Early detection of drug use and bullying in secondary school children by using a three-dimensional simulation program

The current study analyzes the psychometric properties of an innovative three-dimensional (3D) simulation program, entitled Mii-School (MS), designed for the early detection of drug use and bullying in Secondary School children. This computer program showed adequate reliability and construct validity. The factorial structure, as well as the explanatory weight of the different factors, is presented. In addition, the results of a parallel version in paper and pencil format are also presented and compared with those of the computerized version (i.e., MS). There was a statistically significant difference between the two formats in the total (i.e., combined) sore of risk. When drug use and bullying were separately analyzed, differences were found only with regard to drug use. The relevance of these results as well as the suitability of this type of 3D instrument for the early detection of risky behaviors in young people are discussed.     

Risk Trajectories of Self-Destructiveness in Adolescence: Family Core Influences

The study of family factors, (namely, parenting, attachment and family functioning) that can either reduce or increase risk factors during adolescent development is crucial to the early identification of adolescents at risk for self-destructive thoughts and behaviors (SDTB). Altough several studies have highlighted the role of family factors, few have analysed the joint impact of parenting styles and attachment in SDT. This study aimed to: (1) to identify the dimensions of parenting styles and parental attachment that predict SDTB; (2) to determine the mediation effect of cohesion on the relation between these predictors and reports of SDTB; and (3) to analyze sex and age differences in the abovementioned process. Participants included 1,266 Portuguese adolescents with a mean age of 15.9 years. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that paternal and maternal rejection and paternal control were the most accurate predictors of SDTB, emphasizing their role as risk factors for maladaptive trajectories with reports of SDTB. Results clearly emphasized the relevancy of the fathers’ role in such maladaptive trajectories. Additionally, a mediation effect of cohesion and a moderation of sex were also found. This study highlights the importance of intervening with the family in preventive and therapeutic contexts regarding adolescents’ well-being and their relationship with parents.     

An Assessment of the Dynamic of Religious Ritualism in Sporting Environments

The main focus of this study is the analysis of the link between sport, leisure and the behavior, and phenomenon of religion. From the qualitative point of view of social anthropology, fieldwork has been carried out with different informers from different sporting environments. Rather than directly show the fieldwork itself, we have decided to present an interpretation of it through an analysis of the environments, behaviors, attitudes, the discourse of leisure and sport and its relationship with market forces, advertising and the media. In this regard, we point out a reality which for some people is their conscience or reason for being, opening new directions of study and viewpoints in this area of sporting and health studies.     

Prose Reading in Neglect

Prose reading has been shown to be a very sensitive measure of Unilateral Spatial Neglect. However, little is known about the relationship between prose reading and other measures of neglect and its severity, or between prose reading and single word reading. Thirty participants with a first stroke in the right hemisphere and clear symptoms of spatial neglect in everyday life were assessed with tests of prose reading (text in one column book-like, and in two columns magazine-like), single words reading, and a battery of 13 tests investigating neglect. Seventy percent of these participants omitted words at the beginning of the text (left end), showing Prose Reading Neglect (PRN). The participants showing PRN differed from those not showing PRN only for the overall severity of neglect, and had a lesion centred on the insula, putamen and superior temporal gyrus. Double dissociations emerged between PRN and single word reading neglect, suggesting different cognitive requirements between the two tests: parallel processing in single word reading vs. serial analysis in text reading. Notably, the pattern of neglected text varied dramatically across participants presenting with PRN, including dissociations between reading performance of one and two columns text. Prose reading proved a complex and unique task which should be directly investigated to predict the effects of unilateral neglect. The outcome of this study should also inform clinical assessment and advises given to patients and care-givers.     

Effects of stimulus–stimulus short-term memory associations in a Simon-like task

The Simon effect refers to faster responding when an irrelevant stimulus location corresponds with the response to a relevant stimulus attribute than when it does not. We investigated whether a memory-based Simon-like effect would occur when the irrelevant spatial attribute was associated with the stimulus during a prior task. In a first task, an association between colour and location was formed by requiring participants to count the occurrences of two colour stimuli, each of which was always presented in a left or right location. In a second task, the colour stimuli were presented centrally and mapped to left and right keypresses, with the mapping being inconsistent or consistent with the prior colour-location associations. A Simon-like effect was evident at the start of the second task, with performance being better when the established colour–position associations were consistent with the colour–response mapping than when they were not. This result indicates that stimulus–stimulus short-term memory associations formed during the first task transferred to the second task. For the remainder of the second task, the data showed a more conservative speed–accuracy criterion for the inconsistent condition than for the consistent condition, though a processing efficiency measure suggested that the prior stimulus–stimulus short-term associations may also continue to directly influence performance. Results suggest that simple declarative knowledge, as represented by stimulus–stimulus STM links, exerts less persistent transfer effects than procedural knowledge as provided by stimulus–response STM links.     

