Religiousness, antisocial behavior, and altruism: genetic and environmental mediation

Although religiousness is considered a protective factor against antisocial behaviors and a positive influence on prosocial behaviors, it remains unclear whether these associations are primarily genetically or environmentally mediated. In order to investigate this question, religiousness, antisocial behavior, and altruistic behavior were assessed by self-report in a sample of adult male twins (165 MZ and 100 DZ full pairs, mean age of 33 years). Religiousness, both retrospective and current, was shown to be modestly negatively correlated with antisocial behavior and modestly positively correlated with altruistic behavior. Joint biometric analyses of religiousness and antisocial behavior or altruistic behavior were completed. The relationship between religiousness and antisocial behavior was due to both genetic and shared environmental effects. Altruistic behavior also shared most all of its genetic influence, but only half of its shared environmental influence, with religiousness.     

Rorschach Comprehensive System data for two samples of nonpatient children from Italy: 75 aged 5-7 years and 148 aged 8-11 years

This project provides information on how nonpatient children perform on the Rorschach test, administered and scored following Exner's guidelines (1995). Lis, Parolin, Zennaro, and Mazzeschi (2001) previously reported initial data for 70 nonpatient children living in Italy who were administered this instrument by graduate and postgraduate students in a 2-year research course at the Psychotherapy School of the University of Padua between July 1998 and February 2001. The current study is an extension of that work and includes information on an additional 153 participants gathered between November 2002 and December 2006. The total number of participants includes 223 individuals, 75 5-7-year-old children in the first level of elementary school, and 148 8-11-year-old children in the second level of elementary school. Exclusion criteria are described, and interrater reliability statistics at the response level for scoring segments are reported using percent agreement and iota. Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS) findings are presented.     

A conceptual and theoretical analysis of evaluative conditioning

Evaluative conditioning is best defined as an effect, that is, as a change in the valence of a stimulus that results from pairing the stimulus with another stimulus. This definition has several advantages that are made explicit in this paper. One of the advantages is that it clarifies that evaluative conditioning can be due to multiple processes. Therefore, the conditions under which evaluative conditioning is observed can depend on the processes that underlie a particular manifestation of evaluative conditioning. This could explain why there are so many conflicting results about the conditions under which evaluative conditioning can be found. Future research should adopt a meta-conditional approach that focuses not only on whether a certain condition is crucial for obtaining evaluative conditioning but should also examine when a certain condition is crucial.     

Memory for object location: a span study in children.

The aim of the present study was to analyze the developmental changes in three spatial processes, namely, in positional reconstruction involving the retention of spatial locations per se (Positional encoding task), in the assignment of objects to positions (Object-to-position assignment task), and in the integration of these two (Combined task). A span procedure was used to assess the development of spatial memory in children aged 6, 8, and 10 years tested in these three tasks. The findings of the present study provide developmental spans for each relocation task. Results show an age-dependent improvement in all tasks, suggesting that spatial position is not automatically encoded. The results also show different developmental patterns for the relocation tasks considered, suggesting that spatial memory comprises a number of different component processes.     

Nursing specialty and burnout

We examined the relationship between perceived control and burnout among three nursing specialties: nurse practitioners, nurse managers, and emergency nurses. Survey data were collected from 228 nurses from 30 states. Findings indicated that emergency nurses had the least control and the highest burnout, whereas nurse practitioners had the most control and the least burnout. Mediational analyses showed that expected control, hostility, and stressor frequency explained differences between specialties in burnout. The implications of these findings for interventions that reduce burnout and promote nursing retention are discussed.     

