Two moral abilities are particularly important for living together in a democracy: firstly the ability of all citizens to judge and to act in accordance with their own moral principles; secondly, the ability to solve conflicts by means of fear-free discussions instead of the use of violence and the exercise of power. As research shows, both basic abilities, which are often summed up under the overall concept of moral competence, are essential for a democratic way of life and the functioning of democratic institutions. They are important for many things, e.g., for helping people in distress (not just readiness to help), for making quick decisions, learning effectively, for tolerating ambiguity, and for rejecting violence as a means of social change. Research also shows that the school promotes moral competence less effec¬tively and less sustainably than is needed and seems possible today.

In this editorial, I attempt to give a broad overview on the research on moral competence and its application in education and educational policy-making in the past thirty years, in which I have been personally involved. It is not a comprehensive handbook article, which remains to be written.

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In this interview Prof. Emily Holmes addresses some of the most recent developments in the area of experimental psychopathology. At the core of her interest for this field stands a pervasive preoccupation for unpacking the importance of the imaginary in terms of our mental functioning and, in particular, the relationship between the mental imagery and emotion. Prof. Holmes explores, in this context, several important issues for academics and practitioners alike, from methodological aspects to the broader concern for making research results directly applicable and disseminating them effectively to different groups and audiences. In this respect much can be learned from Prof. Holmes’s career trajectory and, towards the end, she offers students and early career researchers some valuable advice about the importance of curiosity and passion for science in succeeding as a researcher, as a psychologist and, overall, as a successful “academic citizen”.

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Abstract
Alexithymia, characterized by difficulty in identifying and describing feelings and a deficit in the cognitive modulation of emotions, has been linked with health related problems. Indirect empirical evidences suggest the possibility that alexithymia may potentially also relate with emotion regulation difficulties. However, the exact nature of the relationship between the two constructs has not been fully explored. The relationship between the two constructs may reflect the overlap of the content domains or dependence of one (e.g., emotion regulation difficulties) on the other (e.g., alexithymia). Given the link between the two constructs, it is also likely that alexithymics’ health related difficulties may result from their impaired ability to regulate emotions. The present study tested the above theoretical propositions on 27 alexithymic and 26 non-alexithymic participants who were assessed on self-report measures of emotion regulation difficulties and general mental health. The findings revealed that compared to non-alexithymics, the alexithymics showed greater emotion regulation difficulties and such affective difficulties differentiated the two groups with a very high accuracy. Further, the observation of two orthogonal components (emotion regulation difficulties and alexithymia) with a minimum overlap suggests that these constructs represent two independent domains of behavior. Findings also revealed that alexithymics reported more health related problems as compared to non-alexithymics and the health problems of alexithymics are likely to be an outcome of their emotion regulation difficulties (indicated by a non-significant health difference after controlling for emotion regulation difficulties). The findings imply that alexithymia is associated with emotion regulation difficulties and such difficulties largely contribute to health related problems.

Keywords: alexithymia, emotion regulation difficulties, emotion regulation, mental health.

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Mustafa Koyuncu
Nevsehir University

Lisa Fiksenbaum
York University

Abstract
This study examined the relationship between self-reports of hospital culture and indicators of work satisfaction and engagement, perceptions of hospital functioning and quality of nursing care, and psychological well-being of nursing staff in Turkish hospitals. It represents the first study of its kind. Data were collected from 224 staff nurses using anonymously completed questionnaires, a 37% response rate. Two aspects of hospital culture were included: hospital support and hospital health and safety climate. Hierarchical regression analyses, controlling for both personal demographic and work situation characteristics, indicated that hospital culture accounted for significant increments in explained variance on most outcome measures, particularly work outcomes. Interestingly, hospital support and hospital health and safety climate were associated with different outcomes in several cases. Explanations for the association of hospital culture with various outcomes are offered along with potentially practical implications.

Keywords: hospital culture, work satisfaction, well-being, Turkish hospitals.

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Catherine M. Brusten
PhD. Patriarchou Grigoriou 11

Abstract
An exploratory study sought to reconcile certain contradictions regarding the role of mothers as presented in the social science literature through probing subjective accounts of mothers in the rapidly changing social milieu of Greece. Previous research that has focused on motherhood in Greek society has highlighted how women who become mothers have been given iconic status. However, modern Cretan mothers are increasingly faced with novel challenges. The subjective perceptions of motherhood of Cretan women attending a community group which focused on parenting were probed. Qualitative analysis was carried out on the written narrative accounts. Participants’ responses corresponded to the following levels of narrative analysis: personal, interpersonal/transgenerational, and societal-ideological. Narratives revealed that mothers were experiencing high levels of personal and interpersonal dissonance which impinged upon their identities and challenged them in their roles as mothers. The women’s narrative accounts underscored the emotional and social importance of having achieved the coveted role of being a mother, the stressful and pressure inducing social context which mandates how the mothering role should be enacted, and dialectics between the personal, intergenerational and social levels of experience. The implications of these findings are discussed with regard to identity and relatedness within the family and how social and professional constructs of mothering lag behind social changes.

Keywords: motherhood, Crete, subjective accounts, qualitative research.

