Volunteer Engagement: Does Engagement Predict the Degree of Satisfaction among New Volunteers and the Commitment of Those who have been Active Longer?

This study examines the concept of engagement in samples of volunteers from different non‐profit organisations. Study 1 analyzes the psychometric properties of the abbreviated version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) ( Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova, 2006a ). Two factorial structures are examined: one‐dimensional and three‐dimensional structures. Based on the Three‐Stage Model of Volunteers' Duration of Service ( Chacón, Vecina, & Dávila, 2007 ), Study 2 investigates the relationship between engagement, volunteer satisfaction, and intention to remain in a sample of new volunteers and the relationship between engagement, organisational commitment, and intention to remain in a sample of veteran volunteers. Moderated mediation analysis is provided using duration of service as a moderator in order to set a splitting point between new and veteran volunteers. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis suggest that the three‐factor model fits better to the data. Regarding the structural models, the first one shows that engagement is crucial to volunteer satisfaction during the first stage, while volunteer satisfaction is the key variable in explaining intention to continue. The second structural model shows that engagement reinforces the participant's commitment to the organisation, while organisational commitment predicts intention to continue. Both models demonstrate a notable decline when samples are changed.     

Gender differences in reported stress response to the loma prieta earthquake

Sex Roles - Previous research has consistently demonstrated that men and women differ in the expression of emotions such as depression, anxiety, and stress. However, little research has...     

Freud and hypnosis: Report of post-rejection use

The development of hypnosis as a therapeutic and experimental method was significantly influenced by Sigmund Freud's announced rejection of the technique late in the nineteenth century; however, a Hungarian-born hypnotist, Franz Polgar, related in his little-known autobiography that he served as Freud's assistant for six months in 1924. Possible factors related to this seeming paradox are discussed, including the evidence that many of Freud's psychoanalytic colleagues were then actively interested in hypnosis and the negative value associated with the modality had been lifted during the time when Polgar reported that Freud himself was utilizing the method. This is a historically important account of the interface between two prominent therapeutic techniques.     

Good to Bad or Bad to Bad? What is the relationship between valence and the trait content of the Big Two?

In this article we directly assessed the relationship between valence and relevant traits of the Big Two dimensions (i.e., communion and agency). Drawing on previous research, we expected that the relationship with valence would be less monotonous and more variable in direction across agency-related traits, compared to communion-related traits. In three repeated measures studies we assessed the perceived valence of each trait dimension on a continuum of seven points. Studies 1 and 2 defined each continuum verbally. In Study 3 each continuum was defined by facial features. Results across these studies show that valence is linearly and more consistently related with communion-related traits than with agency-related traits. Within agency, however, competence established a positive linear relationship with valence, whereas dominance showed a target-sensitive relationship with valence: quadratic in evaluation of trait concepts, and negative and linear in face evaluation. We discuss the implications of these data for Big Two-related research.     

Purposes of reasoning and (a new vindication of) Moore’s proof of an external world

A common view about Moore’s Proof of an External World is that the argument fails because anyone who had doubts about its conclusion could not use the argument to rationally overcome those doubts. I agree that Moore’s Proof is—in that sense—dialectically ineffective at convincing an opponent or a doubter, but I defend that the argument (even when individuated taking into consideration the purpose of Moore’s arguing and, consequently, the preferred addressee of the Proof) does not fail. The key to my defence is to conceive the Proof as addressed to subjects with a different epistemic condition. To sustain this view I formulate some hypothesis about the common general purpose of arguing and I defend that it can be fulfilled even when the addressee of an argument is not someone who disbelieves or doubts its conclusion.     

On the value of genealogy,materiality, and networks: a response

In response to the challenges posed by Steven Engler, Martha Finch, Mark Gardiner, Laura Harrington, Paul Johnson, and Michael Stausberg, this essay fleshes out key terms in More than Belief (2011), including genealogy, materialism, non-reductionism, and networks, showing their value in researching and theorizing about religion.     

