Measuring parental and family efficacy beliefs of adolescents' parents: Cross‐cultural comparisons in Italy and Portugal

The goal of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Perceived Parental Self‐Efficacy (PPSE) and Perceived Family Collective Efficacy (PFCE) revised scales in the Portuguese and Italian contexts. To this aim two studies were conducted: the first reported the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with Portuguese samples, whereas the second addressed the cross‐cultural invariance of PPSE and PFCE (Portugal and Italy). Results of the first study showed the appropriate fit of the unifactorial model of both scales to Portuguese data. The invariance analyses performed in the second study attested to the PPSE and PFCE's configural, metric and scalar invariance in both countries. The correlations of PPSE and PFCE with communication, management of conflict and children's school achievement further attested to their construct and practical validity. Thus, PPSE and PFCE proved to be suitable to further use in research and psychological assessment fields.     

The role of interpersonal movement synchronisation in empathic functions: Insights from Tango Argentino and Capoeira

Although evidence points to a role for kinesthetic empathy (i.e. spontaneous interpersonal movement imitation and synchronisation) in social interaction, its relationship with emotional and cognitive aspects of empathy is unknown. We compared empathy in Tango and Capoeira experts, which crucially depend on ongoing, mutual interpersonal synchronisation, with empathy in practitioners of Salsa and Breakdance, respectively, which demand less interpersonal synchronisation but are comparable concerning movements and setting. Kinesthetic empathy was increased in the Tango and Capoeira groups. Although no group differences in other aspects of empathy were detected, kinesthetic empathy correlated with emotional and cognitive empathy. Taken together, trait kinesthetic empathy varies in the general population, and appears increased in synchronisation experts.     

The Psychology of Religion and the Concept of Revelation

It is argued that the psychology of religion should be seen as interacting with theology in a broader way than is usual at present, especially in relation to the concept of revelation. Examination of revelatory experiences, especially Christ’s resurrection appearances, may be seen in terms of this broader interaction not only as solving certain historical puzzles, but as bringing to fruition Arthur Peacocke's hope for application to spiritual experience of understandings of divine action that have been developed within the science–theology dialogue. The pluralistic implications of this approach are examined, and the possibilities open to psychologists in relation to both interpretation and research strategies are outlined. It is stressed that what is required is not simply interdisciplinarity, as this is usually understood, but transdisciplinarity of the kind that questions the boundaries and methodologies accepted by specialists in one or other of the disciplines concerned.     

The influence of high and low cue–action association on prospective memory performance

Recent discoveries in the field of prospective memory (PM) show higher accuracy for remembering intentions in which prospective cue and action are strongly associated. In two experiments presented in this paper, participants encoded both high and low association cue–action pairs and were later tested on both prospective and retrospective PM components. Results of both studies show higher PM accuracy for the low association pairs, compared to high association ones, but only for the prospective component (across both Experiments) and only when a high association cue was presented first (Experiment 2). This finding was accompanied by longer study times for the low association pairs and study times were functionally related to later performance (across both Experiments). In the retrospective component, higher accuracy was observed for pairs with high level of association (but only in the first Experiment). Data are discussed in the context of metacognitive processes possibly related to the encoding of an intention as well as cue monitoring in case of PM tasks with high memory load and varying task difficulty.     

FINDING THE SOMETHING IN NOTHING

Formless Infinity: Clinical Explorations of Matte Blanco and Bion. By Riccardo Lombardi. Translated by Karen Christenfeld, Gina Atkinson, Andrea Sabbadini, and Philip Slotkin. London/New York: Routledge, 2016. 282 pp.     

Collectives’ and individuals’ obligations: a parity argument

Individuals have various kinds of obligations: keep promises, don’t cause harm, return benefits received from injustices, be partial to loved ones, help the needy and so on. How does this work for group agents? There are two questions here. The first is whether groups can bear the same kinds of obligations as individuals. The second is whether groups’ pro tanto obligations plug into what they all-things-considered ought to do to the same degree that individuals’ pro tanto obligations plug into what they all-things-considered ought to do. We argue for parity on both counts.     

大学生学校认同对责任感的影响:自尊的中介作用

为探讨大学生学校认同对责任感的影响及其机制,本研究采用问卷调查与实验相结合的方法,通过系列研究揭示二者之间的相关与因果关系,并检验了集体自尊和个体自尊的中介效应。结果发现:(1)大学生学校认同对其责任感具有显著的正向影响;(2)集体自尊在大学生学校认同对责任感的影响中发挥完全中介作用,而个体自尊无显著中介效应。这表明大学生学校认同通过形成集体自尊而提升其责任感。     

Oneself in practitioner research,with Vygotsky and Bakhtin

Practitioner action and reflection are understood as central to practitioner research in this paper. While Vygotskian-based premise highlights instructional practices and intervention as central to practitioner understanding, Bakhtin-based dialogical premise draws on relational constructs and attend to practitioner being, answerability and authorship. Vygotskian and Bakhtinian units of analysis used are viewed as means with which to conceive practitioner action/reflection and build a community of practitioners. Taken together, practitioner knowing is found inextricable with practitioner ontology, making practitioner research of ongoing instructional practices more human in line with Dewey.     

To share or not to share: The place of personal disclosure in scholarly writing

The norms of scholarly discourse have traditionally excluded personal disclosures in conceptual articles, as if the subjective nature of such revelations would be inconsistent with the scientific/objective stature of these works. Based on the author's experience with a recent publication, based on recent studies of researcher projection and bias in case studies, and using a framework of organizational communication, it is suggested here that there is indeed a contribution such disclosures can make. It is not recommended that sharing on a personal level become a new norm, but rather that the choice to share be considered as viable in a scholarly context. Five specific benefits of such sharing are listed, including unearthing and revealing bias, demystifying the process of discovery, and avoiding the trap of defensive reasoning.     

Freedom, Preference and Autonomy

Philosophers have advocated different kinds of freedom, but each has value and none should be neglected in a complete theory of freedom and responsibility. There are three kinds of freedom of preference and action that should be distinguished. A person S may fully prefer to do A at every level, and that is one kind of freedom. A person S may autonomously prefer to do A when S has the preference structure concerning doing A because S prefers to have that very preference structure, and that is a second kind of freedom. A person S may prefer to do A when S could have preferred otherwise, and that is a third kind of freedom. These forms of freedom may be combined, but they are valuable and essentially independent. They all involve the metamental ascendence of preference over desire, but it is autonomous preference that makes a person the author of his or her preference. The responsibility a person has for what he or she does out of a preference for doing it depends on the kinds of freedom of preference the person has and must be ranked in terms of them.