Correlations among measures of executive function and positive psychological attributes in college students

Executive functions are cognitive abilities that allow for more goal-oriented and autonomous behavior. The authors examined the relationship between self-rated executive functions and 3 positive personality attributes (satisfaction with life, gratitude, and forgiveness) in a nonclinical community sample. The authors used self-report scales (Executive Function Index, Heartland Forgiveness Scale "other" subscale, Satisfaction With Life Scale, and the Gratitude Questionnaire) to examine how executive functions related to the positive psychology attributes. After controlling for age, sex, and formal education, positive relationships emerged among gratitude, satisfaction, and executive function scales of motivational drive, empathy, and strategic planning. However, an inverse relationship emerged between impulse control and forgiveness, perhaps relating to cautiousness and suggesting finer distinctions between adaptive and maladaptive forms of forgiveness. These findings suggest common psychological and neurobiological substrates for executive functions and positive psychology attributes, warranting further, more direct biobehavioral research.     

Workplace and family support and work–life balance: Implications for individual psychological availability and energy at work

This study presents three studies that explore the ways in which multiple support sources (workplace and family social support) help individuals to experience work–life balance (WLB) and thereby develop a sense psychological availability and positive energy at work. We examine this serial mediation model across three population groups in Israel using time-lagged data from part-time students (sample 1), as well cross-sectional data from workers in the industrial sector (sample 2) and physicians in public hospitals (sample 3). The results indicate a complex process in which workplace and family support augment employee positive energy through WLB and psychological availability. The findings shed light on the importance of support from work and nonwork sources for the pursuit of employees to achieve balance in the spheres of work and life and suggest that the WLB helps in the development of psychological availability and augmenting employee positive energy.     

Facial expressions and speech acts: experimental evidences on the role of the upper face as an illocutionary force indicating device in language comprehension

Language scientists have broadly addressed the problem of explaining how language users recognize the kind of speech act performed by a speaker uttering a sentence in a particular context. They have done so by investigating the role played by the illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDs), i.e., all linguistic elements that indicate the illocutionary force of an utterance. The present work takes a first step in the direction of an experimental investigation of non-verbal IFIDs because it investigates the role played by facial expressions and, in particular, of upper-face action units (AUs) in the comprehension of three basic types of illocutionary force: assertions, questions, and orders. The results from a pilot experiment on production and two comprehension experiments showed that (1) certain upper-face AUs seem to constitute non-verbal signals that contribute to the understanding of the illocutionary force of questions and orders; (2) assertions are not expected to be marked by any upper-face AU; (3) some upper-face AUs can be associated, with different degrees of compatibility, with both questions and orders.     

Work attitudes,career success and health: Evidence from China

Research on the determinants and implications of career success, and in particular on how they are related to health among Chinese workers is scarce. This research explores the impact and relevance of individual attitudes of trust and organizational citizenship behavior on objective and subjective career success, and their relevance to physical and mental health. Further, we explore the moderating role of a career system on the relationships between work attitudes and career success. Using a random sample of 10,372 people in China we used multi-level linear regression methodology to explore a mediation–moderation model based on organizational theories. We found support for the impact of organizational citizenship behaviors and trust, for both objective and subjective career success as mediators of mental and physical health, and for a career system as a moderator, with significant differences emerging between workers employed in the public and private sectors. The results are important as they shed light on the relationship between work and life attitudes on outcomes of high relevance at national level. The original contribution would be of interest to policy makers at both organizational and national level.     

A bumpy train ride: a field experiment on insult, honor, and emotional reactions

The present research examined the relationship between adherence to honor norms and emotional reactions after an insult. Participants were 42 Dutch male train travelers, half of whom were insulted by a confederate who bumped into the participant and made a degrading remark. Compared with insulted participants with a weak adherence to honor norms, insulted participants with a strong adherence to honor norms were (a) more angry, (b) less joyful, (c) less fearful, and (d) less resigned. Moreover, insulted participants with a strong adherence to honor norms perceived more anger in subsequent stimuli than not-insulted participants with a strong adherence to these norms. The present findings support a direct relationship among insult, adherence to honor norms, and emotional reactions.     

