Understanding Predictors of Engagement Within the Military

The current study explored organizational antecedents of employee engagement in a military organization. A survey was administered to junior military personnel assessing leadership effectiveness, role clarity, organizational culture, and peer group interactions as predictors of engagement. Leadership's influence on engagement was expected to be partially mediated by role clarity and organizational culture. Engagement was predicted to fully mediate the relationship between the aforementioned variables and turnover intentions. Results indicated that leadership's influence on engagement was fully mediated by role clarity and organizational culture. In addition, engagement fully mediated the relationship between all variables and turnover intentions.     

Inattention,working memory,and academic achievement in adolescents referred for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

This study investigated the role of inattention and working memory in predicting academic achievement in 145 adolescents aged 13 to 18 referred for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Path analysis was used to examine whether auditory-verbal and visual-spatial working memory would mediate the relationships between classroom inattention symptoms and achievement outcomes. Results provide support for the mediational model. Behavioral inattention significantly predicted both auditory-verbal and visual-spatial working memory performance. Auditory-verbal working memory was strongly associated with adolescents' achievement in reading and mathematics, while visual-spatial working memory was only associated with achievement in mathematics. The path from inattention symptoms to reading was partially mediated by the working memory variables, but the path from inattention to mathematics was not mediated by working memory. The proposed model demonstrated a good fit to the data and explained a substantial amount of variance in the adolescents' achievement outcomes. These findings imply that working memory is a risk factor for academic failure for adolescents with attentional problems.     

Adam Smith: Self-Command,Practical Reason and Deontological Insights

In this paper, I argue that, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith conflates two different meanings of ‘self-command’, which is particularly puzzling because of the central role of this virtue in his theory. The first is the matrix of rational action, the one described in Part III of the TMS and learned in ‘the great school of self-command’. The second is the particular moral virtue of self-command. Distinguishing between these two meanings allows us, on the one hand, to solve some apparent paradoxes of the text; and, on the other, to identify various features of both the practical reason and deontological ethical traditions that are present in Smith's sentimentalism, enriching his phenomenological account of moral actions.     

A Comparison of Personal Project Motives in Three Age Groups

This study examined the extent to which adolescents systematically perceive a discrepancy between private and group norms about the acceptability of bullying and examined the association between norm estimation and actual bystander behavior. Ninety-one 8th graders (42 male and 49 female) described their personal attitudes about bullies and victims as well as their perceptions of their classmates' attitudes. Teachers rated adolescents' participant roles during bullying episodes at school. Results provided support for the premise that teens systematically perceive their peers to hold less prosocial views (e.g., to be more tolerant of bullies, less empathic toward victims, and less inclined to believe they have a responsibility to protect victims) than they themselves do. This tendency to perceive oneself as “out of step” with the group (i.e., pluralistic ignorance) was particularly salient among girls. In addition, there was a significant association between perceived self–other discrepancy in attitudes toward bullying and adolescents' actual bystander behavior when confronted by peer harassment. The more students viewed themselves as out-of-step with group norms about bullying, the higher their teacher-rated scores on passive bystander behavior. Potential implications of these findings and future directions are discussed.     

Self-transcendent positive emotions increase spirituality through basic world assumptions

Spirituality has mostly been studied in psychology as implied in the process of overcoming adversity, being triggered by negative experiences, and providing positive outcomes. By reversing this pathway, we investigated whether spirituality may also be triggered by self-transcendent positive emotions, which are elicited by stimuli appraised as demonstrating higher good and beauty. In two studies, elevation and/or admiration were induced using different methods. These emotions were compared to two control groups, a neutral state and a positive emotion (mirth). Self-transcendent positive emotions increased participants' spirituality (Studies 1 and 2), especially for the non-religious participants (Study 1). Two basic world assumptions, i.e., belief in life as meaningful (Study 1) and in the benevolence of others and the world (Study 2) mediated the effect of these emotions on spirituality. Spirituality should be understood not only as a coping strategy, but also as an upward spiralling pathway to and from self-transcendent positive emotions.     

Growing Older in Portugal: Gender Issues in Physical Health and Well-being

This article presents three studies which demonstrate that (1) Older women enjoy the status of grandparenthood, and they show resources, continued personal growth, and positive functioning; (2) Spouses provide emotional support, and widowhood has an impact on the experience of emotional loneliness; and (3) As they age, men remain cognitively more preserved, and women affectively more preserved. Over a 3-year period, older people showed smooth changes in physical health, cognitive functioning, and mental health. Results are discussed in terms of healthy living, resilience, positive affect, and also conditions that promote undesirable pathways in older age. Implications for feminist therapy with older people are discussed.     

Neuroanatomical correlates of category-specific semantic disorders: A critical survey

Current models of verbal short‐term memory (STM) propose various mechanisms for serial order. These include a gradient of activation over items, associations between items, and associations between items and their positions relative to the start or end of a sequence. We compared models using a variant of Hebb's procedure in which immediate serial recall of a sequence improves if the sequence is presented more than once. However, instead of repeating a complete sequence, we repeated different aspects of serial order information common to training lists and a subsequent test list. In Experiment 1, training lists repeated all the item–item pairings in the test list, with or without the position–item pairings in the test list. Substantial learning relative to a control condition was observed only when training lists repeated item–item pairs with position–item pairs, and position was defined relative to the start rather than end of a sequence. Experiment 2 attempted to analyse the basis of this learning effect further by repeating fragments of the test list during training, where fragments consisted of either isolated position–item pairings or clusters of both position–item and item–item pairings. Repetition of sequence fragments led to only weak learning effects. However, where learning was observed it was for specific position–item pairings. We conclude that positional cues play an important role in the coding of serial order in memory but that the information required to learn a sequence goes beyond position–item associations. We suggest that whereas STM for a novel sequence is based on positional cues, learning a sequence involves the development of some additional representation of the sequence as a whole.     

Interpretative memories of artworks

It is well known that memories of self‐relevant experiences are reconstructed over time. Artworks often require an elongated period of interpretative meaning‐making. Such works were therefore used to study temporal aspects of memory construction. In a longitudinal study, individuals' memories of artworks were examined to explore the idea that only with the passage of time would autobiographical memory and emotion be associated with thematic integration of the artwork memory. We also expected that integrated artwork memories would be more differentiated (in terms of number of details) than memories that were not integrated. Memories of artworks were collected from visitors to an art gallery in person as they left the gallery, and 5 months later in a phone interview. Participants were also asked, at both interviews, whether the memory recollection was associated with an autobiographical memory and with an emotion. Associations among the elements of autobiographical memory, emotion, differentiation, and integrated artwork memories were significant only at the time of the longer‐term recollection. The data suggest that, during an incubation period, these elements moved from a state of disconnection to interconnection.