心理学研究中社会阶层的操作化界定及其衍生问题

个体的社会阶层反映了其所掌控的客观社会资源(即客观社会阶层)和其主观上所感知到的自身社会地位(即主观社会阶层)的水平。收入(或财产)、职业、受教育程度是研究中常用来反映客观社会阶层的操作化指标。而主观社会阶层的操作化界定既包括对主观阶层进行问卷测量,也包括对其加以实验操纵。心理学研究要基于研究目的以及要考察的具体效应与机制对不同的操作化界定加以取舍,有时也要综合兼顾多种操作化方式。通过选取典型群体来代表不同阶层,这种做法宜慎重采用。同时研究的信效度问题有必要更多加以重视。未来研究应加强关注阶层认同偏差与阶层纵向流动等基础问题,以及因取样偏差而带来的阶层效应被简化的现象,并结合跨文化视角分析不同文化下社会阶层的内涵差异。     

认知控制子成分与客观风险对信任行为的影响

研究通过三个实验,在控制客观风险高低的同时,分别对刺激—反应一致性、任务转换和工作记忆负载进行操纵。结果发现,抑制控制在反应时上表现出差异,刺激—反应一致条件下被试做出信任的反应时更快;认知灵活性和工作记忆刷新在信任率上表现出差异,不转换条件和低工作记忆负载条件下被试的信任率更高。结果表明,抑制控制主要影响反应组织过程,认知灵活性和工作记忆刷新则会影响个体的信任决策过程。此外,客观风险对信任行为的影响表现出跨情境一致性,低风险条件下信任率更高。     

Appearance and reality

There is tension between the appealing idea that visual experience puts us in touch with objective reality and the doctrine of perceptual relativity, the claim that experience varies with such factors as distance, lighting, and angle of view. In this paper I present arguments for relativity, and then go on to propose that in view of relativity, we should believe that the properties presented to us in perception are relational and viewpoint‐dependent. I conclude by sketching a theory of how we nonetheless manage to achieve contact with objective properties. According to the theory, such contact is best explained in terms of perceptual representations acting in concert with cognitive and motoric representations, not in terms of perceptual representations alone.     

Margolis as Columbia Naturalist

Is Joseph Margolis a member of the often neglected school of “Columbia naturalism”? Columbia naturalism promoted a distinctive non-reductive nationalism in mid-twentieth-century America. Inspired by pragmatism, and Dewey in particular, its members included Ernest Nagel, John Herman Randall, Joseph Blau, Herbert Schneider, and Justus Buchler. Margolis received his degree from Columbia in 1953. Neither his early work in aesthetics nor his mature attempt to justify pragmatic themes in an uncompromising dialogue with analytic and continental philosophy seems particularly “Columbian.” Neither does his radical endorsement of a kind of relativism. However, Margolis is after all some kind of naturalist. Furthermore, the Columbians shared a forgotten doctrine, called “objective relativism.” If the combination of naturalism and relativism is a Columbian fruit, Margolis may have has fallen closer to the tree than first appears.     

The positive eating scale: relationship with objective health parameters and validity in Germany,the USA and India

Objective: The prevailing focus regarding eating behaviour is on restriction, concern, worry and pathology. In contrast, the purpose of the present studies was to focus on a positive relationship with eating in non-clinical samples from Germany, the USA and India.

Design: In Study 1, the Positive Eating Scale (PES) was tested and validated in a large longitudinal sample (T1: N = 772; T2: N = 510). In Study 2, the PES was tested in online samples from the USA, India and Germany (total N = 749).

Main Outcome Measures: Health risk status was measured in Study 1 with objective health parameters (fasting serum glucose, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, blood pressure, waist circumference, BMI).

Results: Study 1 revealed acceptable psychometric properties of the PES, internal consistency (α = .87), as well as test–retest reliability after six months (r = .67). Importantly, a positive relationship with eating was associated with decreased health risk factors six months later. In Study 2, the structure of the PES was confirmed for German, Indian and US-American adults, suggesting validity across remarkably different eating environments.

Conclusion: A positive relationship with eating might be a fruitful starting point for prevention and intervention programmes promoting physical and psychological health.     