THE ROLE OF SELF-ESTEEM IN COMPETITIVE CHOICE BEHAVIOR1

Le rôle de L'estime de soi dans les choix compétitifs — Un programme transnational de recherche sur les déterminants des processus de décision s'est concentré dans une première phase sur la relation entre L'estime de soi et le comportement compétitif dans un jeu de type « Dilemme du prisonnier ». Des étudiants américains, chez lesquels une grande estime de soi avait été induite, firent davantage de choix compétitifs que les sujets chez lesquels on avait induit une faible estime de soi. Une des deux expériences avec des étudiants français a reproduit les mêmes résultats, alors que des expériences avec des sujets italiens ont produit des résultats inverses. Différentes interprétations théoriques des résultats sont proposées et critiquées.     

Affordances after spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injury can cause cognitive impairments even when no cerebral lesion is appreciable. As patients are forced to explore the environment in a non-canonical position (i.e., seated on a wheelchair), a modified relation with space can explain motor-related cognitive differences compared to non-injured individuals. Peripersonal space is encoded in motor terms, that is, in relation to the representation of action abilities and is strictly related to the affordance of reachability. In turn, affordances, the action possibilities suggested by relevant properties of the environment, are related to the perceiver's peripersonal space and motor abilities. One might suppose that these motor-related cognitive abilities are compromised when an individual loses the ability to move. We shed light on this issue in 10 patients with paraplegia and 20 matched controls. All have been administered an affordances-related reachability judgement task adapted from Costantini, Ambrosini, Tieri, Sinigaglia, and Committeri (2010, Experimental Brain Research, 207, 95) and neuropsychological tests. Our findings demonstrate that patients and controls show the same level of accuracy in estimating the location of their peripersonal space boundaries, but only controls show the typical overestimation of reaching range. Secondly, patients show a higher variability in their judgements than controls. Importantly, this finding is related to the patients’ ability to perform everyday tasks. Finally, patients are not faster in making their judgements on reachability in peripersonal space, while controls are. Our results suggest that not moving freely or as usual in the environment impact decoding of action-related properties even when the upper limbs are not compromised.     

Can probability theory explain why closure is both intuitive and prone to counterexamples?

Epistemic closure under known implication is the principle that knowledge of \(\varphi\) and knowledge of \(\varphi \rightarrow \psi\), together, imply knowledge of \(\psi\). This principle is intuitive, yet several putative counterexamples have been formulated against it. This paper addresses the question, why is epistemic closure both intuitive and prone to counterexamples? In particular, the paper examines whether probability theory can offer an answer to this question based on four strategies. The first probability-based strategy rests on the accumulation of risks. The problem with this strategy is that risk accumulation cannot accommodate certain counterexamples to epistemic closure. The second strategy is based on the idea of evidential support, that is, a piece of evidence supports a proposition whenever it increases the probability of the proposition. This strategy makes progress and can accommodate certain putative counterexamples to closure. However, this strategy also gives rise to a number of counterintuitive results. Finally, there are two broadly probabilistic strategies, one based on the idea of resilient probability and the other on the idea of assumptions that are taken for granted. These strategies are promising but are prone to some of the shortcomings of the second strategy. All in all, I conclude that each strategy fails. Probability theory, then, is unlikely to offer the account we need.     

Ethical Design of Intelligent Assistive Technologies for Dementia: A Descriptive Review

The use of Intelligent Assistive Technology (IAT) in dementia care opens the prospects of reducing the global burden of dementia and enabling novel opportunities to improve the lives of dementia patients. However, with current adoption rates being reportedly low, the potential of IATs might remain under-expressed as long as the reasons for suboptimal adoption remain unaddressed. Among these, ethical and social considerations are critical. This article reviews the spectrum of IATs for dementia and investigates the prevalence of ethical considerations in the design of current IATs. Our screening shows that a significant portion of current IATs is designed in the absence of explicit ethical considerations. These results suggest that the lack of ethical consideration might be a codeterminant of current structural limitations in the translation of IATs from designing labs to bedside. Based on these data, we call for a coordinated effort to proactively incorporate ethical considerations early in the design and development of new products.