Personality, social values, and marital satisfaction as predictors of parents’ rearing styles

Los estilos de crianza parentales pueden afectar la conducta y socialización de los adolescentes, por lo que es de interés conocer cómo algunas variables psicológicas de los padres se relacionan con los estilos de crianza. Este estudio tiene el objetivo de analizar los estilos de crianza de los padres, valores sociales (prestigio social, orden, benevolencia, y conservadurismo-liberalismo), los cinco grandes factores de personalidad, y la satisfacción de pareja (acuerdo general, afecto, satisfacción, y cohesión) en los padres de adolescentes. Este es un estudio prospectivo basado en método de análisis correlacional. Se encontró que los estilos educativos definidos por el cariño y aceptación se relacionan con los rasgos de personalidad como responsabilidad y estabilidad emocional, alta satisfacción de pareja y preferencia por valores prosociales. Al contrario, los estilos de crianza de sobreprotección y favoritismo se relacionan con baja amabilidad y baja apertura el poco ajuste de pareja con falta de cohesión y valores sociales definidos por falta de benevolencia y preferencia por valores de prestigio social.

The vertical dimension of social relations and accurate interpersonal perception: A meta-analysis (Publishd online: 24 Oct. 2014)

There is little consensus regarding how verticality (social power, dominance, and status) is related to accurate interpersonal perception. The relation could be either positive or negative, and there could be many causal processes at play. The present article discusses the theoretical possibilities and presents a meta-analysis of this question. In studies using a standard test of interpersonal accuracy, higher socioeconomic status (SES) predicted higher accuracy defined as accurate inference about the meanings of cues; also, higher experimentally manipulated vertical position predicted higher accuracy defined as accurate recall of others' words. In addition, although personality dominance did not predict accurate inference overall, the type of personality dominance did, such that empathic/responsible dominance had a positive relation and egoistic/aggressive dominance had a negative relation to accuracy. In studies involving live interaction, higher experimentally manipulated vertical position produced lower accuracy defined as accurate inference about cues; however, methodological problems place this result in doubt.

Dietary intake according to gender and education : a twenty-year trend in a Swiss adult population

We assessed trends in dietary intake according to gender and education using repeated cross-sectional, population-based surveys conducted between 1993 and 2012 in Geneva, Switzerland (17,263 participants, 52.0 ± 10.6 years, 48% male). In 1993-1999, higher educated men had higher monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA), carotene and vitamin D intakes than lower educated men, and the differences decreased in 2006-2012. In 1993-1999, higher educated women had higher fiber, iron, carotene, vitamin D and alcohol intakes than lower educated women, and the differences decreased in 2006-2012. Total energy, polyunsaturated fatty acids, retinol and alcohol intakes decreased, while mono/disaccharides, MUFA and carotene intake increased in both genders. Lower educated men had stronger decreases in saturated fatty acid (SFA) and calcium intakes than higher educated men: multivariate-adjusted slope and 95% confidence interval -0.11 (-0.15; -0.06) vs. -0.03 (-0.08; 0.02) g/day/year for SFA and -5.2 (-7.8; -2.7) vs. -1.03 (-3.8; 1.8) mg/day/year for calcium, p for interaction <0.05. Higher educated women had a greater decrease in iron intake than lower educated women: -0.03 (-0.04; -0.02) vs. -0.01 (-0.02; 0.00) mg/day/year, p for interaction = 0.002. We conclude that, in Switzerland, dietary intake evolved similarly between 1993 and 2012 in both educational groups. Educational differences present in 1993 persisted in 2012.

