Slow gait as a motor marker of mild cognitive impairment? the relationships between functional mobility and mild cognitive impairment

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association between functional mobility and mild cognitive impairment in older adults. A total of 800 older adults were recruited (653 controls and 147 subjects with MCI [88 subjects with aMCI and 59 subjects with naMCI]). Motor performance was measured with the Timed Up and Go test (TUG). The demographic factors associated with MCI were: age (OR = 1.05; 95% CI: 1.01–1.09) and the level of education (OR = 0.73; 95% CI: 0.68–0.79). An independent clinical factor associated with MCI was the TUG (OR = 1.14; 95% CI: 1.03–1.27). In the aMCI group, the relation between the TUG and cognitive status occurred (OR = 1.15; 95% CI: 1.02–1.31), whereas in the naMCI group this relationship was not observed. There is an association between cognitive dysfunction and impaired motor performance in older adults with MCI.     

Creativity and the Genome: The State of Affairs

This essay is focused on the research into the genetic etiology of creativity and related processes. In an attempt to identify the most salient points of this research, the article provides a brief overview of quantitative‐genetic (family and twin) and molecular‐genetic (candidate‐gene and whole‐genome) studies of creativity. To conclude, the essay formulates a future agenda for this subfield of scientific inquiry into creativity.     

Wilhelm Reich Revisited: The role of ideology in character analysis of the individual versus character analysis of the masses and the Holocaust

Abstract

One of the most controversial members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and Freud’s intimate for many years, Reich is known not only for his seminal contributions to therapeutic and social psychoanalysis in his 1933 classic Character analysis, but also for his notoriety as a discoverer of an energy he named orgone. This paper is devoted to Reich the psychoanalytic sociologist and reformer, with special prominence given to his other, now somewhat forgotten, 1933 book The mass psychology of Fascism.     

Egoistic,altruistic, and biospheric environmental concerns: A path analytic investigation of their determinants

Swami, V., Chamorro‐Premuzic, T., Snelgar, R. & Furnham, A. (2009) Egoistic, altruistic, and biospheric environmental concerns: A path analytic investigation of their determinants. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 139–145. Previous studies have shown that environmental concerns (ECs) can be reduced to a three‐factor model – comprising altruistic, biospheric, and egoistic concerns – but there have been few studies examining individual difference predictors of ECs. In this study with 203 individuals from a British community sample, we show that biospheric concern was significantly associated with participants’ age, political orientation, Machiavellianism, and the Big Five personality traits of Agreeableness, Emotional Stability, and Conscientiousness. Altruistic concern was significantly associated with sex, age, political orientation, and Machiavellianism, but not the Big Five traits, whereas egoistic concern was not significantly associated with any of these predictors except sex. These results are discussed in relation to previous work on ECs and pro‐environmental behavior.