A survival guide to fission

The fission of a person involves what common sense describes as a single person surviving as two distinct people. Thus, say most metaphysicians, this paradox shows us that common sense is inconsistent with the transitivity of identity. Lewis’s theory of overlapping persons, buttressed with tensed identity, gives us one way to reconcile the common sense claims. Lewis’s account, however, implausibly says that reference to a person about to undergo fission is ambiguous. A better way to reconcile the claims of common sense, one that avoids this ambiguity, is to recognize branching persons, persons who have multiple pasts or futures.

Comparison between primary and secondary mate markets: an analysis of data from lonely hearts columns

Personal advertisements placed in newspapers can be a good source of information on the dynamics of the human mate market. From an analysis of 1587 (776 female and 811 male) advertisements placed in the local Lower Silesian (Poland) newspaper, we were able to compare primary (never married) (PMM) and secondary (divorced/separated) (SMM) mate markets. When controlling for place of residence, it was revealed that the mean time span between the end of education and the age at which females resort to personal advertisement (7–8 years) is very similar in the three education categories. Men who graduated from high school or university were over-represented on the SMM. There were no differences in the residuals of height, weight or BMI between PMM and SMM for females and significant difference only for men's height with relatively taller men on the SMM for the combined two lower levels of education. We also compared PMM and SMM separately for men and women in terms of the rates of offering and seeking resources, attractiveness, commitment and social skills. PMM and SMM differ in three such categories for men and in four for women. However when controlling for advertiser's age, there were only two differences for women (resources were sought for and attractiveness offered more often on the SMM) and one for men (commitment was sought more frequently on the SMM). This indicates that the difference in preferences should be attributed mainly to the age of subjects and only to a smaller extent to the type of mate market (PMM vs SMM).     

从SARS看突发公共卫生事件的政策管理

在调研国外应对突发公共卫生事件政策管理经验的基础上,结合我国应对传染性非典型肺炎的措施,初步探讨了我们在应对突发公共卫生事件政策管理方面的不足,并就改进对策也进行了初步研究。     

A future-oriented Retirement Transition Adjustment Framework

This theoretical paper presents a person–environment fit framework that extends the Minnesota Theory of Work Adjustment to retirement transition and adjustment. The proposed Retirement Transition and Adjustment Framework (RTAF) also accommodates dynamic intra-individual and environment change over time, configural combinations of variables, and an ecological perspective to psychological-level decisions. The RTAF permits the collection of frequently sampled longitudinal person and environment data, allows for a detailed analysis of change and responsiveness, and can accommodate external influences from the family team, and social, economic and political policies. The paper concludes by using the RTAF to illustrate the types of psychological measurement and analysis opportunities likely to emerge in light of developments in the web, virtual reality, personal informatics and computing and information technology generally.     

The impact of supervisory mentoring on personal learning and career outcomes: The dual moderating effect of self-efficacy

Using survey data from 226 employees and their supervisors in four manufacturing companies in China, we found that employee self-efficacy has a dual moderating effect on the impact of supervisory mentoring on subordinate career outcomes. Path analytic tests of mediated moderation suggested that self-efficacy moderates the mediated effects of supervisory mentoring on job performance and career satisfaction through personal learning such that the mediated effect on job performance is stronger when employees have higher self-efficacy, but the mediated effect on career satisfaction is stronger when they have lower self-efficacy.     

Are Asian cultures really less ageist than Western ones? It depends on the questions asked

Ageism is an increasing concern in ageing populations such as Asia and Europe. A prevalent assumption in psychology is that Eastern cultures may be less prone to ageism because of norms and values that honour and respect elders. Yet, evidence for this culture hypothesis is inconclusive. The current study examines this issue by comparing attitudes towards older people in an Eastern and Western samples of 184 young people from the UK and 249 from Taiwan. Attitudes to old age were measured both as meta‐perceptions (the perceived normative context) and personal attitudes in regard to the cognitive, affective and behavioural components of ageism. Consistent with the culture hypothesis, meta‐perceptions about competence and admiration were more positive in Taiwan than in the UK, yet other meta‐perceptions were more negative pointing to the existence of old age subtypes. Personal attitudes about older people in regard to the affective and behavioural, but not the cognitive component, were more negative in Taiwan than in the UK. Thus, cultural differences in ageism are more nuanced than suggested by previous research. The importance of distinguishing between the normative context and personal attitudes as well as the different components of ageism is highlighted by the present findings.     

Mesurer le risque social en entreprise. Le modèle de la réluctance socio-organisationnelle

This research aims at highlighting the existence of a generic concept, which could measure the social risk in company: the socio-organizational reluctance. First, we will define this concept, which comes from the electromagnetic field, where reluctance deals with the concept of resistance between two fields. Then, we will identify and define the concepts that are useful to measure social risk: social climate, organizational commitment, personal involvement and subjective congruence. Finally, we will test their links and their structure in a multivariate perspective, using structural equations modeling. The adjustment between the empirical data and the model confirms the existence of a global concept of reluctance. We also can see that organizational commitment and involvement have particular links to each other, which need more investigations.     

Examination of the structure of Irish students’ vocational interests and competence perceptions

A sample of 307 Irish high school students completed a modified version of the Personal Globe Inventory (PGI, Tracey, 2002). Results of separate principal components analyses demonstrated the presence of three substantive factors: People/Things, Data/Ideas, and Prestige, similar to the structure of the PGI in US samples (Tracey, 2002). The fit of Holland’s six-type RIASEC, the PGI eight-type model, and the PGI spherical structure to the data were examined using the randomized test of hypothesized order relations. The results demonstrated that each model fit the Irish data well. No structural differences were found between gender groups. The results support the structural validity of the modified PGI in an Irish context.     

A qualitative study into the experience of mandatory personal therapy during training

A small scale qualitative study was carried out to investigate the experiences of attendees of a Masters Degree in counselling. The study used an in depth semi‐structured group interview and analysed the data using a form of grounded theory. The key findings suggest that personal therapy for trainees can be a positive experience and can enhance the process of becoming a professional counsellor. The findings are put forward in terms of a model illustrating how therapy can be of use to trainees. This involves the trainee experiencing the emergence of four key processes: reflexivity, growth, authenticity and prolongation.     

Keeping the illusion of control under control: Ceilings, floors, and imperfect calibration

Prior research has claimed that people exaggerate probabilities of success by overestimating personal control in situations that are heavily or completely chance-determined. We examine whether such overestimation of control persists in situations where people do have control. Our results suggest a simple model that accounts for prior findings on illusory control as well as for situations where actual control is high: People make imperfect estimates of their level of control. By focusing on situations marked by low control, prior research has created the illusion that people generally overestimate their level of control. Across three studies, we show that when they have a great deal of control, people under-estimate it. Implications for research on perceived control and co-variation assessment are discussed.