Understanding personality effects and their role in influencing relationship quality, varied according to gender and relationship duration, could help us better understand close relationships. Participants were Chinese dating dyads and were asked to complete both the Big Five Inventory and Perceived Relationship Quality Component scales. Males and those who had a long-term relationship perceived better relationship quality; individuals who scored higher on agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and emotional stability enjoyed better relationship quality; gender and/or relationship duration moderated the actor (...) effect of extraversion and the partner effects of conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness on relationship quality. Regarding the profile similarity, those couples who were more dissimilar in their profile personality had better relationship quality, especially when they were in a relatively long-term relationship. Meanwhile, with an increase in profile similarity, the males’ perceived relationship quality decreased. (shrink)

BackgroundSelf-report multiple choice questionnaires have been widely utilized to quantitatively measure one’s personality and psychological constructs. Despite several strengths, self-report multiple choice questionnaires have considerable limitations in nature. With the rise of machine learning and Natural language processing, researchers in the field of psychology are widely adopting NLP to assess psychological construct to predict human behaviors. However, there is a lack of connections between the work being performed in computer science and that of psychology due to small data sets (...) and unvalidated modeling practices.AimsThe current article introduces the study method and procedure of phase II which includes the interview questions for the five-factor model of personality developed in phase I. This study aims to develop the interview and open-ended questions for the FFM-based personality assessments, specifically designed with experts in the field of clinical and personality psychology, and to collect the personality-related text data using the interview questions and self-report measures on personality and psychological distress. The purpose of the study includes examining the relationship between natural language data obtained from the interview questions, measuring the FFM personality constructs, and psychological distress to demonstrate the validity of the natural language-based personality prediction.MethodsPhase I study was conducted to fifty-nine native Korean adults to acquire the personality-related text data from the interview and open-ended questions based on the FFM of personality. The interview questions were revised and finalized with the feedback from the external expert committee, consisting of personality and clinical psychologists. Based on the established interview questions, a total of 300 Korean adults will be recruited using a convenience sampling method via online survey. The text data collected from interviews will be analyzed using the natural language processing. The results of the online survey including demographic data, depression, anxiety, and personality inventories will be analyzed together in the model to predict individuals’ FFM of personality and the level of psychological distress. (shrink)

Both individuals with diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and individuals high in psychopathic traits show reduced susceptibility to contagious yawning; that is, yawning after seeing or hearing another person yawn. Yet it is unclear whether the same underlying processes are responsible for the relationship between reduced contagion and these very different types of clinical traits. College Students watched videos of individuals yawning or scratching while their eye movements were tracked. They completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, the Psychopathy (...) Personality Inventory-Revised, and the Adolescent and Adult Sensory Processing Disorder Checklist. Both psychopathic traits and autistic traits showed an inverse relationship to contagious yawning, consistent with previous research. However, the relationship between autistic traits and contagious yawning was moderated by eye gaze. Furthermore, participants high in autistic traits showed typical levels of contagious itching whereas adults high in psychopathic traits showed diminished itch contagion. Finally, only psychopathic traits were associated with lower overall levels of empathy. The findings imply that the underlying processes contributing to the disruptions in contagious yawning amongst individuals high in autistic vs. psychopathic traits are distinct. In contrast to adults high in psychopathic traits, diminished contagion may appear amongst people with high levels of autistic traits secondary to diminished attention to the faces of others, and in the absence of a background deficit in emotional empathy. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore a new framework for personality assessment that may function as sanity nosology of personality traits: the Positive Personality Model. The recent publication of DSM-5 created the opportunity to assess personality traits as dimensional constructs (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). In Section III, five maladaptive personality traits are proposed as the maladaptive versions of Five Factor Model (FFM) traits (Costa and McCrae, 1985). This approach draws on the existing idea (...) of conceptualizing pathological and typical personality traits as part of a continuum. It places DSM-5’s maladaptive traits in a sickness pole and FFM’s traits in a “typical” pole. This spectrum, however, does not include a positive perspective that represents healthy behavior: a sanity nosology. The Positive Traits Inventory-5 (PTI-5; de la Iglesia and Castro Solano, 2018) is a measure designed to assess the positive reverse of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5-Adult (PID-5; Krueger, Derringer, Markon, Watson and Skodol, 2013). The 220 positive personality criteria were studied psychometrically using a sample of 1902 Argentinean adults from the general population (Mage = 39.10, SD = 13.81, Min = 18, Max = 83; 50.1% females, 49.9% males). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses resulted in a five-factor solution. The dimensions were labeled Sprightliness, Integrity, Serenity, Moderation, and Humanity and subsumed under the denomination of Positive Personality Model (PPM). Analyses of convergent validity provided some grounds for interpreting the five positive traits as positive versions of the pathological traits and the typical traits. When tested for its predictive capability on mental health, the PPM outperformed the variance explained by the FFM. It is concluded that the PPM may constitute a positive pole in the continuum of personality traits –possibly functioning as a sanity nosology– and that it is somewhat more related to optimal functioning than to typical trait models. The PPM should be confirmed in other populations, its predictive capability ought to be tested with other relevant variables, and longitudinal studies should be done to analyze the stability of the traits over time. (shrink)

