The paper presents an overview of research on working memory as a predictor of early school achievements. We contrast two main areas of research on the role of working memory in school achievements: the first concerns the structural model of working memory and the second focuses on executive functions. Then, we discuss the facet model of working memory as a promising approach merging the two research branches on working memory tasks as predictors of early school achievements. At the end we (...) present exemplary results of the research conducted on a national sample of six- and seven-year-olds in Poland, which indicates strong relation of working memory functions with the measures of competences in mathematics, reading, and writing. Additionally, the mediation analyses, with parents’ education as a covariate, indicate that the influence of age on achievements in math, reading, and writing in six- and seven-year olds is mediated by working memory functions. (shrink)
Departing from the model suggested by Luyckx, Schwarz, Berzonsky et al., the relationships between identity and educational context, social participation, and identity information processing style were investigated. Participants were 972 students from six vocational schools in Poznań. The students, within these six schools, attended Grades I-III of three types of vocational schools: basic vocational schools, technical upper secondary schools, and specialized upper secondary schools. Three questionnaires were used: The Dimensions of Identity Development Scale, which measures five identity dimensions according to (...) the concept of Luyckx, Schwarz, Berzonsky et al., Social Participation Questionnaire, developed by Brzezińska, Rękosiewicz and Hejmanowski, enabling identification of the type of social participation, and the Polish adaptation of M. Berzonsky’s Identity Style Inventory 4 authored by A. Senejko, to examine identity styles. The results showed that the students from basic vocational schools and technical upper secondary schools were more often characterized by the normative identity style, whereas the students from specialized upper secondary schools manifested a greater tendency to engage themselves in exploration, both adaptive and ruminative. (shrink)
One of the important determinants of development during the transition to adulthood is the undertaking of social roles characteristic of adults, also in the area of finishing formal education, which usually coincides with beginning fulltime employment. In the study discussed in this paper, it has been hypothesized that continuing full-time education above the age of 26, a phenomenon rarely observed in Poland, can be considered as an unpunctual event that may be connected with difficulties in the process of identity formation. (...) Relationships between identity dimensions and identity statuses, and age and educational context were analyzed. 693 individuals aged 19-35 took part in the study. The participants attended three types of educational institutions: full-time university studies, part-time university studies, and full-time post-secondary school. Among the students of full-time university studies predictable dependencies, also in respect of highlevels of indicators of identity crisis and a high frequency of diffused identity occurrence, were observed. Such dependencies were not found in the group of full-time post-secondary school students. (shrink)
In this paper, we present a new questionnaire for the assessment of self-control as an individual trait. We describe the process of construction of this assessment tool. We also report the results of relevant validation studies. The questionnaire has two independent versions, one based on self-reports and another one based on other-reports. The first version consists of five subscales, called Initiative and Persistence, Proactive Control, Switching and Flexibility, Inhibition and Adjournment, and Goal Maintenance. Seven samples of participants took part in (...) the validation study. The second version has not been split into subscales. Both versions obtained satisfactory indices of internal consistency, assessed with Cronbach’s alpha. The NAS-50 and NAS-40 scores were highly correlated with other measures of self-control, including Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone’s self-control scale. They also proved to be entirely independent of general intelligence. In conclusion, both versions can be regarded reliable and valid enough, and therefore suitable for the assessment of trait self-control for research purposes. (shrink)
The paper pores over the recent conceptions of normative judgement developed against the background of advances in psychology and neuroscience. It begins by analyzing what normative claim of morality and law consists of before presenting and criticizing the Social Intuitionist Model of normative judgement developed by Jonathan Haidt. The model poses serious challenges for well-established normative concepts, and the concept of normativity as objective reason for action in particular. A question is asked of what the relationship between philosophical conceptions and (...) the findings of neuroscience should be. The conclusion is that, in the face of new scientific facts, philosophers have no choice but to carefully revise their conceptual schemes. (shrink)
