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EJOP Archives: 2006 Volume 2
Second Anniversary
“The difficult things of this world must once have been easy; the great things of this world must once have been small. Set about difficult things while they are still easy; do great things while they are still small. The Sage never affects to do anything great, and therefore he is able to achieve his great results.”
(The Sayings of Lao-Tzu, Lionel Giles translation [1905], Miscellaneous sayings and precepts)
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Personality Traits And Feeling Of Loneliness In Unemployed Youths
nemployment has been a recurring social problem throughout the century and bringing a mental health problem. In addition to feelings of excitement and anticipation, there may also be the feelings of loneliness. Loneliness is an important personality variable. Aim of the present investigation is to know the effect of personality traits on the perception of perceived loneliness in unemployed youths. The sample consists of 200 subjects within the age group of 26-32 yrs of age drawn from district Haridwar, clear demarcations were observed in the groups of different levels of personality traits on perceived loneliness
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Enhancing the success of outsourcing initiatives
Outsourcing has become an increasingly powerful option for many companies seeking to reduce costs, enhance service and focus on core competencies. Most commonly used for information technology services, this trend of business process outsourcing (BPO) is very prevalent in Human Resources (HR). It is a $1.36 billion industry in Canada alone and is expected to increase 10.6 percent each year over the next five years (Vu, 2004). According to the Gartner Group, HR administrative tasks topped the list of processes outsourced in 2003 and predict that by 2007, HR BPO will be a $37.8 billion-plus industry in the United States, up from $25 billion in 2002, for an 8.6 percent growth rate.
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Evolutionary Psychology Insights Regarding Human Sexuality
Evolutionary psychology has presented important insights about many areas, with human sexuality being one of the areas of important insights. Some contributions of evolutionary psychology to six areas are discussed here: Sexual Intercourse vs. Masturbation, Preference by Aging Males for Younger and Younger Females, Ovulation and Female Sexuality, Differences in Male and Female Jealousy, Waist to Hip Ratio, and Childhood Deprivation and Earlier Pregnancy. Also, the importance of realizing that many behaviors are unconsciously motivated is discussed.
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S QUESTIONNAIRE
The word sincerity has profound connections with both religion and philosophy, in which we can find the very essence of its meaning. The need for sincerity is the need to find the truth in people, facts and the world in general. It is the desire for illumination, which motivates human existence on an intellectual and spiritual level; even though sometime such a need is revealed unconsciously or, perhaps, in a peculiar manner.
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The Degree of Uncertainty Avoidance Present in Croatian and American Undergraduate Students; a Comparative Analysis
Abstract
25 years ago, Culture’s Consequences was published. This text, the result of analyzing over 116,000 surveys collected from within IBM, identified 4 cultural dimensions which would go on to become recognized as one of the most important set of cultural dimensions, and which would be replicated and expanded upon on a broad scale (Bass, 1990; Adler, 1997). Culture’s Consequences contained information from Yugoslavia, information that was later broken down according to the area in which it was collected, resulting in cultural scores for Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia (Hofstede, 1996, 2001). Since this original research was conducted in 1971, no further testing of Hofstede’s original findings has been carried out in Croatia. The research presented in this paper focused on one of Hofstede’s four dimensions in particular: uncertainty avoidance. Research was carried out which tested the degree of this dimension demonstrated by Croatian and American undergraduate students. In contrast to Hofstede’s original research, the American sample was found to be higher in uncertainty avoidance than the Croatian sample.
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A Mind for Structure: Exploring the Roots of Intelligent Systems
The nature of mind, its origins, evolution, and working principles, is an area besieged by psychologists, cognitive scientists, biologists, anthropologists, mathematicians, comp-uter modellers, and even physicists.
