Perceived stigma of caregivers: Psychometric evaluation for Devaluation of Consumer Families Scale

Background/Objective: The Devaluation of Consumer Families Scale (DCFS) is commonly used to measure perceived stigma towards family members of people with mental illness. However, its factorial structure has never been confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). This study aimed to test the psychometric properties of the DCFS Taiwan version (DCFS-TW). Method: Family caregivers (N=511) completed the DCFS-TW (97 completed the DCFS again after 2 to 4 weeks) and other instruments. CFA, test-retest reliability, internal consistency, concurrent validity, and known-group validity were analyzed. Results: The three-factor structure of the DCFS-TW performed better than the one-factor structure. Test-retest reliability (r = .66) and internal consistency were satisfactory (α = .85); concurrent validity (absolute r = .20 to .58) was acceptable; known-group validity was supported by the significantly different DCFS-TW scores in clinical characteristics (had been vs. had not been hospitalized; had been vs. had not been compulsorily admitted). Conclusions: The DCFS-TW has decent psychometric properties and is suitable for health professionals to measure perceived stigma towards family members of people with mental illness.     

Aggression,self-confidence,and cardiovascular reactions in competitive performance in adolescent boys

Interactions between suggested risk factors for the development of coronary heart disease (namely aggression, competitive performance, and cardiovascular reactions) were studied in 36 adolescent boys. Different manifestations of aggression were measured using a structured interview, the aggression-impatience factor of the MYTH test, and observation. Self-confidence was assessed by means of an interview. The performance tests used were the Stroop Color Word test and the P-factor test. Cardiovascular reactions were measured using an automatic noninvasive sphygmomanometer with a continuous recording system. Results showed that the significance of aggression in performance or competition cannot be evaluated separately; aggression in itself had an injurious effect on performance, but when combined with high self-confidence it resulted in a high level of performance. High cardiovascular reactivity was related to competitiveness rather than aggression. The results emphasize that before intervention programs for behavioral risk factors of coronary heart disease are planned, there are many questions to answer.     

Analyzing temporal patterns of infant sleep and negative affective behavior: a comparison between different statistical models

Objective

Variability in infant sleep and negative affective behavior (NAB) is a developmental phenomenon that has long been of interest to researchers and clinicians. However, analyses and delineation of such temporal patterns were often limited to basic statistical approaches, which may prevent adequate identification of meaningful variation within these patterns. Modern statistical procedures such as additive models may detect specific patterns of temporal variation in infant behavior more effectively.

Method

Hundred and twenty-one mothers were asked to record different behaviors of their 4–44 weeks old healthy infants by diaries for three days consecutively. Circadian patterns as well as individual trajectories and day-to-day variability of infant sleep and NAB were modeled with generalized linear models (GLMs) including a linear and quadratic polynomial for time, a GLM with a polynomial of the 8th order, a GLM with a harmonic function, a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) with a polynomial of the 8th order, a generalized additive model, and a generalized additive mixed model (GAMM).

Results

The semi-parametric model GAMM was found to fit the data of infant sleep better than any other parametric model used. GLMM with a polynomial of the 8th order and GAMM modeled temporal patterns of infant NAB equally well, although the GLMM exhibited a slightly better model fit while GAMM was easier to interpret. Besides the well-known evening clustering in infant NAB we found a significant second peak in NAB around midday that was not affected by the constant decline in the amounts of NAB across the 3-day study period.

Conclusion

Using advanced statistical procedures (GAMM and GLMM) even small variations and phenomena in infant behavior can be reliably detected. Future studies investigating variability and temporal patterns in infant variables may benefit from these statistical approaches.     

Broad versus narrow personality measures and the prediction of behaviour across cultures

Measures of several personality variables, from both within and beyond the domain of the Big Five personality factors, were used to predict a variety of complex behaviour outcomes of some social and cultural significance (e.g. alcohol consumption and grade point average). Analyses focused on replicated predictions across participants in four countries (Canada, England, Germany, and Finland) and on the relative predictive accuracies of narrow trait predictors versus broad factor predictors. The results indicated substantial consistency in those predictions across cultures for several of the criteria. Furthermore, the narrow traits were able to account for more criterion variance than were the broad factors underlying those traits. Our data contraindicate the increasingly common practice of using only a few personality factor measures to predict complex human behaviours. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Structured Nonverbal Assessment of Personality

This article describes the development of a structured nonverbal measure of personality based on Murray's (1938) system of needs. The items of the Nonverbal Personality Questionnaire consist of line drawings of a central figure performing trait-relevant behaviors in specific situations; respondents are asked to indicate the likelihood of engaging in similar behaviors. The nonverbal form was administered to three Canadian samples of respondents and one Finnish sample. Reliability and validity data for the initial item pool and for a revised form are reported. The utility of the nonverbal inventory for cross-cultural and theoretical work in personality is discussed.     

From geometry to phenomenology

Richard Tieszen [Tieszen, R. (2005). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXX(1), 153–173.] has argued that the group-theoretical approach to modern geometry can be seen as a realization of Edmund Husserl’s view of eidetic intuition. In support of Tieszen’s claim, the present article discusses Husserl’s approach to geometry in 1886–1902. Husserl’s first detailed discussion of the concept of group and invariants under transformations takes place in his notes on Hilbert’s Memoir Ueber die Grundlagen der Geometrie that Hilbert wrote during the winter 1901–1902. Husserl’s interest in the Memoir is a continuation of his long-standing concern about analytic geometry and in particular Riemann and Helmholtz’s approach to geometry. Husserl favored a non-metrical approach to geometry; thus the topological nature of Hilbert’s Memoir must have been intriguing to him. The task of phenomenology is to describe the givenness of this logos, hence Husserl needed to develop the notion of eidetic intuition. The author wishes to thank Academy of Finland for financial assistance that enabled her to work on this article.     

Towards completeness: Husserl on theories of manifolds 1890–1901

Husserl’s notion of definiteness, i.e., completeness is crucial to understanding Husserl’s view of logic, and consequently several related philosophical views, such as his argument against psychologism, his notion of ideality, and his view of formal ontology. Initially Husserl developed the notion of definiteness to clarify Hermann Hankel’s ‘principle of permanence’. One of the first attempts at formulating definiteness can be found in the Philosophy of Arithmetic, where definiteness serves the purpose of the modern notion of ‘soundness’ and leads Husserl to a ‘computational’ view of logic. Inspired by Gauss and Grassmann Husserl then undertakes a further investigation of theories of manifolds. When Husserl subsequently renounces psychologism and changes his view of logic, his idea of definiteness also develops. The notion of definiteness is discussed most extensively in the pair of lectures Husserl gave in front of the mathematical society in Göttingen (1901). A detailed analysis of the lectures, together with an elaboration of Husserl’s lectures on logic beginning in 1895, shows that Husserl meant by definiteness what is today called ‘categoricity’. In so doing Husserl was not doing anything particularly original; since Dedekind’s ‘Was sind und sollen die Zahlen’ (1888) the notion was ‘in the air’. It also characterizes Hilbert’s (1900) notion of completeness. In the end, Husserl’s view of definiteness is discussed in light of Gödel’s (1931) incompleteness results.     

No Magic: From Phenomenology of Practice to Social Ontology of Mathematics

Topoi - The paper shows how to use the Husserlian phenomenological method in contemporary philosophical approaches to mathematical practice and mathematical ontology. First, the paper...