The effect of noun phrase type on working memory saturation during sentence comprehension

Double centre-embedded structures such as “the rat the cat the boy chased ate was brown” seem ungrammatical to many human subjects. Using an offline complexity judgement task, Gibson and Thomas (1999) demonstrated that people found such sentences no more difficult to understand when the second verb phrase (VP) was omitted, relative to a condition where all the required VPs were present. According to the Syntactic Prediction Locality Theory (SPLT; Gibson, 1998), this syntactic illusion is determined by the high working memory cost associated with the integration of the second VP. This cost could be reduced by replacing the third noun phrase (the boy) by a pronoun, making the reader more sensitive to the omission of the second VP. This hypothesis was tested in two experiments using French sentences. Both experiments confirmed the syntactic illusion when the second VP was not a pronoun. The second experiment measured the reading times of the VPs and showed that the pronoun induced a longer reading time of the final VP when the second VP was omitted. The overall results indicate a condition under which human subjects could process the most complex part of a sentence with more than one embedded relative clause. The overall results are consistent with most of the hypotheses derived from the SPLT although offline complexity judgements could not be the most sensitive measure to test some of these hypotheses.     

Updating spatial layouts mediated by pointing and labelling under physical and imaginary rotation

The present experiments manipulated the modality in which participants communicated object directions (by pointing or verbal labelling) in a learned layout, and the mode in which they were required to rotate (physically or imaginary). The results showed that the pointing modality was strongly influenced by the mode of rotation (Experiment 1). Pointing was faster and more accurate in the physical than in the imaginary rotation. In addition, a different pattern of dimension accessibility was observed: equi-accessibility in physical rotation (front-back = right-left) and standard in imaginary rotation (front-back < right-left). By contrast, the verbal modality was less influenced by the mode of rotation. The same standard pattern of dimension accessibility and similar speed was obtained in physical and imaginary rotation. These results are explained by proposing a first-order embodiment, typical of ordinary pointing, which involves a low-cost sensory-motor updating of object positions and a second-order embodiment, most typical of language, which involves a represented (rather than physical) self and an object-to-frame high-cost updating.     

Transposed-letter similarity effects in naming pseudowords: Evidence from children and adults

There is growing empirical evidence that shows that transposed-letter pseudowords (e.g., relovution) are perceptually very similar to their base words. This is a finding that has important implications for the choice of an input coding scheme in visual word recognition and naming. In the present experiment, we examined the presence of transposed-letter effects for pseudowords by using the naming task in a transparent orthography (Spanish): The pseudowords were created by transposing two letters or by replacing two letters (e.g., relovución vs. retosución). Since it has been suggested that transposed-letter effects may be greater for developing than for adult readers (Castles, Davis, & Forster, 2003), we recruited beginning readers (second graders, i.e., 7-year-olds), intermediate readers (fourth graders, i.e., 9-year-olds), and adult readers (college students). Results showed that developing and adult readers frequently mispronounced transposed-letter pseudowords (lexicalisations, mostly). Interestingly, the difference between the transposed-letter pseudowords and the replacement-letter pseudowords vanished when measuring the correct naming times. We examine the implications of these findings for models of visual word recognition and naming.     

Effects of sentence importance on text recall and recognition: The inferential hypothesis

Abstract

The hypothesis that sentences with important information are more likely to be remembered than less important sentences because the former are inferred to a greater extent than the latter, was explored. In three previous studies, sentence importance in the structure of texts had been established: Main sentences were assigned higher importance ratings, and recalled and recognised better than secondary sentences. In the present experiment, the subjects read two out of six 500-word texts at their own pace and performed a recall or a recognition test 8 min and 7 days later. Different text versions were written; in each version, one main sentence and one secondary sentence were removed from the original texts. me results showed: (1) a higher false alarm rate and intrusion proportion for main sentences compared to secondary sentences; (2) superior net recall scores (after deduction of intrusions) and memory scores (after correction for guessing) for main sentences; but (3) equivalent net recognition scores (after deduction of false alarms) and discrimination (d') scores in the immediate test, and a superior net recognition and discrimination of secondary sentences in the delayed test. It is concluded that the inferential hypothesis is consistent with most of the results, and that the probability of coding and retention does not differ as a function of sentence importance, though main information may be retrieved more easily than less important information.