An Examination of the Role of Personality in Work Accidents Using Meta-analysis

Personality has been studied as a predictor variable in a range of occupational settings. The study reported is based on a systematic search and meta-analysis of the literature, using the "Big Five" personality framework. The results indicated that there was substantial variability in the effect of personality on workplace accidents, with evidence of situational moderators operating in most cases. However, one aspect of personality, low agreeableness, was found to be a valid and generalisable predictor of involvement in work accidents. The implications of the findings for future research are discussed. Although meta-analysis can be used to provide definite estimates of effect sizes, the limitations of such an approach are also considered.
La personnalité a étéétudiée comme variable prédictrice dans un ensemble de situations professionnelles. Ce travail s'appuie sur une investigation approfondie et une méta-analyse de la littérature faisant appel au modèle de la personnalité du « Big Five >>. Les résultats montrent qu'il existe de fortes variations en ce qui concerne le rôle de la personnalité dans les accidents du travail, avec l'interférence de facteurs situationnels dans la plupart des cas. Cependant, un aspect de la personnalité, une « agreeableness >> basse, apparaît comme étant un prédicteur valide et général de l'implication dans les accidents du travail. On réfléchit à l'intérêt de ces résultats pour de futures recherches. La méta-analyse peut certes procurer une évaluation précise de l'impact d'une variable, mais il faut aussi prendre en considération les limites de cette approche.     

An exploration of lived religion in same-sex couples from Judeo-Christian traditions

Religious involvement has been found to be associated with higher levels of commitment and relationship satisfaction among heterosexually married individuals (Mahoney et al., 1999). Little is known, however, about the religiosity of gay, lesbian, bisexual (GLB) individuals, and virtually nothing is known about religious involvement in same-sex couples. The purpose of this qualitative interview study was to examine couples' experiences of incorporating religious involvement into their committed relationships. In a sample of 14 same-sex couples, we found that couples used their spiritual/religious values to understand and undergird their relationships. In this process, they negotiated intra-couple differences in religious practices, involved themselves in activities that have religious or spiritual meaning to them, created religious social support for their relationships, and experienced some non-supportive or rejecting interpersonal interactions with religious family members, congregants, and strangers. These findings are instructive to therapists who work with same-sex couples and the family members of GLB individuals. We conclude with specific suggestions for practitioners.     

Putting lexical constraints in context into the visual-world paradigm

Prior eye-tracking studies of spoken sentence comprehension have found that the presence of two potential referents, e.g., two frogs, can guide listeners toward a Modifier interpretation of Put the frog on the napkin… despite strong lexical biases associated with Put that support a Goal interpretation of the temporary ambiguity (Tanenhaus, M. K., Spivey-Knowlton, M. J., Eberhard, K. M. & Sedivy, J. C. (1995). Integration of visual and linguistic information in spoken language comprehension. Science, 268, 1632–1634; Trueswell, J. C., Sekerina, I., Hill, N. M. & Logrip, M. L. (1999). The kindergarten-path effect: Studying on-line sentence processing in young children. Cognition, 73, 89–134). This pattern is not expected under constraint-based parsing theories: cue conflict between the lexical evidence (which supports the Goal analysis) and the visuo-contextual evidence (which supports the Modifier analysis) should result in uncertainty about the intended analysis and partial consideration of the Goal analysis. We reexamined these put studies (Experiment 1) by introducing a response time-constraint and a spatial contrast between competing referents (a frog on a napkin vs. a frog in a bowl). If listeners immediately interpret on the… as the start of a restrictive modifier, then their eye movements should rapidly converge on the intended referent (the frog on something). However, listeners showed this pattern only when the phrase was unambiguously a Modifier (Put the frog that’s on the…). Syntactically ambiguous trials resulted in transient consideration of the Competitor animal (the frog in something). A reading study was also run on the same individuals (Experiment 2) and performance was compared between the two experiments. Those individuals who relied heavily on lexical biases to resolve a complement ambiguity in reading (The man heard/realized the story had been…) showed increased sensitivity to both lexical and contextual constraints in the put-task; i.e., increased consideration of the Goal analysis in 1-Referent Scenes, but also adeptness at using spatial constraints of prepositions (in vs. on) to restrict referential alternatives in 2-Referent Scenes. These findings cross-validate visual world and reading methods and support multiple-constraint theories of sentence processing in which individuals differ in their sensitivity to lexical contingencies.     

