PALME

Background

Single mothers and their children are exposed to increased psychosocial burdens and risks. Nevertheless, in Germany offers of help especially designed for the needs of this group are lacking.

Method

An emotion-oriented parental training program (PALME, http://www.palme-elterntraining.de) based on the attachment theory was developed particularly for single mothers with preschool children. The training is guided by trained kindergarten nurses. The effectiveness of the parental training program on the measure of maternal psychological impairment, emotional competence and child problem behavior was investigated within a randomized, controlled study with 61 single mothers suffering from medium grade psychosocial impairment.

Results

Analyses of variance revealed significant group×time interaction effects in favor of the intervention group compared to controls. After the training the mothers showed improvement in their psychological impairment, depression and emotional competence. In addition, evidence suggests that behavioral problems of the children were reduced.

Conclusion

In view of the benefits of this parental training and its low costs it should be recommended as a regular offer of support for single mothers within community settings.     

Person-organization fit: Testing socialization and attraction-selection-attrition hypotheses

Using the socialization and attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) frameworks, this study examined the relation between employees’ work values and their organization’s values (person-organization fit). With a two year time interval, 140 respondents participated in a longitudinal study. After entry, socialization served to enhance homogeneity. The work values underwent small changes and the perception of fit with the organization grew. Despite high retention rates results confirmed the attrition effect. Results indicated that the lower the perceived match between own and organizational values at entry, the more likely it was that someone left the organization over time. We concluded that socialization as well as attrition mechanisms were present at the same time.     

Latent state–trait theory: An application in sport psychology

ObjectiveQuestionnaires are often applied in sports psychology to measure a person's trait or state. However, the extent to which the questionnaire captures differences because of trait or state influences is often unclear. The latent state–trait (LST) theory offers the opportunity to separate both variance sources. This separation allows estimating specific reliability coefficients.DesignThe present paper gives a theoretical introduction to LST and its basic ideas. Using a real data set with N = 156 athletes we exemplify the steps necessary to derive the LST coefficients. All athletes filled out a comprehensive inventory assessing competitive anxiety on two occasions.MethodThe data are analysed with structural equation models based on LST principles.ResultsThe results confirm the questionnaire's trait saturation.ConclusionFinally, results are discussed in light of practical and theoretical implications.     

The effects of expertise and age on rhythm production: adaptations to timing and sequencing constraints.

We investigate age- and expertise-related individual differences in component processes of rhythmic timing. To this end we apply analysis of covariance structure and symbolic dynamics to time series obtained from performances of two bimanual rhythm tasks at different tempos. Results show similar effects for peripheral motor implementation and timekeeper execution in young and older amateur pianists. Older participants show specific problems with temporal sequencing processes (specification of different target intervals). Expert pianists show lower variability in both motor implementation and timekeeper execution and they accommodate to the sequencing demands of different tempos by selectively relying on integrated or parallel timing. We argue that the observed timing control characteristics reflect individuals' adaptations to internal processing limitations and performance constraints.     

Intelligence and reaction times in the Hick, Sternberg and Posner paradigms

The relationship between psychometric intelligence and reaction times (RTs) in three well-known elementary cognitive tasks (Hick simple and choice reaction time task, Sternberg's short-term memory scanning, Posner's letter matching) was studied in a sample of 116 participants. In conformity with other studies mean RTs and intraindividual variabilities (SDs) of RT were correlated significantly with Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM). On the basis of the mental speed theory the processing measures or component scores (like slopes in the Hick and Sternberg paradigm and the NI-PI measure in the Posner task) should give the most substantial relationships with intelligence. However, as in other previous studies these measures displayed rather low, albeit significant, relationships with intelligence, which was probably due to the low reliability of these parameters. For the Posner paradigm, we proposed alternative approaches to compute an indicator for long-term memory (LTM) access that gave substantial correlations with intelligence. We conclude that LTM access is significantly associated with psychometric intelligence, whereas up to now there has been no unequivocal evidence for a substantial relationship between short-term memory access in the Sternberg task and intelligence.     

The Adequacy of Resemblance Nominalism about Perfect Naturalness

Resemblance Nominalism About Perfect Naturalness (RNPN) is the view that perfect naturalness of classes is best defined by a conceptual primitive of resemblance between particulars. The adequacy of RNPN is defended by (part I) outlining nominalism as the strictly anti‐constitutive view that the particulars’ being the fundamental ways they are is not constituted by anything further, (part II) supplying a doubly plural contrastive and graded resemblance predicate that allows for a definition of perfect naturalness on an actualist basis, and (part III) proving a representation and a uniqueness theorem on the basis of a formal constraint on resemblance called “the Principle”, thereby revealing that bodies of nominalist resemblance facts are guaranteed to behave as if they were grounded in patterns of universals distributed over particulars.