Validation of the 2012 European Social Survey Measurement of Wellbeing in Seventeen European Countries

The measurement of wellbeing provides an important indicator of the welfare of nations and presents opportunities for policy making. Researchers generally share the view of wellbeing as a multidimensional concept. The 2012 European Social Survey (ESS) measurement of personal and social wellbeing, a combination of theoretical models and evidence from statistical analysis, is defined as a six-dimensional construct: evaluative wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, functioning, vitality, community wellbeing and supportive relationships. In this paper, the proposed theoretical structure is investigated and the psychometric properties of the measure are assessed for 17 European countries. This involved splitting each country’s sample randomly into halves and performing Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) on the first half-samples. EFA resulted in a four-factor solution for Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, a five-factor solution for Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Russian Federation and Sweden, and a six-factor solution for Denmark and Hungary. These results were supported by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) performed on the second half-samples. Subscales were constructed based on analysis of the total samples, applying a simple transformation in order to deal with the different number of response categories used for the wellbeing items. Reliabilities and internal consistencies were investigated. Although the definition of each subscale differs from the proposed structure and across countries, the analysis did produce reliable and valid summary measures (subscales) of wellbeing for informing social policy in each country.

     

Representation, space and Hollywood Squares: looking at things that aren't there anymore

It has been argued that the human cognitive system is capable of using spatial indexes or oculomotor coordinates to relieve working memory load (Ballard, D. H., Hayhoe, M. M., Pook, P. K., & Rao, R. P. N. (1997). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20(4), 723), track multiple moving items through occlusion (Scholl, D. J., & Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1999). Cognitive Psychology, 38, 259) or link incompatible cognitive and sensorimotor codes (Bridgeman, B., & Huemer, V. (1998). Consciousness and Cognition, 7, 454). Here we examine the use of such spatial information in memory for semantic information. Previous research has often focused on the role of task demands and the level of automaticity in the encoding of spatial location in memory tasks. We present five experiments where location is irrelevant to the task, and participants' encoding of spatial information is measured implicitly by their looking behavior during recall. In a paradigm developed from Spivey and Geng (Spivey, M. J., & Geng, J. (2000). submitted for publication), participants were presented with pieces of auditory, semantic information as part of an event occurring in one of four regions of a computer screen. In front of a blank grid, they were asked a question relating to one of those facts. Under certain conditions it was found that during the question period participants made significantly more saccades to the empty region of space where the semantic information had been previously presented. Our findings are discussed in relation to previous research on memory and spatial location, the dorsal and ventral streams of the visual system, and the notion of a cognitive-perceptual system using spatial indexes to exploit the stability of the external world.     

Emergence and Its Place in Nature: A Case Study of Biochemical Networks

We will show that there is a strong form of emergence in cell biology. Beginning with C.D. Broads classic discussion of emergence, we distinguish two conditions sufficient for emergence. Emergence in biology must be compatible with the thought that all explanations of systemic properties are mechanistic explanations and with their sufficiency. Explanations of systemic properties are always in terms of the properties of the parts within the system. Nonetheless, systemic properties can still be emergent. If the properties of the components within the system cannot be predicted, even in principle, from the behavior of the systems parts within simpler wholes then there also will be systemic properties which cannot be predicted, even in principle, on basis of the behavior of these parts. We show in an explicit case study drawn from molecular cell physiology that biochemical networks display this kind of emergence, even though they deploy only mechanistic explanations. This illustrates emergence and its place in nature.     

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ethics rounds: life-threatening illness and the desire to adopt

Originally presented during Ethics Rounds at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, this commentary on the case of a patient treated for life-threatening cancer explores the responsibilities of health care providers when addressing the patient's desire to adopt a child.     

The bane of “inhumane” weapons and overkill: An overview of increasingly lethal arms and the inadequacy of regulatory controls

Weapons of both defense and offense have grown steadily in their effectiveness--especially since the industrial revolution. The mass destruction of humanity, by parts or in whole, became reality with the advent of toxic agents founded on chemistry and biology or nuclear weapons derived from physics. The military's new non-combat roles, combined with a quest for non-lethal weapons, may change the picture in regard to conventional defense establishments but are unlikely to deter bellicose tyrants or the new terrorists from using the unlimited potential of today's and tomorrow's arsenals. The author addresses the issues that are raised by this developing situation with the intent of seeking those ethics that will enable us to survive in a future and uncertain world.     

Seeing the Fisher<Emphasis Type="Italic">Z</Emphasis>-transformation

Since 1915, statisticians have been applying Fisher'sZ-transformation to Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients. We offer new geometric interpretations of this transformation.