A influência da idade, do género e da sabedoria na ansiedade face à morte dos adultos idosos

Constatado que não havia sido estudada a relação entre a Sabedoria e a Ansiedade Face à Morte (AFM) em adultos idosos, os objectivos deste trabalho consistiram na validação da versão portuguesa da Self Assessed Wisdom Scale (SAWS; Webster, 2003) e no estudo da relação entre essas variáveis e delas com a idade e o género. Usou-se também a versão portuguesa da Revised Death Anxiety Scale (RDAS; Thorson & Powell, 1994) validada para a população idosa por Carvalho, Diniz e Ribeiro (2008). Os 397 participantes (leque etário = 65-97 anos; M = 74) que voluntariamente colaboraram no estudo eram residentes na comunidade. Recorrendo à análise factorial confirmatória (LISREL8.53), a estrutura pentadimensional oblíqua da SAWS apresentou boa validade discriminante em todas as dimensões, e uma boa consistência interna e validade convergente apenas em três delas. No segundo estudo, foi testado o Modelo Preditor da AFM em Adultos Idosos, em que a idade (terceira vs. quarta idade) e o género foram tidos como antecedentes das dimensões Experiência de Vida e Reminiscência e Reflexividade da Sabedoria e também da AFM. Verificou-se que a idade e a Reminiscência e Reflexividade foram as únicas boas preditoras da AFM.

Beyond human and intellectual capital: Profiling the value of knowledge, skills and experience

The concept of human capital is associated mainly with the Nobel Laureate Gary Becker and, in his usage, has a clear conceptual basis as investment in the costs of formal education. By contrast, this paper suggests that ‘intellectual capital’ is a re-branding of knowledge, skills and experience rather than re-conceptualisation of resource based learning. Becker also chose not to include informal knowledge, skills or experience within his concept of human capital, which remains limited by its constrained premises. This paper submits that both human capital and intellectual capital advocates fail to identify or measure the tacit knowledge and implicit learning which increasingly is recognised as a key to the competitive advantage of organisations. It first focuses on the conceptual basis of claims made for human capital and intellectual capital, outlines limits in their methodology, and contrasts these with insights from theories of tacit knowledge and implicit learning and the central role within them of informal or non-formal skill acquisition. It develops and illustrates instances of interfacing tacit and explicit knowledge before introducing a methodology for profiling the acquisition of knowledge, ability and skills. It does so by introducing the concepts of non-formal learningfrom- work (LfW) and informal learning-from-life (LfL), with evidence from a four country EU case study commissioned within the lifelong learning remit of the Lisbon Agenda.

Young people's well-being and the economic crisis: How does parental unemployment and family wealth affect the downturn experience?

Background: Portugal is among the European countriesmost severely hit by the economic recession and the fifth with the highest unemployment rate. Given that adolescents' development is highly influenced by their living contexts, monitoring the repercussions of the economic recession is essential for the evaluation and improvement of their current and future public health. Objective: To investigate youth perceived repercussions of the economic recession, its association with life satisfaction, as well as to assess differences across parental employment status and family perceived wealth. Methods: Data were drawn from the Portuguese 2014 Health Behaviour in School-aged children survey, aWHO collaborative cross-national study, with a nationally representative sample of 2748 students (Mage = 14.7 years ± 1.2; 48% boys). Descriptive statistics and linear regression models were performed. Results: Levels of life satisfaction are lower when young people perceive that the economic recession generated negative lifestyle changes. Having unemployed parents was found to be significantly associated with perceiving such repercussions and family wealth to decrease the perception of repercussions of the recession. Conclusions: Findings enhance our understanding of how Portuguese youth are being affected by the socioeconomic conditions surrounding them. Such information contributes to improve future research and also allow some considerations about the policies aimed at protecting young people'swellbeing during a period of high unemployment and socioeconomic downturn.

Life design counseling: A study on client's operations for meaning construction

This study evaluated the adequacy of the micro-theory of client operations to explain meaning construction during Life Design Counseling. Four adolescents were interviewed about their second counseling session. Their recollections were stimulated through the replay of counseling videotapes. The resulting transcribed interviews were qualitatively analyzed. Results confirmed a sequence of client operations evolving from the symbolic representation of experience and reflexive self-examination towards making new realizations and revisioning self. Moreover, clients reported negative and positive session moments evidencing that clients' attention and activity during the session was not restricted to meaning construction operations. Practical implications for life design counseling are derived from the results and discussed.