Associations between young children's emotion attributions and prediction of outcome in differing social situations

Associations between young children's attributions of emotion at different points in a story, and with regard to their own prediction about the story's outcome, were investigated using two hypothetical scenarios of social and emotional challenge (social entry and negative event). First grade children (N=250) showed an understanding that emotions are tied to situational cues by varying the emotions they attributed both between and within scenarios. Furthermore, emotions attributed to the main protagonist at the beginning of the scenarios were differentially associated with children's prediction of a positive or negative outcome and with the valence of the emotion attributed at the end of the scenario. Gender differences in responses to some items were also found.     

Goals and values in school: a model developed for describing,evaluating and changing the social climate of learning environments

This paper defines a broad model of the psychosocial climate in educational settings. The model was developed from a general theory of learning environments, on a theory of human values and on empirical studies of children’s evaluations of their schools. The contents of the model are creativity, stimulation, achievement, self-efficacy, creativity, safety, control, helpfulness, participation, responsibility and influence; they are hypothesised to be structured in a circular model. The contents are defined and related to existing theories and research in education, special education, educational psychology and sociology, on the basis of reviews of literature. The model underlies the Goals, Attitudes and Values in School questionnaire, developed to assess the characteristics of educational settings. The model can be a practical tool in understanding and appreciating differences between learning environments in research and assessment and it could represent a guideline for interventions aimed to analyse and improve the social climate of learning environments.     

Competing for Happiness: Attitudes to Competition,Positional Concerns and Wellbeing

Competition is one of the driving forces of the market, but the actual effects that a competitive behavior can produce, especially on well-being, depend on how competition is perceived by economic agents. In this paper we empirically study the relationship among different attitudes to competition, positional concerns, and happiness. Using microdata from an ad-hoc survey administered to all first-year undergraduate students attending courses in economics and sociology at a medium-sized university in the North of Italy, we find a high degree of positionality for several items, especially income. Furthermore, the attitude to competition matters for both positionality and wellbeing: while a negative perception of competition increases the probability of being positional, a positive perception of competition increases life satisfaction. Results by gender highlight that a negative perception of competition is detrimental particularly for women. These results are robust to alternative definitions of the competition indicators and to alternative ways to control for potential endogeneity.     

Neuropsychological impairment in Parkinson's disease without dementia

Cognitive dysfunction in Parkinson's Disease (PD) has been consistently reported, but little is known about cognitive impairment in PD patients without dementia, and its association with clinical characteristics, neuropsychiatric disturbance and functional activities. Therefore, we evaluated 52 non-demented PD patients, 22 of them with mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI) who were matched with 52 healthy controls. Our results confirm the existence of dysfunction in information processing speed, executive function, verbal memory and visuo-perceptual processing in PD. On the other hand, PD-MCI was associated with advanced age at the onset of PD, more neuropsychiatric symptoms, caregiver stress and functional problems. The study supports the hypothesis that specific neuropsychological impairments may act as modulators of functional impairment in PD, for instance slowness of information processing.     

Use of multimodal imagery with precompetitive anxiety and stress of elite tennis players

The effect of multimodal imagery on anxiety and perceived stress was investigated in 46 male tennis players (16 to 18 yr.; M = 17.0, SD = 0.8). There were two groups, a multimodal imagery group and a control imagery group. The quasi-experimental design included pre- and post-treatment administrations of the 27-item Competitive State Anxiety Inventory to assess anxiety and the Perceived Stress Scale to assess stress. Analysis showed a statistically significant multivariate difference between the multimodal imagery and control groups on measures of cognitive anxiety, self-confidence, and perceived stress. Imagery plays a role in handling some specific types of anxiety and stress.     

Four days later in Cincinnati: longitudinal tests of hyperbolic discounting

Hyperbolic discounting of delayed rewards has been proposed as an underlying cause of the failure to stick to plans to forego one's immediate desires, such as the plan to diet, wake up early, or quit taking heroin. We conducted two tests of inconsistent planning in which respondents made at least two choices between a smaller-sooner (SS) and larger-later (LL) amount of money, one several weeks before SS would be received, and one immediately before. Hyperbolic discounting predicts that there would be more choices of SS as it became more proximate-and, equivalently, that among those who change their mind, "impatient shifts" (LL-to-SS) will be more common than "patient shifts" (SS-to-LL). We find no evidence for this, however, and in our studies shifts in both directions were equally likely. We propose that some of the evidence cited on behalf of hyperbolic discounting can be attributed to qualitatively different psychological mechanisms.     

Self-stereotyping: the central role of an ingroup threatening identity

Self-stereotyping is a process by which people belonging to a stigmatized social group tend to describe themselves more with stereotypical traits as compared with traits irrelevant to the ingroup stereotype. The present work analyzes why especially members of low-status groups are more inclined to self-stereotype compared to members of high-status groups. We tested the hypothesis that belonging to a low-, rather than a high-status group, makes low-status members feel more threatened and motivates them to protect their self-perception by increasing their similarity with the ingroup. Specifically, we investigated the effects of an experimental manipulation that was conceived to either threaten or protect the natural group membership of participants from either a low- or a high-status group on the level of self-stereotyping. The findings supported the idea that only low-status group members protected themselves when their group identity was threatened through increased self-stereotyping.     

Sexual Double Standard: A Review of the Literature Between 2001 and 2010

The present article is a review of 26 studies on the sexual double standard. This phenomenon consists of different rules and standards of sexual behavior for men and women. Only scientific articles reporting empirical research published between 2001 and 2010 and available online in full were included. Our review was focused on the evidence of the existence of the sexual double standard and on the methods that have been used in the studies in this field. Most studies used quantitative methods based on scales or vignette tasks with a target to be evaluated by respondents. There was greater variability of results among the 6 studies using qualitative methods. These studies employed different interview techniques, focus groups and participant observation. There were also 2 studies reporting the use of mixed methods. The results of the studies showed that the sexual double standard still can be identified nowadays, although it seems that sexual behaviors and situations influenced by this phenomenon are changing. Today, premarital sex and sexual intercourse outside of committed relationships are more accepted for both genders. However, evaluations of other facets of sexuality continue to be based on different criteria for men and women.     

Introducción a la Psicología Diferencial Cognoscitiva

Resumen

En este artículo se propone un cuerpo de conocimientos que hipotetizamos debería reunir la Psicología Diferencial Cognoscitiva. Esta propuesta tiene en consideración la relación entre los diversos enfoques de la Psicología Diferencial, tanto clásicos como más actuales, y la Psicología General, de acuerdo a tres metaniveles de teorización. Básicamente, la tesis mantenida en este artículo es que la psicología debería tender a elaborar modelos ajustados a las diferencias individuales en las actividades cognoscitivas tradicionalmente estudiadas por la psicología cognitiva, sea general o diferencial, y no tanto a buscar modelos canónicos referidos a dichas actividades.