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Abstract
In a recent analysis (July 29, 2010) Hewitt Associates have reported a steady decline in the global employee engagement levels. According to the report this is the largest drop in the engagement levels that has been observed in the past 15 years. This clearly highlights the need for some concrete mechanism to improve the engagement levels of the employees in organizations. In response to the dire need for organizations to increase engagement levels of employees, the importance of the human resource development (HRD) climate cannot be overlooked. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of HRD Climate on employee engagement in select business organizations in Indian. An attempt is made to closely examine the interrelationship between factors of HRD Climate and employee engagement. The study was conducted on 85 business executives from both private and public sector manufacturing and service firms in India. Data was analyzed using correlation and regression analysis. The results of the study revealed that the general climate dimension of HRD Climate was the most significant predictor of employee engagement followed by the HRD mechanism dimension. Thus, by studying HRD Climate and employee engagement together, this paper makes a significant contribution to the existing dearth of academic literature on employee engagement and HRD Climate in an Indian context.

Keywords: HRD, HRD Climate, employee engagement, vigor, dedication.

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Philip Barnard
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit

Abstract
Lakoff & Johnson (1999) argue that the understanding of positive or negative concepts is structured around our sensorimotor experience whereby “Happy is up” and “Sad is down”. Consistent with this, Meier and Robinson (2004) found that positive evaluations of words gave faster responses to spatial probes in an upper region of space compared to lower regions of space, and vice versa for negative evaluations. However, “She blew her top” or “He dropped his grudge” are both common metaphors despite reversing the basic mapping. Using Meier and Robinson’s (2004) paradigm, we generated “negative-up” and “positive-down” phrases. Results showed a probe position x valence interaction in the opposite direction to that found by Meier and Robinson (2004). This suggests the relationship between direction and valence is not necessarily a single mapping, as envisaged by Lakoff & Johnson (1999).

Keywords: embodied cognition, conceptual metaphor theory, spatial attention.

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Abstract
Domestic violence is a traumatic experience faced primarily by women all over the world. Thus, ways in which victims of domestic violence cope with the stress caused by violence emerge as in important area of inquiry. Calling attention to the issue, Charles C. Benight, Alexandra S. Harding-Taylor, Amanda M. Midboe and Robert L. Durham developed the DV-CSE scale in 2004. The DV-CSE scale aims to measure the coping self efficacy of female victims of domestic violence following the latest attack, and is used in clinics in the US that provide support to victims of violence who have suffered physical or psychological damage. In Turkey, where one in every three women is a victim of domestic violence, there are no studies on the subject. This present study represents the adaptation of the DV-CSE scale to Turkish and comprises validity and reliability analyses. The sample of the study consisted of 258 women who applied to various institutions in and around Izmir due to domestic violence. All of these women had faced some type of domestic violence within the previous six months (physical, sexual, emotional or economic). Following the completion of the pre-adaptation study, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to examine the validity of the measure. To investigate reliability, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used. The other method used to examine the reliability of the measure was structural reliability calculation. The analyses conducted showed that the DV-CSE-T (Turkish form) is a uni-dimensional and highly reliable scale for measuring levels of domestic violence coping self efficacy.

Keywords: Domestic violence coping self-efficacy measure, violence, domestic violence against women, coping self-efficacy, cognitive schemes.

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Abstract
The present study attempts to examine the effect of Muslim Religiosity Personality on Resilience. The sample for the study consisted of 200 adolescent Muslim students, from Kerala, India. Both males and females were included in the study. The age of the sample ranged from 15 to 18 years of age. The Muslim Religiosity-Personality Inventory (MRPI) (Krauss and Hamzah, 2009), that purports to assess Islamic religiosity in terms of Islamic worldview and religious personality, was used in the study. Resilience was assessed using the Bharathiar University Resilience Scale (BURS) (Annalakshmi, 2009). Comparison of criterion groups on their scores on the scale using ANOVA revealed that the high and low resilient are distinguished from one another on their religious personality but not on Islamic worldview: The highly resilient were higher on Islamic rituals (religious practice and ritual behaviour indicative of the manifestation of one’s religious worldview) and on Mu’amalat (religiously guided behaviours towards one’s family, fellow human beings and the rest of creation including animals and the natural environment). The findings of the present study suggest that cognitive components alone are not adequate to forge relationship between religion and resilience. They clearly indicate that knowledge alone does not make a significant difference in resilience until it manifests in behaviour. Religiosity is both belief/knowledge and action, and in this present study the resilient participants are those able to actually put their beliefs/knowledge into practice.

Keywords: Islamic worldview, religious personality, resilience, adolescent.

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Abstract
Psychobiography was invented by Sigmund Freud while investigating the psychological determinants of Leonardo da Vinci’s artistic creativity. Following the founder of psychoanalysis there were about 300 psychobiographic analyses published until 1960. From the 1930’s psychoanalysis also influenced the unfolding personality psychology trend called personology in the USA, led by G. W. Allport and Henry A. Murray, who also worked with life stories. However, the major methodological problems of classic psychobiography and the rising of nomothetic approaches in personality research effaced studying lives between the 1950’s and the 1980’s. The narrative turn in psychology made life story analysis accepted and popular again, and from the 90’s we can talk about “a renaissance of psychobiography”. The new endeavors encompass psychoanalytical and personological traditions and also integrate narrative perspectives. Contemporary psychobiography is constantly widening its focus: not only artists, but scientists, political and historical figures are also analyzed with more explicit methodology and comparative proceedings. In addition to the fact that psychobiography is a qualitative research method, it is very useful in exploring the psychology of creativity and personality itself and hence can be used as an instrument to train psychology students and prepare them for practical activities like psychotherapy or consultations. With the application of psychobiography the knowledge about human functioning and self-awareness is deepening, since it can be viewed as a practical realization of hermeneutical dialogue leading to the understanding of the human mind.

Keywords: psychobiography, psychoanalysis, personology, creativity, personality research, education of psychologists, dialogue.

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