Consumers Felt Commitment Towards Retailers: Index Development and Validation

This work seeks to develop an index of the consumer's felt commitment towards the retailer through a formative scale. By using structural equation modeling (SEM), in particular the multiple indicators and multiple causes (MIMIC) model, as well as reflective and formative indicators, the methodology developed by Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer is applied in order to construct this index. To clarify the whole meaning of the concept, the article undertakes a thorough review of literature on felt commitment and formative index development. Several MIMIC models are developed in order to validate the index. The empirical study was carried out in the financial services sector.     

Letter string processing and visual short-term memory

The present study investigated whether expertise with letter string processing influences visual short-term memory capacity. Specifically, we examined whether performance in a change-detection task would vary as a function of stimulus type (letters vs. symbols) and type of display (horizontal, vertical, and circular). Participants were asked to detect a one-character change in a briefly presented character array following a delay of 900?ms. Concurrent articulation was used to limit effects of rehearsal. Type of display significantly affected performance with letters, but not with symbols, with a selective increase in change-detection accuracy for horizontally presented letter arrays compared with vertical and circular arrays. These findings confirm the standard limits of storage in visual short-term memory, but critically reveal a selective advantage for letter arrays over symbol arrays when presented horizontally. Such an advantage is probably due to the utilization of a specialized encoding mechanism built up over years of reading experience.     

Magnitude of force perception errors during static contractions of the knee extensors in healthy young and elderly individuals

The accuracy of force perception during muscular contraction has not been studied extensively, despite its importance in rehabilitation and training. The purpose of this study was to quantify the errors made by healthy young and elderly individuals in their perceptions of force produced at the knee. Four different tasks were used to evaluate the perception of force and the effect of a sensory-motor reference and simultaneous contraction on the accuracy of perception. The absolute errors were similar between groups, with values of 11.9% to 16.3%, depending on the task. The raw perception errors were greater for high levels of force (>50% of the maximal voluntary contraction, or MVC), indicating an overestimation of the forces produced for both groups. At 70% MVC, the sensory-motor reference reduced raw perception errors, and the simultaneous contraction improved the accuracy of force production. Healthy young and elderly individuals had about the same capacity to judge the muscular force of their knee extensors. Therapists involved in the training of active?elderly?individuals should be aware that the accuracy of force perception is not perfect and that these clients have the same ability as young individuals to perceive their knee extension strength.     

Motor skill learning in the middle-aged: limited development of motor chunks and explicit sequence knowledge

The present study examined whether middle-aged participants, like young adults, learn movement patterns by preparing and executing integrated sequence representations (i.e., motor chunks) that eliminate the need for external guidance of individual movements. Twenty-four middle-aged participants (aged 55–62) practiced two fixed key press sequences, one including three and one including six key presses in the discrete sequence production task. Their performance was compared with that of 24 young adults (aged 18–28). In the middle-aged participants motor chunks as well as explicit sequence knowledge appeared to be less developed than in the young adults. This held especially with respect to the unstructured 6-key sequences in which most middle-aged did not develop independence of the key-specific stimuli and learning seems to have been based on associative learning. These results are in line with the notion that sequence learning involves several mechanisms and that aging affects the relative contribution of these mechanisms.     

Borderline personality traits in nonclinical young adults

The main purpose of this study was to explore the dimensionality of the borderline personality disorder in nonclinical young adults by means of the Borderline Personality Questionnaire (BPQ; Poreh et al., 2006). We also studied the phenotypic expression of the borderline personality traits as a function of participants' gender and age, and the relationship between BPQ subscales and measures of depressive symptoms, anxiety, stress, hallucinatory predisposition, and paranoid ideation. The sample comprised 809 young adults, 562 (69.5%) were women, with a mean age of 20.2 years (SD = 2.9). The results indicate that the BPQ self-report has adequate psychometric properties. The levels of internal consistency for the BPQ subscales ranged between .78 and .93. Analysis of the internal structure of the BPQ subscales yielded a one-dimensional solution. In contrast, second-order principal components analysis at the item level yielded a five-dimensional solution. Likewise, statistically significant differences in the mean scores of the borderline personality traits as a function of participants' gender and age were found. The BPQ subscales correlated significantly with measures of depression, anxiety, stress, paranoid ideation, and hallucinatory predisposition. These results help to improve our understanding of the dimensional structure of the borderline personality in the general population. Future research should continue to identify participants who are at risk for the development of borderline personality disorder and facilitating the development of early detection and prevention programs.     

Growth in infancy and childhood and hospitalization for personality disorders in adulthood: the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study

This study examined the associations between infant and childhood growth and severe personality disorders. Among 4,689 men and 4,200 women of the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study 1934-1944, 81 men and 68 women had been hospitalized with an ICD (-8, -9, -10) diagnosis of personality disorder in adulthood. Among men, slower gain in BMI between birth and 6 months, faster gain in weight and BMI between 6 months and 1 year, and slower gains in them between 7 and 11 years of age predicted an increased risk of hospitalization for personality disorders. Thinness at 6 months and again at 11 years also showed significant association with personality disorders among men. Among women, slower gain in height between 2 and 7 years predicted hospitalization for personality disorders. Our findings show the importance of early growth as a vulnerability factor of personality disorders severe enough to justify hospitalization.     

Amniocentesis Due to Advanced Maternal Age: The Role of Marital Intimacy in Couples’ Decision-Making Process

Due to the risk of fetal anomaly, pregnant women of advanced maternal age are given the option to undergo amniocentesis. In our study we aimed to describe couples’ decision-making process regarding amniocentesis, and assess whether it is influenced by marital intimacy and men’s participation in genetic counseling. During pregnancy, 112 couples answered the Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships questionnaire and scales regarding the decision to undergo amniocentesis. Most couples shared and reached an agreement regarding this decision. Higher levels of marital engagement and communication, but not men’s participation, were associated with higher agreement, influence, and decision-sharing. Clinical implications are discussed.