Factor structure and psychometric features of the Italian version for the EPQ-R

Factor structure and psychometric properties of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire—Revised were investigated in an Italian sample of 553 subjects (328 females and 225 males). The main psychometric features of the questionnaire are similar to those reported for the original English form. Factor analysis, however, showed six (out of 32) items of the P scale, referring chiefly to compliance to formal rules of conduct, to have their highest loadings on the Lie factor. The consistency of this finding with previous results suggests that, in the Italian context, these items tend to be more closely connected with the social conformity aspect of the Lie scale than with the psychopathy facet of Psychoticism and should be excluded from the scoring of the P dimension.     

Interrogating the Learning Sciences as a Design Science: Leveraging Insights from Chinese Philosophy and Chinese Medicine

Design research has been positioned as an important methodological contribution of the learning sciences. Despite the publication of a handbook on the subject, the practice of design research in education remains an eclectic collection of specific approaches implemented by different researchers and research groups. In this paper, I examine the learning sciences as a design science to identify its fundamental goals, methods, affiliations, and assumptions. I argue that inherent tensions arise when attempting to practice design research as an analytic science. Drawing inspiration and insight from Chinese philosophy and the practice of Chinese medicine, I propose that the learning sciences may better attain its claims to science through greater reliance on inductive synthesis rather than linear causal analysis. In so doing, I reposition the endeavor of science making within the metaphysics of process philosophy instead of classical Western philosophy. I suggest that theory building will be strengthened empirically and pragmatically by more careful observation and systematic generalization of the stability patterns of design related phenomena. It also needs to be more situated in its orientation.     

Differentiation of Self,Mate Selection,and Marital Adjustment: Validity of Postulates of Bowen Theory in a Spanish Sample

This research investigates relationships between differentiation of self, mate selection, and marital adjustment in a Spanish sample of 118 heterosexual couples (N = 236). In line with Bowen theory, greater differentiation of self and greater similarity in partners' differentiation of self levels each predicted greater marital adjustment. Contrary to theory, gender differences were observed on the S-DSI, with males showing higher total differentiation scores than females, and hypothesized links between differentiation of self and mate selection were not observed. Implications for therapy and suggestions for future research with the S-DSI are discussed.     

The factor structure of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA): A survey of Italian adolescents

Despite the intensive use of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA), a measure of attachment which centres on individual differences in adolescents and their ability to evaluate their relationships with parents and peers, the factor structure of the inventory requires further investigation. This study of 1059 Italian adolescents compared the three models which are discussed in the literature: the one-factor model (attachment security), the two-factor model (trust-communication and alienation) and the three-factor model (trust, communication and alienation), and examined the influences of age and gender on the IPPA’s scores. Our findings provide support for the reliability of the latest and longer version of the IPPA (75-item). Factor analysis showed that the three-factor model had the best fit, although the three dimensions are strongly interrelated. Sixteen year olds had lower attachment security to their fathers than the results of the other adolescent age groups. Males reported lower alienation scores than females in the paternal form, while females had higher attachment security, trust and communication scores than males in the peers form.     

Psychological differences of patients and relatives according to post-transplantation anxiety

The aim of this investigation is to analyze the psychological differences of patients and their relatives according to the formers' post-transplantation anxiety. We used two groups of participants: transplant patients (n = 166) and close relatives (n = 166). Four questionnaires were applied: a Psychological Survey (to both groups), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the Quality of Life Questionnaire (to the transplant patients), and the Leeds Scales for the Self-Assessment of Anxiety and Depression (to the relatives). Participants were assessed twice: post-Intensive Care Unit (ICU; when patients were moved from the ICU to the Transplantation Unit) and post-hospital (one year after transplant). Results showed that high anxiety in patients just after organ transplant was related to an increase of anxiety and depression symptoms both in patients and relatives one year after transplant; it was also related to a decrease in the quality of life of these patients.     

Perception and presupposition in real-time language comprehension: insights from anticipatory processing

Recent studies have shown that listeners use verbs and other predicate terms to anticipate reference to semantic entities during real-time language comprehension. This process involves evaluating the denoted action against relevant properties of potential referents. The current study explored whether action-relevant properties are readily available to comprehension systems as a result of the embodied nature of linguistic and conceptual representations. In three experiments, eye movements were monitored as listeners followed instructions to move depicted objects on a computer screen. Critical instructions contained the verb return (e.g., Now return the block to area 3), which presupposes the previous displacement of its complement object--a property that is not reflected in perceptible or stable characteristics of objects. Experiment 1 demonstrated that predictions for previously displaced objects are generated upon hearing return, ruling out the possibility that anticipatory effects draw directly on static affordances in perceptual symbols. Experiment 2 used a referential communication task to evaluate how communicative relevance constrains the use of perceptually derived information. Results showed that listeners anticipate previously displaced objects as candidates upon hearing return only when their displacement was known to the speaker. Experiment 3 showed that the outcome of the original act of displacement further modulates referential predictions. The results show that the use of perceptually grounded information in language interpretation is subject to communicative constraints, even when language denotes physical actions performed on concrete objects.     

成人日常问题解决的老化研究

日常问题解决能力是近十几年来老年心理学中研究比较活跃的一个领域。本文介绍了有关日常问题解决研究的四种理论,即心理测量的智力内隐理论、形式后思维的辨证思维理论、信息加工理论和社会认知与智慧理论,及其初步的研究成果,并进一步指出在理论上整合和在实践中开展干预的研究方向。     

EEG alpha reactivity and extraversion-introversion

Spectral characteristics of spontaneous EEG and characteristics of the alpha attenuation response (AAR) induced by acoustic stimulation, were analyzed for two groups of subjects selected on the basis of their scores on the extraversion-introversion scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. While no significant differences were found in basic alpha rhythm, significant differences were manifested in the AAR characteristics. Extraverted subjects habituated to the auditory stimulus while introverts did not. Introverts were generally more responsive to stimulation. The results are discussed in relation to the arousability model proposed by Eysenck and Gray, verifying the relationships with typological dimensions of Superior Nervous Activity, elaborated by the Soviet school.     

Transactive memory in decision-making teams: implications for team effectiveness

The transactive memory system (TMS) construct is one of the most extended theoretical approaches to understand the role of cognitive processes at group level in the effectiveness of work teams. This study examined the relationships among TMS, performance, satisfaction and functional communication in decision-making teams. 40 four-person teams were asked to suppose they were expert consulting teams advising a fictitious organization on how to solve a problem with their employees. Results showed a mediating effect of TMS on the relationships between functional communication, perceived team performance and satisfaction. Contrary to our expectations, TMSs were not related to performance as evaluated by external raters. These findings suggest the importance of team communication in the formation of TMSs, as well as their implications for the effectiveness of decision-making teams.     

On Some Compatible Operations on Heyting Algebras

We study some operations that may be defined using the minimum operator in the context of a Heyting algebra. Our motivation comes from the fact that 1) already known compatible operations, such as the successor by Kuznetsov, the minimum dense by Smetanich and the operation G by Gabbay may be defined in this way, though almost never explicitly noted in the literature; 2) defining operations in this way is equivalent, from a logical point of view, to two clauses, one corresponding to an introduction rule and the other to an elimination rule, thus providing a manageable way to deal with these operations. Our main result is negative: all operations that arise turn out to be Heyting terms or the mentioned already known operations or operations interdefinable with them. However, it should be noted that some of the operations that arise may exist even if the known operations do not. We also study the extension of Priestley duality to Heyting algebras enriched with the new operations.