The main objective of this work is to examine the prevalence of psychopathy in the general adult population from the main currently existing theoretical perspectives of psychopathy, using for this purpose the five-factor or Big Five model as a common language that allows the comparison and integration of the personality traits considered as defining psychopathy by these different perspectives. The NEO Personality Inventory-Revised was applied to a sample of 682 adults of the general Spanish population. The (...) prevalence of clinical and subclinical psychopathy was calculated according to six different definitions of these two constructs based on Hare’s, Lilienfeld’s, triarchic, and DSM-5-hybrid models, and the simultaneous presence of a minimum number of personality traits that differed from the sample mean by one standard deviation. Prevalence rates for the different definitions were consistently low, indicating that the prevalence of clinical psychopathy in the general Spanish population is around 0.55%, and that of subclinical psychopathy is around 1.65%. There were no significant sex differences in the prevalence of psychopathy. These results question the alarmist claims that warn about the existence in society of a very high number of people with psychopathy who can cause many social, economic, physical, and psychological damage to others. (shrink)

This study examined the mediating role of core Executive Functions (EF: working memory and inhibitory control) and moderating role of Perceived Academic Intent to Entrepreneurship (PAIE) in relationship between Dark Personality Traits (SDT) and Entrepreneurial Intentions (EI) of university students. A sample of 539 university students enrolled in various undergraduate and postgraduate programs completed the Short Dark Triad-3 (SD3), Adult Executive Functioning Inventory (ADEXI), and measures for assessing Entrepreneurial Intent and Perceived Academic Intent to Entrepreneurship. The results (...) showed that of SDT, only Machiavellianism was significantly associated with EI. Both of the core executive functions and PAIE were also positively correlated with EI. Moreover, findings showed that EF positively mediated the relationship between Machiavellian disposition and entrepreneurial intention, while perceived academic intent to entrepreneurship moderated the relationship between executive functions and EI. A significant moderated mediation index was also reported. Findings offer useful insight to the interplay among above mentioned variables and guide educational and organizational psychologists to employ core cognitive strategies for promoting entrepreneurial thoughts and channelizing the productive energies of students with malevolent tendencies through academic coaching. (shrink)

ObjectivesMany older adults with visual impairment also have significant hearing loss. The aim was to investigate the effectiveness of a newly developed Dual Sensory Loss protocol on communication and wellbeing of older persons with DSL and their communication partners in the Netherlands and Belgium.MethodsParticipants and their communication partners were randomized in the “DSL-protocol” intervention group or a waiting-list control group. The intervention took 3 to 5 weeks. Occupational therapists focused on optimal use of hearing aids, home-environment modifications and effective communication (...) strategies. The primary outcome was the Communication Strategies domain of the Communication Profile for the Hearing Impaired. Secondary outcomes measured in participants were the Low Vision Quality Of Life Adjustment subscale, the Center for Epidemiological Studies - Depression Scale, De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale and the Fatigue Assessment Scale. The Hearing Handicap and Disability Inventory - Reaction of Others subscale and the Care-related Quality of Life - 7 Dimensions was measured in communication partners. Measurements were taken at baseline and 3-month follow-up. Linear mixed models were used to analyze effects between groups over time for every outcome measure.ResultsIntention-to-treat analyses showed a significant effect of the DSL-protocol on the use of verbal strategies in favor of the control group, however, this effect was non-significant after adjustment for confounding. Effect sizes of other outcomes varied between −0.23 [−0.57, 0.12] and 0.30 [−0.05, 0.64]. The LMM showed a significant effect on the HHDI-Reaction of others scale in favor of communication partners in the treatment group, however, the effect did not remain significant at a 0.01 significance level and the effect size was very small and non-significant 0.12, 95% CI [−0.27 to 0.51]. Adjusted analyses did not reveal treatment effects.ConclusionThe DSL-protocol did not clearly contribute to the enhancement of communication and wellbeing in DSL-patients. Possible reasons for the lack of effects are OTs not being comfortable giving advice on communication and psychosocial issues or the short-term treatment and follow-up period. Further study is warranted to find out how the protocol may be adapted or whether it is necessary to involve mental healthcare professionals.Clinical Trial Registrationwww.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NTR2843. (shrink)

This study examined the extent to which individual differences in time perspective, i.e. habitual way of relating to the personal past, present, and future, are associated with sleep quality and daytime sleepiness in a sample of older adults. The participants (N = 437, 60-90 years) completed the Karolinska Sleep Questionnaire (KSQ), a version of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (S-ZTPI) and two ratings of SWB (life satisfaction, happiness). Based on established relationships between dimension of time perspective and other variables (...) (e.g. depression) and relations between negative retrospection (rumination) and negative prospection (worry) in prior studies, we expected higher scores on Past Negative and Future Negative to be linked to poor sleep quality and (indirectly) increased daytime sleepiness. Moreover, we examined the possibility that variations in perceived sleep and sleepiness during the day mediates the expected association between an aggregate measure of deviations from a so called balanced time perspective (DBTP) and subjective well-being (SWB). In regression analyses controlling for demographic factors (age, sex, work status), higher scores on Past Negative and Future Negative predicted poorer sleep quality and higher levels of daytime sleepiness. Additionally, most of the association between time perspective and daytime sleepiness was accounted for by individual differences in sleep quality. Finally, structural equation modelling yielded results consistent with the hypothesis that variations in sleep mediate part of the negative relationship between DBTP and SWB. Given that good sleep is essential to multiple aspects of health, future studies evaluating relationships between time perspective and adverse health outcomes should consider sleep quality as a potentially contributing factor. (shrink)

