The Cognitive Domain of the Quality of Life of University Students: A Re-Analyses of an Instrument

This paper presents the re-analysis of a previouslypublished instrument, based on Bloom's taxonomy,developed to measure the cognitive domain of thequality of life of university students. The items inthis instrument were assessed using Guttman's SmallestSpace Analysis. The findings generally supportBloom's conceptualization, identifying 5 of 6dimensions in the taxonomy: Knowledge, Comprehension,Application, Analysis, and Evaluation. The findingsprovide support for the enduring utility of Bloom'staxonomy, and reinforce the ongoing need to testtheoretically informed instruments using sophisticatedstatistical techniques.     

Hassles,hardiness and absenteeism: Results of a 3-year longitudinal study

Abstract

In this 3-year longitudinal study of 229 full-time employees, the authors investigated the association between hassles, two measures of personality hardiness, and absenteeism verified from medical personnel records and self-reported hospitalization owing to injury and illness. Using stepwise multiple regression analysis, hassles, but neither of the hardiness measures, significantly predicted absenteeism when controlling for psychological well-being and relevent demographic variables over the 3-year period. The alternative measure of hardiness, but not any of the original Kobasa personality hardiness scales, predicted self-reported hospitalization for injury and illness. Little evidence for the predicitve validity of the Kobasa personality hardiness components, or composite hardiness score, existed for either absenteeism or self-reported hospitalization in this study. These findings support the concept that the current conceptualization, measurement and use of the original Kobasa hardiness scales should be re-evaluated.     

The demography of Tristan da Cunha

The eruption of the volcano on Tristan da Cunha in 1961 and the subsequent arrival of the island population in the United Kingdom provided a unique opportunity for studying the health of this formerly isolated community. During their stay, while the facilities and services of modern medicine were made available to them, investigations of many facets of their general biology were made under the auspices of the Medical Research Council, co-ordinated by Dr. H. E. Lewis. Analysis of their demographic history was essential to understand many features of their disease pattern, and the results of this analysis are presented here. They are of interest in that they not only show some consistent trends in the common variables of demography, but also demonstrate biological principles, some perhaps for the first time in man, which may be fundamental in the process of colonization as a biological phenomenon, e.g. the initial difficulty of establishment of a population in a new area, the curious demographic structure that may emerge in its earliest years, the bottleneck effect of population-size reduction, the founder principle.     

Six for Lunch: A Dining Option for Residents with Dementia in a Special Care Unit

Recent research has focused on the design of special care units for residents with dementia, often identifying the social benefits of residentially scaled kitchen and dining areas. This qualitative case study examines how the environmental design features of two dining settings in one special care unit impact residents’ patterns of socialization and interaction at meal times. The first setting is a central dining room for 50 to 60 residents. The second setting is a small office with a residentially scaled kitchen, where once a week, the activity director invites six residents for lunch once a week. Within an ecological theoretical framework, the study findings reveal that, while mealtimes in both settings are highly anticipated, it is the complex relational ties between the operational, managerial, and environmental features of the settings which determine residents’ social interaction and satisfaction with their mealtime experiences.     

An Examination of the Association Between Relationship Mindfulness and Psychological and Relational Well-being in Committed Couples

Relationship mindfulness is the degree to which individuals tend to be mindful during interactions with romantic partners. In this study, we examined both the intrapersonal and interpersonal links between relationship mindfulness and psychological and relationship functioning in a sample of 219 couples who had been in their relationship for at least 1 year. Even when accounting for the general tendency to be mindful, relationship mindfulness was linked with markers of relationship well-being and psychological functioning, both intrapersonally and interpersonally. The findings bring to light the importance of considering relationship mindfulness in clinical work with couples that focuses on addressing deficiencies in relationship or psychological well-being.     

Stability of noisy Metropolis–Hastings

Pseudo-marginal Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for sampling from intractable distributions have gained recent interest and have been theoretically studied in considerable depth. Their main appeal is that they are exact, in the sense that they target marginally the correct invariant distribution. However, the pseudo-marginal Markov chain can exhibit poor mixing and slow convergence towards its target. As an alternative, a subtly different Markov chain can be simulated, where better mixing is possible but the exactness property is sacrificed. This is the noisy algorithm, initially conceptualised as Monte Carlo within Metropolis, which has also been studied but to a lesser extent. The present article provides a further characterisation of the noisy algorithm, with a focus on fundamental stability properties like positive recurrence and geometric ergodicity. Sufficient conditions for inheriting geometric ergodicity from a standard Metropolis–Hastings chain are given, as well as convergence of the invariant distribution towards the true target distribution.     

The Appeal to Honour and the Decision for War

The outbreak of the First World War is one of the great formative events of modern times. Yet during its centenary, there was surprisingly little attention to how uncertain entry into the war was in the English‐speaking world or how finely balanced the forces for and against intervention were. This article examines the role of appeals to honour in the decision for war. It begins by exploring the role of these appeals in convincing radical liberals to accept British intervention – something they had been successfully blocking just days earlier – before examining parallel appeals in the United States and Australia. It then considers why the language of honour was effective, and whether it still plays a role a century later, before concluding with some possible centennial lessons.     

Causal Evidence for Exclusively Positive Parenting and for Timeout: Rejoinder to Holden,Grogan-Kaylor,Durrant, and Gershoff (2017)

Abstract

In our initial article we raised concerns about a paradigm we called “Exclusively Positive Parenting” (EPP). This paradigm opposes all negative disciplinary consequences, including timeout and privilege removal. We argued that the empirical support for EPP was insufficient. Researchers should not rely on insufficient causal evidence to replace well-established parenting perspectives that combine positive parenting with appropriate firm control. In reply, Holden et al. defended EPP. In this rejoinder to them we do two things. First, we use their citations to evaluate the limited causal evidence (four randomized studies) for what EPP supports. Second, we summarize the evidence for timeout, which EPP opposes. To do that, we offer the first known meta-analysis of the overall effectiveness of timeout, based on 24 studies with strong causal evidence for its effectiveness with young oppositional defiant children (6 randomized clinical studies; 18 small-N experimental designs). We call for parenting researchers to synthesize positive parenting techniques and disciplinary consequences based on adequate causal evidence.     

Exploring variation in active network size: Constraints and ego characteristics

Studies of active personal networks have primarily focused on providing reliable estimates of the size of the network. In this study, we examine how compositional properties of the network and ego characteristics are related to variation in network size. There was a negative relationship between mean emotional closeness and network size, for both related and unrelated networks. Further, there was a distinct upper bound on total network size. These results suggest that there are constraints both on the absolute number of individuals that ego can maintain in the network, and also on the emotional intensity of the relationships that ego can maintain with those individuals.