The status of consonants and vowels in phonological assembly: Testing the two-cycles model with Italian

Recent studies by Berent and Perfetti (1995) and Lee, Rayner, and Pollatsek (2001) have shown a processing priority of consonants over vowels in tasks like backward masking and reading, respectively. One possible explanation for this advantage of consonants is in terms of the specific characteristics of the English spelling (i.e., a great inconsistency in the spelling-sound relations for vowels), and therefore is not predicted for a language, like Italian, with a transparent orthography. The aim of the present experiments was to investigate the consonant advantage in Italian with the backward masking paradigm. The first two experiments, with a perceptual identification and a naming task, showed a masking reduction effect for masks sharing vowels with the target at the shortest SOAs, in addition to a pseudo-homophone advantage as compared to the control condition. In the third experiment, where a lexical decision task was used, the advantage of the mask sharing vowels disappeared. The fourth experiment was a replication of Experiment 1 with different materials. Overall, the results suggest that the advantage of consonants can only be found in English, whereas in Italian, for which the computation of phonology of vowels and consonants is similar, no effect is apparent. Thus, the processing priority for consonants seems to depend on the inconsistencies of vowel phonology in English.     

Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats: Possible Animal Model of Sleep-Related Movement Disorders

Clinical experience suggests that restless legs syndrome (RLS), periodic leg movement (PLM), and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may co-occur in both children and adults. The purpose of the present study was to provide an electrocorticography and electromyography evaluation of the spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) to investigate the potential of this rat strain as an animal model of RLS–PLM. Initial work focused on evaluating sleep patterns and limb movements during sleep in SHR, having normotensive Wistar rats (NWR) as control, followed by comparison of two treatments (pharmacological–dopaminergic agonist treatment and nonpharmacological–chronic physical exercise), known to be clinically beneficial for sleep-related movement disorders. The captured data strengthen the association between SHR and RLS–PLM, revealing a significant reduction on sleep efficiency and slow wave sleep and an increase on wakefulness and limb movements for the SHR group during the dark period, as compared to the NWR group, effects that have characteristics that are strikingly consistent with RLS–PLM. The pharmacological and nonpharmacological manipulations validated these results. The present findings suggest that the SHR may be a useful putative animal model to study sleep-related movement disorders mechanisms.     

Sense of Community and Informal Social Control Among Lower Income Households: The Role of Homeownership and Collective Efficacy in Reducing Subjective Neighborhood Crime and Disorder

We examine the link between homeownership, collective efficacy, and subjective neighborhood crime and disorder. Although prior research suggests that homeownership provides social benefits, the housing downturn and foreclosure crisis, coupled with mounting evidence that people self-select into housing, raise questions about the role of homeownership. We adjust for respondents’ decision to own or rent using a nationwide sample of lower-income households. We account for demographic and neighborhood characteristics as well as ratings of individual efficacy. We present a structural equation model that identifies how sense of community and informal social control jointly contribute to collective efficacy. The latent collective efficacy construct mediates the impact of homeownership on resident’s perceptions of neighborhood disorder. Such perceptions matter because they have been linked to resident’s physical and mental health. Our findings demonstrate that when coupled with sustainable mortgages, homeownership exerts a robust yet indirect effect in reducing subjective neighborhood crime and disorder. Our model also links collective efficacy to neighborhood racial homogeneity, a finding which presents challenges for the study of diversity and community. We discuss sense of community research as well as sustainable mortgages and implications of the foreclosure crisis for the future of homeownership opportunities among lower income households and neighborhoods.     

From Normative Spheres to Normative Practices: New Prospects for Normative Theory after Habermas

Abstract

In this paper I argue against Jürgen Habermas’s theoretical dualism between ethics and morality. I do this by showing how his account of normativity is vitiated by an unnecessary superposition of a social-evolutionary and a theoretical-linguistic account of normativity, and that this brings about theoretical problems that in the end cannot be overcome. I also show that Rainer Forst’s attempt at salvaging Habermas’s distinction is equally doomed to failure, but that his attempt nevertheless invites new and more fruitful avenues for normative theory that are worth exploring. The conclusion of this paper is that traditional notions of ethics and morality can be preserved provided we heavily redefine their meanings and release them from some of the theoretical work they have been expected to accomplish, but that to complete this transition we also need to supersede Forst’s pluralization of normative contexts toward a theory of normative practices that in the end makes the distinction between ethics and morality workable but useless. I begin by first locating the debate about ethics and morality within the context of recent normative theory (§1), and proceed to examine the two main strategies through which Habermas has elaborated his idea of a sharp dualism between ethics and morality (§2). I then introduce a theoretical distinction between what I call a horizontal and a vertical integration of ethics and morality (§3) and contend that whilst only the horizontal is viable, Habermas decidedly prefers the idea of a vertical integration (§4). With this work done, I proceed to complete my critique of Habermas’s argument and show how, by recovering the pragmatist roots of his thought, an alternative solution based on a functionalist understanding of morality could be envisaged (§5). I then conclude by examining Rainer Forst’s attempt at salvaging Habermas’s account, and show that the failure of Forst’s attempts opens the way for new and more fruitful approaches to normative theory which are more likely to recover the pragmatist roots of Habermas’s thought (§6).