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The Scale for Interpersonal Behaviour (SIB), a multidimensional self-report measure of difficulty and distress in state assertiveness, was psychometrically evaluated in a large sample comprising 1242 unselected psychiatric inpatients. In addition to an overall measure of assertion, the SIB contains four factorially-derived dimensions: (I) negative assertion, (II) expression of and dealing with personal limitations, (III) initiating assertiveness, and (IV) positive assertion. The factors were originally interpreted in data of 703 members of a society for phobic individuals. Evidence is presented on the factorial constancy of the SIB measuring constructs across samples, biological sex, age, and educational level. Outstanding internal consistency figures are also given. Construct validity is established in a subset of the inpatients in relation to the Assertion Self-Statement Test-Revised. Both descriptive and specialized norms are presented for psychiatric inpatients. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Despite increasing evidence that identity changes in adulthood do take place, there is little knowledge about what the process of change looks like. We perceive identity change as a change in the organization and rules that underlie identity commitments. Based on script theory (Tomkins, 1995) and on notions about the processes in adult development and clinical theories, we developed a conceptualization of this process. Conflicts are seen as the potential trigger of change. People may react to conflicts with assimilation, withdrawal, or accommodation. Accommodation implies identity change. The process of accommodation consists of increasing exploration and knowledge of oneself. We distinguish different steps in this accommodation process. In a case study, empirical evidence for these steps was found.

Hofstede's dimension of national culture termed Masculinity-Femininity [Hofstede (1991). Cultures and organizations: software of the mind. London: McGraw-Hill] is proposed to be of relevance for understanding national-level differences in self-assessed agoraphobic fears. This prediction is based on the classical work of Fodor [Fodor (1974). In: V. Franks & V. Burtle (Eds.), Women in therapy: new psychotherapies for a changing society. New York: Brunner/Mazel]. A unique data set comprising 11 countries (total N = 5491 students) provided the opportunity of scrutinizing this issue. It was hypothesized and found that national Masculinity (the degree to which cultures delineate sex roles, with masculine or tough societies making clearer differentiations between the sexes than feminine or modest societies do) would correlate positively with national agoraphobic fear levels (as assessed with the Fear Survey Schedule-III). Following the correction for sex and age differences across national samples, a significant and large effect-sized national-level (ecological) r = +0.67 (P = 0.01) was found. A highly feminine society such as Sweden had the lowest, whereas the champion among the masculine societies, Japan, had the highest national Agoraphobic fear score. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

The objective of the present study was to examine the effects of parental bonding and cognitive coping in the relationship between negative life events and depressive symptoms in adolescence. A sample of 1310 adolescents attending an intermediate vocational education school filled out a questionnaire. Adolescents with a poor parental bonding relationship seemed to be more vulnerable to depressive symptoms in the face of adverse life events than adolescents with more optimal bonding styles. Cognitive coping strategies seemed to play an even more important role. The use of selfblame, rumination, catastrophizing, positive refocusing, and positive reappraisal appeared to be related to depressive symptoms. In addition, self-blame, rumination, and positive reappraisal seemed to have a moderating role in the relationship between the amount of stress experienced and depressive symptoms. Developing prevention and intervention programs aimed at the formation of optimal bonding relationships and teaching adolescents adaptive cognitive coping strategies seems advisable.

Secondary analysis of longitudinal data from Dutch primary education was used to assess to what extent differences between educationally disadvantaged pupils and other pupils increase during their school careers. For language and arithmetic the differences between pupils with poorly educated and well-educated parents increases, while the disadvantage of Turkish and Moroccan pupils in non-verbal intelligence slightly decreases. Most progress was made in schools and cohorts with a low starting level. Differences in language achievement between schools were greatest where pupils of poorly educated parents were in a setting with many other disadvantaged pupils. Several cohorts per school were included in our analyses so that the development of schools could be examined. However, no significant differences were found between cohorts within schools regarding the size of the Matthew effect.