Although e-learning has become an important feature to promote learning experience, still little is known about the readiness of adult learners for e-learning in continuing vocational education. By exploring perceived challenges and benefits, it was our aim to identify dimensions that define e-learning readiness. Therefore, we conducted a study design with qualitative and quantitative components. It consisted of both, semi-structured interviews, as well as an online survey regarding biography, personality, learning behavior, and general attitudes toward e-learning. The continuing (...) vocational education course that we were investigating comes from the field of project management. The learner group was heterogeneous regarding their biographical and occupational background. Our results suggest several dimensions of e-learning readiness which are namely: motivation, learning strategies/regulation, attitudes toward learning, and personality-associated aspects as well as digital literacy. These findings are in line with previous research to only some extent, but reveal the necessity to redefine single dimensions of e-learning readiness to develop an inventory that is generalizable for different adult learner groups. Based on these assumptions a new measure for e-learning readiness needs to be proposed in future research as a next step. (shrink)

Background: Dignity is a multidimensional construct that includes perception, knowledge, and emotions related to competence or respect. Attitudes to aging are a comprehensive personal view of the experience of aging over the course of life, which can be influenced by various factors, such as the levels of health and self-sufficiency and social, psychological, or demographic factors. Aim: The purpose of this study was to explore the attitudes to aging of home-dwelling and inpatient older adults, and whether dignity and other selected (...) factors belong among the predictors influencing attitudes to aging in these two different groups of older adults. Research design: Cross-sectional study using a set of questionnaires: Patient Dignity Inventory, Attitudes to Aging Questionnaire, and Barthel Index. Pearson and Spearman correlation analyses and multivariable linear regression were used for statistical processing. Participants and research context: 233 inpatients and 237 home-dwelling older adults participated in the research in two regions of the Czech Republic. Ethical considerations: Institutional Review Board approval was received from the authors’ university. Findings: The inpatients had more negative attitudes to aging. The predictors of their attitudes to aging were gender and dignity. Women and inpatients with poor dignity ratings had more negative attitudes to aging. The predictors for home-dwelling older adults were education, living arrangement, and dignity. More negative attitudes to aging were found in older adults with lower levels of education who lived alone and rated their dignity as low. Discussion and Conclusions: The results of this study add to the understanding that a sense of dignity is an important predictor of attitudes to aging for both home-dwelling older adults and inpatients. (shrink)

BackgroundIn Italy, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a collective trauma. Post-traumatic growth has been defined as the subjective experience of positive psychological changes as a result of a traumatic event. PTG can involve changes in five psychological main dimensions: relating to others, new possibilities, personal strength, spiritual change, and appreciation of life. In the context of national emergencies, those PTG dimensions encompassing changes at the social level can play a role in coping strategies that involve a renewed sense of self (...) and one’s social identities, including national identities, and in turn, foster a stronger sense of trust and connection to others.AimTo investigate how each of the five PTG dimensions mediates the association between the salience of national identity and interpersonal trust in a sample of Italian young adults. Trust in national and European institutions were expected to positively predict the strength of the Italian national identity which in turn was expected to be positively associated with interpersonal trust, and the PTG relating to others dimension to mediate this association.MethodThis study involves the secondary analysis of data from a representative sample of 2,000 Italian young adults. Participants completed a web survey during the peak of the COVID-19 crisis in Italy with measures of trust in EU and national institutions, national identity, interpersonal trust, and the PTG Inventory. Structural equation modeling procedures were employed for key hypotheses tests.ResultsTrust in national institutions positively predicted national identity, which in turn was positively associated with interpersonal trust. Evidence of a full mediation effect of the PTG relating to others dimension on the association between national identity and interpersonal trust was found.DiscussionFindings contribute to clarify the psychological responses to collective traumas. In the context of Italy’s COVID-19 crisis, trust in national institutions reinforced Italian national identity, which was in turn associated with greater interpersonal trust, but only when psychological responses to the trauma involved changes in how individuals perceived and related to others, and not merely a focus on the self. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Metro driver is the prime person who is responsible for metro operation safety. The mental health of a metro driver is very important for the operation of the subway and requires the driver to keep high mental alertness to monitor the surrounding environment and also handle emergencies under uncertain or dangerous conditions. After a long-term occupational strain, a metro driver is likely to suffer from some mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, that ultimately threaten the lives of passengers. (...) Therefore, in this study, we focus on the psychological symptoms of metro drivers from the angle of occupational strain and neuroticism. A total of 396 metro drivers from Kunming Rail Transit Operation Co., Ltd. in China were investigated through a questionnaire survey. Symptom Checklist-90, Personal Strain Questionnaire, and NEO-Five-Factor Inventory-Neuroticism Subscale were applied to evaluate the psychological symptoms, occupational strain, and neuroticism in metro drivers, respectively. The surveyed data were analyzed by SPSS software. Based on the data, a path structural equation model was established to explore the correlation among occupational strain, psychological symptoms, and neuroticism. The results show that the scores for psychological symptoms and occupational strain are higher than the Chinese adult norm among metro drivers. The occupational strain, neuroticism, and psychological symptoms are all positively correlated in the metro drivers. Occupational stress has a direct influence on the psychological symptom, while neuroticism plays a partial mediation role between occupational strain and psychological symptoms. The results of this study can be applied to optimize the employee selection system and training system for metro operation companies. (shrink)

