God meets Satan’s Apple: the paradox of creation

It is now the majority view amongst philosophers and theologians that any world could have been better. This places the choice of which world to create into an especially challenging class of decision problems: those that are discontinuous in the limit. I argue that combining some weak, plausible norms governing this type of problem with a creator who has the attributes of the god of classical theism results in a paradox: no world is possible. After exploring some ways out of the paradox, I conclude that the classical theist should accept Marilyn Adams’s view that no norms (of morality or of rationality) apply to gods.     

Emerging ICT for Citizens’ Veillance: Theoretical and Practical Insights

In ubiquitous surveillance societies, individuals are subjected to observation and control by authorities, institutions, and corporations. Sometimes, citizens contribute their own knowledge and other resources to their own surveillance. In addition, some of “the watched” observe “the watchers” “through” sous‐veillant activities, and various forms of self-surveillance for different purposes. However, information and communication technologies are also increasingly used for social initiatives with a bottom up structure where citizens themselves define the goals, shape the outcomes and profit from the benefits of watching activities. This model, which we define as citizens’ veillance and explore in this special issue, may present opportunities for individuals and collectives to be more prepared to meet the challenges they face in various domains including environment, health, planning and emergency response.     

Surreal decisions

Although expected utility theory has proven a fruitful and elegant theory in the finite realm, attempts to generalize it to infinite values have resulted in many paradoxes. In this paper, we argue that the use of John Conway's surreal numbers shall provide a firm mathematical foundation for transfinite decision theory. To that end, we prove a surreal representation theorem and show that our surreal decision theory respects dominance reasoning even in the case of infinite values. We then bring our theory to bear on one of the more venerable decision problems in the literature: Pascal's Wager. Analyzing the wager showcases our theory's virtues and advantages. To that end, we analyze two objections against the wager: Mixed Strategies and Many Gods. After formulating the two objections in the framework of surreal utilities and probabilities, our theory correctly predicts that (1) the pure Pascalian strategy beats all mixed strategies, and (2) what one should do in a Pascalian decision problem depends on what one's credence function is like. Our analysis therefore suggests that although Pascal's Wager is mathematically coherent, it does not deliver what it purports to, a rationally compelling argument that people should lead a religious life regardless of how confident they are in theism and its alternatives.     

Challenging the Universality of Job Resources: Why,When, and For Whom Are They Beneficial?

In this paper we introduce the topic of job resources and elaborate on their relevance for research and practice in work psychology. We start out with a brief overview of the historic and current understanding of job resources. Next, we discuss the need for a more nuanced perspective on the effects of job resources and present some ideas on how to move this forward. After these conceptual preliminaries, we introduce the papers in the special issue and conclude with a brief summary of the special issue's key messages.     

Parent–Child Conflict Moderates the Relationship Between Executive Functioning and Child Disruptive Behaviors in Youth with T1D

Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings - Executive function (EF) skills, parent–child conflict, and high blood glucose (BG) may impact child externalizing behaviors. We examined...     

Using backward chaining and a physical guidance delay to teach self‐feeding

Many children with feeding disorders lack age‐appropriate self‐feeding without intervention, irrespective of whether refusal is a motivational or skill deficit. When a target behavior is infrequent or absent, multistep tasks can be shaped using chaining by targeting a preexisting step within an individual's behavioral repertoire. Studies suggest when the preexisting response is in the final step of the chain, backward chaining may increase mastery. In this study, we investigated the use of backward chaining to increase self‐feeding of solids of a 4‐year‐old male.     

The Role of Positive Psychology Constructs in Predicting Mental Health and Academic Achievement in Children and Adolescents: A Two-Year Longitudinal Study

This longitudinal study presents the first examination of the relation between positive psychology constructs, mental health and academic achievement of students in Portugal. Using a sample of 367 middle-school students, the study revealed that crosssectional and longitudinal patterns of correlations between positive variables were consistent with expectations for the most part and suggested that hope, life satisfaction and self-worth have meaningful relations with mental health and academic achievement. In addition, no significant changes were found between the variables in study across the administrations and throughout the two cohorts, and all the variables in study demonstrate moderate to high stability across a 1- and 2-year time frame. Hope predicts students?? academic achievement, and life satisfaction was the strongest predictor of mental health, over 2-years. The implications of the findings are discussed with reference to prior studies and for future research.     

Psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale in women

This instrumental study was designed to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (FMPS). The total sample was made up of 582 female college students, with a mean age of 21.68 (SD= 4.45). The results of confirmatory factor analysis identified the six-factor solution proposed by the original authors as the best factor structure, with acceptable fit indices. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was .93 for the FMPS total score and ranged from .74 to .91 for the subscales. Test-retest reliability suggested a good temporal stability of the FMPS total score [ICC= .89 (95% CI= .80-.94)] and its subscales. Results showed moderate to high associations between the Spanish version of the FMPS and other measures of perfectionism. The Spanish version of FMPS has shown satisfactory psychometric properties to be used in women. Future research should replicate these findings in broader samples, in clinical populations, and use longitudinal designs to determine whether perfectionism is a risk factor for psychopathology in women.     

Evaluating a blended-learning program on developing teamwork competence

The knowledge, skills and abilities that are required to work optimally in teams are critical for many types of work. Organizations can provide access to these skills by means of training programs. Diverse studies show how traditional in-site training methodologies can improve teamwork knowledge, skills and abilities. Nevertheless, in-site methods can be complemented with on-line strategies that result in blended-learning programs. The aim of this work is to analyze, following Kirkpatrick's assessment levels, the effectiveness of a blended-learning program of teamwork training in an organizational context. Carried out with 102 professionals, the results show participants' satisfaction with the program, high level of learning (of both declarative and procedural knowledge), and a moderate level of transfer of learning to the job.