This study aimed to verify the psychometric properties of the Polish version of the Grit-S questionnaire. Grit is understood here as the perseverance and passion for long-term goals, and it encompasses two dimensions: Consistency of Interest and Perseverance of Effort. The sample comprised N = 270 participants aged 18-34. We performed confirmatory factor analyses to verify the dimensional structure of grit, multi-group confirmatory factor analysis to compare the structure across gender, and correlation analysis to examine external validity. Findings showed satisfactory (...) parameters for Grit-S including: reliability, structural and external validity, and measurement invariance across gender groups. The results support the possibility of using the Grit-S questionnaire in research exploring the predictors of success. (shrink)
There are two opposing concepts of biological information, or bioinformation, discussed in the modern philosophy of biology: genocentric and holistic. As a main proponent of the former I consider British evolutionist John Maynard Smith and his teleosemantic theory of bioinformation. The latter was proposed by American philosopher Susan Oyama in the form of so-called Developmental Systems Theory. In Maynard Smith proposal bioinformation is strictly gene-based and any non-genetic element of a living organism cannot be considered as a vehicle of informational (...) content. Such information is transmitted from parents to offspring inside the germ cells and every time serves as a blueprint for building the whole organisms. DST claims the opposite: bioinformation cannot be reduced to genetic elements only and is scattered throughout the whole living system. What is more, biological information is not simply transmitted between generations but every time rebuilt from available developmental resources: bioinformation has not only it is phylogeny, but it is ontogeny as well. The aim of this paper is twofold. First: to present the foundations of both aforementioned theories to the reader and second: to discuss the different objections raised against them. (shrink)
Polish-German relations in the first half of 2014 were dominated by the Ukraine crisis. This study is an attempt to answer the question of how Polish and German press assessed the cooperation of both countries in resolving the conflict in Ukraine; to what extent the most widely read magazines associated themselves with the decisions of their politicians and the feelings of their own societies and how much understanding they showed for the arguments of their EU partner. The analysis focuses on (...) the unprecedented mission of the Weimar Triangle foreign ministers to Ukraine in February 2014, which led to an agreement between the Ukrainian opposition and President Viktor Yanukovych. A turning point was the visit paid by Radoslaw Sikorski and Frank-Walter Steinmeier to St. Petersburg in June 2014. The next meetings agreed on by EU partners were held without inviting the Polish partner. In view of the speed of events in the selected time interval, the articles subjected to analysis were taken from the most widely read online editions of national daily newspapers in Poland and Germany. (shrink)
We predicted that short-term training of executive control would improve both cognitive control itself and general fluid intelligence. We randomly assigned 120 high school students to the experimental and control groups. The former underwent a 14-day training of four executive functions: interference resolution, response inhibition, task switching, and goal monitoring. The latter did not train anything. The training significantly improved cognitive control and IQ. The control group also improved their IQ scores but gained less than the experimental one. However, the (...) amount of IQ scores enhancement did not correlate with the majority of indices of the training effectiveness, thus justifying the supposition that such enhancement resulted from the general effect of participation in the training rather than from the improvement of executive functions underlying Gf. (shrink)
Polish studies on the philosophy of British empiricism had various courses. Polish studies on Leibniz, Spinoza or Kant were quite advanced, but we know but little about the research on British empiricism. The achievements of the attempts of reconstructing the early reception are rather vestigial. The second part of the article presents early Polish studies into the philosophy of Bacon, Newton, Hobbes and Burke.
Jednym z filozoficznym problemów, który wyrósł na gruncie arystotelesowskiej filozofii przyrody, jest debata „natura a kunszt”. Filozoficzna dyskusja nad kryteriami odróżnienia wytworów naturalnych od artefaktów kunsztu ludzkiego i proponowane w ramach niej rozstrzygnięcia wpłynęły na ukształtowanie się stanowiska eksperymentalizmu. Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie, w jaki sposób argumenty podnoszone w filozoficznej debacie „naturalne a sztuczne” wpłynęły na kształt filozofii eksperymentu i naturalizmu Roberta Boyle’a, a w konsekwencji na postać filozoficznych założeń współczesnego eksperymentalizmu.
The author, during the Warsaw Uprising a commanding officer in the Home Army’s “Radosław” unit, recounts the first days of the fighting and subsequent battles, including the seizing of “Gęsiówka” and a landing by General Berling’s troops. Ścibor-Rylski also underscores the solidarity between Poles fighting their occupants, a solidarity inspired by a love of freedom.