As a supplement to the International Adult Literacy Survey, the Netherlands devoted special attention to the literacy proficiency of older adults. A close look at the literacy skills of older adults and their use in daily life is relevant because demographic developments, individualisation, the position of older employees in the labour market and technological innovations require an increasing level of literacy skills. Accordingly, this chapter compares the literacy skills of older adults with other age groups, and presents an analysis of the determinants of literacy proficiency of older adults. In addition, results from follow-up interviews conducted with 40 older adults who had low proficiency scores in the Netherlands are presented. This includes (a) the kind of problems they experience in daily life, (b) the kind of coping strategies they develop, and (c) their attitude towards educational interventions. The results show that the literacy proficiency of older adults gives reasons for concern. They score significantly lower than other age groups. However, many older adults develop practical coping strategies, such as using social networks, assertiveness in asking for help, etc. Yet, some of the coping strategies are vulnerable because of societal changes such as rationalisation in industry and public services.

This article explores the organisation of work and working times in IT. It builds on case-studies in five European countries: Denmark, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK. At first glance, the organisation of work and working time seems quite traditional: a full-time permanent contract is still the standard. Yet, new forms of employment do occur. Relevant factors in this respect are the nature of the service provided, the nature of the workforce and flexibility requirements.

(2002). The Role of Higher Education in Lifelong Learning: The Dutch Case. The Journal of Continuing Higher Education: Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 37-44.

Relationships between a mathematical measurement model and its real-world applications are discussed. A distinction is made between large data matrices commonly found in educational measurement and smaller matrices found in attitude and personality measurement. Nonparametric methods are evaluated for estimating item response functions and (unconditional and conditional) inter-item covariances.

The project described in this article concerns the effects of the operation of in-vehicle information systems on traffic safety. A method is described to track down potential safety effects within a relatively short period of time to support the authorities in the decision to deny or allow the system at hand on the market. Basically the method consists of 3 steps: a checklist, a laboratory test, and guidelines for a final empirical assessment of potential safety hazards.

‘Cerebellum’ is een verkleinwoord en heeft, als alle verkleinwoorden, iets liefkozends. Anders dan de grote hersenen past het cerebellum in de kom van een hand, wat de andere hand vrijlaat het voorzichtig op te nemen, te draaien, met de vingers de kwabben iets uiteen te duwen en het patroon van groeven en spleten van alle zijden te bekijken. Het is een bijna Escherachtig effect dat men dan het orgaan in handen houdt dat bewegingen als deze stuurt: het cerebellum coordineert de motoriek.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded as 12 subjects performed a delayed matching to sample task. We presented two bilateral abstract shapes and cued spatially which had to be memorized for a subsequent matching task: left, right or both. During memorization a posterior slow negative ERP wave developed over the hemisphere contralateral to the memorized shape. This effect was similar in high and low memory load trials while the memory figures were visible (for 1000 ms). As the figures disappeared (for 1500 ms), the effect persisted only in the low memory load conditions. We suggest that the contralateral negativity reflects a visual short-term memory process and that capacity limitation in the high memory load condition causes this process to collapse.

In this article we review studies of situations and situation taxonomies from the perspective of trait psychology. Objections to trait psychology are discussed and several refutations are recapitulated. The relation between traits and situations is analysed, as well as the affinity that both concepts demonstrate. Some taxonomic properties are discussed, exemplified by one of the most common and detailed trait taxonomies to date, the Abridged Big Five Circumplex, and by seven situation taxonomies. Personality psychologists, besides trait psychologists, have stressed the need to no longer debate the existence of traits, but to specify their nature with increasing precision in different situations. What is needed is a taxonomy of personality characteristics that systematically incorporates situational information, so that traits can be questioned in their context, that is, in a context that allows for individual differences in the expression of trait-relevant behaviour. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