A Multicriteria Decision‐Making Application to the Conceptual Design of Mechanical Components

Early design is crucial for the success of the final product. In the conceptual design phase, several constraints, criteria, objectives and disciplines have to be considered. To this aim, multidisciplinary optimization has proven effective for the solution of engineering design problems, even in the industrial every‐day practice, to improve and simplify the work of designers in a successful quest of the best compromise solution. In this paper, a multicriteria decision‐making (MCDM)‐based design platform for early optimal design of industrial components is proposed. In a group decision‐making context, the selection of the most suitable component among several possible layouts is performed by means of a group Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution approach. Hence, a multi‐objective optimization is performed on the selected component by applying a multi‐objective particle swarm optimization for finding optimal component dimensions. An industrial case study is presented for showing the efficiency of the multicriteria decision‐making‐based design platform, regarding an innovative and low‐cost solution to increase the duration of heel tips in women's shoes. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sandtray Play with Traumatized Children

Summary

The patterns of play in latency age males were examined to determine how play influenced by sexual abuse trauma differs from other types of traumatic play. Three groups of five boys each were assessed using sandtray play. The first were victims of sexual abuse, the second were being treated for chronic or terminal health conditions and the third had no known trauma. Although the number of subjects was small, the findings reflected distinct patterns in the groups examined including differences in the average number of figures used, organization in their trays, whether they were chosen deliberately or randomly, the central figure and the ability to find resolution.     

Exploring the Perceived Career Success of Staff in a South African Science and Engineering Company

This study explored the core themes underlying individuals’ perceptions of their career success with the view to inform retention practices. The participants were a convenience sample of 207 employees (63% Blacks; 60% males) within a South African science and engineering company. Data were gathered by using a quantitative survey approach and posing an open-ended question to the participants regarding their perceived career success. The data were thematically analysed by using the Atlas.ti version 6 computer-aided qualitative data analysis software. Findings suggest that self-perceptions of career success are multifaceted, including learning and development; skills, experience and competence; career transitions and advancement; job content; contributing to a larger community; goal achievement; helping others; rewards and recognition; and work-life balance. Individuals’ inner definitions of career success could inform retention strategies in the science and engineering field focused on their career development, career wellbeing and satisfaction.     

The Discriminating Properties of an Optoelectronic Movement Analysis Method in Patients With Parkinsonism

Several partly overlapping diseases have Parkinsonism as a symptom and tools that may differentiate between these disorders would be helpful. The authors evaluated the discriminating properties of the objective automated posturo-locomotor-manual (PLM) L-DOPA test in regard to health, and the movement disorders Parkinson's disease (PD), multiple system atrophy (MSA), and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). A PLM test–retest procedure was performed in healthy controls (n = 37) and results were compared with PLM L-DOPA tests performed by 132 patients with Parkinsonism in intermediate to advanced stages (56 PD, 53 MSA, 23 PSP). The movement time (MT) for the standardized movement and its different components was measured. The discriminating abilities of individual, or combinations of, test variables were determined by forward stepwise multiple logistic regression and evaluated with receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Each PLM variable separated healthy persons from patients with Parkinsonism before administration of L-DOPA (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.94–0.99, p <.001 for any separate variable). A combination of (MT_off – MT_on)/MT_off and MT_on had the highest ability to separate patients with PD from patients with atypical Parkinsonism (area under the curve = 0.91, p <.001). The PLM test discriminates between healthy controls and patients with Parkinsonism, and between patients with Parkinson's disease and patients with atypical Parkinsonism.

[Supplementary material is available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Journal of Motor Behavior for the following free supplemental resource: supplementary data.]     

Trade‐off ranking method for multi‐criteria decision analysis

Multi‐criteria decision analysis presumes trade‐off between different criteria. As a result, the optimal solution is not unique and can be represented by the Pareto frontier in the objective space. Each Pareto solution is a compromise between different objectives. Despite a limited number of Pareto optimal solutions, the decision‐maker eventually has to choose only one option. Such a choice has to be made with the use of additional preferences not included in the original formulation of the optimization problem. The paper represents a new approach to an automatic ranking that can help the decision‐maker. In contrast to the other methodologies, the proposed method is based on the minimization of trade‐off between different Pareto solutions. To be realized, the approach presumes the existence of a well‐distributed Pareto set representing the entire Pareto frontier. In the paper, such a set is generated with the use of the directed search domain algorithm. The method is applied to a number of test cases and compared against two existing alternative approaches.