Bioethics and law: from the abundance of sources to the confusion of genders

The law of bioethics reveals frequent confusion in the definition and role devolved to the law and ethics. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate some of these confusions.     

Social factors in the development of early executive functioning: a closer look at the caregiving environment

This study investigated prospective links between quality of the early caregiving environment and children's subsequent executive functioning (EF). Sixty-two families were met on five occasions, allowing for assessment of maternal interactive behavior, paternal interactive behavior, and child attachment security between 1 and 2 years of age, and child EF at 2 and 3 years. The results suggested that composite scores of parental behavior and child attachment were related to child performance on EF tasks entailing strong working memory and cognitive flexibility components (conflict-EF). In particular, child attachment security was related to conflict-EF performance at 3 years above and beyond what was explained by a combination of all other social antecedents of child EF identified thus far: child verbal ability and prior EF, family SES, and parenting behavior. Attachment security may thus play a meaningful role in young children's development of executive control.     

Congruent visual information improves traffic signage

In the last five decades, cognitive scientists and the psychologists of reasoning have dedicated a lot of effort designing usable traffic signs. This study investigated the interference effect produced by the position of the sign elements in traffic signage on response accuracy and reaction time. Sixteen drivers performed a flanker interference reaction time task. Incongruent graphical/space solutions, actually used for the airport stack-type sign, lead to increased reaction time and a reduction in the proportion of correct answers. These results suggest that incongruent visual information should be avoided, as this might impair drivers’ performance. These findings provide important information for the specification of future signage design guidelines and for improving road safety.     

Do child pedestrians deliberately take risks when they are in a hurry? An experimental study on a simulator

In order to ascertain whether or not child pedestrians voluntarily take risks, a street-crossing task in an urban environment with vehicle traffic was administered individually to 80 children aged 10 years using a pedestrian simulator. The task, which was presented as a contest, consisted of attaining two objectives in a limited time. The subjects were divided into three conditions that differed only in the number of constraints that had to be taken into account in order to win the contest. The data show that the degree of urgency felt, measured by the amount of time taken, increased as the number of constraints increased. At the same time, the frequency of two of the risky behaviors (not using the pedestrian crossing, running across the road) increased, whereas the frequency of observation failures was independent of the condition. Not using the pedestrian crossing and running across the road were therefore deliberately taken risks, whereas observation failures can be attributed to a control deficit. The discussion includes suggestions for training.     

Personal self and collective self: when academic choices depend on the context of social comparison

This research examines the impact of same-sex versus opposite-sex social comparisons on the perception of one’s own abilities at school and subsequent reported marks and academic choices. During their final year, male and female high school students were asked to describe themselves either in comparison with boys in their class, in comparison with girls in their class or without any explicit social comparison (control group). The interaction effects of gender and comparison context on academic selfconcept, school marks and academic choices indicated that gender differences depend on the comparison context. Particularly, as predicted, gender differences disappeared in the same-sex social comparison condition, and even became inverted for the intended academic choices. Here, boys intended to choose more than girls Preparatory Courses for Higher Education (PCHE) in the opposite-sex social comparison condition, while girls more often chose a prestigious PCHE than boys in the same-sex social comparison condition. The theoretical, methodological and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Harcèlement moral au travail et pro/antisocialité du salarié victime : quels effets sur les jugements,les émotions et les intentions d’aide des témoins ?

Bullying at work is characterized by negative, repetitive and frequent acts towards a person, bearing reached with her physical and psychic health (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2003; Leymann, 1996). On the basis of research of Weiner (1996) and Rudolph, Roesch, Greitemeyer, and Weiner (2004), we postulated that the bullying acts, the behaviors of the bullied employee and it revictimisation would influence the judgments and the emotions of the witnesses. Research was carried out within the framework of the paradigm of the judges of 72 participants. The variance analyses show that the gravity of the acts decreases the feeling of equity, increases the attribution of responsibility towards the harcelor, decreases the attribution of responsibility to the victim and increases the help. The bullying acts always interact with the victim’s pro or antisocial behaviors. The emotions of the judges are mainly positive with regard to the victim and negative towards the harcelor except when bullied employee has emitted an antisocial behavior. The gravity of the bullying acts increases on the one hand sympathy, fear and sadness towards the victims, on the other hand, anger and dislike towards the harcelor.     

L’évaluation de la formation à l’harmonisation travail-vie personnelle : bilan et perspectives de recherche

The present article offers a review of the literature evaluating work-life balance training (which includes work-family balance training). The research, spanning over 43 databases, allowed the identification of 17 pertinent peer-reviewed articles. The selected studies are analysed in light of their main characteristics (design, sample, intervention, outcomes, etc.). The analysis shows that the offering of work-life balance training benefits both employees and managers. The methodological presuppositions and limitations of the selected studies are then critically examined. Lastly, possible topics for further research, such as the importance of conducting comparative researches and of adopting quasi-experimental and experimental protocols, are suggested in manner of conclusion.     

Neighborhood Determinants of Quality of Life

In this paper we analyze various dimensions of the quality of life in Uruguay. The results suggest that differences in overall happiness and in domain satisfaction can partly be explained by different levels of access to public goods. We find that the monetary equivalent value of public goods such as electricity, running water, sewage system, drainage, waste disposal system, street lighting, sidewalks in good condition, trees in the street, and the absence of air or noise pollution is considerable.     

Understanding “silver” consumers through cognitive age,health condition,financial status,and personal values: Empirical evidence from the world's most mature market Japan

Older consumers remain under‐researched, especially in Japan, the country most severely affected by demographic change with a rapidly aging and shrinking population. This paper aims at a better understanding of Japanese older consumers through cognitive age, health condition, financial status, and personal values. This study is the first one using these variables together on a sample of 316 older Japanese consumers. The age perception of the respondents was found on average 8 years younger than their actual chronological age, in line with the assumption of cognitive age being universal. Four groups were identified revealing a decrease in the difference between chronological and cognitive age with lower levels of health and wealth. The difference was found higher for people feeling healthy and poor than for people feeling in poor health and wealthy, thus indicating that feeling in good health was having somewhat more impact on the difference between actual and cognitive age than feeling wealthy. Respondents gave top ranking to “warm relationships with others”, second importance to “security”, and third importance to “fun and enjoyment in life”. The rankings of “excitement”, “fun and enjoyment in life”, and “sense of accomplishment” were showing a significant decrease of importance with higher cognitive age groups. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.