Personalities of politicians and voters: unique and synergistic relationships

A rare collection of personality assessments from 103 Italian politicians revealed predictable patterns of contrasts and similarities with personality dimensions from a large normative sample (N = 4,578). Three modal personality characteristics distinguished politicians, with their significantly higher levels of Energy, Agreeableness, and Social Desirability, from the general public. Comparability between politicians and the public existed on dimensions of Emotional Stability, Conscientiousness, and Openness (Big Five Questionnaire assessment). Politicians from rival coalitions differed on several dimensions; center-right was higher than center-left in Energy and Conscientiousness. Congruencies emerged between politicians and voters for their coalition on all personality dimensions, except that center-left politicians were higher in Energy than center-left voters, and center-right politicians were higher than voters in both Energy and Agreeableness.     

Science and Human Behavior translated into Portuguese: Ciência e Comportamento Humano

Science and Human Behavior was translated to Portuguese as part of the effort to begin a psychology course at the University of Brasília 40 years ago; one of the many results of the first visit of Fred S. Keller to Brazil. The book has been used continuously in undergraduate courses in Brazil since 1967.     

Anandamide and memory in CD1 mice: effects of immobilization stress and of prior experience

Five sets of experiments were carried out with CD1 mice tested in a one-trial inhibitory avoidance task. In a first set, immediately posttraining administrations of the endogenous ligand for the cannabinoid CB1 receptor anandamide (arachidonylethanolamide) (3 or 6 mg/kg) dose-dependently impaired memory consolidation in mice. A lower dose (1.5 mg/kg) was ineffective. In a second set of experiments, which was carried out at the same time of the first set, preexposure of the animals to the testing apparatus decreased the effect of the drug, as compared with non-preexposed mice. In a third set of experiments, administration of anandamide (3 or 6 mg/kg) prior to the retention test did not affect the retention performance of mice given posttraining injections of either saline or anandamide. These findings indicate that the memory-impairing effects of posttraining administration of anandamide are not state-dependent. In the fourth and fifth series of experiments, carried out with non-preexposed mice, an otherwise ineffective immobilization stress (15 min) enhanced the memory-impairing effect of anandamide, and an otherwise ineffective dose of naltrexone (0.1 mg/kg) completely antagonized the effect. The results are discussed in terms of attenuation of emotionality, resulting in impaired retention, following anandamide administration, and of involvement of opioid system in the effect of this drug.     

Evidence for a double dissociation between spatial-simultaneous and spatial-sequential working memory in visuospatial (nonverbal) learning disabled children

The paper describes the performance of three children with specific visuospatial working memory (VSWM) impairments (Study 1) and three children with visuospatial (nonverbal) learning disabilities (Study 2) assessed with a battery of working memory (WM) tests and with a number of school achievement tasks. Overall, performance on WM tests provides evidence of a double dissociation between spatial-simultaneous processes, underpinning the memorization item positioning in a spatial configuration, and spatial-sequential processes, which allow memorization of the presentation order. In both groups of children of the two studies, a selective impairment either on spatial-sequential or on spatial-simultaneous working memory tasks was observed. These data support the existence of -simultaneous and -sequential modality-dependent processes in visuospatial working memory and confirm the importance of distinguishing between different subtypes of visuospatial (nonverbal) learning-disabled children.     

Italian version of the task and ego orientation in sport questionnaire

The 1992 Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire developed by Duda and Nicholls was translated into Italian and administered to 802 young athletes, 248 girls and 554 boys aged 8 to 14 years, drawn from a range of individual and team sports, to examine its factor structure. Data sets of a calibration sample (boys 12-14 years) and of four cross-validation samples (boys 8-11 years, girls 8-11 years, boys 12-14 years, and girls 12-14 years) were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis specifying, as in the original questionnaire, an Ego Orientation scale (6 items) and a Task Orientation scale (7 items). Results across sex and age yielded chi2/df ratios ranging from 1.95 to 3.57, GFI indices above .90, AGFI indices ranging from .90 to .92, and RMSEA values not above .10. Findings provided acceptable support for the two-dimension structure of the test. In the whole sample, the Ego factor accounted for the 27.2% of variance and the Task factor accounted for the 33.5% of variance. Acceptable internal consistency of the two scales was also shown, with Cronbach alpha values ranging from .73 to .85.     

