Internal disorder pattern as a predictor of adaptation of disabled adults

The article is devoted to the problem of adaptation of disabled adults. The influence of personal characteristics on adaptation and the problems of including people in the Societas are usually studied. This publication examines the influence of the internal disorder pattern on adaptation. The internal disorder pattern is a complex of sensations, knowledge, experiences, motivational changes associated with the violation. The results of an empirical study involving 75 disabled adults are presented. The methods of conversation, survey and statistical processing were used. It was found that the severity of the components of the internal disorder pattern differs in groups of adults with different variants of dysontogeny. The greatest number of correlations was found between the adaptation parameters and the physical component of the internal disorder pattern. The physical component is a predictor of the overall level of adaptability, internality and emotional comfort. This is important for people with severe speech and hearing disorders. The cognitive component is a predictor of internal control in a group of people with hearing impairments. There was no influence of the components of the internal disorder pattern on adaptation in groups of people with visual impairment and mobility disabilities. It is suggested that this influence is mediated through personal characteristics and self-attitude.

High-Definition Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Over the Right Lateral Prefrontal Cortex Increases Maximization Tendencies

People seek the best in every aspect of life. However, little is known about the neurobiological mechanisms supporting this process of maximization. In this study, maximization tendencies were increased by using high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Participants (n = 64) received 2 mA anodal 4 × 1 HD-tDCS or sham stimulation over the right DLPFC in two sessions and subsequently completed an N-back working memory task and a maximization scale (MS). We observed that maximization tendency scores increased during anodal stimulation. Furthermore, the results indicate that this increase in maximization tendency was driven by motivational changes. On the MS, alternative search subscale scores were significantly increased, demonstrating an increase in motivation to evaluate more alternatives; however, the results did not indicate that the increase in maximization tendencies was due to working memory improvement. These results demonstrated that maximization tendencies can be strengthened through noninvasive interventions and that the right DLPFC has a causal relationship with maximization tendencies.

Motivational Languaging for L2 Learning and Motivation

This paper focuses on the effect of motivational languaging activities (MLAs) on EFL learning motivation. Swain (2006) defines languaging as “the process of making meaning and shaping knowledge and experience through language” (p. 98). We extend Swain’s original notion to L2 motivation; through MLAs, L2 learners are encouraged to talk or write about the importance of L2 learning and their visions in their own words. Various types of activities were implemented for elementary, junior high, and high school students: 1) written, 2) spoken, and 3) spoken plus written activities, in individual or group conditions. By using questionnaires, students’ motivational changes including their ideal L2 self and the ought-to L2 self (Dörnyei, 2009) were measured at the beginning and the end of the participation in the activities. The results indicated that students in experimental groups exhibited various increases in their motivations, compared to no significant changes in control groups. Furthermore, the written form proved to be a more effective type of activities, especially when students engaged in it individually. Findings suggest the usefulness of MLAs for enhancing L2 learning motivation.

Public Figure Stalking and Attacks

The operational research and understanding of public figure stalking and attacks continue to grow. This chapter reviews the current science as it pertains to politicians, celebrities, royalty, judges, religious leaders, corporate figures, athletes, and journalists. New concepts and research concerning the publicly intimate figure, fixation, grandiosity, intensity of pursuit, mental disorder and persistent emotional disturbance, target dispersion, extreme overvalued beliefs, and motivational changes are also discussed and applied to both threat assessment and threat management.

Injury alters motivational trade-offs in calves during the healing period

Injury can produce long-lasting motivational changes that may alter decisions made under risk. Our objective was to determine whether a routine painful husbandry procedure, hot-iron disbudding, affects how calves trade off risk avoidance against a competing motivation (i.e., feeding), and whether this response depends on time since injury. We used a startle test to evaluate this trade-off in calves disbudded 0 or 21 days previously and non-injured control calves. For 3 days, calves were individually habituated to the testing arena in which they received a 0.5 L milk meal via a rubber teat. On the 4thday, upon approaching the milk reward, the calf was startled by a sudden noise. We assessed the duration and magnitude of the calf’s startle response, their latency to return to the milk bottle, and duration spent suckling after startling. No treatment differences were observed in the duration and magnitude of the startle response or in the probability of returning to the bottle after startling. However, among those who did return, disbudded calves spent longer suckling, indicating they accepted more risk in order to feed compared to controls. In addition, calves with 21-day-old injuries tended to return to the bottle faster compared to newly disbudded calves and controls. We suggest that hot-iron disbudding increases calves’ motivation to suckle, as they were more likely to prioritize this behaviour over risk avoidance compared to control calves. This effect was most evident 21 days after disbudding, indicating that injury can produce long-term changes in motivational state.

