What predicts anti‐Roma prejudice? Qualitative and quantitative analysis of everyday sentiments about the Roma

The present research focused on two primary goals: (a) identifying the content of sentiments about the Roma to which Hungarians are exposed during everyday family conversations, and (b) determining which types of everyday sentiments about the Roma most strongly predict Hungarian respondents’ anti‐Roma prejudice. Content analyzing open‐ended responses from a representative sample of Hungarians (N = 505), we found that more than 76% of the respondents reported being exposed to negative stereotypes about the Roma, 27% to threats posed by Roma, and 16% to overt dehumanization of Roma; additionally more than 20% reported hearing no positive sentiments about the Roma in everyday family conversations. We then examined which negative and positive sentiments most strongly predicted respondents’ anti‐Roma prejudice (using measures of social distance and modern racism). Higher social distance scores were predicted by a lack of positive sentiments, whereas lower social distance scores were most strongly predicted by unambiguously positive sentiments expressed during family conversations. Higher modern racism scores were further predicted by sentiments expressing dehumanization, threat, and violence against Roma. Together, these results attest to the extremity of anti‐Roma sentiments expressed regularly by Hungarians, and suggest how exposure to specific sentiments may foster anti‐Roma hostility. Moreover, these findings provide guidance regarding the specific negative anti‐Roma sentiments that should be combated to enhance the effectiveness of anti‐prejudice interventions.     

Equivalences Among Polarity Algorithms

The concept of polarity is pervasive in natural language. It relates syntax, semantics and pragmatics narrowly (Giannakidou, in: Maienborn, von Heusinger, Portner (eds.), Semantics: an international handbook of natural language meaning, De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin, 2011; Israel in The grammar of polarity: pragmatics, sensitivity, and the logic of scales, Cambridge studies in linguistics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014), it refers to items of many syntactic categories such as nouns, verbs and adverbs. Neutral polarity items appear in affirmative and negative sentences, negative polarity items cannot appear in affirmative sentences, and positive polarity items cannot appear in negative sentences. A way of reasoning in Natural Language is through Natural Logic (van Benthem in Essays in logical semantics, vol. 29 of Studies in linguistics and philosophy, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1986; Language in action: categories, lambdas, and dynamic logic, vol. 130 of Studies in logic, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1991). This logic is based on the concept of polarity in order to make the meaning of a sentence weaker o stronger without changing its truth value. There exist many proposals to compute polarity in the Natural Logic context, the most widely known are the ones by: van Benthem (1986, 1991), Sánchez-Valencia (Studies on natural logic and categorial grammar, Ph.D. thesis, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1991), Dowty (Proceedings of the 4th conference on semantics and theoretical linguistics, Cornel University, CLC Publications, Rochester, 1994), and van Eijck (in: ten Cate, Zeevat (eds.), 6th international Tbilisi symposium on logic, language, and computation, Batumi, Georgia, Springer, 2007). If Natural Logic is going to be used, as an inferential mechanism between text fragments, in Natural Language Processing applications such as text summarization, question answering, and information extraction, it is a priority to know what the existing relationship among the aforementioned algorithms is; for example, to implement the most general. We show in this paper the equivalence among the analyzed algorithms, filling a gap in Natural Logic research, particularly in computing polarity, and the soundness of their algorithms.     

Direct Perceptual Access to Other Minds

It is sometimes claimed that we perceive people’s mental states in their expressive features. This paper clarifies the claim by contrasting two possible readings, depending on whether expression is conceived relationally or non-relationally. A crucial difference between both readings is that only a non-relational conception of expression ensures direct access to other minds. The paper offers an argument for a non-relational conception of expression, and therefore for the view that we directly perceive people’s mental states in their expressive features.     

Acute Aerobic Exercise Enhances Students’ Creativity

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an aerobics games class on creativity in children during the school day. Participants were 96 students (age = 9.84 ± 1.12 years), 48 girls and 48 boys. The students were randomly assigned to the experimental group (EG, n = 48) or the control group (CG, n = 48). The Prueba de Imaginación Creativa-Niños (PIC-N) test was employed to assess narrative and graphic creativity. The EG took part in an aerobic games session lasting 45 min; the CG did not take part in a physical education class on that school day. As for group × time interaction, the EG experienced significant improvements in all creativity variables except in graphic originality, graphic titles, and graphic details. The CG did not improve any creativity variables. The findings suggest that acute aerobic exercise can enhance students’ creativity, which could be important for academic achievement.     