mental social psychology (Vol. 21, pp. 181-227). New York: Academic. Tesser, A., & Achee, J. (1994). Aggression, love, conformity, and other social psychological catastrophes. In R. R. Vallacher & A. Nowak (Eds.), Dynamical systems in social psychology (pp. 96-109). San Diego, CA: Academic. Tesser, A., & Beach, S. R. H. (1995). Stressful life events, relationship satisfaction, and negative affect: Some non-linear dynamics. Unpublished manuscript, University of Georgia, Athens. Turing, A. M. (1950). Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind, 59, 433-460. Vallacher, R. R., & Nowak, A. (Eds.). (1994). Dynamical systems in social psychology. San Diego, CA: Academic. Vallacher, R., Nowak, A., & Kaufman, J. (1994). Intrinsic dynamics of social judgement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 20-34. van Geert, P. (1991). A dynamic systems model of cognitive and language growth. Psychological Review, 98, 3-53.

This study examined differences between children with autism and control children in the ability to follow another person's direction of gaze. In Expt 1, children with autism, Down syndrome and normally developing children were given two tasks. The gaze monitoring task (GMT) measured the child's spontaneous tendency to follow gaze direction in response to another person's change of head and eye movement. The visual perspective taking task (VPT) measured the child's ability to compute and report what the other person was looking at, when instructed to do so. Results showed that the majority of Down syndrome and normal children passed both tasks. In contrast, children with autism failed the GMT. This failure could not have been due to a lack of the relevant geometric skill, as they passed the VPT. This geometric skill was examined further in Expt 2, using a fine discrimination task which tested children's ability to discriminate degrees of change in the orientation of gaze. Children with autism were well within their developmental age level on this task. These results indicate a dissociation between (impaired) spontaneous monitoring and (intact) geometric analysis of gaze-direction.

The current study was designed to provide a rigorous investigation of the locus of task-inappropriate (impulsive) responding in ADHD children with and without tics. For this purpose we used a variant of Sternberg's (1969) response bias task. The task measures a set of mental operations, namely, preparing a planned response, carrying out or stopping a planned response, and preparing to execute an alternative response. In the first study, we determined the effect of age in a normal sample. As expected, task performance improved as a function of age. Younger children had problems changing a response set. In the second experiment, we compared ADHD children with and without tics with normal children. Unexpectedly, the noticeable task inefficiency of the patient groups was not related to (a) a hasty scan of the display, (b) an inability to change response set, or (c) a speed-accuracy trade-off. Implications for and a discussion about the response inhibition hypothesis in ADHD are discussed.

The development of the child's `theory of mind' is the subject of considerable research interest. An important part of this work is concerned with children's understanding of mental states and recognition of emotions. Both areas are relevant to how children function in social situations and are likely to play an important role in socially skilled behaviour. We describe an approach in which `theory of mind' ideas are applied in a social skills-intervention programmes. The intervention programme is described, and its evaluation indicates that this type of training has a positive effect on the development of social skills.

Een leven lang leren wordt de laatste jaren onlosmakelijk verbonden met de kennissamenleving. Wie als actief burger of op de arbeidsmarkt wil overleven, dient ook na en naast de initiele opleiding te willen en te kunnen blijven leren. Daarbij gaat het niet alleen en uitsluitend om leren binnen formele onderwijsinstellingen, maar ook om informeel leren in de vriendenkring, bij hobbies of op het werk. Dat werken en leren samen kunnen gaan is niet nieuw, maar allerminst vanzelfsprekend. De werkplek kan een stimulerende leeromgeving bieden, maar ook een geestdodende plek die van kwaad tot erger leidt.

Presentation rate of stimuli is a crucial factor in Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), that is, especially in ADHD children without tics ( n = 24), the ability to inhibit a response decreases in conditions with fast and slow presentation rates of stimuli.