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Effects of Task Demands in the Auditory Attentional Blink
ABSTRACT
Auditory perception may be modified by attentional mechanisms. Forward informational masking, an attentional phenomenon, was studied as a function of time and task demands. A rapid auditory presentation (RAP) task involving timbre-based streaming of to-be-attended sound signals from distractors was used to assess the report of a to-be-attended signal (Probe; “P”). The experiment consisted of a sequence of distractors alone, or following another to-be-attended signal (Target; “T”), in various conditions. Participants (29 undergraduate psychology students) were asked either to simply detect or to identify P at various Stimulus Onset Asynchronies (SOAs) after T. Learning effects were also examined. Response task was found to be irrelevant to decrements, while decrements were generally ameliorated as SOA increased, and as experience with the tasks increased. These performance decrements represent an auditory attentional blink.
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Suicide Ideation and Psychopathology Among Adolescents
Suicides are linked to feelings of depression and hopelessness. Other factors in suicide include anxiety, drug abuse, problems in school or at work, and social problems. Aim of the present investigation is to know the differences between male and female adolescents. The sample consists of 50 (25 male and 25 female) subjects drawn from district Hardwar. The age of all subjects ranged from 15 to 18 years (mean 16.5 years) and majority of the subjects belonged to middle socio-economic status. All the tests were administered on the sample in-group setting in classrooms. Over the centuries, suicide had different meanings. Males of all the ages commit suicide at a higher rate than females although females attempt suicide more often than males. Suicide rates in India have shown a gradually increasing trend. Study reveals that male adolescents have scored significantly higher on the measures of suicidal ideation, whereas male adolescents have more psychological impairment on psychopathic deviation (Pp). There is significance gender difference on the measure of suicide ideation
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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCHOLASTIC ACTIVITIES AND CREATIVITY AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN THE STATE OF KWUAIT
This study was conducted based on the desire of the Administration of Scholastic Activities in The State of Kuwait to evaluate the reality of the various fields of creative scholastic activities in the secondary school . The rationale underlying this study is that students’ mental maturity entails teachers with the same level of creativity and inclination to innovation in order to cope with the ever-occurring educational changes. This is important since some school administrations are still unconvinced with the educational and psychological significance of scholastic activities, and consequently they hinder the implementation of activity programs. Besides, some teachers and school activity supervisors are not specialists and funds for scholastic activities are sufficient.
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Prevalence, symptomatology, and risk factors for depression among high school students in Saudi Arabia
Depression has been considered to be the major psychiatric disease of the 20th century. The World Health Organization identified major depression as the fourth leading cause of worldwide disease in 1990. Recent studies have shown that greater than 20% of adolescents in the general population have emotional problems and one-third of adolescents attending psychiatric clinics suffer from depression. Numerous outcome studies have documented several negative effects of depression.
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Interview with Dr. Carol S. Kelly

Caring for and about children is a central part of who I am from childhood until the present. As the oldest of four children, I was involved in caring for my siblings which let to baby sitting. As I matured, I taught Sunday School, worked with Brownie Scouts, taught swimming, and was employed in other educational and recreation programs with children. My passion for learning resulted in beginning my career as a teacher of children and adolescents. As I worked with diverse populations, I increasingly understood the importance of child and adolescent development and counseling and guidance. I was particularly interested in children with challenges having opportunities to develop their potential. I continued my education in this realm. Working with a federal government National Defense Education Act program for innovations in education led to an offer to join the faculty at California State University Northridge. I was fortunate to be a central committee member to develop the Interdisciplinary Major in Child Development (now the Department of Child and Adolescent Development).
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Sexual Dysfunctions
In this paper, Sexual Dysfunctions are explained in terms of DSM-IV-TR criteria. Information about prevalence and occurrence rates is specified. Phases of sexual intercourse is explicated which enhance knowledge about disorders. Physiological factors such as reproductive life cycle, urinary track infections, diabetes, cardiopathies and drug side-effects and past and current psychological conditions are explained to assess the basis of sexual dysfunctions. Influence of variables on treatment is underlined with respect to different therapeutic tools, techniques and methods. Outcome and effectiveness research support evaluated. Lastly, important aspects in the course of therapy, elements and key concepts that would be beneficial for successful outcome are discussed.
