According to a novel theory, latitude influences complex cognitive ability through hormonal and dopaminergic effects of UVB radiation on family size and study habits. Since human exposure to UVB radiation increases from East to West in the United States, longitude can be expected to influence White children's math and, especially, reading scores. Analyses of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) State data showed greater effects of longitude on Reading than Math and a decay of influence from 4th to 8th grades; latitude's influence was analogous on Math and Reading and increased across grades. The findings are consistent with the theory that, in the United States, longitude influences cognitive abilities through parents' sexual hormones, family size and early in life; they also suggest that latitude exerts influence mainly through dopamine deficiency and study habits and cumu...

Rindermann's cognitive capitalism disregards geographic causes of national wealth and postulates that IQ influences wealth through strengthened institutions, whereas a novel biogeographic theory posits that diminished UV radiation, by reducing cell oxidative stress and fatigue, increases industriousness and improves nations' wealth, thus generating favorable conditions for children's intellectual growth. This study tested predictions from both perspectives and also evaluated whether health + education mediates radiation's cognitive and economic effects. Analyses of data sets encompassing 96 countries yielded well-fitted structural equation models upholding the latter hypothesis and showing that radiation directly influences all variables, cognitive ability and income are unrelated, and the former and institutional strength behave as net dependent variables. The findings suggest that what...

Lynn’s (2010) attribution of decreasing north-to-south PISA scores and GDP in Italy to inherited intelligence caused debate, but cognitive-capitalism’s tenet that regional/national intelligence, inherited or not, determines provincial/country wealth remains unchallenged. We introduce a new theory into the debate and test a UV radiation → intelligence → socioeconomic latent variable (SELV) model vis-à-vis a radiation → SELV → intelligence one. Only the latter is found well-adjusted in Italy, more so among adolescents than children. Since hair and eye color vary with latitude in Italy and UV radiation could be a proxy for ancestry, the models are retested among White students in the USA. Similar results observed suggest that, in both countries, increased UV radiation impairs socio-economic development, perhaps by reducing industriousness through oxidative stress. The ensuing l...

Lynn’s (2010) genetic interpretation of the increasing IQ observed from the South to the North of Italy and the debate that followed prompted León and Antonelli-Ponti (this issue) to undertake a study of Italian data in the perspective of UV radiation (UVR) theory (Study 1). The results suggested that UVR degrades intelligence by inhibiting socioeconomic development, which may account for the cognitive North-South divide in that country. The findings contradicted tenets of the cognitive capitalism perspective according to which it is intelligence that increases wealth. In a second study, León and Antonelli-Ponti (this issue, Study 2) found similar relationships among white children of the United States. Unlike in the Italian case, these cannot be attributed to latitudinal genetic variation confounded with UVR’s contemporary effects. A third study in Brazil differentiated the socioe...

Evolutionary explanations for geography's influence on complex cognitive ability (CCA) imply virtually immutable components of between-nation IQ differences. Their weight vis-à-vis the weight of situational components was evaluated through an analysis of a 194-country data set. Additive effects of absolute latitude (AL) and longitudinal distance from Homo sapiens' cradle (LDC) explain Northeastern Asian higher, Sub-Saharan African lower CCAs. AL exerts cognitive influence directly and through socioeconomic development and evolutionary genetics whereas LDC does through evolutionary genetics; however, this occurs differently in Africa-Near East-Europe and elsewhere. The findings are understood assuming supremacy of contemporary UVB radiation → hormonal and climatic → socioeconomic mediators of the AL–CCA linkage whose effects are moderated by heterogeneous genetic and cultural adapt...

Call-center employees are prone to lateness, absenteeism, and turnover because their jobs are low-wage, low-skill, and provoke high levels of stress. Thus, considerate supervisors achieve from them better performance and reduced turnover. This study tested in a Peruvian call center (N = 255) various hypotheses concerned with the effects of people-oriented leadership on withdrawal behaviors, their moderation by subordinate perceived employability, and the nature of the relationships between withdrawal behaviors. The evidence revealed independence of uncertified absenteeism from turnover intention, negative effects of people-oriented leadership on subordinate turnover intention regardless of subordinate level of employability, and leadership x employability crossover interactive effects on subordinate uncertified absenteeism. Since people-oriented supervision is associated with increased a...

