Beyond emotional bonding: The role of preverbal communication in mental growth and health

Next to nutritive and hygienic needs, emotional needs have been most commonly considered in theories on early human development and in therapy of early disorders in social interactions. Needs concerning cognitive and communicative development have gained far less attention although they belong to species-specific means of human adaptation, depend on intrinsic motivators, and are very often involved in the symptomatology of disorders in social behavior. Most mechanisms of dialogic interchanges are based on nonconscious processes and escape parents' rational control. They may be disturbed or inhibited due to pathological deviations and/or unfavorable sociocultural circumstances, both on the parental and infant sides. Preverbal communication plays a key role in the environmental support to infant cognition, communication, and social integration. The elucidation of its forms and therapeutic application has proved helpful not only for infants but also for children whose communicative age is lower than their chronological age.     

Daddy,daddy cool: stallion–foal relationships in a socially-natural herd of Exmoor ponies

Animal Cognition - Different forms of direct paternal investment have been described in mammals. One such species where paternal care was noticed, but remains poorly understood, is the horse (Equus...     

Magnitude effect contributes to the domain specificity in delay discounting

Discounting is a useful framework for understanding temporal choices. A person who prefers $50 immediately over $100 in 1 month exhibits a higher discount rate than a person deciding to wait for the higher payoff. Although previous research shows that discount rates are domain-specific, we propose an alternative to the domain specificity account. We suggest that differences in discounting alternatives across various domains may result not so much from the domains' nature per se but from differences in perceived attractiveness of the discounted alternatives. We replicated that an illustrative study evidencing domain specificity in discounting (Experiment 1) showed that people's subjective values of the payoffs in domains discounted in this experiment were different (Experiment 2) and used a novel method to match the attractiveness of the available alternatives across domains (Experiment 3). Finally, Experiment 4 showed that when matching was applied, the domain effect disappeared. We conclude that a magnitude effect can, at least partially, explain domain specificity in delay discounting.     

Differences in How Trait Emotional Intelligence Predicts Life Satisfaction: The Role of Affect Balance Versus Social Support in India and Germany

In this study, we assessed cross-cultural differences in the extent to which general emotional intelligence is linked to life satisfaction and analyzed mediators of this relationship. We used data from an individualistic culture (Germany) and a collectivistic culture (India) and had university students respond to self-report measures of life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, emotional intelligence, perceived social support, and independent and interdependent self-construals. In line with our hypotheses, we found that Indian students reported less subjective well-being and emotional intelligence than German students. Emotional intelligence was associated with life satisfaction to a higher degree in Germany than in India. In Germany, independent but not interdependent self-construal was related to emotional intelligence; in India, both independent and interdependent self-construals were significantly associated with emotional intelligence. Results of structural equation modeling provided support for our hypotheses regarding mediational models in that the effect of emotional intelligence on life satisfaction was fully mediated by affect balance in Germany and by perceived social support in India.     

A multigroup multitrait-multimethod study in two countries supports the validity of a two-factor higher order model of personality

This study examined the factor structure of the Big Five Inventory and tested the hypothesis that the five personality dimensions could be summarized by two higher order factors, namely, plasticity and stability, using multigroup multitrait-multimethod confirmatory factor analyses. We tested the higher order model in two young adult samples drawn from Germany and Turkey. Adequate inter-rater agreement between self- and informant reports was obtained. Among the models tested, a two-factor model was the most parsimonious model in which the first factor included Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and low Neuroticism; and the second factor included Extraversion and Openness to Experience. Invariance of this model was supported by multiple-group analyses, suggesting a lack of variability across samples.     

The echoes of Wundt's work in the United States, 1887–1977: A quantitative citation analysis

Summary The frequency of references to Wundt's book-length publications in experimental papers appearing in the American Journal of Psychology was determined. The most widely cited work, by far, is the Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie. The distinct decline of Wundt's impact on American psychology is clearly reflected in the frequencies of the citations.