Intergroup conflict, out-group derogation, and self-directed negative affect among Italian South Tyroleans

In South Tyrol, a multiethnic Italian province, the authors examined the self-directed negative affect that members of an Italian group experienced after they evaluated members of the German and Albanian groups. The authors examined the affect as a function of out-group derogation. The authors argued that to the extent that out-group derogation may run counter to norms toward intergroup fairness, such normative nonconformity will elicit negative affect directed at the self as a function of perceived intergroup conflict. The findings support the authors' line of reasoning: among Italian South Tyroleans, those who expressed greater out-group derogation were led to experience stronger negative self-directed affect when they rated a low-conflict out-group, but not when they rated a high-conflict out-group, compared to participants whose out-group derogation was less.     

Predicting Generative Concern in Young Adulthood from Narrative Intimacy: A 5-Year Follow-Up

According to Erikson’s developmental model, achieving intimacy in young adulthood should predict higher levels of generativity later in life. This mixed quantitative and qualitative, longitudinal study examined the relationship between generative concern and intimacy in young adulthood (from ages 26–32). Participants (N = 147; 69 % female; 74.1 % college educated) told a narrative about a “relationship defining moment” with a same-sex friend, and completed self-report questionnaires of optimism and generative concern at ages 26 and 32. Optimism and generative concern had strong stability over time, while friendship intimacy did not exhibit test–retest stability. Most participants (88.6 %) disclosed a different story at each time point, which contributed to the lack of rank-order stability for friendship intimacy in the present study. Friendship intimacy was positively correlated with age 26 and age 32 generative concern. Both sex and optimism predicted longitudinal increases in generative concern over 5 years, with women and people higher in optimism seeing larger increases. Friendship intimacy coded from narratives at 26 predicted (p = .052) increases in generative concern at 32. The present study extended prior research by examining the relationship between intimacy and generative concern as people develop from emerging to young adulthood. Following Erikson, developing close relationships with others, exhibiting an optimistic outlook on life, and being female appear to facilitate greater generative concern in young adults.     

Self-Other Differentiation Scale: Dimensionality,IRT Parameterization,and Measurement Invariance

The Self-Other Differentiation Scale (Olver, Aries, &; Batgos, 1989 Olver, R. R., Aries, E., &; Batgos, J. (1989). Self-other differentiation and the mother-child relationship: The effects of sex and birth order. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 150, 311–321. doi:10.1080/00221325.1989.9914600[Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) is a self-report instrument assessing the experience of a separate sense of self from others. The authors aimed to examine its dimensionality, reliability, and measurement invariance across gender. It was completed by 348 participants (48% men) from 17 to 30 years old in Study 1, 348 participants (40% men) from 18 to 28 years old in Study 2, and 1,068 participants (49% men) from 17 to 28 years old in Study 3. The results supported the hypothesis of just one factor underlying the scale; they also showed an appropriate internal consistency and a partial measurement invariance across gender. Results also showed evidence for a 10-item version of the scale. Globally, the Self-Other Differentiation Scale can be considered a good scale to assess individual's sense of differentiation of one's own sense of self from others.     

Associations Among Psychologically Controlling Parenting,Autonomy, Relatedness,and Problem Behaviors During Emerging Adulthood

The present study aimed to investigate the relations among perceived parental psychological control (PPC), autonomy and relatedness, and negative outcomes during emerging adulthood in two cultural contexts: Italy and the USA. More specifically, we explored the mechanisms through which dependency-oriented PPC (DPPC) and achievement-oriented PPC (APPC) are associated with both internalizing and externalizing difficulties, focusing on the mediating role of autonomy and relatedness. Participants were 418 European-American and 359 Italian college students. Results indicated that the expressions of PPC with regard to dependency and achievement were related to emerging adults’ negative outcomes through different pathways, and these effects were moderated by the cultural group. The implications of the findings for future related empirical investigations and clinical interventions were discussed.     