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Transactional Analysis seen by a critical parent eye: Crossed transactions, reality or graphic illusion? Parallel communication
Transactional analysis, commonly known as TA to its adherents, is a psychoanalytic theory of psychology, developed by psychiatrist Eric Berne during the late 1950s, (Berne, E. 1957) based on the study of evolution and the pathological functioning of ego states (Várkonyi F. Zsuzsa, 2003). Revising Freud’s concept of the human psyche as composed of the Ego, Superego, and the Id, (Freud, S. 1900, 1977) Berne, E. (1964) postulated instead three “ego states”, the Parent (P), Adult (A) and Child (C) ego states, which were largely shaped through childhood experiences. (Wikipedia, 2006) TA has four parts: the structural analysis, transactional analysis, game analysis and script analysis. (Járó Katalin, editor, 1999)
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The Power of Diversity
I remember one of my lecturers telling me a few years ago that psychology is different from sciences such as physics. Not just because of the ‘is psychology a science?’ debate. But more importantly, because the field of psychology is so diverse that psychologists working in different fields simply cannot properly understand one another.
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Is there a decline in verbal working memory over age?
In this study, the new standard computerized version of the reading span test was used to investigate the development of verbal working memory over age. A significant higher reading span and faster reaction times were expected for the young adults compared to the old adults, based on the processing resource theory (Just & Carpenter, 1992) and the theory of cognitive aging (Salthouse, 1994, 1996), and this hypothesis was confirmed. The new methodology made it possible to test whether there was an age-related increase in intrusion errors, which could be expected based on the inhibition theory of cognitive aging (Hasher & Zacks, 1988). The results showed that older adults made more intrusion errors than young adults thereby confirming the inhibition theory. Finally, the analysis of the memory-pattern showed a clear recency-effect for the young-, but not for the old adults. Interestingly, this has never been reported in literature before. Although more research is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn, this decline in recency-effect shows that there are larger age-related effects in short term memory span than was expected on the basis of aging theories so far.
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Electronic publishing: The future is here
So, you’ve completed your research, you’ve written up your article and now you’re ready to submit it to a peer review journal. You send your manuscript to the editor of the journal, the editor forwards your manuscript for review to other scientists in your field, and, based on the feedback from reviewers, he/she decides whether your work will be published or not.
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Formation Conditions of Corporate Social Responsibility in Organizational Culture
Māra Vidnere and Jānis Strautmanis Māra Vidnere Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy Imantas 7. līnija 1, Riga (Latvia) LV-1083 Tel.: + 371 7808010, Fax: +371 7 808 034 Email: mvidnere@navigator.lv Jānis Strautmanis Banking Institution of Higher Education K. … Continue reading
Effect Of Chronic Disease On Romantic Partner Choice
Loredana Ruxandra Gherasim, Andreea Mihaela Mihalca Abstract Background: Interpersonal attraction is influenced by many factors like physical attraction, similarity or proximity. The impact of chronic illnesses on romantic relationships hasn’t been studied very deeply. Method. An experimental study was completed … Continue reading
WWU Researcher Explores ‘Trust’ in Internet Consumerism
Drew Weidenbacher at (360) 393-9266 or dweidenbacher@qwest.net; George Cvetkovich, (360) 650-3544, or George.Cvetkovich@wwu.edu May 23, 2006 BELLINGHAM – Using his own experience on Wall Street along with mentoring by one of the nation’s leading experts on “trust,” Western Washington University … Continue reading
The Role of Organisational Innovation in Corporations
The article stresses the question of organisational innovations in the field of SME in CEEC. For the analysis, examples of characteristic phenomena are chosen which mirror the strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities and threats of CEEC in transition economies. Besides various economic images, three fields will be presented in which the EU exercises little direct influence. These three fields cover 1) education, 2) science and research, and 3) SME. They are seen to be essential terrain for initiating national and corporate competitive advantages. Education is the basis of future human resources; science and research open potential sources of development for new products and service. A national culture of SME-carried economy can be seen as an effective structure to implement such innovation.
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The Link between the Mathematical Game Theory and the Transactional Analysis. A New Kind of Psychological Game Comes into Being in New Interpersonal Relations.
