The development of a Spanish language version of the Worn Out scale of the General Well-Being Questionnaire (GWBQ)

The paper describes the development of a short Spanish-language version of the General Well-Being Questionnaire (GWBQ; Cox and Gotts, 1987), based on the 12 items of its Worn Out scale. Research has shown the English-version Worn Out scale to be sensitive to aspects of the design and management of work. This study aimed to test its cross-cultural consistency in a Spanish-language workplace context. The data were collected from a sample of 229 workers in Valencia (Spain). Confirmatory Factor Analyses showed the factorial validity, reliability, and concurrent validity of the new Spanish version to be adequate. The sensitivity of the new measure to safety behavior and the reporting of accidents was also assessed and shown to be good. The new questionnaire extends the usefulness of the parent questionnaire to occupational health psychology research in the Spanish language by offering a short assessment tool appropriate for workplace studies.     

The concept of risk and responsible conduct of research

Assessment of risk is one of the key issues in the field of responsible conduct of research which covers discourses of research ethics and research integrity. The principle of minimizing risks and balancing of risks and benefits is one of the main requirements of research ethics. In addition, the content of informed consent that is another fundamental principle of research ethics derives from the assessment of risks and benefits related to a particular research project. Risk assessment also plays a crucial role in methodological design of the research project. This is an important point where research ethics and research integrity discourses overlap. Firstly, because the choice of a control group (e.g., placebo control) is a key ethical issue related to the protection of the research subjects' interests. Secondly, because the quality of the research data, that is one of the key elements of research integrity, is closely connected to the choice of research methodology as well. The problem of biased interpretation or manipulation of risk related features of biomedical research should also be taken into account. Despite the importance of the concept of risk to the field of biomedical research, its relevance has not yet attracted a sufficient attention in the responsible conduct of research debate.     

Teaching ethics: More than an honor code

An honor code is certainly a good place to start teaching engineering students about ethics, but teaching students to live honorably requires far more effort than memorizing a code of ethics statement or applying it just to academic performance. In the School of Engineering at Grand Valley State University, we have followed the model provided by the United States Military Academy at West Point. For our students this involves an introduction to the Honor Code as part of a larger Honor Concept at the very beginning of their studies and then making it an integral part of their preparation as engineers. The challenge is significant because the culture at large does not support living with an Honor Concept. This paper will begin with a discussion of the cultural context in which we must teach, because that context has changed significantly in the years since many faculty members were students themselves. The rest of the paper will detail the approach that we have taken to teach ethics as an engineer’s way of life. “The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be. All human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.” Plato An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 conference, Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology, Linking Workplace Ethics and Education, co-hosted by Gonzaga University and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 9–10 June 2005.     

Biases in the perceived timing of perisaccadic perceptual and motor events

Subjects typically experience the temporal interval immediately following a saccade as longer than a comparable control interval. One explanation of this effect is that the brain antedates the perceptual onset of a saccade target to around the time of saccade initiation. This could explain the apparent continuity of visual perception across eye movements. This antedating account was tested in three experiments in which subjects made saccades of differing extents and then judged either the duration or the temporal order of key events. Postsaccadic stimuli underwent subjective temporal lengthening and had early perceived onsets. A temporally advanced awareness of saccade completion was also found, independently of antedating effects. These results provide convergent evidence supporting antedating and differentiating it from other temporal biases.     

The child in time: The influence of parent–child discussion about a future experience on how it is remembered

We investigated the influence of preparation provided by parents on preschoolers’ recall. One day before children participated in a staged novel event, parents discussed the event with their child either with (verbal+photos) or without (verbal) photographs. Parents and children in a control condition read an unrelated story. Then 8–10 days later the children were interviewed about the event. Children in the verbal+photos condition recalled significantly more than those in the control condition. Parental preparation style (e.g., evaluations, hypothetical language) was associated with the child's contributions to the preparatory discussion, but no aspect of parent or child style or content was associated with children's verbal recall. Similarly, there were no significant associations between children's performance on a task of episodic future thinking, and their preparatory discussion or recall, although episodic future thinking was strongly associated with language ability. The potential underlying mechanisms and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Opening What Has Been Closed,Relaxing What Has Been Clenched: Dissociation and Enactment Over Time in Committed Relationships

I use dissociation and the concept of the multiple self to link Mitchell's profound insight with Goldner's critique. In the process, I use the idea of dissociation to think about the nature of different kinds of long-term relationships.     

A Method for the Evaluation of Affective Associations to Figure Drawings

Usual scoring systems for figure drawing techniques are based on structural and content aspects of the drawing, and ignore the affectively toned associations that occur when an observer first sees a drawing. A system for measuring two components of judgment, (a) emission of affective associations (b) evaluation of affective associations, has been developed. This method was applied with some success in studying individuals who had represented in their drawings an image that corresponded to their actual physical appearance. The research so far suggests that the evaluation component of judgment may contribute more to discrimination than the emission component.     

Mental Health and Adverse Childhood Experiences

The theoretical basis of occupational therapy interventions was investigated in two mental health facilities in the Midwestern United States. Using retrospective cohort and grounded theory designs, 121 medical records were reviewed and five occupational therapy practitioners were interviewed. Theoretical reasoning was not explicitly documented, but according to analysis, the behavioral/cognitive-behavioral model, client-centered models, and the model of human occupation were the most frequently used theories to guide interventions. Lack of documentation of theory use has significant implications for the value accorded to occupational therapy skills in health care. A larger study is recommended to increase external generalizability of the findings.