Relative age effect in Olympic Taekwondo athletes

Relative age effects refer to the effects of age differences among individuals who have been grouped together for a performance activity. This study aimed to investigate the relative age effect on Olympic Taekwondo athletes, in several Olympic Games, and in both sexes. The study sample consisted of 291 athletes who had competed in Atlanta, Sydney, and Beijing Olympic Games. The relative age effect was examined for the general distribution of athletes by quartile, for each of the individuals, and for male and female athletes. There were no discernable effects of relative age on Olympic Taekwondo athletes.     

Occupational Stress and Wellness Among Italian Secondary School Teachers

As a part of a larger cross-cultural investigation (Euroteach) which involves 11 European countries and 2 182 secondary school teachers, two were the aims of the present study: (1) to examine the relationship between job conditions and wellness/health outcomes on a group of 169 Italian secondary school teachers, by using the Job Demand-Control-Support (JDCS) Model (Karasek and Theorell, <citeref rid="bib24">1990</citeref>); (2) to analyse the differences with other European countries in the light of specific cultural differences. Controlling for age and gender, results of hierarchical regression indicated that job control and social support combine in different additive patterns with job demands to explain the well-being outcomes (job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, somatic complaints). The predictor's linearity check indicated that the job demands variable is curvilinearly associated both with emotional exhaustion ( p<0.005) and with somatic symptoms ( p<0.01). As compared to the average of the other European countries, on the positive side, the Italian teachers manifest both a higher degree of personal accomplishment and a lesser degree of depersonalisation; on the other hand, they claim a lesser degree of social support and a higher degree of somatic complaints.     

On the Philosophy of Bitcoin/Blockchain Technology: Is it a Chaotic,Complex System?

The philosophy of blockchain technology is concerned, among other things, with blockchain ontology, how it might be characterised, how it is being created, implemented, and adopted, how it operates in the world, and how it evolves over time. This paper concentrates on whether Bitcoin/blockchain can be considered a complex system and, if so, whether it is a chaotic one. Beyond mere academic curiosity, a positive response would raise concerns about the likelihood of Bitcoin/blockchain entering a 2010‐Flash‐Crash‐type of chaotic regime, with catastrophic consequences for financial systems based on it. The paper starts by highlighting the relevant details of the Bitcoin/blockchain ecosystem formed by the blockchain itself, bitcoin end users (payers and payees), capital gains seekers, miners, full nodes maintainers, and developers, and their interactions. Then the Information Theory of Complex Systems is briefly discussed for later use. Finally, the blockchain is investigated with the help of Crutchfield's Statistical Complexity measure. The low non‐null statistical complexity value obtained suggests that the blockchain may be considered algorithmically complicated but hardly a complex system and unlikely to enter a chaotic regime.     

The concept of personality in 19th-century French and 20th-century American psychology

Since the 1920s, the road to the acknowledgement of personality psychology as a field of scientific psychology that has individuality as its object began with the founding of the discipline by Gordon W. Allport. Historians of psychology have made serious attempts to reconstruct the cultural, political, institutional, and chronological beginnings of this field in America in the 20th century. In this literature, however, an important European tradition of psychological studies of personality that developed in France in the 2nd half of the 19th century has been overlooked. The aim of this article is to cast some light on this unexplored tradition of psychological personality studies and to discuss its influence on the development of the scientific study of personality in the United States.     

Differences between experts and non-experts in photographic perception and assessment

How professional skills and schemata do affect cognition, evaluative dimensions and aesthetic perception of pictures? And what about the effect of social elements like a smiling or serious subject pictured? The present study investigates the differences between Experts (photo professionals) and inexperienced individuals in perception and evaluation of photographs. Furthermore, it approaches the influence of different facial expressions (Reis et al. in Euro J Soc Psychol 20(3):259-267, 1990). People with well-developed schemes in photography should evaluate pictures through assessment, while inexperienced people should evaluate pictures through appraisal? N = 118, 60 Experts and 58 inexperienced people were asked to evaluate a set of stimulus pictures throughout: (a) 'The Circumplex Model of Affect' (PAQs) to measure 4 affective dimensions; and (b) a Semantic Differential made of 9 couples of bipolar adjectives to measure 2 evaluative dimensions (Aesthetics and Distinctive Features). Results partially confirmed the hypotheses: Experts differ significantly from Non-experts in picture evaluations. Smile arouses more positive evaluations, but only in the inexperienced group. No subject position effects were found. These results are in concordance with previous research about Expert and Non-expert evaluation, and they open new questions about facial expressions studies.     

Religion,Theology and Science: A Reformational Dooyeweerdian Approach

The most discussed (and applied) approaches to the relationship between religion and science seem to be basically four: opposition, independence, dialogue and integration. Only a few authors take into account the reformational approach that finds its roots in the work of Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd and others. This model may be described by the formula “inner reformation.” A historical and systematic introduction to this approach is hereby provided by sketching its understanding of the nature of (and relationships among) science, theology and religion. In the process, the originality and value of this approach to the relationship between religion and science are highlighted.     

A statistical model for relational analysis

The diadic relationships existing in a group can be defined in terms of the members' choices, rejections, and their perceptions of being chosen and rejected. The number of possible distinct diads is 45. Formulas are given for computing the expected frequency and variance of the different diadic forms expected, when certain random factors are taken into account. These values must be known if the operation of factors other than the specified random ones is to be studied. Values obtained from two models with different assumptions are compared with empirical values. A simplified treatment is possible for groups with ten or more members.The present problem emerged from research undertaken as part of a project in interpersonal perception being carried out at the Laboratory of Social Relations at Harvard with the financial aid of the Office of Naval Research (Task Order N5ori-07646).