Este artículo evalúa cuatro subdisciplinas de la psicología peruana. Un desafío para el psicólogo organizacional es ajustar sus buenas prácticas a la evidencia científica; aquellas formuladas en Estados Unidos o Europa no son necesariamente relevantes a toda empresa y población local. La psicología del consumidor tiene impacto popular, pero los cultores no divulgan sus métodos y hallazgos con rigurosidad. Las contribuciones de la psicología comunitaria podrían fortalecerse si las hipótesis de origen psicoanalítico u otras perspectivas, fuesen formuladas con nitidez y sometidas a metodologías convencionales de evaluación de intervenciones. La psicología social peruana está contribuyendo al conocimiento de la realidad nacional y presenta hallazgos originales en temas de reducción de pobreza, identidad nacional, bienestar personal y efectos de la geografía.

Evolutionary psychologists attribute the superior IQs of light-skinned populations to genetic imprints left by millenary processes promoted by cold. But a novel theory that explains IQ gains observed across recent generations ascribes them to a latitude→UVB radiation→vitamin D3→parents' sexual hormones→family size→child's intellectual environment→IQ chain of effects. Analyses of 506,347 Peruvian children's math and reading scores from a national census confirmed that complex cognitive ability increases with absolute latitude even under tropical megathermal climates and decreases with high altitude above sea level, birth rate and social development mediate most of the effects, and reading is more strongly influenced than math. The findings weaken the evolutionary cold hypothesis and strengthen the view that contraception has the potential to reduce latitudinal IQ gaps.

This study utilized the ten aspects of the Big Five personality system to detect differences in personality traits between attendants of higher education online courses and attendants of higher education face-to-face courses. Distance education theoreticians have formulated hypotheses on the personality traits that make the Autonomy, Connectedness, Diversity, and Openness attributes of the connectivist learning model attractive. 753 participants in executive extension courses of a Peruvian university in Lima (mean age = 34.62 years) filled-in an online questionnaire which included the Big Five Aspect Scales. Whereas none of the Big Five factors discriminated between attendants and non-attendants of online courses, the former emerged as significantly higher in Industriousness (an aspect of Conscientiousness) and lower in Orderliness (the second aspect of Conscientiousness) and Enthusiasm ...

Propósito: Los call centers generan estrés y ausentismo en el personal y la literatura sugiere que el liderazgo orientado a la gente es el tipo adecuado de supervisión para tal situación. Este estudio comparó sus efectos versus los de otros tipos de liderazgo. Metodología: Datos de ausentismo de 379 representantes de servicios al cliente de un call center peruano fueron analizados y los representantes respondieron a un cuestionario sobre el Marco de Valores en Competencia y sus cuatro tipos de liderazgo. Turnos diurnos y nocturnos de trabajo fueron comparados. Resultados: Se observó que el ausentismo declina con el liderazgo orientado a la gente, aunque solo en el turno diurno, y la adición de liderazgos orientados al cambio, los resultados y el control resta validez a los modelos. Limitaciones/implicancias: Futuros estudios deberán abarcar el desempeño del trabajador. Los hall...

An ample repertoire of leadership behaviors available to the manager is expected to guarantee his/her effectiveness transcending situations, but research in the call-center context has identified a specific form of effective supervision: people-oriented leadership. The purpose of this paper is to compare the effectiveness of leader behavioral complexity vis-à-vis people-oriented supervision. 268 employees out of 728 of a Peruvian call center filled in an on-line survey that included, among other questionnaires, the Competing Values Framework Managerial Behavior Instrument in reference to their front-line supervisor. The study analyzed the relationships between supervisory leadership and subordinate turnover intention and absenteeism. Behavioral complexity, like people-oriented leadership, predicted subordinate turnover intention but did not predict subordinate absenteeism, which people-...