Career Adapt-Abilities Scale-Italian Form: Psychometric proprieties with Italian preadolescents

During preadolescence children start to give attention to the future, to formulate thoughts, and to wonder about what they want. They also acquire knowledge and experiment with strategies to assist them in designing their future career. Among the constructs that can now play a relevant role in life designing, the four resources of career adaptability have a prominent role. This article reports the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale-International Form 2.0 for a group of middle school students. Two different studies involving Italian preadolescents were conducted. The first study tests the instrument's multidimensional structure, internal consistency and discriminant validity. The second one verifies the factorial structure's across-gender invariance and the test–retest reliability. Results provide strong psychometric support for the CAAS-Italian Form with preadolescents as a valid measure for analyzing their career adaptability and for using it in career counseling and education.     

Disturbance cues function as a background risk cue but not as an associative learning cue in tadpoles

Animal Cognition - Chemical information has an important role in the sensory ecology of aquatic species. For aquatic prey, chemical cues are a vital source of information related to predator...     

Delaying Disposing: Examining the Relationship between Procrastination and Clutter across Generations

We explored how two types of procrastination (indecision and behavioral), contribute to problems with clutter across three adult U.S. samples differing as generational cohorts. An online survey was administered to college students (mean age = 21) and younger adults recruited using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk; mean age = 31), plus older adults recruited with help from the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (mean age = 54) (http://challengingdisorganization.org). Hierarchical linear regression revealed that behavioral procrastination contributed significantly to an increasingly larger percentage of explained variance in clutter problems across the generational cohorts in a series of separate analyses. The addition of indecision as a variable led to a significant incremental increase in explained variance for the younger and older adult samples, but not for the student sample. Clutter problems led to a significant decrease in satisfaction with life among older adults. Findings suggest that general procrastination tendencies may enable a lifelong pattern of responses to one’s environment that become increasingly maladaptive throughout the life cycle - simultaneously delaying disposal decisions.     

A Qualitative Examination of the Relationship Between Body Image and Sexual Behavior: Perceptions from Latina and African American Adolescent Girls and Their Maternal Caregivers

Although prior work suggests that how adolescent girls feel about their body is associated with their sexual behavior, we have less insight into the reasons why. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 African American adolescent girls (11–14 years of age), 18 Latina adolescents (14–17 years of age), and their maternal caregivers to explore why this association may exist. Both adolescent girls and their maternal caregivers were asked “Who is more likely to have sex, a girl who likes the way her body looks or a girl who doesn’t like the way her body looks?” A similar question was asked about condom use. Interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and coded for emergent themes using thematic analysis. Participants’ responded that both girls with a positive body image and those with a negative body image may be likely to have sex because of self- and body-esteem. Two sub-themes emerged that further explained why low self- and body-esteem mattered for girls who have a negative perception of their body: (a) feeling appreciated (b) easily persuaded. Most participants noted that girls with a positive body image perception would be more likely to use condoms. Emergent themes for using condoms were: (a) pregnancy/STI protection; and (b) body preservation. Our findings have implications for empirically exploring the pathways through which body image perceptions relate to adolescent sexual behaviors, and the possibility that universal prevention programs may not resonate similarly for all adolescent girls.     

A cross-modal effect of noise: the disappearance of the alarm reaction of a freshwater fish

Anthropogenic noise pollution is recognized as a major global stressor of animals. While many studies have assessed the unimodal impacts of noise pollution with a focus on intraspecific acoustic communication, little is known about noise pollution on the perception of visual and chemical information. The ‘distracted prey hypothesis’ posits that processing noise interferes with processing other information in the brain. Here, we found evidence for such a cross-modal effect of noise on the antipredator behaviour of a freshwater prey fish, the fathead minnow, Pimephales promelas. In laboratory trials, exposure to noise from a motorboat caused the total absence of the classical fright reaction of minnows to conspecific alarm cues, whereas an ambient noise control had no such impact. In natural habitats, the impairment of such antipredator behaviour due to noise pollution could have major fitness consequences. We discuss how our findings translate to animal ecology and the need for future studies that target specific management decisions regarding noise pollution.     

Procrastination as self‐regulation failure of performance: effects of cognitive load,self‐awareness,and time limits on ‘working best under pressure’

Effects of cognitive load, objective self‐awareness and time limits on the self‐regulation of performance speed and accuracy were investigated between procrastinators and non‐procrastinators. In experiment 1 chronic procrastinators completed fewer items (slow speed) and made more errors (less accuracy) than non‐procrastinators under high but not low cognitive load conditions when the time span was limited and brief. In experiment 2 chronic procrastinators performed slower than non‐procrastinators under a 2 second, but not under no limit, 1 second, or 4 second time limit conditions. Chronic procrastinators compared to non‐procrastinators also performed more slowly and made more performance errors under objective self‐awareness conditions regardless of the length of time. These experiments indicate that chronic procrastinators regulate ineffectively their performance speed and accuracy when they ‘work under pressure’ (defined by high cognitive load, objective self‐awareness, and imposed time limitations). Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Longitudinal Study of English as Foreign Language Learning: L1 Predictors in Italian Students

The present paper reports findings from a longitudinal study examining the development of English as foreign language learning in a sample of 86 Italian students tested at Grade 6 (mean age 11:3) and Grade 8 (mean age 13:3) . Two measures were examined: one relating to sustained learning ( i.e., English learning attainment), and one to short period development,(i.e., change in English proficiency). Different pattern of predictors were identified among L1 reading (speed and comprehension) and mathematics skills. The main findings indicated that calculation components of mathematics skills and reading comprehension predicted English learning attainments at Grade 8, whilst L1 reading speed at Grade 6 strongly predicted changes in English learning proficiency. The theoretical and empirical implications of the results are discussed in the specificity of a learning direction from a transparent L1 to a non‐transparent L2. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.