A general factor of personality,social desirability,cognitive ability,and the survey of work styles in an employment selection setting

How a general factor of personality (GFP) correlated with employment screening measures in an applied setting was examined. Participants were 540 adult insurance sales job applicants who completed scales from two personality measures, the five scales from the Survey of Work Styles (SWS), an intelligence measure, and a social desirability scale. A joint factor analysis of the personality questionnaires produced four first order factors. A single GFP was also extracted. Strong correlations were found between some of the personality factors and the SWS scales. Strong significant correlations were found between the GFP and three of the four personality factors with social desirability. Neither the GFP nor the personality factors correlated significantly with cognitive abilities.     

The general factor of personality and humor styles

The present study examined the phenotypic, genetic, and environmental correlations between a general factor of personality (GFP) and four humor styles: affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating. Participants were 571 same-sex adult twin pairs. Individuals completed the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) and a short form of the NEO personality scale (from which the GFP was extracted). The GFP was found to be heritable with an estimated value of .31. At the phenotypic level, the GFP was found to correlate significantly with the HSQ scales; positively with affiliative and self-enhancing, and negatively with aggressive and self-defeating. Three of the four phenotypic correlations were found to be attributable to correlated genetic factors, suggesting that these dimensions of humor styles and the GFP may have a common genetic factor.     

Relationships among higher-order strengths factors,subjective well-being,and general self-efficacy – The case of Israeli adolescents

We investigated relationships among five higher-order strengths factors, subjective well-being, and general self-efficacy in participants that live under challenging conditions. Therefore, a sample of 396 Israeli adolescents (aged 13–18 years) completed the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths for Youth, the Satisfaction With Life Scale, the Affect Balance Scale, and the General Self-Efficacy Scale. An orthogonally rotated principal component analysis of the 24 character strengths yielded five strengths factors that explained 32% of the variance in life satisfaction, with the transcendence strengths factor as the most substantial predictor. The strongest predictors of positive affect were the transcendence and leadership strengths factors; the best predictors of negative affect were the transcendence and temperance strengths factors; and the strongest predictor of affect balance was the transcendence strengths factor. The five strengths factors explained 46% of the variance in general self-efficacy, with the leadership strengths factor as the most substantial predictor. Further analysis indicated that general self-efficacy mediated the relationship between leadership strengths and global life satisfaction. The results suggest that different strengths factors are relevant for different positive experiences (e.g., life satisfaction, self-efficacy beliefs). The findings shed light on the contribution of specific character strengths as a meaningful resource under stressful conditions.     

Regaining the Riches of Our Past and New Hope for Our Future

We can revive Natural Philosophy using thermodynamics and information theory. In constructing an intelligible picture of the world, Natural Philosophy systematizes information from all the sciences so that every field of knowledge of nature supports every other as parts of a concept of general evolution. Change in material systems involves both development and evolution. General evolution is primarily developmental; the specification hierarchy of integrative levels can be used to model it. In this hierarchy, biology is seen as a kind of material system, and social phenomena as kinds of biological systems. This pattern implies that there was a preferred tendency toward psychology in the history of the earth. This scheme is biased by having been produced by psychological, social, biological beings-ourselves, and so it embodies valuation, integrating humans with the rest of the world. Natural Philosophy welcomes the effect of values upon its constructions. There has never been a culture without an origination myth, but the one we call general evolution will differ by referring to its own genesis within a picture of the genesis of the world.     

The Theory Of Social–Cultural Genetic Gene (S- c Dna)

It took a long time for humanity to know about biogenetics. And yet its role as a determinant in the living system was not proven until the twentieth century when DNA was discovered. Similarly, it took a long time for humanity to know about culture and civilization. And yet until now there is neither definite standards for differentiating them nor a definition that is commonly acceptable. By taking an evolutionary pluralism as ontology framework and the transdisciplinary research method of the systems science, we have in the new social system model discovered the central rules that govern the social–cultural heredity: Culture–Production–Civilization. The relationship between culture and civilization is exactly that of genotype and phenotype. Culture is the S-cDNA within the social system while civilization is the social phenotype. Culture is a determinant that ultimately determines the existence, stagnation, change, and evolution of the social system.     

