Preschool Children’s Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Mother–Child,Father–Child and Teacher–Child Relationships

Prosocial behavior is considered an important dimension of positive development. Although previous research suggests the quality of children’s early relationships may influence prosocial behaviors, the specific contributions of mother, father and teacher to children’s prosocial behavior have been less examined. This is a cross-sectional study that investigates (a) the combined associations between mother–, father– and teacher–child relationships, and prosocial behavior in 168 children aged 36–72 months, and (b) the mediating role of the teacher–child relationship in the association between the parent–child relationship and prosocial behavior. Results suggested a positive link between the quality of relationships with early caregivers and children’s prosocial behavior. The quality of both father– and teacher–child relationships were found to have a direct association with children’s prosocial behavior. The quality of the mother–child relationship was indirectly linked to children’s prosocial behavior, via the teacher–child relationship. Results suggesting connections between multiple relational contexts were discussed based on the notion of internal working models proposed by attachment theory. Mothers’ and fathers’ contributions to children’s prosocial behavior were also discussed considering differences on relational styles and changing roles of mothers and fathers from dual-earner families.     

Wellbeing at Work and the Great Recession: The Effect of Others’ Unemployment

The recent recession has generated a tremendous increase in unemployment rates in Spain. In this paper we use a very rich repeated cross-section dataset on workers’ job conditions, together with regional unemployment rates, to investigate whether peers’ unemployment affects individuals’ job satisfaction. We find that, once perceived job stability is controlled for, peers’ unemployment shows a positive effect on individuals’ wellbeing at work, greater and more precisely estimated for men and private-sector workers. The impact is highly non-linear and the greatest effect is found for unemployment rates exceeding 10 %. Interestingly, the results are robust to controlling for workforce selection.     

Irrational Beliefs and Attention Bias Towards Symptoms-Related Stimuli in Maintaining Gastrointestinal Symptoms: Results from a Pilot Study

Recent etiopathogenic theories of gastrointestinal conditions state that information processing biases can be a possible major factor involved in the aetiology and maintenance of these conditions. This exploratory study investigated the role of attention biases (AB) towards symptoms-related cues in gastrointestinal patients with respect to symptom maintenance, simultaneously taking into consideration the role of irrational beliefs. We included 32 patients diagnosed with gastrointestinal conditions. Patients completed a battery of psychological tests and an experimental task aimed to measure the preferential attention processing of linguistic stimuli related to gastrointestinal symptoms when they compete for attention resources with neutral stimuli. AB was positively related to irrational beliefs [r(31) = .376, p = .037] and analgesics use [r(32) = .518, p = .002], but not to self-report gastrointestinal symptoms [r(30) = ?.165, p = .382]. Irrational beliefs correlated with pain catastrophizing [r(31) = .373, p = .039], but not to gastrointestinal symptoms, pain intensity, visceral sensitivity or negative emotions; however, pain catastrophizing correlated with all of these. Taken together, our results suggest that core irrational beliefs action as general vulnerability factors that trigger specific implicit and explicit cognitive mechanisms (i.e., AB, pain catastrophizing) involved in the onset and maintenance of symptoms. Future experimental studies should test the robustness of these results in larger samples and aim to further advance our understanding of how cognitive factors interact and potentiate each other in generating and maintaining debilitating suffering.     

Synchronization of Logics

Motivated by applications in software engineering, we propose two forms of combination of logics: synchronization on formulae and synchronization on models. We start by reviewing satisfaction systems, consequence systems, one-step derivation systems and theory spaces, as well as their functorial relationships. We define the synchronization on formulae of two consequence systems and provide a categorial characterization of the construction. For illustration we consider the synchronization of linear temporal logic and equational logic. We define the synchronization on models of two satisfaction systems and provide a categorial characterization of the construction. We illustrate the technique in two cases: linear temporal logic versus equational logic; and linear temporal logic versus branching temporal logic. Finally, we lift the synchronization on formulae to the category of logics over consequences systems.     

Picture-word differences in a sentence verification task

Effects of picture-word format were investigated with four problem-solving items. In Experiment 1, picture-word input was presented for 8 sec followed by a test sentence that included verbatim and inference statements. Subjects made a true/false reaction time to the test sentence. In Experiment 2, the input remained on the screen while the test sentence was presented with varied stimulus onset asynchronies from 0 to 1,000 msec. Results showed that responses to pictures were faster than responses to words, and the format effect was larger with inference than with verbatim sentences. The picture advantage seemed to be due to the nature of the input and how information is extracted from it. The findings are discussed within the context of text-processing theories (Glenberg & Langston, 1992; Larkin & Simon, 1987).     

Detection of coherence-disrupting and coherence-conferring alterations in text

In a study phase, subjects were presented with sentence pairs which were either coherent or anomalous. In a subsequent recognition test, each sentence pair was presented either in its original form or with one word changed. The changed word either disrupted the coherence of a previously coherent sentence pair or conferred coherence on a previously anomalous sentence pair. Alterations were more accurately detected if they were coherence-disrupting than if they were coherence-conferring. In a coherence-conferring alteration, the altered sentence can be assimilated to one of the abstract cognitive units activated by the studied sentence pair, whereas in a coherence-disrupting alteration, the altered sentence cannot be so assimilated. Analogous asymmetries have been observed for musical sequences that are coherent or anomalous with respect to tonality and rhythm. These parallels suggest that principles of cognitive organization that are responsible for our intuitions of coherence cut across propositional and nonpropositional domains.