MGT studies human games to find the best strategies for gaining a concrete advantage. TA studies human games to get the answer to the question why people make efforts in order to suffer, (to win negative payoffs), and how these people can be helped to give up these daily repeated games. These cause sufferings for all participants, and are the causes of many psychological diseases. However both describe the human conflicts, suffering having a sense of lost in MGT, apparently MGT games and TA games are in contrast with each other. Studying the evolution (the degeneration) of MGT games, we can observe that the majority of human conflicts start off with a “Prisoners Dilemma”, goes on with the “Chicken! Game” and degenerates into a “Dollar Auction Game”.
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Instructional Clarity: The Effect of Bilingualism and Instructor’s Preparation
Abstract
The study focused on bilingualism and preparation of teachers that affected the teacher’s clarity. Twenty monolingual and bilingual participants of various preparation, in the first phase of the study, were randomly assigned to two groups: high and low preparation. Participants read the same lecture and presented it a week later. Two independent coders analyzed the lectures against the Vagueness Terms Checklist. Eighty participants in the second phase were randomly assigned to four lecturing conditions. The tape-recorded lectures, chosen in the first phase, were presented to junior undergraduate students. Students rated the lecture on an 11-item response form. Results of this study were analyzed using a two-way analysis of variance and post-test design. Bilingualism showed significant statistical results.
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Interview with Dr. Ulrich von Hecker

Our interviewee is Dr. Ulrich von Hecker, PhD, researcher and lecturer in social psychology at Cardiff University. His research interests are in the area of social cognition, in particular the link between cognition and emotion. Dr. von Hecker studies how social schemata shape the way we perceive groups and social relations around us and involving us, and how social perception is affected by states of dysphoria and depression. He is also interested in power processes in small groups, and in the way we use language in the attributions of interpersonal events. His most recent project is on the neural correlates of generative reasoning in subclinical depression.
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Looking forward to the future at first anniversary
There is a passage in one of Coelhio’s books which says: “That which happens once, will happen again for sure…”. We do hope that this would also be true for EJOP.
We have already made one year of constant publishing to happen and we wish this to be only the beginning of a long success story.
Looking back on our activity, we can find plenty of reasons to rejoice, but also many occasions to envisage ways to embetter what at first looked like an almost impossible project.
2005 was a prolific year for our small team of editors from Bucharest. In February we launched Europe’s Journal of Psychology in the city of contrasts, formerly known in the interwar period as “The Little Paris”.
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Communication and representation in the construction of the European identity
Our study deals with the issue of the relationship between what is conveyed through mass media and what is represented and organized socially in the form of social reality. The first part of our study focuses on theoretical aspects of this relation, by defining and explaining concepts such as mass-communication, social reality, social representation, cognition, imaginary, and social identity, along with trying to understand the specific relation between these concepts. The second part aims to present and briefly reproduce some of the conclusions of one of our study on European identity, in close relation with the issue of the way in which social representations are constructed from the initial message of the sender with the affective, cognitive and imaginary participation of the receiver.
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The Rise of Ethics Fundamentalism in the UK: A Warning to Europe
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“Research is unethical if it is without scientific merit… student projects do not usually have this potential” (Doyal 2004, section 4.1).
The above quote sounds as if it has come straight from Heller’s Catch 22, but is in fact from the official draft proposal for guidelines on the regulation of student projects in Britain. You have just entered the crazy world of medical ethics in the UK. If you think this doesn’t apply to you because you are a cognitive psychologist & don’t intend to set foot in a hospital until you are ill, you might be shocked. And if you should find yourself ever daring approach a hospital patient, hospital staff, or even setting foot on hospital grounds with a questionnaire, read on and pay close attention.
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Emotional Competence and Leadership Excellence at Johnson & Johnson
A study was conducted on three hundred and fifty-eight Managers across the Johnson & Johnson Consumer & Personal Care Group (JJC&PC Group) globally to assess if there are specific leadership competencies that distinguish high performers from average performers. Participants were randomly selected, then coded for performance rating, potential code, gender, functional group and regional area. More than fourteen hundred employees took part in a one hundred and eighty three question multi-rater survey that measured a variety of competencies associated with leadership performance including those commonly referred to as Emotional Intelligence. Results showed that the highest performing managers have significantly more “emotional competence” than other managers.
