The Impact of Culture on the Individual Subjective Well-Being of the Italian Population: An Exploratory Study

The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between cultural access and individual psychological well-being, in order to provide a possible estimation of the impact of cultural participation upon subjective perceptions of well being. Our exploratory research was based on a cross-sectional survey undertook on a medium-large sample (n = 1500) of Italian residents in fall 2008. We refer to the Psychological General Well-Being Index–PGWBI, a tool that has been validated through 30 years of research, as an index of measurement. Moreover, we have administered to the sample an additional questionnaire inquiring about access to 15 distinct culturally related activities. Data are processed by means of a specific methodology based on ANN and Called TWIST. TWIST has been developed by the Semeion Research Center, Rome. Our analysis suggests that culture has a relevant role as a determinant of individual psychological well-being, in that a selected subset of cultural variables turn out to perform among the best predictors of individual PGWB levels. Our results also allow some preliminary considerations about innovative, well-being focused public health policies leveraging upon the human and social developmental role of culture.     

A systematic review of motivational interviewing within musculoskeletal health

Motivational interviewing (MI) has been investigated within a range of healthcare environments though to date no studies have systematically assessed its application and effectiveness within musculoskeletal health. The aim of this study is to identify interventions that have utilised MI to create change within musculoskeletal healthcare, evaluate quality and effectiveness, as well as identify the level of training received by those utilising the approach. The search strategy identified both published and unpublished or grey literature through electronic resources, reference list and content searches. Five studies were identified for quality assessment. Due to variations in delivery modality, musculoskeletal condition and type of MI application it was not possible to provide direct comparative interpretations for these factors. A data synthesis was used to provide a summary of study characteristics, a narrative overview and conduct a quality assessment as well as considering authors comments on study limitations. The results of the quality assessment highlighted a number of methodological issues which supported and expanded upon those expressed by the studies authors. None of the studies contained children or young people and in terms of training there were variations in training provider, duration and competency, as well as variation in the fidelity of MI. The findings have highlighted the need for well designed randomised controlled trials that are suitability powered to measure the effectiveness of MI within musculoskeletal health. Future studies may consider the application of MI within musculoskeletal conditions in terms of self-management and its application to creating lifestyle changes (e.g., diet, exercise) for adults, as well as children and young people. Research currently being conducted may expand upon the evidence, feasibility and validity of MI within areas such as fibromyalgia, osteoporosis, arthritis, understanding of knee replacement and rehabilitation.     

Assessment of vocational guidance: the Berufsbilder test

The object of this study is to assess informative possibilities of some technical indicators of the Test of Photos of Professions (BBT--Berufsbilder test), a projective method to clarify professional inclination, proposed by Martin Achtnich. This psychological evaluation technique is composed of 96 photos of professionals, performing various types of activities. The test subject classifies the photos into three groups: positive (agreeable), negative (disagreeable) and indifferent (neutral). Among those chosen positively, five preferences are chosen and a story is developed that includes them, an activity that is requested two times during the Vocational Guidance process: in the beginning (or middle) and at the end of the intervention. In this study, 160 stories were created by 80 youths, between 15 and 20 years of age, in public and private schools in a mid-sized Brazilian city. The stories were compared in three analytical categories: protagonist, professional conflict and resolution. The results were submitted to Wilcoxon nonparametric statistical analysis (p < .05), significant and relevant indicators of resolution being found in the process of occupational choice. This technical resource was shown, from this empirical evidence, to be promising for use in evaluation of intervention processes of Vocational Guidance.     

Clustering and switching in unconstrained,phonemic and semantic verbal fluency: the role of age and school type

We investigated the role of age and school type on clustering and switching in verbal fluency tasks (VFTs) with Brazilian children. The children were administered unconstrained, phonemic and semantic VFTs with a duration of 150 or 120 s, respectively. Both age and school type influenced all variables and in terms of performance over time. Older children and private school students outperformed the remainder of the sample, with the first 30 s of each VFT usually being the most productive. Although the size of the clusters produced did not differ between groups, the types of clusters did show some variations, with semantic clusters being the most frequent. Our results revealed strong correlations between switching ability and word production in all three VFTs. In conclusion, the executive functions known as planning and cognitive flexibility play a crucial role in word production by organising and facilitating the recall of lexical information from memory.     

Effect of regulating anger and sadness on decision-making

The aim of the current study was to investigate the effects of reappraisal, acceptance, and rumination for regulating anger and sadness on decision-making. Participants (N = 165) were asked to recall two autobiographical events in which they felt intense anger and sadness, respectively. Participants were then instructed to reappraise, accept, ruminate, or not use any strategies to regulate their feelings of anger and sadness. Following this manipulation, risk aversion, and decision-making strategies were measured using a computer-based measure of risk-taking and a simulated real-life decision-making task. Participants who were instructed to reappraise their emotions showed the least anger and sadness, the most adaptive decision-making strategies, but the least risk aversion as compared to the participants in the other conditions. These findings suggest that emotion regulation strategies of negative affective states have an immediate effect on decision-making and risk-taking behaviors.     

Generalized Change and the Meaning of Rationality Postulates

The standard theory of belief revision was developed to describe how a rational agent should change his beliefs in the presence of new information. Many interesting tools were created, but the concept of rationality was usually assumed to be related to classical logics. In this paper, we explore the fact that the logical tools used can be extended to other sorts of logics, as proved in (Hansson and Wassermann, 2002), to describe models that are closer to the rationality of a real agent. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Undone Science and Counter-Expertise: Fighting for Justice in an Argentine Community Contaminated by Pesticides

ABSTRACT

STS and social movement scholars have shown the importance of ‘getting undone science done’ to advance the goals of social movements fighting environmental health injustice. The production and mobilization of counter-expertise, meaning the reliance on expertise, broadly construed, to contest regulatory decisions based on scientific knowledge, must be further analyzed by differentiating among types of expertise and strategies to mobilize them. In social mobilization against the unrestricted use of pesticides in Argentina, the affected community in Ituzaingó Anexo developed three types of expertise. The community first drew upon its own local knowledge of cases of illness and, as lay people, produced the first epidemiological map of this area. Then, they enrolled scientists and NGOs as allies to jointly learn about pesticide contamination as an explanation for illness. The enlisted scientists produced new knowledge by conducting environmental and epidemiological studies. Finally, sympathetic public health authorities, legal experts, and a district attorney designed a successful legal strategy to stop fumigations in that area and enforce local regulations. The case confirms the importance of producing undone science, and shows that its effectiveness can be explained by intertwined strategies deployed by a triad of lay/local, scientific, and legal experts to overcome the expertise barrier.