This research examines whether the items of some of the most well-established five-factor inventories refer to competence. Results reveal that both experts and laymen can distinguish between items that refer to how competently a behavior is performed and items that do not. Responses to items that refer to competence create a higher-order factor in the personality inventories, and the variability in responses to competence-related items in personality self-ratings is best modeled as a general factor rather than as also (...) tied to the specific Big Five factors. We suggest that a focused debate on what personality items should refer to is likely to have considerable positive consequences for both theory and measurement of personality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:100 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY porary philosophers, mesmerized by neurology, does not even appear to exist: that our casual, mechanical view of nature, when extended beyond the workings of gears and pulleys and the collision of billiard balls to become a general conception of how things happen, is a metaphysical prejudice. In sum, this is a valuable addition to the thought of Wittgenstein, and an important work of philosophy in (...) its own right. A. R. LoucH ~laremon$ Graduate ~ehool Final Integration in the Adult Personality. By A. Reza Arasteh. (Leiden: E. J. BriU, 1965. Pp. 404.) This amazing work bears the subtitle ".4 Measure ]or Health, Social Change, and Leaderahip." But though many readers might consider such a design a formidable task, the book actually accomplishes infinitely more. It offers a completely novel approach to depth psy= chology and psychiatry, incorporating these disciplines into the broader context of an original monolithic philosophy of our time. It also shows a unique and quite unexpected way of how to overcome the "departmentalization of sciences" which has resulted in "fragmented theories of man." Thus it provides something many of us have been looking for rather desperately: a holistic psychology and philosophy, directed toward human life in its entirety and, by its own nature, encompassing a great healing force. Dr. A. Reza Arasteh has obtained this fortunate result by amalgamating Western concepts with oriental ideas and, therefore, for the first time has eliminated from our thinking another cleavage which threatened to invalidate our psycho-philosophical findings. For, in the jet and space age where there is actually one world, what use could a Western psychiatrist make of his psychodynamic training when called upon to treat a person from the Near or Far East with a completely different frame of reference based on an apparently distinct culture and tradition? Arasteh, an Iranian now with the George Washington University's Department of Psy= chiatry, has done something quite unusual for a Persian scholar and psychologist brought up in Islamic cultural tradition: he has devoted many years of thorough research to our Western neuropsychiatric, psychological and philosophical heritage and compared and confronted it with his home=grown Near-Eastern and Far-Eastern wisdom, doctrines, and scientific methods. This confrontation performed by a searcher who has delved equally deep into the basic sources of Western and Eastern culture has given Arasteh the golden opportunity to explore the weaknesses and strengths of both approaches to life and more: the insight that if both cultures were to adopt the positive findings of their seemingly opposite doctrines and drop their own negative ones, they could overcome the shortcomings barring the road to full in= tegration and personal maturity. In other words: a pooling of the best philosophical and psychological discoveries of the East and West would help to bring about a monolithic, yet diversified approach to the problems of life and man which was lost after the Middle Ages. It would help to overcome and use for his best the anxiety of modern man who is fumbling in uncertainties while desperately longing for meaningfulness. According to Arasteh, the West has reached the end of its tether because of an overemphasis on intellectual solutions and endeavors which even in their most brilliant forms fall short of any substantial activity of life. It is a fallacy to believe, as Freud and long before him Socrates did, that a purely intellectual understanding of problematic or even neurotic behavior will lead any man to overcome and eliminate these failures. The intellect never has the power to change a personality and bring about what the Iranian psychologist calls a total "rebirth." Oriental attitudes toward life, on the other hand, are too much focused on inner feelings and socio-psychological directedness, thereby neglecting the independent action of the intelhgent individual. Religion and family, in some countries even connected with ancestor worship, have been and sometimes still are at the foreground of oriental thought. BOOK REVIEWS 101 Yet, in the basic chapter of h/s work, titled, "Principles of Psyehocultural Analysis: A Technique for Developing Fully Integrated Individuals," Arasteh stresses a very important point all too frequently overlooked in our era of specialization: "Regardless of language, culture and temporal... (shrink)

