An evaluation of matrix training to teach college students piano notes and rhythms

Twelve college students learned to tact the names of notes and rhythms and play them when presented with compound stimuli (visuals of notes and rhythms on a musical staff). In Experiment 1, we assessed generalization by presenting novel notes, rhythms, and compound stimuli not previously paired together. In the second experiment, we added a metronome that played at 60 beats per minute in all conditions for 3 out of 6 participants to ensure consistent tempo. Across both experiments, participants passed almost all posttests with the exception of tacting and playing in the presence of sound clips. Our data suggest that matrix training is an effective procedure to teach music skills to college students.     

Doing the opposite to what another person is doing

The three studies presented here aim to contribute to a better understanding of the role of the coordinate system of a person's body and of the environment in spatial organization underlying the recognition and production of gestures. The paper introduces a new approach by investigating what people consider to be opposite gestures in addition to identical gestures.     

Emotional modulation of attention affects time perception: Evidence from event-related potentials

Emotional effects on human time perception are generally attributed to arousal speeding up or slowing down the internal clock. The aim of the present study is to investigate the less frequently considered role of attention as an alternative mediator of these effects with the help of event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants produced short intervals (0.9, 1.5, 2.7, and 3.3 s) while viewing high arousal images with pleasant and unpleasant contents in comparison to neutral images. Behavioral results revealed that durations were overproduced for the 0.9 s interval whereas, for 2.7 and 3.3 s intervals, underproduction was observed. The effect of affective valence was present for the shorter durations and decreased as the target intervals became longer. More specifically, the durations for unpleasant images were less overproduced in the 0.9 s intervals, and for the 1.5 s trials, durations for unpleasant images were slightly underproduced, compared to pleasant images, which were overproduced. The analysis of different ERP components suggests possible attention processes related to the timing of affective images in addition to changes in pacemaker speed. Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) was larger for positive than for negative images, indicating valence-specific differences in activation of early attention mechanisms. Within the early P1 and the Late Positive Potential (LPP) components, both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli exhibited equal affective modulation. Contingent Negative Variation (CNV) remained independent of both timing performance and affective modulation. This pattern suggests that both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli enhanced arousal and captured attention, but the latter effect was more pronounced for pleasant stimuli. The valence-specificity of affective attention revealed by ERPs combined with behavioral timing results suggests that attention processes indeed contribute to emotion-induced temporal distortions, especially for longer target intervals.     

Parent–child career construction: A narrative study from a gender perspective

Nine families composed of mother and father, one son and one daughter were involved in this study to examine the role played by parents on children's career development from a gender perspective. In particular, this paper addresses the questions of how the parent–child dyad constructs stories about the child's career and the role played in it by the parent, and how same-sex dyads versus opposite-sex shape these stories. The narrative method was used as it lends itself to capturing family members storytelling about children's career. A narrative interview was administered to thirty-six participants with the data being analyzed using the adaptation of a tried-and-tested narrative analysis procedure. The findings show the importance of same-sex dyads in constructing career stories, plotted around themes of father–son educational and occupational transmission and mother–daughter alliance in facilitating girls' self-making. The study shows how storytelling helps family members to accommodate disruptions experienced during career transitions and to motivate choices that make vocational identity more stable. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Coping with occupational uncertainty and formal volunteering across the life span

Common wisdom suggests that individuals confronted with occupational uncertainty (e.g., job insecurity and difficulties with career planning) may withdraw from volunteering. We argue that volunteering may be useful to workers in some career stages and that stage-appropriate coping with occupational uncertainty may increase individuals' readiness to volunteer. In Study 1, we used cross-sectional and 1-year follow-up data from Germany that covered three age groups: 16–29 (N_T1 = 1253, N_T2 = 224), 30–43 (N_T1 = 1560, N_T2 = 371), and 56–75 (N_T1 = 518, N_T2 = 215). High engagement and low disengagement in coping with occupational uncertainty were associated with concurrent volunteering in the youngest group but not in the other groups. Over 1 year, high disengagement reduced the likelihood of starting volunteering in the youngest group and increased this likelihood in the oldest group. Study 2 used an independent, cross-sectional German sample that included two age groups: 20–29 (N = 326) and 30–40 (N = 367). Using a different measure of volunteering, Study 2 partly replicated the cross-sectional findings from Study 1. Results suggest that individual agency is a decisive link between occupational uncertainty and the readiness to volunteer, particularly among young labor market entrants.     

