A Story of Her Own: Hester Lynch Piozzi's Autobiography

This essay examines the autobiography of Hester Lynch Piozzi and contextualizes her story within eighteenth-century ideologies of gender and aging. From a narrative understanding of identity, autobiographical writing serves as one of the many stories that constitute an individual's identity. This reading of Piozzi's account finds that it functions both as an act of reminiscing and as an effort to give meaning to life that was often misunderstood. Considering Piozzi as a woman who lived most of her life outside of the social and cultural expectations for a middle class female of her era, this essay suggests the importance of listening to and retelling the stories of others as well as our own.     

Individual characteristics and career exploration in adolescence

The effects of gender, age and school grade on several career exploration dimensions measured by the Career Exploration Survey were investigated. Subjects were high school students facing an imminent career decision. Regression analyses indicated that sex and grade-level were the most significant and prevailing individual characteristics related to the adolescents' career exploration behaviours, reactions and beliefs. Implications for career exploration interventions are discussed.     

The impact of customer engagement on customer happiness

Previous studies have found relationships between variables that predict happiness and engagement. While this suggests that engagement is a basis for generating customer happiness, the literature does not provide sufficient confirmatory evidence. Thus, the effects of different engagement intensities remain unclear. Focusing on conditions related to the Starbucks brand, this study analyzed how (1) passive and active engagement impacted customer happiness and (2) happiness impacted word of mouth (WOM) and purchase intention. Data were collected through an online survey among 802 Peruvian customers, all of whom were recruited via non-probabilistic sampling. Because two exogenous variables were considered formative (i.e., customer engagement and customer happiness), a partial least-squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) was used for the analysis. In sum, engagement (both passive and active) significantly and positively impacted customer happiness, which then positively impacted WOM and purchase intention. Given that engagement is associated with variables that are broadly related to happiness, this study makes new contributions by (i) clarifying how customer engagement can generate customer happiness, (ii) identifying differences between active and passive engagement, and (iii) adding evidence for use in the debate on the purpose of marketing and traditional practices such as engagement. As discussed in the paper, these findings have theoretical and practical implications for brand managers.     

Mini‐breaks: the use of escape on a fixed‐time schedule to reduce unauthorized breaks from vocational training sites for individuals with brain injury

This study evaluated mini‐breaks with three individuals who were traumatically brain injured and engaged in unauthorized breaks. The vocational instructors reported that the three participants were having problems staying at their scheduled vocational training sites (walking away without permission). Following baseline, participants were placed on mini‐breaks; that is, participants were given a ten‐minute mini‐break every hour. Thus, mini‐breaks were given without regard to unauthorized breaks. Unauthorized breaks decreased to zero levels for all three participants when mini‐breaks commenced. Following 1 month of the mini‐breaks, two of the participants were put back on a regular break schedule (one 15‐minute AM break and one 15‐minute PM break and a 30‐minute lunch break). The third participant was placed in supported work. The effects of the mini‐breaks were maintained. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Removing the Gag that Binds: An Examination of Therapeutic Implications of Political Correctness

This paper examines both positive and negative influences of political correctness on family therapy. The authors contend the political correctness movement has limited assessment and joining in the therapy room. Impact on self-of-the therapist is considered. Strategies for combating the political correctness movement are discussed.     

Listening back in time: Does attention to memory facilitate word-in-noise identification?

The ephemeral nature of spoken words creates a challenge for oral communications where incoming speech sounds must be processed in relation to representations of just-perceived sounds stored in short-term memory. This can be particularly taxing in noisy environments where perception of speech is often impaired or initially incorrect. Usage of prior contextual information (e.g., a semantically related word) has been shown to improve speech in noise identification. In three experiments, we demonstrate a comparable effect of a semantically related cue word placed after an energetically masked target word in improving accuracy of target-word identification. This effect persisted irrespective of cue modality (visual or auditory cue word) and, in the case of cues after the target, lasted even when the cue word was presented up to 4 seconds after the target. The results are framed in the context of an attention to memory model that seeks to explain the cognitive and neural mechanisms behind processing of items in auditory memory.     

Exploring the Complexities of Familism and Acculturation: Central Constructs for People of Mexican Origin

We examined the relationships between three dimensions of familism: importance of family, family support, and family conflict with acculturation, assessed orthogonally (Mexican and American cultural contributions assessed independently), and the relative contribution these factors make to psychological adjustment among 248 (124 women, 124 men) adults of Mexican origin. After controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, positive associations were found between importance of family and the biculturalism of Mexican and American cultural identity; family support and Mexican cultural identity; but no associations between family conflict and level of acculturation. Psychological well-being was positively associated with Mexican cultural identity and family support, whereas psychological distress was associated with greater family conflict and lower family support. The greater relative contribution of Mexican cultural identity to familism and well-being, and the importance of assessing acculturation orthogonally are discussed. This research was supported in part by a Minority Supplement to National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH47193 to the Research Center on the Psychobiology of Ethnicity, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and by a research award from Pitzer College to Norma Rodriguez.     

Lexical access in younger and older adults: the case of the mass/count distinction.

Although lexicosemantic deficits are not typically seen in older adults, some studies indicate that age-related changes in semantic processing may occur. We had groups of older and younger adults perform speeded lexical decision on mass (e.g., honey), count (e.g., car), and dual nouns, which may be either mass or count (e.g., lamb). Singular dual nouns engendered significantly faster response times in older adults than mass and count nouns, whereas younger adults manifested similar response times to count and dual nouns. These results point toward a three-way distinction in the lexicon between mass, count, and dual nouns. Older adults appear to treat a larger set of nouns as dual than do younger adults. This may be due to awareness of the mass/count ambiguity present in a greater number of lexical items, as a result of their greater linguistic experience. Alternatively, in order to conserve processing resources, older adults may not activate mass/count information when recognizing a dual noun unless a mass or count reading is forced by context.     

The ecology of spatial memory in four lemur species

Evolutionary theories suggest that ecology is a major factor shaping cognition in primates. However, there have been few systematic tests of spatial memory abilities involving multiple primate species. Here, we examine spatial memory skills in four strepsirrhine primates that vary in level of frugivory: ruffed lemurs (Varecia sp.), ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta), mongoose lemurs (Eulemur mongoz), and Coquerel’s sifakas (Propithecus coquereli). We compare these species across three studies targeting different aspects of spatial memory: recall after a long-delay, learning mechanisms supporting memory and recall of multiple locations in a complex environment. We find that ruffed lemurs, the most frugivorous species, consistently showed more robust spatial memory than the other species across tasks—especially in comparison with sifakas, the most folivorous species. We discuss these results in terms of the importance of considering both ecological and social factors as complementary explanations for the evolution of primate cognitive skills.