Policy learning in Europe : social policy and labour market reforms in 11 countries

This report compares policy learning processes in 11 European countries. Based on the country reports that were produced by the national teams of the INSPIRES project, this paper develops an argument that connects problem pressure and politicization to learning in different labor market innovations. In short, we argue that learning efforts are most likely to impact on policy change if there is a certain problem pressure that clearly necessitates political action. On the other hand, if problem pressure is very low, or so high that governments need to react immediately, chances are low that learning impacts on policy change. The second part of our argument contends that learning impacts on policy change especially if a problem is not very politicized, i.e. there are no main conflicts concerning a reform, because then, solutions are wound up in the search for a compromise. Our results confirm our first hypothesis regarding the connection between problem pressure and policy learning. Governments learn indeed up to a certain degree of problem pressure. However, once political action becomes really urgent, i.e. in anti-crisis policies, there is no time and room for learning. On the other hand, learning occurred independently from the politicization of problem. In fact, in countries that have a consensual political system, learning occurred before the decision on a reform, whereas in majoritarian systems, learning happened after the adoption of a policy during the process of implementation.

Social Cognition and Behavior in Relationship Context

Social information processing (SIP; Crick & Dodge, 1994) and social-cognitive learning theories have been often used to understand children’s problem behaviors, such as aggression. According to these theories, children’s thinking guides their subsequent behaviors. Although most of us agree that social behavior and underlying thought processes are context-dependent, personality and social development researchers have usually engaged in searching for stable patterns of dispositions and behaviors, ignoring (or treating as error) the variance across different situations and relationship types. This, however, can result in erroneous conclusions and question the interpretation of previous findings. Four studies were conducted to explore the influence of relationship context on children’s social-cognitive evaluations and behavior. Samples were fourth to sixth graders from Estonia and Finland. Social cognitions were assessed by presenting children with hypothetical vignettes where the previously identified relationship partner’s behavior had a negative consequence for the child (Studies I, II, and IV), followed by questions measuring different social-cognitive processes (e.g., hostile attributions, behavioral strategies, outcome expectations and self-efficacy beliefs for aggression). In addition, in Studies II and IV, children provided information about their behavior within a specific relationship context. In Study III, an affective priming paradigm was employed where participants were presented with a short display of photographs of children’s liked and disliked classmates, and unknown peers. The results of this thesis suggest that children’s thinking and behavior are largely influenced by the affective valence of the relationship. Moreover, cognitions guide behavior within the relationship. The current findings offer a fruitful avenue for studying the heterogeneity of peer interactions.

Social huddling and physiological thermoregulation are related to melanism in the nocturnal barn owl.

Endothermic animals vary in their physiological ability to maintain a constant body temperature. Since melanin-based coloration is related to thermoregulation and energy homeostasis, we predict that dark and pale melanic individuals adopt different behaviours to regulate their body temperature. Young animals are particularly sensitive to a decrease in ambient temperature because their physiological system is not yet mature and growth may be traded-off against thermoregulation. To reduce energy loss, offspring huddle during periods of cold weather. We investigated in nestling barn owls (Tyto alba) whether body temperature, oxygen consumption and huddling were associated with melanin-based coloration. Isolated owlets displaying more black feather spots had a lower body temperature and consumed more oxygen than those with fewer black spots. This suggests that highly melanic individuals display a different thermoregulation strategy. This interpretation is also supported by the finding that, at relatively low ambient temperature, owlets displaying more black spots huddled more rapidly and more often than those displaying fewer spots. Assuming that spot number is associated with the ability to thermoregulate not only in Swiss barn owls but also in other Tytonidae, our results could explain geographic variation in the degree of melanism. Indeed, in the northern hemisphere, barn owls and allies are less spotted polewards than close to the equator, and in the northern American continent, barn owls are also less spotted in colder regions. If melanic spots themselves helped thermoregulation, we would have expected the opposite results. We therefore suggest that some melanogenic genes pleiotropically regulate thermoregulatory processes.

Web and education, a successful open entanglement

E-learning, understood as the intensive use of Information and Communication Technologies in mainly but not only) distance education, has radically changed the meaning of the latter. E-learning is an overused term which has been applied to any use of technology in education. Today, the most widely accepted meaning ofe-learning coincides with the fourth generation described by Taylor (1999), where there is an asynchronousprocess that allows students and teachers to interact in an educational process expressly designed in accordance with these principles. We prefer to speak of Internet-Based Learning or, better still, Web-Based Learning, for example, to explain the fact that distance education is carried out using the Internet, with the appearance of the virtual learning environment concept, a web space where the teaching and learning process is generated and supported (Sangrà, 2002). This entails overcoming the barriers of space and time of brickand mortar education (although we prefer the term face-to-face) or of classical distance education using broadcasting and adopting a completely asynchronous model that allows access to education by many more users, at any level (including secondary education, but primarily higher education and lifelong learning).

