Sophistry in Vygotsky: Contributions to the Rhetorical and Poetic Pedagogy

Studies in Philosophy and Education - This work relates L. S. Vygotsky’s theory to the rhetorical and poetic pedagogy, which is a set of educational ideas and practices derived from the...     

The Ethical and Academic Implications of the Jeffrey Beall (www.scholarlyoa.com) Blog Shutdown

Science and Engineering Ethics - A very important event took place on January 15, 2017. On that day, the Jeffrey Beall blog ( www.scholarlyoa.com ) was silently, and suddenly, shut down by Beall...     

Conceptualizing psychopathic traits from an evolutionary-based perspective: An empirical study in a community sample of boys and girls

Although psychopathy has historically been associated with a lack of emotion, recent research has suggested that psychopathy may represent a tendency to externalize the experience of unpleasant emotions, including shame, which could be seen as an adaptive strategy within an evolutionary framework. However, more empirical research is needed to build on this argument. This study tested a novel evolutionary-based model involving pathways associating the impact of harsh rearing experiences (warmth and safeness experiences and traumatic shameful experiences) with psychopathic traits as well as the indirect effects of external shame and shame coping strategies in this association. This study also tested the invariance of this model across gender. A youth community sample (N = 703; 58.9% girls) completed self-report questionnaires on the impact of harsh rearing experiences, external shame, shame coping strategies, and psychopathic traits. The results suggested that the impact of harsh rearing experiences was directly and indirectly (through external shame and shame coping strategies) associated with psychopathic traits. The model partially explained the endorsement of psychopathic traits in boys and girls, although gender differences were found in some of the pathways. These findings offer support for conceptualizing psychopathic traits as an adaptive strategy to cope with the impact of harsh rearing experiences, opening new perspectives for prevention and treatment.

     

Analysis of the Acquisition of Verbal Operants in a Child from 17 Months to 2 Years of Age

The Psychological Record - The purpose of this study was to longitudinally investigate the acquisition of verbal operants in a typically developing child from 17 months to 2 years of age. Verbal...     

A modal ontology of properties for quantum mechanics

Our purpose in this paper is to delineate an ontology for quantum mechanics that results adequate to the formalism of the theory. We will restrict our aim to the search of an ontology that expresses the conceptual content of the recently proposed modal-Hamiltonian interpretation, according to which the domain referred to by non-relativistic quantum mechanics is an ontology of properties. The usual strategy in the literature has been to focus on only one of the interpretive problems of the theory and to design an interpretation to solve it, leaving aside the remaining difficulties. On the contrary, our aim in the present work is to formulate a “global” solution, according to which different problems can be adequately tackled in terms of a single ontology populated of properties, in which systems are bundles of properties. In particular, we will conceive indistinguishability between bundles as a relation derived from indistinguishability between properties, and we will show that states, when operating on combinations of indistinguishable bundles, act as if they were symmetric with no need of a symmetrization postulate.     

Job Conditions and Wellness/Health Outcomes in Dutch Secondary School Teachers

The aim of the present study is to compare the work situation of Dutch secondary school teachers to job conditions of European teachers and to test the Job Demand-Control-Social Support model (JDCS model, Karasek and Theorell, <citeref rid="bib24">1990</citeref>) on burnout, job satisfaction and somatic symptoms. The Dutch data (N = 304) were gathered in seven secondary schools from across the country. The remaining European group consisted of 1878 upper secondary school teachers originating from 10 countries. Additive and interactive effects in the JDCS model could be identified for emotional exhaustion only. Furthermore, a curvilinear (U-shaped) relationship was found between control and emotional exhaustion. In addition to the JDCS model, the contribution of coping in the explanation of the outcomes was tested. Attempts have been made to deal with criticisms, which are frequently leveled at the implementation of the JDCS model. Dutch teachers do not differ on job conditions from the European sample except for two working conditions where the Dutch indicate less physical exertion and environmental risks than the European reference sample. The Dutch report lower levels of coping than the reference group, they are more depersonalised and are less satisfied than teachers of the European reference group. On the other hand, the Dutch teachers had fewer somatic complaints and reported higher levels of personal accomplishment than their European colleagues.     

Positioning Microanalysis: Studying the Self Through the Exploration of Dialogical Processes

Self-multiplicity is a widely recognized phenomenon within psychology. The study of how self-continuity emerges amidst self-multiplicity remains a crucial issue, however. Dialogical approaches are widely viewed as suitable for developing this field of study but they demand coherent methods compatible with their theoretical bases. After reviewing the available methods for the study of the dialogical self, as well as other dialogical methods for the study of psychotherapy, we conclude that we still lack a method which can be used by external observers and is devoted to the systematic tracing of the dialogical dynamics of self-positions as they unfold over time. A new method, positioning microanalysis, is described in detail as a possible way to overcome current limitations in methods focused on the dialogicality inherent in selfhood processes. Positioning microanalysis takes a genetic-developmental perspective on dialogical processes in the self and allows for the depiction of microgenetic movements of self-positions over time and the establishment of more or less stable sequences or patterns of positions. This is illustrated by its application to an emotion-focused therapy session.     

Where did you park your car? Analysis of a naturalistic long-term recency effect

Abstract

Three experiments studied the long-term retention of parking locations. In Experiment 1, members of the Applied Psychology Unit (MU) attempted to recall where they had parked during the morning and afternoon of each of the previous 12 working days. A marked recency effect was observed. In Experiment 2, members of the APU Subject Panel were invited for a single test session, and asked where they had parked after a delay of 2 hours, 1 week or 1 month. Recall was excellent and did not differ as a function of delay, allowing a simple trace decay interpretation to be ruled out. A third experiment invited subjects to attend on two occasions separated by a 2-week interval. The subjects were then required to recall their parking locations some 4 weeks after either their first visit or their second visit. Performance in both groups was inferior to that observed in Experiment 2, and declined over time. A temporal discrimination model, based on laboratory studies of both long-term and short-term recency in free recall, offers a plausible explanation of our results.     

Which modality is best for presenting navigation instructions?

Three experiments involved college students receiving and following instructions of various lengths for navigating in a three-dimensional space displayed on a computer screen. The purpose was to evaluate which is the best modality for presenting navigation instructions so that they can be executed successfully. Single modalities (read, hear, and see) were considered along with dual modalities presented simultaneously or successively. It was found that when there were differences between single modalities, generally execution accuracy was best for see and worst for read. Information presented in two modalities did not yield better accuracy than information presented twice in a single modality. Also, the ordering of modalities depended on the extent of practice. Thus, presentation modality does not have a consistently large effect on receiving and following navigation instructions. Repetition and the amount of practice are much more important variables than is presentation modality in determining how well navigation instructions are followed.