Personality assessments are frequently used to make decisions and predictions, creating a demand for assessments that are non-discriminatory. South African legislation requires psychological tests to be scientifically proven to be valid, reliable, fair and non-biased. In response to the necessity for a measure sensitive to indigenous differences, South African and Dutch researchers developed the South African Personality Inventory. The SAPI represents a theoretical model of personality that uses an indigenous and universal approach to capture South Africa’s (...) rich multicultural and multilingual view of personhood. The development of SAPI items and its simultaneous translation from English into all official languages necessitated the investigation of all the translated language versions’ psychometric properties. This study used Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling to examine the factor structure and model fit of two indigenous language versions of the SAPI, targeting the Tshivenda and the Southern Sotho languages. To accomplish this objective, Study 1 was done in South Africa among the Tshivenda ethnic group, while Study 2 was conducted in South Africa among the Sesotho ethnic group. An acquiescence response pattern was noticed in both studies, possibly to adhere to group consensus and emphasizing harmony within relationships. The ESEM solutions generated an excellent fit for both language versions, and most facets loaded acceptably on their expected factors. The Neuroticism factor proved to be problematic in both language versions. Within the Tshivenda version, the Emotional Stability facet did not generate adequate loadings on any SAPI factors. In contrast, neither Emotional Stability nor Negative Emotionality loaded sufficiently on the Neuroticism factor for the Southern Sotho version. While the overall fit of the six-factor model was excellent, the language in which a person completes a personality questionnaire seems to influence such an assessment’s factor structure. The Tshivenda and Sesotho versions of the SAPI cannot yet be positioned as equitable alternatives when using an indigenous version of the SAPI is needed. The implications of the results and proposals for future studies are discussed. (shrink)

ArgumentThe Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was developed at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in the 1930s and 1940s. It became a highly successful and highly controversial psychometric tool. In professional terms, psychometric tools such as the MMPI transformed psychology and psychiatry. Psychometric instruments thus readily fit into the developmental history of psychology, psychiatry, and neurology; they were a significant part of the narrative of those fields’ advances in understanding, intervening, and treating people with mental illnesses. At the (...) same time, the advent of such tools also fits into a history of those disciplines that records the rise of obsessional observational and evaluative techniques and technologies in order to facilitate patterns of social control that became typical during the Progressive Era in the United States and after. It was those patterns that also nurtured the resistance to psychometrics that emerged during the Vietnam War and after. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:100 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY porary philosophers, mesmerized by neurology, does not even appear to exist: that our casual, mechanical view of nature, when extended beyond the workings of gears and pulleys and the collision of billiard balls to become a general conception of how things happen, is a metaphysical prejudice. In sum, this is a valuable addition to the thought of Wittgenstein, and an important work of philosophy in (...) its own right. A. R. LoucH ~laremon$ Graduate ~ehool Final Integration in the Adult Personality. By A. Reza Arasteh. (Leiden: E. J. BriU, 1965. Pp. 404.) This amazing work bears the subtitle ".4 Measure ]or Health, Social Change, and Leaderahip." But though many readers might consider such a design a formidable task, the book actually accomplishes infinitely more. It offers a completely novel approach to depth psy= chology and psychiatry, incorporating these disciplines into the broader context of an original monolithic philosophy of our time. It also shows a unique and quite unexpected way of how to overcome the "departmentalization of sciences" which has resulted in "fragmented theories of man." Thus it provides something many of us have been looking for rather desperately: a holistic psychology and philosophy, directed toward human life in its entirety and, by its own nature, encompassing a great healing force. Dr. A. Reza Arasteh has obtained this fortunate result by amalgamating Western concepts with oriental ideas and, therefore, for the first time has eliminated from our thinking another cleavage which threatened to invalidate our psycho-philosophical findings. For, in the jet and space age where there is actually one world, what use could a Western psychiatrist make of his psychodynamic training when called upon to treat a person from the Near or Far East with a completely different frame of reference based on an apparently distinct culture and tradition? Arasteh, an Iranian now with the George Washington University's Department of Psy= chiatry, has done something quite unusual for a Persian scholar and psychologist brought up in Islamic cultural tradition: he has devoted many years of thorough research to our Western neuropsychiatric, psychological and philosophical heritage and compared and confronted it with his home=grown Near-Eastern and Far-Eastern wisdom, doctrines, and scientific methods. This confrontation performed by a searcher who has delved equally deep into the basic sources of Western and Eastern culture has given Arasteh the golden opportunity to explore the weaknesses and strengths of both approaches to life and more: the insight that if both cultures were to adopt the positive findings of their seemingly opposite doctrines and drop their own negative ones, they could overcome the shortcomings barring the road to full in= tegration and personal maturity. In other words: a pooling of the best philosophical and psychological discoveries of the East and West would help to bring about a monolithic, yet diversified approach to the problems of life and man which was lost after the Middle Ages. It would help to overcome and use for his best the anxiety of modern man who is fumbling in uncertainties while desperately longing for meaningfulness. According to Arasteh, the West has reached the end of its tether because of an overemphasis on intellectual solutions and endeavors which even in their most brilliant forms fall short of any substantial activity of life. It is a fallacy to believe, as Freud and long before him Socrates did, that a purely intellectual understanding of problematic or even neurotic behavior will lead any man to overcome and eliminate these failures. The intellect never has the power to change a personality and bring about what the Iranian psychologist calls a total "rebirth." Oriental attitudes toward life, on the other hand, are too much focused on inner feelings and socio-psychological directedness, thereby neglecting the independent action of the intelhgent individual. Religion and family, in some countries even connected with ancestor worship, have been and sometimes still are at the foreground of oriental thought. BOOK REVIEWS 101 Yet, in the basic chapter of h/s work, titled, "Principles of Psyehocultural Analysis: A Technique for Developing Fully Integrated Individuals," Arasteh stresses a very important point all too frequently overlooked in our era of specialization: "Regardless of language, culture and temporal... (shrink)