When infants take mothers' advice: 18-month-olds integrate perceptual and social information to guide motor action

The social cognition and perception-action literatures are largely separate, both conceptually and empirically. However, both areas of research emphasize infants' emerging abilities to use available information--social and perceptual information, respectively--for making decisions about action. Borrowing methods from both research traditions, this study examined whether 18-month-old infants incorporate both social and perceptual information in their motor decisions. The infants' task was to determine whether to walk down slopes of varying risk levels as their mothers encouraged or discouraged walking. First, a psychophysical procedure was used to determine slopes that were safe, borderline, and risky for individual infants. Next, during a series of test trials, infants received mothers' advice about whether to walk. Infants used social information selectively: They ignored encouraging advice to walk down risky slopes and discouraging advice to avoid safe slopes, but they deferred to mothers' advice at borderline slopes. Findings indicate that 18-month-old infants correctly weigh competing sources of information when making decisions about motor action and that they rely on social information only when perceptual information is inadequate or uncertain.     

Becoming a teller of tales: associations between children's fictional narratives and parent-child reminiscence narratives

Previous research has revealed a connection between the contributions parents make while reminiscing and their children’s narratives for personally experienced events. The current research expands the literature by focusing on the connection between parental reminiscing and children’s production of fictional narratives. After 4- to 9-year-olds and their parents reminisced about past shared events, the children (with an experimenter) produced narratives based on wordless picture books. The results revealed that the overall quality of the fictional narratives was correlated with parents’ provision statements that emphasized orientation and evaluation in the reminiscence narrative. For younger children, correlations held for reminiscence narratives about recent events. For older children, correlations held for reminiscence narratives about events from the distant past. The results are consistent with the suggestion that children learn general storytelling skills from adult models.     

The Appropriateness of Using Three Measures of Self‐Beliefs With European American,Latino/a,and Native American College Freshmen

The authors investigated the psychometric appropriateness of the Valuing/Commitment to Education scale (A. M. Gloria, 1993), the Rosenberg Self‐Esteem Scale (M. Rosenberg, 1965), and the Educational Self‐Efficacy Scale (A. M. Gloria, 1993) for use with European American, Latina/o, and Native American college freshmen. Strong to moderate reliabilities were found, as was initial evidence of validity across groups. Los autores investigaron la idoneidad psicométrica de la Valoración/Compromiso con la Escala de Educación (A. M. Gloria, 1993), la Escala Rosenberg de Autoestima (M. Rosenberg, 1965) y la Escala de Autoeficacia Educativa (A. M. Gloria, 1993) para su uso con alumnos universitarios Euroamericanos, Latinos y Americanos Nativos de primer curso. Se hallaron datos que prueban una fiabilidad entre moderada y alta, como lo fue tambien la validez observada inicialmente entre los grupos.     

The effect of perceptual information on output interference

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Retrieval from episodic memory has consequences (Malmberg, Lehman, Annis, Criss, & Shiffrin, The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 61;...     

The role of executive function and social‐emotional skills in the development of literacy and numeracy during preschool: a cross‐lagged longitudinal study

The majority of evidence on the interplay between academic and non‐academic skills comes from high‐income countries. The aim of this study was to examine the bidirectional associations between Ghanaian children's executive function, social‐emotional, literacy, and numeracy skills longitudinally. Children (N = 3,862; M age = 5.2 years at time 1) were assessed using direct assessment at three time points over the course of two school years. Controlling for earlier levels of the same skill, early executive function predicted higher subsequent literacy and numeracy skills, and early literacy and numeracy skills predicted higher subsequent executive function, indicating that the development of executive function and academic skills is inter‐related and complementary over time. Early literacy and numeracy predicted subsequent social‐emotional skills, but early social‐emotional skills did not predict subsequent literacy and numeracy skills. The findings provide longitudinal evidence on children's learning and development in West Africa and contribute to a global understanding of the relations between various developmental skills over time.