Time ordering in frontal lobe patients: a stochastic model approach

Frontal lobe patients reproduced a sequence of capital letters or abstract shapes. Immediate and delayed reproduction trials allowed the analysis of short- and long-term memory for time order by means of suitable Markov chain stochastic models. Patients were as proficient as healthy subjects on the immediate reproduction trial, thus showing spared encoding and short-term memory. They failed, instead, on the delayed trials with capital letters, but not with random shapes, suggesting that their long-term memory impairment did not depend on primary deficits for ordering, but on inability to benefit from the organisational strategies that improve the retention and retrieval in normal subjects.     

Personal values and political activism: A cross‐national study

Using data from 28 countries in four continents, the present research addresses the question of how basic values may account for political activism. Study (N = 35,116) analyses data from representative samples in 20 countries that responded to the 21‐item version of the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ‐21) in the European Social Survey. Study (N = 7,773) analyses data from adult samples in six of the same countries (Finland, Germany, Greece, Israel, Poland, and United Kingdom) and eight other countries (Australia, Brazil, Chile, Italy, Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine, and United States) that completed the full 40‐item PVQ. Across both studies, political activism relates positively to self‐transcendence and openness to change values, especially to universalism and autonomy of thought, a subtype of self‐direction. Political activism relates negatively to conservation values, especially to conformity and personal security. National differences in the strength of the associations between individual values and political activism are linked to level of democratization.     

Neurodynamics inside therapeutic interaction: a case study with simultaneous EEG recording / La neurodinámica en el contexto de la interacción terapéutica: un estudio de caso con una grabación simultánea de EEG

Recent research on processes of psychotherapy has focused on the study of patient-therapist regulation. Evidence concerning verbal and nonverbal coordination as predictors of therapeutic alliance and outcome in psychotherapy has been cumulating. These, along with others results in the field of social neuroscience, suggest that behavioural coordination may have neurophysiological correlates, which play a role in the regulatory process in psychotherapy. Here we introduce an observational paradigm and analytic method to assess the joint neurodynamic activity of patient and therapist. Additionally we report results from ongoing psychotherapy sessions. Our work highlights the involvement of brain activity in the psychotherapeutic process and provides novel insights on how psychotherapy works, in order to further the understanding of the embodied characteristic of the therapeutic interaction.     

Construct representation and definitions in psychopathology: the case of delusion

Background  

Delusion is one of the most intriguing psychopathological phenomena and its conceptualization remains the subject of genuine debate. Claims that it is ill-defined, however, are typically grounded on essentialist expectations that a given definition should capture the core of every instance acknowledged as delusion in the clinical setting.     

Burnout and self-perceptions of physical fitness in a sample of Italian physical education teachers

This study examined the relations of physical education teachers' burnout with some individual variables, including teachers' self-perceived physical fitness and the perceived influence of personal fitness on teaching. Participants were 219 Italian physical education teachers in secondary school. Demographic and professional information, ratings of self-perception of physical condition, and the Italian version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory were recorded. Compared to the data of a normative sample, average scores on the three dimensions of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalisation, and Reduced Personal Accomplishment) were found. There were statistically significant associations among Reduced Personal Accomplishment, the self-perception of physical fitness, and the perception of the influence of personal fitness on teaching. Women reported scores on Emotional Exhaustion and Reduced Personal Accomplishment indicative of greater severity than men. No significant differences appeared to be related to the years of teaching. Recommendations for further studies are discussed.