Global Scientific Outputs of Brain Death Publications and Evaluation According to the Religions of Countries

In 1950s, the concept of brain death, which began to be discussed primarily in terms of medicine and then in terms of religion, law, and ethics, became a central topic in all world countries as it was an early diagnosis of death. Despite the fact that brain death (BD) diagnosis is of importance for benefitting from organ and tissue transplantation of patients in the world, the literature still involves no bibliometric studies that made a holistic evaluation of the publications about this issue. The present study aims to investigate the top-cited articles about BD published between 1980 and 2018, identify the citation collaboration of the journals, demonstrate the collaboration between the countries, define the relationship between organ transplantation and BD, and reveal the latest developments and trend topics about this issue. In addition, this study aims to investigate the relationship between religions of countries and brain death publication productivity. Documents for bibliometric analysis were downloaded from Web of Science. The literature search was performed using the keywords “brain death/dead” during 1980–2018. The correlations between gross domestic product (GDP), Human Development Index (HDI) and publication productivity of the countries on BD were investigated with Spearman’s correlation coefficient. There was a high-level, statistically significant correlation between the number of publications and GDP, and HDI and the number of publications about BD (r = 0.761, p < 0.001; r = 0.703, p < 0.001). The USA was the top country in terms of publication productivity, which was followed by developed countries such as Germany, Japan, France, and Spain. However, the contribution of the undeveloped or developing countries such as China, Brazil, Turkey, Iran, and South Africa was found to be considerably important. While many people in the world die with undamaged organs, many other people die needing those organs. Therefore, it is considered that the collaborations and thus multidisciplinary studies about BD should be increased in the world countries, and the countries should be involved in bigger collaborations instead of little clusters. Especially, Muslim countries should be encouraged to do research and publish studies about the issues of brain death and organ transplantation.

     

The relationship between dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs and problematic social networking sites use

Social networking sites (SNSs) enrol new subscribers each day. However, problematic SNS use has undesirable effects on psychological functioning. Therefore, it is important to identify the factors that contribute to the development of problematic SNS use. Very few studies have focused on revealing the underlying mechanisms of problematic SNS use. Although many past studies have examined the relationship between metacognitive beliefs and Internet addiction, the association between metacognitive beliefs and problematic SNS use has not been adequately explored. In this study, we aimed to explore the association between metacognitive beliefs and problematic SNS use among young adults. A total of 308 individuals participated in this study. A socio-demographic data form, the Metacognitions Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30), and Social Media Addiction Scale (SMAS) were administered. Group comparisons were performed using multivariate analysis of covariance. Pearson's correlational and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the associations between metacognitive beliefs and problematic SNS use. The SNS addicts scored higher in all of the SMAS assessments. When compared to non-addicts, SNS addicts obtained higher scores on all the subtests of the SMAS and MCQ-30 except cognitive self-consciousness. The negative beliefs about the uncontrollability and danger of worry, cognitive confidence, and need for control thoughts were associated with SMAS mood modification, relapse and conflict subdimensions. Our findings revealed that dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs are related to problematic SNS use among young adults. These findings indicate that mental health workers should consider the modification of metacognitive beliefs in the treatment of problematic SNS use.     

Age-Specific Effects of Lexical–Semantic Networks on Word Production

The lexical–semantic organization of the mental lexicon is bound to change across the lifespan. Nevertheless, the effects of lexical–semantic factors on word processing are usually based on studies enrolling young adult cohorts. The current study aims to investigate to what extent age-specific semantic organization predicts performance in referential word production over the lifespan, from school-age children to older adults. In Study 1, we conducted a free semantic association task with participants from six age-groups (ranging from 10 to 80 years old) to compute measures that capture age-specific properties of the mental lexicon across the lifespan. These measures relate to lifespan changes in the Available Richness of the mental lexicon and in the lexical–semantic Network Prototypicality of concrete words. In Study 2, we used the collected data to predict performance in a picture-naming task on a new group of participants within the same age-groups as for Study 1. The results show that age-specific semantic Available Richness and Network Prototypicality affect word production speed while the semantic variables collected only in young adults do not. A richer and more prototypical semantic network across subjects from a given age-group is associated with faster word production speed. The current results indicate that age-specific semantic organization is crucial to predict lexical–semantic behaviors across the lifespan. Similarly, these results also provide cues to the understanding of the lexical–semantic properties of the mental lexicon and to lexical selection in referential tasks.     