Innovative moments and change in Career Construction Counseling

This article presents an exploratory study of the process of change during Career Construction Counseling (CCC). The Innovative Moments Coding System (IMCS) and the Return to the Problem Coding System (RPCS) were used to an intensive analysis of a career counseling case — the case of Michael. Both systems are grounded in a narrative conception of the self which suggests that narrative change results from the elaboration and development of narrative exceptions to a client's core problematic self-narrative. The IMCS identifies and tracks the occurrence of five different types of narrative change and the RPCS tracks the ambivalence present in the clients discourse throughout the therapeutic process. This is the first attempt to use these methods with a career counseling case. The results suggest that the narrative elaboration progresses from the first to the third session. We discuss these results, emphasizing the process of change in career counseling with clients in which maladaptive repetition underlies career decision-making difficulties.     

Investigation of age and gender effects on positive orientation in Italian twins

We investigated age and gender effects on “Positive Orientation” (POS)—an individual's tendency to view life with a positive outlook—using a genetically informed design. Study subjects were 1016 twins aged 22–75 from the Italian twin registry. We assessed POS by the recently developed P‐scale. First, we used confirmatory factor analysis to investigate scale's measurement invariance by age and gender. Then, we applied biometric modelling to estimate genetic and environmental components of POS score. Overall, we found a satisfactory degree of measurement invariance by both age and gender. Results from these analyses further indicated an increasing mean level of POS across the lifespan. Additive genetic and unshared environmental factors explained respectively 58% and 42% of variance in POS score, with no significant gender differences; furthermore, the pattern of change of gene‐environment architecture of POS over time was consistent with a greater plasticity of personality at older ages.     

Test development and use in five Iberian Latin American countries

The abundance of scholarship on test development and use generally is higher in English‐speaking than in Iberian Latin American countries. The purpose of this article is to help overcome this imbalance by describing and identifying similarities and differences in test development and use in two Iberian (Portugal and Spain) and three of the largest Latin American (Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela) countries. The stages of test development in each country, roles of professional associations, presence of standards for test use, professionals' educational training, commonly used tests, together with prominent challenges to continued progress are discussed. Test development and use in these five countries are transitioning from a dependence on the use of translated tests to greater reliance on adapted and finally nationally constructed tests. Continued growth requires adherence to international standards guiding test development and use. Stronger alliance among professional associations in the Iberian Latin American countries could serve as a catalyst to promote test development in these regions.     

Development and Assessment of Short and Very Short Forms of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire–Revised

Using data from parents of 761 infants from 6 independent samples, short (91 items, 14 scales) and very short (37 items, 3 broad scales) forms of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire–Revised (IBQ–R), a well-established caregiver report measure of temperament for infants aged 3 to 12 months, were developed. The forms were subsequently evaluated with data from 1,619 participants from 11 samples. Over 90% of Cronbach's alphas and part–whole correlations calculated for the short and very short form scales were greater than.70. Interparent agreement was nearly identical to that obtained with standard IBQ–R scales, averaging.41 and ranging from.06 to.76. Longitudinal stability over multiple time spans, and estimated retest reliability of the short form scales, were highly similar to those of standard forms, with estimated retest reliability averaging.72 and ranging from.54 to.93. Convergent and predictive validity of select short form scales were comparable to, but slightly lower, than those observed for standard IBQ–R scales. Recommendations for the use of the standard, short, and very short scales are discussed.     

The Global Context and People at Work: Special Issue Introduction

Although considerable research has been conducted on a variety of cross‐cultural management topics, we still know very little about how organizations can effectively manage people involved in global work or how cross‐cultural differences impact individuals and groups at work. To address this gap, we edited a special issue of Personnel Psychology that presents scholarly research contributing to understanding how global experiences and contexts impact people at work. We identified 3 research themes: cross‐cultural comparisons, the different types of global workers, and theoretical perspectives that underlie the accepted articles’ contributions to this special issue. We conclude with specific theoretical and methodological recommendations for research on human resource management and organizational behavior topics incorporating the global context.