Many defences of multiculturalist educational initiatives conjoin a‘liberal’ or ‘radical’ moral/political view—that education should endeavour to treat students with respect, and that respecting non-dominant,‘marginalised’ students requires protecting them from the hegemonic domination of the dominant culture—with what appears to be an equally radical epistemological view, according to which respecting minority students and cultures requires respecting their culturally specific epistemologies, which in turn requires refraining from imposing upon them a dominating hegemonic epistemology concerning the nature of truth, rational justification, and so on. In this paper I argue (1) that this‘radical’ epistemological position is fatally flawed; and (2) that, if true, it would undermine, rather than undergird, the favoured moral l political view. I argue, that is, that proponents of‘radical’ pedagogy would do better to reject the associated‘radical’ epistemological view in favour of a more traditional,‘conservative’ one.

Data concerning 19 health-related behaviours and associated beliefs were collected by questionnaire from 282 students in the Netherlands on two occasions over one year. While all behaviours showed moderate stability, there were variations in the degree of change. The highest stability was reported for sleep time, tooth brushing frequency, seat belt usage and health care service utilization. The least stable behaviours included regular exercise and various dietary measures. Predictors of changes in smoking, dietary fat intake, alcohol consumption and regular exercise were analysed in detail. Beliefs assessed at year 1 in the importance of these activities for health predicted changes in behaviour over the study year independently of prior behaviour levels. Awareness of the risks associated with behaviours, and explicit wishes to modify behaviour patterns (eg stop smoking, exercise more), did not predict change from year 1 to year 2. The results indicated that health behaviours vary in their stabil...

In addition to recent meta‐analyses, the goal of this article is to give a narrative review and a meta‐analysis of 20 studies into the effectiveness of communication skills training programs, using a cumulative microtraining format (CMT). The aims of all training programs are directed at increasing knowledge of social skills, extension of the behavior repertoire and change of experience of communication situations (reduction of anxiousness and improvement of self‐confidence). Four groups of trainees are included in the study: (1) students, (2) paraprofessionals, (3) clients with problems in living, (4) communication skill trainers. The results of our meta‐analysis are comparable with the results of other meta‐analyses. The strongest effect is found for knowledge, but the effects for behavior and experience are also substantial. Explanations for the strong effects are: (1) the careful analysis of communication situations before the development of the training programs; (2) the cumulative character...

L'A. se demande si, comme l'affirme Quine, le naturalisme est la seule option viable pour l'epistemologie. Il examine le rejet de la conception de la philosophie des sciences comme philosophie premiere qui en decoule a partir d'une analyse des conceptions de Quine et Gibson

Smith, E. R. (in press). What do connectionism and social psychology offer each other? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Taylor, D. M., & McKirnan, D. J. (1984). A five-stage model of intergroup relations. British Jourmal of Social Psychology, 23, 291-300. Turner, J. C., Oakes, P. J., Haslam, S. A., & McGarty, C. (1994). Self and collective: Cognition and social context. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 454-463.

A class of statistical models is proposed for longitudinal network data. The dependent variable is the changing (or evolving) relation network, represented by two or more observations of a directed graph with a fixed set of actors. The network evolution is modeled as the consequence of the actors making new choices, or withdrawing existing choices, on the basis of functions, with fixed and random components, that the actors try to maximize. Individual and dyadic exogenous variables can be used as covariates. The change in the network is modeled as the stochastic result of network effects (reciprocity, transitivity, etc.) and these covariates. The existing network structure is a dynamic constraint for the evolution of the structure itself. The models are continuous-time Markov chain models that can be implemented as simulation models. The model parameters are estimated from observed data. For estimating and testing these models, statistical procedures are proposed that are based on the method of moments. The statistical procedures are implemented using a stochastic approximation algorithm based on computer simulations of the network evolution process.

In interpreting measurements of brain processes it is necessary to make the model used explicit. A concept such as attention cannot be used in the description of brain activities without a model of the relation of mental and neural processes.