Bullying in university between peers and by personnel: cultural variation in prevalence,forms, and gender differences in four countries

Social Psychology of Education - This study reports results from cross-cultural comparisons of (a) the frequency of university students’ experiences of bullying victimization and perpetration...     

Seeing red? Colour biases of foraging birds are context dependent

Animal Cognition - Colours are commonly used as visual cues when measuring animals’ cognitive abilities. However, animals can have innate biases towards certain colours that depend on...     

Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Associations between Leisure Time Physical Activity,Mental Well-Being and Subjective Health in Middle Adulthood

Previous studies have shown that participation in leisure time physical activity is related to better mental well-being and subjective health. However, the associations between different types of leisure time physical activities and different dimensions of mental well-being have rarely been studied. In addition, longitudinal research, analyzing possible causal relations between these variables, is lacking. To investigate these research questions, data gathered at ages 42 and 50 (present N = 303) for the Finnish Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development were used. Physical activity was assessed as frequency of participation at ages 42 and 50, and at age 50 also as frequency of participation in different types of physical activities. Mental well-being was captured by emotional, psychological and social well-being and subjective health by self-rated health and symptoms. Cross-sectionally, different types of physical activities were related to different dimensions of well-being. Walking had positive associations with psychological and social well-being, rambling in nature with emotional and social well-being, and endurance training with subjective health. Rambling in nature was also positively related to subjective health but only among men. Longitudinally, mental well-being predicted later participation in leisure-time physical activity, whereas no longitudinal associations between subjective health and physical activity were found. The results suggest that leisure time physical activities are related to current mental well-being and subjective health in midlife. Across time, good mental well-being seems to be a resource promoting engagement in physical activity.

     

Perception of pictorial eye gaze by baboons (Papio papio)

Pictorial faces looking left or right were presented to baboons (Papio papio) before the display of a target letter in the left or right hemifield of a monitor screen. Baboons had to provide go or no-go responses taking into account the identity of the target letter. The 1st 6 experiments showed no reliable effect of eye gaze on discrimination speed, using either schematic gazes or pictures of real gazes. Experiment 7 showed that eye gazes facilitated target processing when eye cues were perfect predictors of target location. Findings suggest that baboons do not spontaneously process eye-gaze direction but can learn to do so if the gaze has a predictive value. Implications of these findings on baboons' perspective-taking abilities are discussed.     

Biased language use in stereotype maintenance: the role of encoding and goals

In 4 studies, the authors investigated the relative impact of biased encoding of information and communication goals on biased language use. A category label (linguistic expectancy bias, Study 1) or a group label (linguistic intergroup bias, Study 2) was presented either before or after a story that participants were asked to communicate. Biased language use only emerged when participants learned about the group membership of the actor or the category label before hearing the story. However, communication goals had an effect on language use at the retrieval stage, independent of encoding (Studies 3 and 4). Although communication goal effects seemed to overwhelm encoding effects, encoding still influenced language use under externally imposed time pressure (Study 3) and self-imposed time constraints (Study 4). This research reaffirms the importance of both cognitive and communicative processes in stereotype maintenance and highlights the conditions under which they each operate.     

The Impact of Personality and Religion on Attitudes toward Alcohol among 16–18 Year Olds in Northern Ireland

Background: Previous research demonstrates a negative relationship between attitude toward alcohol and religiosity. However, what is less apparent is if this relationship may, at least in part, be a function of individual differences in personality, as previous research has demonstrated a relationship between certain measures of personality and both attitude toward alcohol and attitude toward religiosity. The aim of the present study was to explore the impact of personality and the relative efficacy of different markers of religiosity in predicting attitude toward alcohol among a sample of 16–18 year olds in Northern Ireland. Method: The Francis Scale of Attitude toward Alcohol (Francis, 1992c. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 31, 45–50) was administered alongside the Abbreviated Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Francis, Brown, & Philipchalk, 1992. Personality and Individual Differences, 13(4), 443–449), the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity (Francis & Stubbs, 1987. Personality and Individual Differences, 8, 741–743) and measures of frequency of personal prayer and church attendance among a sample of 243 16- to 18-year-old sixth-form students in Northern Ireland. Results and conclusion: The data demonstrate that a more prohibitive attitude toward alcohol was correlated with lower psychoticism scores (tendermindedness) and a more positive attitude toward Christianity. Multiple-regression analyses confirm the importance of attitude toward religion in predicting individual differences in attitude toward alcohol.