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Police Officers Over Career Stages: Satisfaction and Well Being (1)
This study compared work experiences, work satisfactions and psychological well-being of police officers in constable jobs across five career stages using age cutoffs. These stages were: 32 years of age or younger, 33 to 37, 38-42, 43-47 and 48 years or older. Data were collected from 466 police officers in Norway using anonymously completed questionnaires. The five career stage groups differed on personal demographic and work situation characteristics (e.g., shift schedule, police tenure) related to age. Constables in early career stages reported more favourable work outcomes, greater social support, less exhaustion and cynicism, fewer subjective health complaints and better over-all health. There were also many areas where the career stage groups were similar (e.g., job demands, job satisfaction). The findings suggest the importance of particularly responding to the needs of constables in later career stages.
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Effects Of Group Cultural Differences On Task Peformance And Socialization Behaviours
ABSTRACT
Drawing on Hofstede’s theory and research, this study examined the hypothesis that differences in cultural dimensions of individualism/collectivism and homogeneity/heterogeneity will influence the level of task performance and socialization.
Swedes (individualists) and Greeks (collectivists) were assigned to two separate groups. In the first phase of the experiment the two groups were homogenous – consisting of 3 participants from each of the cultures (3 Swedes, 3 Greeks). Their task was to put together a 54piece puzzle. Both homogenous groups were timed and observed separately. The next step was to bring in two heterogeneous (ethnically mixed) groups. For this purpose the size of each homogeneous group was increased to 6 participants by assigning one American, Canadian and German representative. Their task was to put together a larger, 300 piece puzzle within a certain time frame of 25minutes. Individual and group responses were measured using a fine-grained checklist. The hypotheses were: 1) Homogenous individualistic group would finish the task faster than the homogenous collectivistic group. 2) Heterogeneous individualistic group will finish the task faster than heterogeneous collectivistic group. 3) Collectivists will be more socially interactive than individualists. In this research hypotheses 1 and 3 were supported, whereas hypothesis 2 was not. The implications for future research are that individualism/collectivism and homogeneity/heterogeneity of a group may have an influence on group dynamics as it relates to task performance.
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European Diploma in Psychology: a Common Framework for Psychology Education in Europe
European Diploma in Psychology represents a system of standards for the education and training of professional psychologists in Europe. This system is organised under the initiative of the European Union (EU) and the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA), in order to achieve greater mobility of professionals across Europe. The EuroPsy project team was also established to develop the contents of this diploma.
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Humor, an Antidote to Life’s Incongruities

Our interviewee is John Morreall, PhD, Professor of religion at the College of William and Mary, has been studying humor for more than 25 years. He is the current president of the International Society for Humor Studies. Morreall teaches several courses at William and Mary, “Comedy, Tragedy and Religion”, “Modern Religious Thought”, “Theory and Method in the Study of Religion”, and “Roman Catholicism Since 1800″. He has given more than 400 talks and seminars on humor in the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan.
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Positive Contributions of Constructivism to Educational Design
This paper contrasts contemporary traditional and constructivist educational models to show that constructivist models have invaluable advantages over and are more effective than more traditional models. Bruner’s constructivist theory is discussed, as well as some of its influences, then traditional and constructivist educational models are contrasted point-for-point. The paper then refers to factual examples of successful constructivist education models in practice and suggests methods for using constructivist theory to improve traditionally designed curricula.
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Metaphorical Representations of the Consultancy and the Consultant in Romania (2)
The present study was conducted on constructivist analytical frame and it concentrated on the metaphorical representations of the HR specialists about the HR consultants and, generally, about the consultancy process. The study has been developed during January February 2005, by D&D Research, with the participation of HR-Romania. The methodology was mostly quantitative, based on the deployment of 188 questionnaires by face-to-face administration, but, also, by the respondent’s self-evaluation.
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Mentoring – a Valuable Method of Practical Intervention in Need of Theoretical Grounding
The present study aims to give a general overview of the information on mentoring that already exists in the specialized literature. The aim of this necessary synthesis is to emphasize the acute need for its systematic research from a more subtle psychological perspective, one from which the psychology of learning should not miss.
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