Do seminarians tend to exhibit a psychological structure that differs from that of their peers? Besides the ideals and motivations behind the religious call, are there personality factors that distinguish seminarians, and perhaps predispose them to choose this religious vocation? Building on previous research with the use of NEO PI-R, and analyzing data obtained from 62 male seminarians and 49 male and 51 female psychology students, this study addresses this question. Significant differences were found on all personality factors (...) except Neuroticism, with the seminarians most notably scoring higher on Agreeableness and Conscientiousness and lower on Openness to Experience. Besides confirming the usefulness of the Five Factor Model for the study of religion, the results shed light on possible differences between religion and spirituality. (shrink)

The longitudinal, qualitative study aimed to explore the lived experiences of Chinese university emerging adults by analyzing their personal life stories, reflective journals, and semi-structured interview data collected over a 2-year period. A qualitative content analysis was used to identify five themes: maturity, academic performance, interpersonal communication skills, social support network, and sense of loss. The study found that the growth in emerging adulthood was dynamic, positive, and multifaceted. The study demonstrated that writing personal life stories, as a practice of (...) meaningful literacy instruction in EFL contexts, helped students to record a memorable past, reconcile with the past, and strive for personal growth. These findings suggest that emerging adults’ personal growth be stressed in foreign language teaching to promote Chinese university emerging adults’ growth and development. It is also suggested that personal life stories be used in foreign language teaching under the guidance of meaningful literacy instruction. (shrink)

O presente artigo discute a educação de pessoas jovens e adultas privadas de liberdade como um direito humano. Analisa as principais normas nacional e internacionais que fundamentam esse direito e discute o modo precário como ele vem sendo implantado no Brasil, tomando por base empírica a pesquisa realizada pela organização nãogovernamental Ação Educativa e parceiros em quatro penitenciárias e quatro centros de detenção provisória do Estado de São Paulo. As informações levantadas entre os meses de outubro e novembro de 2012 (...) buscaram traçar um diagnóstico sobre as condições físicas para o funcionamento das atividades educativas, as expectativas da população carcerária acerca dos estudos, além de procurar compreender o envolvimento de funcionários com as práticas educativas. Os dados foram analisados tomando-se as dimensões propostas por Tomasevski, ex-relatora da ONU para o direito à educação, com base na noção de educação como um direito humano: disponibilidade, acessibilidade, adaptabilidade e aceitabilidade. O material empírico e as análises apontam para, por um lado, oreconhecimento legal do direito à educação da população encarcerada, seja ela formal ou não formal, e por outro, a precária condição de oferta desse direito. Baseado no conceito “prisão pós-disciplinar” de Chantraine, o texto conclui que o direito à educação tem sido utilizado muito mais como mecanismo de controle das populações encarceradas, estando distante do seu reconhecimento como um processo de promoção humana e reinserção na sociedade. Palavras-chave: Educação nas prisões. Educação de jovens e adultos. Educação como direito humano. Educação escolar. Educação não formal. (shrink)

: The effects of head injury, even mild traumatic brain injury, are wide-ranging and profound. Persons with adult-onset head injury offer feminist philosophers important perspectives for philosophical methodology and philosophical research concerning personal identity, mind-body theories, and ethics. The needs of persons with head injury require the expansion of typical teaching strategies, and such adaptations appear beneficial to both disabled and non-disabled students.

Functional relationships between romantic jealousy and traits, such as neuroticism or adult attachment styles, are well-known. For the first time, we conducted a joint analysis of the Big Five traits and attachment dimensions as predictors of jealousy, which considered gender differences as well as differences in infidelity experiences and relationship status. In 847 participants, path modeling showed that higher neuroticism, lower agreeableness, and lower openness predicted higher romantic jealousy. The attachment dimensions “anxiety” and “depend” partly mediated the effect of (...) neuroticism and fully mediated the effect of agreeableness on romantic jealousy. The direct and indirect relationships did not differ as a function of gender, relationship status, and infidelity experiences. These findings contribute to a better understanding of individual differences in romantic jealousy from a personality perspective. (shrink)