Learning 2.0 : concepts and experiences with social networks and software

Peer-reviewed

Inventors on the move: tracing inventors’ mobility and its spatial distribution

This paper aims to provide insights into the phenomenon of knowledge flows. We study one of the main mechanisms through which these flows occur, i.e., the mobility of highly-skilled individuals. We focus on the geographical mobility of inventors across European regions. Thus, patent data are used to trace the pattern of inventors’ mobility across european regions, to track down focuses of attraction of talent throughout the continent, and to study their distribution across the space. To do so, we gather information from PCT patent documents and we first match the names which seemed to belong to the same inventor and then we create a new algorithm to decide whether each patent applied for under each name belongs to the same inventor.

Akateemiset urapolut. Humanistisen, yhteiskuntatieteellisen ja kasvatustieteellisen alan generalistien urapolkujen alkuvaiheet 1980- ja 1990-luvuilla

Academic Career Paths. The early career phases of generalists in the fields of humanities, social science and education in the 1980’s and 1990’s This doctoral thesis analyses how generalist graduates of master’s degree have attached to the labour market in two different time periods, and how their career paths in the first eight years following graduation have shaped up. The thesis also analyses the channels of employment through which the generalists have got employed in their early career path. By generalists I am referring to graduates of studies in academic fields which have not qualified the person in a specific profession but rather offered a more general readiness for working life. I address two groups of generalist master’s degree graduates of The University of Turku; one including graduates of the year 1985 and the other consisting of graduates of 1995. All subjects have graduated in the field of humanities, social studies or education. 71 respondents from the group of 1985 and 80 respondents from the group of 1995 answered a survey, which provided the data for the thesis. I interpret the data through the theoretical approaches of changing working life, model of normal employment, transitional labour markets, linear life path, overlapping life courses, hidden labour market and social capital. The conclusion of the thesis is that societal era is connected with employment and career paths of academic generalists. Between the two groups there were differences especially in attachment to labor market, in forms of employment (permanent full-time job vs. temporary job) and in employment channels. Compared to the situation the 1985 group had been in after their graduation, the 1995 group - after getting their degree - became more often unemployed and/or employed in duties below their level of education. Their mobility was also greater and their contracts were often temporary, whereas the graduates of 1985 had been employed in more permanent positions. I demonstrate that the career paths of generalists can be categorized in five career types: steady state, transitory, linear, unsteady and diverging career. Graduates of 1985 have been treading on more stable paths than the latter group. The channels of employment they used were roughly equally divided between formal (e.g. newspaper advertisement and employment office) and informal (e.g. personal contacts and unprompted search for work) channels, whereas amongst the 1995 group employment happened through more varied channels and mostly through informal channels. Regardless of their year of graduation the generalists’ careers had begun to evolve already while they were still in the university and had started working at the same time. The thesis displays how the model of normal employment has weakened and career paths have become unsteady as a consequence of temporary positions. What is also evident in employment when turning from the 1980’s towards the succeeding decade is the rise of significance of the hidden labour market and social capital.

