Individual characteristics and career exploration in adolescence

The effects of gender, age and school grade on several career exploration dimensions measured by the Career Exploration Survey were investigated. Subjects were high school students facing an imminent career decision. Regression analyses indicated that sex and grade-level were the most significant and prevailing individual characteristics related to the adolescents' career exploration behaviours, reactions and beliefs. Implications for career exploration interventions are discussed.     

Schrödinger logics

Schrödinger logics are logical systems in which the principle of identity is not true in general. The intuitive motivation for these logics is both Erwin Schrödinger's thesis (which has been advanced by other authors) that identity lacks sense for elementary particles of modern physics, and the way which physicists deal with this concept; normally, they understandidentity as meaningindistinguishability (agreemment with respect to attributes). Observing that these concepts are equivalent in classical logic and mathematics, which underly the usual physical theories, we present a higher-order logical system in which these concepts are systematically separated. A classical semantics for the system is presented and some philosophical related questions are mentioned. One of the main characteristics of our system is that Leibniz' Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles cannot be derived. This fact is in accordance with some authors who maintain that quantum mechanics violates this principle. Furthermore, our system may be viewed as a way of making sense some of Schrödinger's logical intuitions about the nature of elementary particles.The authors very much would like to thank the anonymous referee for his quite interesting suggestions, which contributed significantly to improve the paper.Presented byJan Zygmunt;     

Abnormal and normal obsessions

Three related, exploratory studies were carried out in order to ascertain the occurrence and nature of normal obsessions, and to relate them to abnormal obsessions. The subjects included 8 obsessional patients, and up to 124 non-clinical subjects.Broadly, the findings were that normal obsessions are a common experience and they resemble the form of abnormal obsessions. They also show some notable similarities of content. However normal and abnormal obsessions differ in several respects, including frequency, duration, intensity and consequences, among others.With repeated practice, the frequency, duration and discomfort of obsessions are observed to decrease. Overall, the findings are considered to be consistent with the noxious stimulus cum habituation theory.     

A new formulation of discussive logic

S. Jakowski introduced the discussive prepositional calculus D ₂as a basis for a logic which could be used as underlying logic of inconsistent but nontrivial theories (see, for example, N. C. A. da Costa and L. Dubikajtis, On Jakowski's discussive logic, in Non-Classical Logic, Model Theory and Computability, A. I. Arruda, N. C. A da Costa and R. Chuaqui edts., North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1977, 37–56). D ₂has afterwards been extended to a first-order predicate calculus and to a higher-order logic (cf. the quoted paper). In this paper we present a natural version of D ₂, in the sense of Jakowski and Gentzen; as a consequence, we suggest a new formulation of the discussive predicate calculus (with equality). A semantics for the new calculus is also presented.     

Aggression in dyadic interaction

It is shown that the notions of aggressive behavior as ‘intentional emission of noxious stimulation’ (Buss, 1961, 1963, 1966, 1971) and that of ‘injuriating goal response’ (Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mower and Sears, 1939) are identical. The usefulness of these theories to predict S's reaction to the reception of a given noxious stimulation is questioned. It is suggested that S's reactions to noxious stimulation may or may not be aggressive, depending on whether the noxious stimulation S receives is interpreted as being a behavior justified by the nom in the situation, or as reflecting an aggressive intent of O. It is hypothesized that the norms established in the situation depend on (i) victim's perception of the noxious stimulation received as being instrumental for O's goal attainment, (ii) victim's perception of the value of O's goal, and (iii) the value of victim's own goal. The establishment of norms regulating the exchange of noxious stimulation between Ss is operationalized in two experiments. Aggression, defined as an infringement of these norms, is measured. In Experiment I, participate 56 female students, and in Experiment 2, 80 male students. Subject is alternately victim (he performs a sensorimotor task and receives an electric shock) and aggressor (he shocks the other S). In Experiment I it is found that Ss counteraggress faster and more frequently if they interpret the shock received from the partner as an infringement of the norm. In Experiment 2, Ss do not counteraggress more frequently, but they do counteraggress faster and evaluate O more negatively. It is concluded that the results clearly contradict current positions and favor the authors' cognitive reformulation of the determinants of aggressive behavior.     

Buddhism and behaviour modification

There has been in recent years a growing interest in the similarities between Buddhism and the principles and practice of behaviour modification. Mikulas, for example, has pointed out many similarities and argued for greater integration. The present paper examines the literature of Early Buddhism with a view to assessing how far its approach is similar to that of behaviour modification and to examine some specific behaviour-change techniques used in Early Buddhism in relation to similar techniques developed and used by modern behaviour therapists. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to theory and clinical practice.     

Sentence comprehension and production in children with cochlear implants: Errorless procedures and equivalence-based instruction

Research supports equivalence-based instruction (EBI) and matrix training for increased listening and speaking skills in children with cochlear implants (CI). We incorporated errorless procedures to optimize the EBI and evaluated the effects on the auditory comprehension and verbal responding at-sentences level in six CI children who were readers and showed inaccurate tacting. Subject-verb-object sentences were arranged in two matrices; diagonal combinations were trained and evaluated non-diagonal combinations. EBI included stimulus fading and exclusion to directly teach the dictated sentence-picture matching; written-sentences construction upon dictation also was taught. Probes assessed the derived stimulus-stimulus and stimulus-response relations. All participants learned the auditory-visual discriminations and the exclusion resulted in fewer errors than on a stimulus fading procedure. Five participants formed equivalence classes and increased verbal responding to equivalent stimuli, especially pictures tacting. They also showed recombinative generalization for both matrices. Professionals can incorporate errorless procedures to EBI for improving sentence comprehension, tacting, and productivity in CI children.     

Spontaneous object recognition in capuchin monkeys: assessing the effects of sex,familiarization phase and retention delay

Animal Cognition - The spontaneous object recognition (SOR) task is a versatile and widely used memory test that was only recently established in nonhuman primates (marmosets). Here, we extended...     

Use of anvils by the Great Kiskadee (Aves,Tyrannidae): a description based on citizen science data

Animal Cognition - The use of anvils to strike prey is a behavior observed in some species of birds around the world. Here, I investigated the use of anvils by the Great Kiskadee (Pitangus...     

Psychotherapists’ psychological well-being: The role of epistemic orientation and emotion regulation

Psychotherapists’ mental health has been traditionally associated with the harmful consequences of clinical practice. In contrast to this dominant model, a growing body of research in positive psychology has sparked an interest in therapists’ positive well-being. The main objective of this study was to examine the relations between therapists’ epistemic orientation modes, emotion regulation strategies and psychological well-being (PWB). This was a cross-sectional study in which participants were 674 therapists (78.5% women), with a mean age of 42.02 years (SD = 13.06). Therapists completed an online questionnaire containing self-report measures of all study variables. Structural equation modelling using latent variables was performed to test the study hypotheses. Results revealed no significant direct effects of epistemic orientation on PWB. Up- and downregulation strategies had the most substantial direct effects on total PWB. Furthermore, emotion regulation mediated the association between therapists’ epistemic orientation modes and PWB, accounting for 57% of the variance in the outcome variable. Implications for training, practice and therapist self-care are discussed.