/Skills Balance and Flow at Work: An Analysis at Within-Individual Level

Considering flow as a non-ergodic process (i.e. non-homogeneous across individuals and non-stationary over time) that happens at the within-individual level, in this research we work with Bakker’s model that propose flow as made up by three components: intrinsic motivation, enjoyment, and absorption. Taking into account that flow theory can be considered as an intrinsic motivation theory, and the recent proposals about the need to distinguish between pre-conditions of flow and the flow experience itself, we look at interest as a moderator between the challenge/skills balance and the experience of flow, rather than a component of the flow experience. A total of 3640 recordings were collected from a sample of 58 workers using an experience sampling method (several registers a day, during 21 working days). The data was analyzed using regression techniques in each participant (i.e. at within-individual level). Our work tries to respond to the following two research questions: Will interest play a moderating role in the relationship between challenge/skills balance and flow? Will a non-linear model (cusp catastrophe model) better explain the relationship among challenge/skills balance, interest, and flow? The results suggest that our hypotheses were correct: including interest as moderator better explains the relationship between challenge/skills balance and flow in comparison to a model without moderation (R² values change from 0.33 to 0.50). Additionally, carrying out the analysis following non-linear techniques explained more variance as well (R² = 0.67), and this increment was significant. These results support the idea that interest should be considered as a key precondition for the appearance of flow, and this relationship is non-linear. We could say that these findings are exemplary in the field and brings up questions for their application in further research.     

Generalizing prosodic patterns by a non-vocal learning mammal

Prosody, a salient aspect of speech that includes rhythm and intonation, has been shown to help infants acquire some aspects of syntax. Recent studies have shown that birds of two vocal learning species are able to categorize human speech stimuli based on prosody. In the current study, we found that the non-vocal learning rat could also discriminate human speech stimuli based on prosody. Not only that, but rats were able to generalize to novel stimuli they had not been trained with, which suggests that they had not simply memorized the properties of individual stimuli, but learned a prosodic rule. When tested with stimuli with either one or three out of the four prosodic cues removed, the rats did poorly, suggesting that all cues were necessary for the rats to solve the task. This result is in contrast to results with humans and budgerigars, both of which had previously been studied using the same paradigm. Humans and budgerigars both learned the task and generalized to novel items, but were also able to solve the task with some of the cues removed. In conclusion, rats appear to have some of the perceptual abilities necessary to generalize prosodic patterns, in a similar though not identical way to the vocal learning species that have been studied.