Workplace Social Capital and Employee Health

Työyhteisön sosiaalinen pääoma ja työntekijöiden terveys Monien tutkimusten mukaan sosiaalinen pääoma vaikuttaa terveyteen. Vaikka työssä käyvä väestönosa on merkittävän osan valveillaoloajastaan työyhteisössä, siellä kertyvää sosiaalista pääomaa on toistaiseksi tutkittu vähän. Tässä tutkimuksessa selvitettiin työyhteisön sosiaalisen pääoman ja kuntatyöntekijöiden terveyden välistä yhteyttä pitkittäisasetelmassa hyödyntäen Kuntasektorin henkilöstön seurantatutkimuksen aineistoa vuosilta 2000–2005. Yhteensä 48592 kuntatyöntekijää vastasi kyselyyn vuosina 2000–02 (vastausprosentti 68 %). Heistä 35914 (77 %) osallistui myös seurantatutkimukseen vuosina 2004–05. Tutkimuksessa kehitettiin kyselyyn perustuva työyhteisön sosiaalisen pääoman mittausmenetelmä. Työntekijän omaan arvioon perustuvan sosiaalisen pääoman lisäksi mitattiin työyhteisön sosiaalista pääomaa käyttämällä samassa työyhteisössä työskentelevien muiden työntekijöiden keskimääräistä arviota sosiaalisesta pääomasta. Terveyttä mitattiin kysymyksellä koetusta terveydestä. Masennusta arvioitiin sekä kysymällä lääkärin toteamasta masennuksesta että masennuslääkeostoilla Kelan lääkerekistereistä. Analyyseihin otettiin mukaan vain ne kuntatyöntekijät, jotka olivat lähtötilanteissa terveitä eli kokivat terveytensä hyväksi tai heillä ei ollut aiempaa diagnosoitua tai lääkehoitoa vaatinutta masennusta. Tulosten analysointiin käytettiin monitasomallinnusta. Tulokset vakioitiin sosiodemografisten tekijöiden ja terveyskäyttäytymisen suhteen. Neljän vuoden seurannassa sekä jatkuvasti vähäinen että vähenevä yksilön sosiaalinen pääoma työssä lisäsi riskiä koetun terveyden heikkenemiseen niillä kuntatyöntekijöillä, jotka eivät vaihtaneet työpaikkaa seurannan aikana ja jotka seurannan alussa kokivat terveytensä hyväksi. Tulos ei selittynyt sosiodemografisilla tekijöillä tai terveyskäyttäytymisen eroilla. Tuloksen merkittävyyttä tuki havainto, että myös työtoverien arvioon perustuva sosiaalinen pääoma ennusti oman terveyden huononemista seuranta-aikana. Niillä työntekijöillä, jotka työskentelivät sellaisissa työyhteisöissä, joissa koko seurannan ajan oli vähiten sosiaalista pääomaa, oli lähes 1.3 -kertainen riski terveyden heikentymiseen. Vähäinen omaan arvioon perustuva sosiaalinen pääoma työssä ennusti myös masennuksen ilmaantuvuutta lähtötilanteessa ei-masentuneilla lähes neljän vuoden seurannassa. Matalaan sosiaaliseen pääomaan liittyi 20–50 % suurempi todennäköisyys sairastua masennukseen seurannan aikana niin itseraportoidun lääkärin totea-man masennuksen kuin masennuslääkeostojen perusteella. Tätä tulosta ei kuitenkaan pystytty toistamaan käyttämällä oman arvion sijasta työtoverien arviota työyhteisön sosiaalisesta pääomasta. Tutkimusta sosiaalisen pääoman vaikutusta masennuksen ilmaantumiseen jatkettiin selvittämällä miten sosiaalisen pääoman eri ulottuvuudet vaikuttivat masennuksen ilmaantumiseen. Tulosten mukaan sosiaalisen pääoman vertikaalinen komponentti (työntekijöiden ja esimiesten välinen luottamus, vastavuoroisuus ja jaetut arvot ja normit, jotka edesauttavat yhteistyötä) sekä horisontaalinen komponentti (työntekijöiden välisissä suhteissa yhteistyöstä, luottamuksesta ja vastavuoroisuudesta syntyvä sosiaalinen pääoma) vaikuttivat itsenäisesti masennusriskiin. Tutkimuksen perusteella korkea työyhteisön sosiaalinen pääoma saattaa vaikuttaa edullisesti työntekijöiden terveyteen. Jos näin on, olisi tärkeää edistää työyhteisöjen sosiaalista pääomaa ja kannustaa sellaiseen toimintaan, joka lisää suvaitsevaisuutta, luottamusta ja vastavuoroisuutta sekä työntekijöiden kesken että työntekijöiden ja esimiesten välillä.