Cognitive Style as an Antecedent to Adaptiveness,Customer Orientation,and Self-Perceived Selling Performance

Data from 396 real estate salespeople offer structural model evidence of the antecedence of salesperson cognitive style (Jung, 1971) to adaptive selling behavior, and to sales orientation-customer orientation and self-perceived selling performance. Four hypotheses were supported: Salespeople who prefer information intake by intuiting (rather than sensing) and information processing/decision-making by thinking (rather than feeling) were found to be more likely to practice adaptive selling; the more adaptive selling was practiced, the greater customer orientation became; and the greater the customer orientation, the better the self-perceived selling performance. Implications exist for salesperson training, management, and motivation research.     

A Note on Saying Nothing and Saying More in the Tractatus

On the basis of an analysis of the relevant parts of Tractatus logico-philosophicus, a definition of the property (of propositions) of saying something, and of the obviously correlated property of saying nothing, is given. By applying that definition, both tautologies and contradictions are sanctioned as saying nothing, as lacking sense, in full agreement with Wittgenstein's explicit statements. On the other hand, a recent systematic attempt by A. Negro to extract from the Tractatus a criterion for sense containment and a criterion for saying more, that is, for comparing the amount of sense of propositions, leads to the conclusion that the sense of any proposition is contained in the sense of a contradiction and that contradictions say more than any other propositions. The problem faced in this paper is that of restoring consistency between Negro's criteria, which on the whole give a correct interpretation of the text of the Tractatus, and Wittgenstein's thesis that, not only tautologies, but also contradictions say nothing.     

Normal body scheme and absent phantom limb experience in amputees while dreaming

While dreaming amputees often experience a normal body image and the phantom limb may not be present. However, dreaming experiences in amputees have mainly been collected by questionnaires. We analysed the dream reports of amputated patients with phantom limb collected after awakening from REM sleep during overnight videopolysomnography (VPSG). Six amputated patients underwent overnight VPSG study. Patients were awakened during REM sleep and asked to report their dreams. Three patients were able to deliver an account of a dream. In all dreaming recalls, patients reported that the amputated limbs were intact and completely functional and they no longer experienced phantom limb sensations. Phantom limb experiences, that during wake result from a conflict between a pre-existing body scheme and the sensory information on the missing limb, were suppressed during sleep in our patients in favour of the image of an intact body accessed during dream.     

Encouraging Active Classroom Discussion of Academic Integrity and Misconduct in Higher Education Business Contexts

The present study assessed business students’ responses to an innovative interactive presentation on academic integrity that employed quoted material from previous students as launching points for discussion. In total, 15 business classes (n = 412 students) including 2nd, 3rd and 4th year level students participated in the presentations as part of the ethics component of ongoing courses. Students’ perceptions of the importance of academic integrity, self-reports of cheating behaviors, and factors contributing to misconduct were examined along with perceptions about the presentation. Discussion sessions revealed that academic misconduct is a complex issue. For example, knowledge of what constitutes misconduct was not consistent across domains (e.g. exam contexts versus group work), penalties were not wholly known, and there was variation in perceived responsibility for reporting and representing academic integrity. Survey measures revealed that self-reported academic misconduct was more prevalent than expected with only 7.5% of students indicating they had never cheated in any way. Furthermore, results showed gender and year of study as predictive factors for issues related to academic misconduct. In general, students were receptive to this form of presentation. The implications of such instructional interventions for enhancing ethical behaviors in higher education classrooms are discussed.     

Assessing learning processes with the gain-loss model

Within the framework of knowledge space theory, a probabilistic skill multimap model for assessing learning processes is proposed. The learning process of a student is modeled as a function of the interaction between his competence state and the effect of a learning object on specific skills. Model parameters are initial probabilities of the skills, effects of learning objects on gaining and losing the skills, careless error, and lucky guess probabilities of the problems. A simulation study assessed model identifiability and goodness-of-recovery under several conditions. Practical implications of using the model are discussed, and the MATLAB code for simulating, estimating and testing it is available in the Psychonomic Society supplemental archive.