This study examined the relationship between origami performance, personality traits, and spatial ability. The researchers asked 43 Japanese university students to fold three models of origami. Their performance was assessed by the number of successes in correctly folding the paper to make the models. They also answered the personality inventory NEO-FFI and completed the block-design test of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale IV, which measures the spatial ability of people. The results showed that although origami performance (...) demonstrated no significant relation with neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, or conscientiousness, it improved as introversion tendency and spatial ability increased. There were no differences based on sex in origami performance. The findings suggest that performing origami requires spatial ability, which supports the view that origami is a potential educational material for training and enhancing spatial ability, and that introversion is advantageous to origami performance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ContingenciesElizabeth RottenbergAnalysis does precious little, but the little it does is precious.—Therese BenedekI’d like to begin with an anecdote of a slightly confessional nature. If I mention this anecdote, it’s because it came to me by chance as an association to what French analyst and philosopher Monique David-Ménard, in her introduction to Éloge des hasards dans la vie sexuelle, calls “positive contingency” or the “positive aspect of chance” (David-Ménard (...) 2011, 19–20), what in colloquial English we call a “happy accident.”So here’s the association. For reasons I cannot fully explain, the therapist I was seeing in graduate school encouraged me to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory test (the MMPI, as it’s called), a widely used and researched psychometric test of adult personality and psychopathology. The test involved hundreds of simple, inoffensive questions, questions such as, “Do you read all the editorials in the newspaper every day?”1 and it took me hours to complete. A week or so after taking the test, I met with my therapist and we went over the results together. According to the test (which, interestingly, takes into account the performative aspects of test taking), I had answered all the questions in such a way as to appear neither excessively good nor excessively bad, that is, I had answered all the questions honestly and consistently. And as far as psychopathology was concerned, my answers showed few signs of hypochondriasis, hysteria, psychopathy, schizophrenia, or hypomania. On the other hand, when it came to depression, paranoia, psychasthenia, and social introversion, my scores were a little higher, and a shockingly high percentage of my answers [End Page 128] reflected “stereotypical masculine interests/behaviors.” None of this seemed to worry my therapist in the least. The only thing she pointed to were my “odd answers” (the MMPI also has a special category for odd answers—presumably the answers of academics). She wondered about my answer to this question in particular: “Do you see people or animals or things that other people don’t see?” “You answered ‘true’ to that question,” she said. “I don’t understand. Why would you answer ‘true’? You’re not psychotic.” I explained that I had read the “or”—do you see people OR animals OR things that other people don’t see—as a disjunctive rather than a conjunctive OR. “So, yes, it’s true, when I read texts, sometimes I see things that other people don’t see.” At the time, of course, I wasn’t thinking of Deleuze’s “contingent reason” or of Monique’s discussion of the inventive power of disjunctive synthesis in her Deleuze et la psychanalyse (2005). And I certainly wasn’t thinking that my figurative reading of seeing, my misreading of seeing, was indicative of the essential and indeterminable contingencies of reading. No, I was only giving what I took to be a perfectly accurate description of the déformation professionnelle that is ours and that belongs to anyone who is a stickler for grammar... a positive déformation, I might add.But this association immediately leads me to another (contingent) association, this time one that is intimately related to Monique’s discussion of Torricelli’s law and to Claude Bernard’s discovery of the exocrine function of the pancreas. My association is to Freud and to Freud’s astonishment before the transformative power of Jean-Martin Charcot’s dazzling, clinical insight. In Freud’s description of his teacher, Charcot is someone who sees things that other people don’t see:[Charcot]... had the nature of an artist—he was, as he himself said, a “visuel,” a seer. Here is what he himself told us about his method of working. He used to look again and again at the things he did not understand, to deepen his impression of them day by day, till suddenly [plötzlich] an understanding of them dawned on him.... He might be heard to say that the greatest satisfaction a [person] could have was to see something new—that is, to recognize it as new; and he remarked again and again on the difficulty and value of this kind of... (shrink)

The effects of head injury, even mild traumatic brain injury, are wide-ranging and profound. Persons with adult-onset head injury offer feminist philosophers important perspectives for philosophical methodology and philosophical research concerning personal identity, mind-body theories, and ethics. The needs of persons with head injury require the expansion of typical teaching strategies, and such adaptations appear beneficial to both disabled and non-disabled students.

BackgroundDrawing from Erikson’s theory, Domino and Affonso constructed the Inventory of Psychosocial Balance, a scale with satisfactory reliability and validity. However, the lack of a credible Chinese version of the scale may hinder research on ego development in Taiwan. The aim of the present study was to construct a short form Chinese IPB. In addition, factor analysis was employed to shorten the original 120-item scale to make it suitable for application in the older adults in the future.MethodsThe study involved (...) three steps: The first step was to establish the 120-items of the Chinese Inventory of Psychosocial Balance, and we conducted translation, back-translation, expert validity, and reliability of pilot study for this step. Following the first step was to construct the short-form C-IPB in the second step, and the CIPB-SF was developed via item analysis and factor analysis. Finally, we assessed the reliability and validity of the CIPB-SF via structural equation model in the third step.ResultsThree hundred eight older adults without cognitive disorder completed the IPB. The 40-item CIPB-SF was completed through item analysis and factor analysis. The internal consistency test of CIPB-SF and the eight stages were good. The CIPB-SF had acceptable validity, except in the intimacy and identity stages, in which validity was only fair. Compared with the IPB, the CIPB-SF had good reliability and acceptable validity. However, because of its conciseness, the 40-item CIPB-SF was more suited for application among the Chinese elderly population because its application avoids physical overload.ConclusionThe CIPB-SF served as a concise scale for assessing ego development in our study. This scale can also serve as a useful tool for convenient screening in the future. (shrink)