Extrinsic stressors modulate resource evaluations: insights from territoriality under artificial noise

Background Competition is considered to rely on the value attributed to resources by animals, but the influence of extrinsic stressors on this value remains unexplored. Although natural or anthropogenic environmental stress often drives decreased competition, assumptions that this relies on resource devaluation are without formal evidence. According to theory, physiological or perceptual effects may influence contest behaviour directly, but motivational changes due to resource value are expected to manifest as behavioural adjustments only in interaction with attainment costs and resource benefits. Thus, we hypothesise that stressor-induced resource devaluations will impose greater effects when attainment costs are high, but not when resource benefits are higher. Noise may elicit such effects because it impacts the acoustic environment and imposes physiological and behavioural costs to animals. Therefore, we manipulated the acoustic environment using playbacks of artificial noise to test our hypotheses in the territorial male Siamese fighting fish, Betta splendens. Results Compared to a no-playback control, noise reduced defense motivation only when territory owners faced comparatively bigger opponents that impose greater injury costs, but not when territories also contained bubble nests that offer reproductive benefits. In turn, nest-size decreases were noted only after contests under noise treatment, but temporal nest-size changes relied on cross-contest variation in noise and comparative opponent size. Thus, the combined effects of noise are conditional on added attainment costs and offset by exceeding resource benefits. Conclusion Our findings provide support for the hypothesised modulation of resource value under extrinsic stress and suggest implications for competition under increasing anthropogenic activity.

Modernization man: the significance of Ronald Inglehart’s theory for the social sciences

Ronald Inglehart, an outstanding political scientist, passed on May 8, 2021. This article attempts to pay tribute to him as a scholar and a person by narration of his theory and its significance. The authors emphasize that the idea of sociocultural modernization was central for him. His theory’s humanism is that a human and their motivational changes become a core of global modernization transformation. A concise account of Inglehart modernization theory is given from changes of social economic conditions and security to basic values shift to increase in freedom of choice and its institutional consolidation. Noted that despite of Inglehart being liberal and progressist, his theory is just scientific, but not a normative knowledge or an ideological conception. Its propositions have been tested multiple times with the data from the largest survey project ever, World Values Survey together with European Values Study. We recognize organizational merits of Inglehart who established and coordinated this survey project and a big community around it for a long time. We consider the place of his theory to be among other academic theories of global development like those in historical macrosociology and institutional economy. An attempt is made to learn lessons for Ukraine from Inglehart theory. Ukraine has not demonstrated a considerable shift to self-expression values, and objective conditions for it are unfavorable at the moment. In fact, an “economic miracle” and a long peace are needed for this. Conceptually, a coherent integration of the modernization theory and economic institutionalism is needed. Translation and popularization of Inglehart’s work, as well as wider usage of data from values surveys remain topical for Ukraine. After all, Ronald Inglehart himself deserves to be a scientist role model for us.

Students’ Motivational Trajectories and Academic Success in Math-Intensive Study Programs: Why Short-Term Motivational Assessments Matter

Students’ expectancy-value beliefs play an important role in shaping their educational choices and behaviors. Drawing on Eccles et al.’s situated expectancy-value theory, we investigated short-term changes in students’ expectancy-value beliefs in gateway math courses for beginning university students. In Study 1, we collected data from first-semester students in three math-intensive study programs at the beginning, midpoint, and end of the semester (N = 1,004). Latent change score analyses revealed a significant decline in students’ expectancy, intrinsic value, and utility value, and an increase in perceived psychological and effort costs over the first half of the semester. These maladaptive motivational changes predicted students’ end-of-term study program satisfaction, exam performance, and course dropout. Study 2 then explored weekly motivational changes in the very first weeks of the semester using a subsample from Study 1 (N = 773). We found that students experienced a “motivational shock” between Weeks 2 and 3 of the semester that coincided with their first performance feedback on mandatory math worksheets. The motivational shock was characterized by a rapid decline in students’ intrinsic and utility values, and a significant increase in their perceived cost. Similar to Study 1, the motivational shock in Study 2 predicted students’ end-of-term study program satisfaction, exam performance, and course dropout. Across both studies, female students and students with comparatively lower prior achievement experienced more negative motivational changes. Our studies underscore the importance of considering short-term motivational changes as early warning signs of academic struggles and course dropout in math-intensive fields.