Children's early productivity with verbal morphology

Three studies using the intermodal preferential looking paradigm examined onset of productive comprehension of tense/aspect morphology in English. When can toddlers understand these forms with novel verbs and novel events? The first study used familiar verbs and showed that 26–36-month olds correctly matched a past/perfective form (-ed or irregular past) to a completed version of an event and a present/imperfective (is V-ing) to the ongoing version of the same event. The second study used novel verbs and events and found that 33-month olds failed to use tense/aspect morphology to choose between completed and ongoing versions of the same event. The third study also used novel verbs and events but simplified the processing demands of the task in several ways (using initial priming of the events and classes of meaning, using different events within test pairs). This study found that 30-month olds successfully used tense/aspect morphology to choose between ongoing and completed novel events. The results demonstrate that children have productive command of tense/aspect morphology by 30 months and have therefore begun the process of creating an abstract grammar containing this element.     

Same-Sex and Other-Sex Peer Reports: Unique Contributors to Understanding Children’s School Adjustment

The present study proposed to understand how same-sex and other-sex peer nominations relate differently to teacher reports of children’s behaviors and measures of children’s friendships. Students provided peer nominations, mutual friend data, and social network data. Teachers rated students’ antisocial behavior and social competence. As expected, other-sex peer social preference scores predicted teacher ratings of antisocial behavior, while same-sex peer social preference scores predicted data on friendships and social groups. Unexpectedly, both same and other sex peer nominations predicted children’s teacher-rated social competence. Findings suggest that other-sex peers offer a unique perspective on children’s social behavior that is neither superfluous nor unimportant to understanding children’s psychosocial adjustment.     

A meta‐analysis of psychopathy‐, antisocial PD‐ and FFM associations

This research meta‐analytically summarizes the relationships of the Five‐Factor Model (FFM) with psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD). Effect sizes of the associations between psychopathy, APD and the FFM were compiled from 26 independent samples (N = 6913) for psychopathy and 57 independent samples (N = 16 424) for APD. The results revealed predominantly points of similarity and some differences in the FFM associations of both disorders. Symptoms of psychopathy and APD were negatively associated with Conscientiousness and Agreeableness facets and positively with scores on Angry–Hostility (N2), Impulsiveness (N5), Excitement Seeking (E5) and negatively with Warmth (E1). Only psychopathy had a small negative association with Anxiety (N1) and was characterized by stronger negative associations with Agreeableness and Straightforwardness (A2), Compliance (A4) and Modesty (A5) compared to APD. The moderator analyses showed that sample type, use of the NEO‐PI‐R and APD instrument moderated the APD FFM associations, while psychopathy instrument and age group were moderators in the psychopathy MA. Implications of this research for the assessment of APD and psychopathy relying on dimensional models of personality pathology are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predicting job seeking for temporary employment using the theory of planned behaviour: The moderating role of individualism and collectivism

Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), the role of behavioural, normative, and control beliefs and individualism/collectivism was examined in the context of job seeking for temporary employment. Data were collected in a two‐wave longitudinal design, using a culturally diverse sample of 138 temporary workers in The Netherlands. Results supported the TPB‐relationships, with the exception of the role of perceived behavioural control (PBC). Of the behavioural beliefs, sense of security, work–life balance, and status were most strongly related to intentions to seek temporary employment. Further, hypothesized moderating effects of collectivism were confirmed such that people low on collectivism were more strongly motivated by their personal attitudes about job seeking and less by perceptions of social pressure than people high on collectivism. Thus, the TPB was demonstrated to work somewhat differently depending on people's cultural value orientations.     

Symbolic Attributes and Organizational Attractiveness: The moderating effects of applicant personality

The present study examined the moderating influence of the Big Five personality factors in the relationship between five symbolic, trait‐based inferences about organizations (Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Prestige, and Ruggedness) and organizational attractiveness. Drawing on the similarity‐attraction paradigm, six hypotheses were formulated, stating that the relationship between trait‐based inferences and organizational attractiveness would be stronger for persons who perceive the organization as similar to them. Results of moderated regression analyses on data from a sample of 245 prospective applicants for the Belgian military revealed two significant two‐way interactions, showing that Sincerity was positively related to organizational attractiveness only for individuals high on Conscientiousness, and that the relationship between Excitement and organizational attractiveness is more positive for individuals high on Openness to Experience. Practical implications, strengths and limitations, as well as directions for further research are presented.