A classificatory theory of similarity

Summary This paper outlines a classificatory theory of cognitive similarity and compares it to feature approaches. The theory assumes that similarity is a function of the number of classes contained in the universe referred to in the judgments and the number of elements contained in the class defined by the two comparison stimuli. The theory is tested in a number of studies in which verbal stimuli are used. Most of the experiments concern context effects predicted by the theory. An empirical comparison is made between the classificatory theory and a feature theory. It is argued that the classificatory theory accounts for some of the data more easily than a feature approach does. Some implications for the use of similarity data in multidimensional scaling are also discussed.     

Associations of social and emotional competencies,academic efficacy beliefs,and emotional distress among students in lower secondary school

Social Psychology of Education - This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate how perceived social-emotional competencies (SECs), relationship skills, emotional regulation, and the ability to...     

How are employees at different levels affected by privatization? A longitudinal study of two Swedish hospitals

Despite the amount of privatizations around the world in recent decades, only limited research attention has been paid to how privatization affects the employees. The effects are likely to vary depending on the individual's position in the organization. The aim of this study was to investigate how employees' work‐related attitudes and strain changed after privatization of a Swedish acute care hospital, and to analyze whether the effects of privatization differed between employees at various hierarchic levels. Questionnaire data collected at a hospital 1 year before and 2 years after privatization, as well as at a hospital which remained a public administration unit, suggest only limited effects of privatization on a general level, but that employees at various hierarchic levels may be affected differently. While employees at a high level (physicians) and low level (assistant nurses) reported only marginal differences over time in work attitudes and strain, also in comparison with their colleagues at the comparison hospital, work attitudes of employees at the intermediate level (registered nurses) decreased after privatization. These results emphasize the importance of taking hierarchic level into account when a privatization is implemented and analyzed.     

Pentecostals: The Power of the Powerless

Many researchers interpret Pentecostalism in terms of external factors such as European and North American history or economics. In this article Pentecostalism is examined from below, through qualitative interviews with women living in poverty in Santiago, Chile. The analysis shows how Pentecostalism led to a new theology where the believer became the subject of her own life. Social ascent was made through ecstatic experiences of the spirit in a caring community which directed the individual towards "a female ethos." This subjective change affected social changes in Chile under dictatorship but not in state politics because parts of the Pentecostal hierarchy collaborated with Pinochet.     

Early food refusal: Infant and family characteristics

This study compared infants who developed food refusal during the first year of life with a healthy control group concerning feeding, growth pattern, family situation, and infant behavioral characteristics. Infants with food refusal had a lower relative weight at inclusion in the study and at follow-up at the age of 2 years. Food refusal was also associated with weaning problems, parental reports of lower food consumption, a higher incidence of breast-feeding, a higher frequency of meals, psychosocial problems in the family, less positive perceptions of parenting, infant difficultness, and problematic behaviors. The findings have implications for identification and understanding of factors related to early food refusal.     

Psychoanalysis is becoming an impossible profession within the public welfare system in Sweden

Abstract

The preconditions for psychoanalytic practice within the Swedish public welfare system are analyzed in this article. Psychoanalysis remains a one-to-one treatment and relies on the analyst's capacity to use his or her own subjective response. The development of the psychoanalytic process is dependent on unconscious reality, making it impossible to work with a model that has a strict relation between diagnosis, treatment method, and result. Objectivity and the desire to predict treatment outcomes characterize the immanent logic in the complex system of laws and recommendations that affects most practices within the field of medicine. As a consequence of this development, psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy are marginalized, since our treatment methods are not adapted to the present industrialization and economization of the medical health sector, with the result that the preconditions for psychoanalytic training have changed dramatically. The exclusion of psychoanalysis from the national health insurance scheme is a demanding challenge at a time when the Swedish welfare model is undergoing fundamental changes.