Charles Darwin,Paul MacLean,and the lost origins of “the moral sense”: Some implications for general evolution theory

This paper reports the discovery of a lost part of Charles Darwin's theory of the origins of “the moral sense,” its apparent corroboration by what are in effect lost findings by brain researcher Paul MacLean, and the implications of these findings for the advancement of General Evolution Theory and humanity.     

The empathizing–systemizing (E–S) model of autism and psychoanalytic theories of truth,play and symbolization

Little psychoanalytic material or theory features today in psychological work on autism and autistic traits and vice versa. Baron-Cohen's (2003) empathizing–systemizing (E–S) model of the autism spectrum posits two main clusters of autistic features: those surrounding impaired empathy, and those surrounding heightened systemizing behaviours. (Baron-Cohen, 2009) speculates that the common root of these two clusters is the individual's concept of truth. Psychoanalysis has addressed the related issue of internal and external reality since (Freud, 1897) differentiated ‘psychic’ from ‘historical’ truths. This could be of interest to those espousing the E–S model from a cognitive paradigm, as a ‘truth’-oriented cognitive style in autism may develop interdependently with the individual's experience of internal and external realities. Psychoanalysis has developed further ideas of relevance to the E–S model surrounding play and symbolization, the latter being an often-overlooked aspect of Wing and Gould's (1979) triad of autistic features. Seen from a psychodynamic perspective, the E–S model might provide a means to increase therapists' awareness of milder autistic traits amongst service users and analysands. Equally, it could offer a tool to structure empirical research into psychodynamic therapy with autism spectrum conditions.     

Is Established Knowledge About Cross-Cultural Differences in Individualism–Collectivism Not Applicable to the Military? A Multi-Method Study of Cross-Cultural Differences in Behavior

Preparing for international military collaboration includes raising knowledge about cultural differences. The differences in individualism–collectivism between countries are among the most central aspects likely to impact collaboration. However, are the differences in individualism–collectivism between countries as documented in a significant amount of civilian research (e.g., Hofstede, 2001a Hofstede, G. (2001a). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. [Google Scholar]) generalizable to a military context? Or are the differences not the same in a military context, as suggested by Soeters (1997) Soeters, J. L. (1997). Value orientations in military academies: A thirteen country study. Armed Forces and Society, 24, 7–32. 10.1177/0095327X9702400101[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] on the bases of a values survey? Quasi-experiments were conducted in a distributed collaborative computer game environment. The study is multimethod, employing self-reporting, observer ratings and direct behavioral measures, and it is the first study of cross-cultural differences in individualism–collectivism in behavior in a military context. By studying differences in collectivist-type behaviors in a sample of military officers (N = 154) in 4 different countries (the United States, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway), this study seeks to determine whether the cross-cultural differences in values found by Soeters from a military context are reflected in behavior. The study also includes a values survey using Hofstede’s (2007) Hofstede, G. (2007). Values survey module 1994 (VSM-94). Retrieved from www.geerthofstede.com [Google Scholar] measurement tool, the Values Survey Module (VSM), consistent with Soeters’ study. The study is considered exploratory because of a somewhat limited sample. The results from the 6 different measures of collectivist behaviors provide no support for the suggestion that cross-cultural differences in individualism–collectivism are not the same in military organizations as in civilian organizations. Although not conclusive, the results raise doubt concerning the appropriateness of using the VSM in military samples. The implications are discussed.     

Frustration and disappointment

The paper describes research on children’s responses to failures of gratification. Although this has always been an important area of consideration in psychoanalytic thinking, arguments are put forward for the child’s actual feelings of disappointment being significant in ways that have yet to be fully realised theoretically and clinically within Kleinian object relations. Since Freud first used the term ‘frustration’, it has been applied in psychoanalysis as a means by which to describe in an undifferentiated way all those responses to failures of gratification that have an aggressive content. It will be argued that, in a context of the historical shift in thinking from drive to relational models, there is now perhaps scope to posit the existence instead of two discrete object relational positions towards such failures of aim – that frustrated responses can be differentiated in important structural and developmental ways from disappointed ones, by suggesting that the former are schizoid, whilst the latter are depressive in quality. To try and begin to test the hypothesis that there might be an object relational distinction between feelings of frustration and feelings of disappointment, selected process notes from two training cases became the subject of a combined piece of clinical and theoretical research. I will outline how this research was undertaken and present the findings that arose from the clinical part of it. With the use of a content analysis, a method for gathering interesting quantitative data about the children’s various responses to the failures of gratification was arrived at.