Previous scientific contributions show that interactive learning environments have contributed to promoting learners' learning and development, as interaction and dialogue are key components of learning. When it comes to students with special needs, increasing evidence has demonstrated learning improvements through interaction and dialogue. However, most research focuses on children's education, and there is less evidence of how these learning environments can promote inclusion in adult learners with SEN. This article is addressed to analyse a case study of an interactive (...) learning environment shared by adults with and without special needs. This case shows several improvements identified by adult learners with special needs participating in this study. Based on a documental analysis and a qualitative study, this study analyses a context of participatory and dialogic adult education. From the analysis undertaken, the main results highlight some improvements identified in the lives of these adult women and men with SEN, covering educational improvements, increased feeling of social inclusion, and enhanced well-being. (shrink)

IntroductionAn individual’s level of mindfulness can predict his/her level of general health, anxiety, and anger. If we have a valuable tool for measuring mindfulness, we can predict such factors more concisely. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare a narrowband and a broadband mindfulness scale in predicting the level of general health, anxiety, and anger in a general population.Materials and MethodsThis was a cross-sectional study on an Iranian general population from September 22, 2020 to April 14, 2021. The (...) convenience sampling method was used. Data were collated via electronic and paper forms of the Relaxation/Meditation/Mindfulness Tracker t-Persian version, the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory- Short-Form-Persian version, the General Health Questionnaire, the trait anxiety section of the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the trait anger section of the State–Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2.ResultsThe FMI-P predicted 0.05% of GHQ variance while the first and third levels of RMMt-P predicted 0.145%. The FMI-P predicted 0.19% of anxiety variance, while the first and third levels of RMMt-P predicted 0.195%. The FMI-P predicted 0.0% of anger variance, while the first, second, and third levels of RMMt-P predicted 0.08%. RMMt-P Level 1 was a better predictor of general health, anger, and anxiety.ConclusionThe current study found that the RMMt-P was a better predictor of general health and anger than the FMI-P. These findings suggest that the type of questionnaire used in the study of mindfulness is important, but more research is needed to determine the extent of these relationships. (shrink)

s Sleeping persons do not seem to be agents, to express identity or to give voice. On one view this means that social research on sleep would do best to focus on the social context of sleep rather than sleep `itself'. If the only analytic vocabulary at our disposal consists of abstractions that assume the existence of self-conscious, self-present individuals, this conclusion is probably correct. This article, however, builds on the work of some contemporary childhood researchers to offer an account (...) of the `person' as an emergent property of distributed interactions between heterogeneous elements. The account is built through a discussion of `transitional objects' and `affects'. It is argued that this version of the `person' could help social research to make sense of both sides of the awake/asleep threshold. The potential contribution of this approach to the emerging bio-politics of childhood and states of un/consciousness is discussed. (shrink)

Background: Depressive disorder is one of the main health problems worldwide. Many risk factors have been associated with this pathology. However, while the association between risks factors and adult depression is well established, the mechanisms behind its impact remains poorly understood. A possible, yet untested explanation is the mediating impact of levels of personality functioning, i.e., impairments with regard to self and interpersonal.Method: Around 162 patients were assessed at the beginning of their therapy, with regard to risk factors, (...) such as sociodemographic, physical, hereditary, and adverse childhood experiences. Depressive symptoms and personality functioning were also measured. Associations between the related variables as well as other possible covariates were examined by means of zero-order correlations and bootstrapping-based mediation analysis.Results: Of all the risk factors taken into account, level of education and physical illness were associated with depression. On the other hand, the most significant predictor of depressive symptomatology was ACE, and this relationship was mediated by personality functioning. This indicates that patients presenting adverse childhood experiences are more likely to develop deficiencies in personality functioning, which in turn increases their likelihood of developing depressive symptomatology.Conclusion: These results reaffirm the importance of incorporating risk and vulnerability factors such as personality functioning in understanding depression. (shrink)

The use of visual mental imagery has been proposed to be a risk factor for the development of bipolar disorder, due to its potential to amplify affective states. This study examined the relation between visual imagery , intrusive verbal thought, and hypomania, as assessed by self-report questionnaires, in a sample of young adults . Regression analyses found that levels of intrusive visual imagery predicted levels of hypomania, but that neither trait use of visual imagery nor intrusive verbal thought did. These (...) results were consistent with the proposal that being a ‘visualiser’, as opposed to a ‘verbaliser’, is a risk factor for bipolar disorder, with the caveat that it is specifically intrusive experiences of imagery, rather than the tendency to utilize imagery per se, that acts as a risk factor. (shrink)

This study aimed to investigate the factor structure and measurement invariance of the Brief Symptom Inventory-18 among Chinese adults. A sample comprising 1,839 adults from four cities in Shaanxi province completed the BSI-18 and background information. The best-fitting factor structure model of the BSI-18 was verified by confirmatory factor analyses, and multigroup confirmatory factor analyses were performed to test the measurement invariance. The results indicated that the three-factor bi-factor model fitted the current data best. The configural, metric, scalar, and (...) strict invariance models all had acceptable model fit indexes across genders, and the configural, metric, scalar invariance models with different living areas and educational levels were all acceptable. Overall, the three-factor bi-factor model of the BSI-18 shows a good fit for use with Chinese adults, making it a viable tool for effectively measuring the mental health of Chinese adults. (shrink)