Cognitive plasticity in successful ageing: contributions from a learning potential assessment / Plasticidad cognitiva en el envejecimiento exitoso: aportes desde la evaluación del potencial de aprendizaje

Abstract

Despite numerous studies on the subject of successful ageing, few studies address the issue from a learning potential (LP) perspective. In Latin America there is no empirical background describing LP in successful ageing. In this study, 157 elderly Argentines were categorized into ageing trajectories (successful, normal and pathological ageing) based on objective scores from autonomy level, cognitive performance and mood state scales. Subjects were assessed with classic neuropychological tests, a cognitive reserve scale and an LP test. The results show differences in LP and cognitive reserve according to different ageing trajectories. This study establishes a regional precedent of relevance in the study of LP in elderly people pursuing successful ageing. It also provides evidence of the usefulness of incorporating instances of delayed free recall and recognition in an episodic memory and LP test.     

Variables that favour successful ageing / Variables que favorecen un envejecimiento exitoso

Abstract

The construct of successful ageing appears in the sixties, with a focus on physiological factors. However, its definition progressively develops into a more multidisciplinary construct and begins to include psychological, psychosocial and environmental factors; today, all these aspects are seen as essential to its study. In this monograph devoted to successful ageing, both this work and those that appear beside it aim to highlight the different areas of research that have been forged — mainly from psychology but also, in certain cases, together with associated disciplines — to try to outline a comprehensive model of ageing with the ultimate goal of creating intervention tools to foster successful ageing. Thus, this issue analyses the roles played by the Mediterranean diet, resilience, training programmes and training caregivers, among others, as explored by different experts in the area in an attempt to unveil the keys to ageing successfully from a psychosocial perspective.     

Optimism as a mediator between resilience and affective states in older adults / El optimismo como mediador entre la resiliencia y estados afectivos en adultos mayores

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore whether resilience is associated with and a predictor of depression, anxiety, negative and positive affect, life satisfaction and subjective happiness in older adults, and whether these relationships are mediated by optimism. To analyse this, different scales were administered to a sample of 240 elderly people and correlational and mediational analysis was carried out. The results showed relationships between all the variables. Similarly, we found that optimism is a partial mediator of the relationship between resilience and the aforementioned variables. Our results evidenced that increasing resilience and optimism in elderly people could be favourable to successful ageing.     

Emotions,positive self-regulation and resilience. Development and validation of alternative theoretical models and its assessment instrument / Emociones,autorregulación positiva y resiliencia. Desarrollo y validación de modelos teóricos alternativos y su instrumento de evaluación

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the organization of emotion coping strategies that reflect positive emotional self-regulation through the contrast of four theoretical models, as well as the relationship between such strategies and resilience. With this aim, the Positive Emotional Self-regulation Questionnaire (PEMSR-Q) for adolescents was developed. A total of 336 secondary school students formed the sample. In order to analyse model fit, four confirmatory factor analyses were realized (a one-factor model/a-three factors model/a hierarchical model/a bifactor model), as well as correlation and regression analyses to determine its concurrent validity. Results have shown that the bi-factor model has the best fit. Besides, the combination of positive self-regulation strategies and problem-focused strategies is associated with better resilience. These results underlie the importance of helping adolescents to develop and use positive self-regulation strategies to increase their resilience.     

The Vasarhelyi method of child art psychotherapy: an adjunctive treatment in childhood depression

We describe the use of child art psychotherapy (CAP) following the Vasarhelyi method in an 11-year-old female with a history of anxiety and depression which limited her capacity to attend school and in a 15-year-old male who had a history of depressive symptoms with suicidal thinking. In each case, the use of other therapies such as cognitive behaviour therapy was not possible or unsuccessful. Through the creation of images, each young person revealed concerns which had not been previously verbalised, and recovery was linked in time to the revelation of these worries. We propose the use of the Vasarhelyi method of CAP as an adjunctive treatment of depression in young people.