Understanding the Labour Market Participation of Skilled Immigrant Women in Switzerland: The Interplay of Class, Ethnicity, and Gender

Switzerland has recently adopted immigration policies that give preference to skilled migrants, the assumption being that migrants with higher education will integrate easily. Our study of 57 skilled immigrant women from Latin America, the Middle East and Southeastern Europe shows that this assumption is largely unjustified. Most of the women cannot use their social and cultural capital to establish themselves in the upper segments of the labour market. A third are not integrated in the labour market and a quarter occupy positions below their skill-level. A further third work at their skill-level but only irregularly. The differentiated participation of these immigrants in the labour market is well explained by analysing the interplay of class, ethnicity and gender.     

Does a Gatekeeper Suicide Prevention Program Work in a School Setting? Evaluating Training Outcome and Moderators of Effectiveness

The current study sought to evaluate the suicide prevention gatekeeper training program QPR (Question, Persuade, and Refer) among school personnel using a non‐equivalent control group design. Substantial gains were demonstrated from pre‐ to post‐test for attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs regarding suicide and suicide prevention. Exploratory analyses revealed the possible moderating effects of age, professional role, prior training, and recent contact with suicidal youth on QPR participants' general knowledge, questioning, attitudes toward suicide and suicide prevention, QPR quiz scores, and self‐efficacy. The need for replication using a more rigorous experimental design in the context of strong community collaboration is discussed.     

Effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance by United States Air Force pilots

This study examined the effects of 35 h of continuous sleep deprivation on performance in a variety of cognitive tasks as well as simulated flight. Ten United States Air Force pilots completed the Multi-Attribute Task Battery (MATB), Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT), and Operation Span Task (OSPAN), as well as simulated flight at 3 h intervals over a 35 h sleep deprivation period. Performance declined on all tests after about 18–20 h of continuous sleep deprivation, although the degree to which performance degraded varied. During the second half of the sleep deprivation period, performance on the simulated flight was predicted by PVT and OSPAN reasonably well but much less so by the MATB. Variance from optimal flight performance was predicted by both PVT and OSPAN but each measure added incremental validity to the prediction. The two measures together accounted for 58% of the variance in flight performance in the second half of the sleep deprivation period.     

Turning back the hands of time: Autobiographical memories in dementia cued by a museum setting

The current study examined the effects of cuing autobiographical memory retrieval in 12 older participants with dementia through immersion into a historically authentic environment that recreated the material and cultural context of the participants’ youth. Participants conversed in either an everyday setting (control condition) or a museum setting furnished in early twentieth century style (experimental condition) while being presented with condition matched cues. Conversations were coded for memory content based on an adapted version of Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, and Moscovitch (2002) coding scheme. More autobiographical memories were recalled in the museum setting, and these memories were more elaborated, more spontaneous and included especially more internal (episodic) details compared to memories in the control condition. The findings have theoretical and practical implications by showing that the memories retrieved in the museum setting were both quantitatively and qualitatively different from memories retrieved during a control condition.     

The Role of Switching,Inhibition and Working Memory in Older Adults' Performance in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

ABSTRACT

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is considered a typical executive test. However, several interesting questions are still open as to the specific executive processes underlying this task. In the present study, we explored how local and global switching, inhibition and working memory, assessed through the Number–Letter, the Stop Signal and the Reading Span tasks, relate to older adults' performance in the WCST. Results showed that older adults' performance variability in the number of perseverative errors was predicted by the local switch component of the Number–Letter task. Results also showed age-related differences in inhibition, working memory and global switching, while local switching resulted largely spared in aging. This study provides evidence that switching abilities may contribute to performance of older adults in the WCST. It also provides initial evidence suggesting that switching processes, associated with local switch costs, are involved in performance on the WCST, at least in older adults.     

The Self as a Moral Agent: Preschoolers Behave Morally but Believe in the Freedom to Do Otherwise

Recent work suggests a strong connection between intuitions regarding our own free will and our moral behavior. We investigate the origins of this link by asking whether preschool-aged children construe their own moral actions as freely chosen. We gave children the option to make three moral/social choices (avoiding harm to another, following a rule, and following peer behavior) and then asked them to retrospect as to whether they were free to have done otherwise. When given the choice to act (either morally or immorally), children avoided harm and abided by rules, but they endorsed their freedom to have done otherwise. When choice was restricted by adult instruction, children did not endorse their free choice and indicated feeling constrained by moral obligation in their explanatory responses. These results suggest that children believe that their moral actions afford free will, but this belief is dependent on their experience of choice.     

The incremental role of trait emotional intelligence on perceived cervical screening barriers

Researchers have become increasingly interested in investigating the role of the psychological aspects related to the perception of cervical screening barriers. This study investigates the influence of trait EI on perceived cervical screening barriers. Furthermore, this study investigates the incremental validity of trait EI beyond the Big Five, as well as emotion regulation in the perceived barrier towards the Pap test as revealed in a sample of 206 Italian women that were undergoing cervical screening. Results have shown that trait EI is negatively related to cervical screening barriers. Furthermore, trait EI can be considered as a strong incremental predictor of a woman’s perception of screening over and above the Big Five, emotion regulation, age, sexual intercourse experience and past Pap test. Detailed information on the study findings and future research directions are discussed.     

Altruistic behavior and cooperation: The role of intrinsic expectation when reputational information is incomplete

Altruistic behavior is known to be conditional on the level of altruism of others. However, people often have no information, or incomplete information, about the altruistic reputation of others, for example when the reputation was obtained in a different social or economic context. As a consequence, they have to estimate the other's altruistic intentions. Using an economic game, we showed that without reputational information people have intrinsic expectations about the altruistic behavior of others, which largely explained their own altruistic behavior. This implies that when no information is available, intrinsic expectations can be as powerful a driver of altruistic behavior as actual knowledge about other people's reputation. Two strategies appeared to co-exist in our study population: participants who expected others to be altruistic and acted even more altruistically themselves, while other participants had low expected altruism scores and acted even less altruistically than they expected others to do. We also found evidence that generosity in economic games translates into benefits for other social contexts: a reputation of financial generosity increased the attractiveness of partners in a social cooperative game. This result implies that in situations with incomplete information, the fitness effects of indirect reciprocity are cumulative across different social contexts.