儿童"假想伙伴"研究及其对教育的启示

“假想伙伴”现象的描述最早出现于20世纪30年代,但把它单独作为一个重要课题进行专门研究却是近二十年的事情。文章回顾了有关假想伙伴研究的历史起源和近期研究成果。文章认为创造假想伙伴是儿童解决适应困难的一个有效手段。分析这一现象对幼儿教育具有很大的启示意义。     

儿童假装游戏中假想角色现象初探

通过对145名4~5岁儿童进行结构式访谈,调查幼儿假装游戏中假想角色现象的概况,包括假想同伴和角色扮演现象。结果如下:42.7%的儿童有假想同伴,绝大多数是玩具形式,女孩更多有假想同伴;男孩倾向于选择动物类型的假想同伴,而女孩倾向于人物类型;假想同伴绝大多为同性别并且比自己年龄小。44.8%的儿童有角色扮演活动,其中男孩倾向于装扮动画中的英雄人物,女孩倾向于装扮现实人物。     

同伴冲突解决的干预训练对小学儿童合作的影响

本研究通过对小学儿童进行为期六周的冲突解决六步法干预训练,探讨培养合作的有效手段和途径.结果表明,实验班被试与控制班被试相比,他们在假想情境中的冲突解决策略水平有了显著提高;问卷调查和对教师的访谈显示,实验班被试能将解决冲突的高水平策略迁移到现实生活中.事实证明,同伴冲突解决六步法能提高小学儿童解决假想情境和实际生活中同伴冲突的策略水平;“六步法”的干预训练是培养儿童合作的行之有效的干预方法.     

4岁和6岁儿童在不同交往条件下的随意记忆

该项研究揭示了4岁和6岁儿童在分别与同龄伙伴、实验者、教养员和母亲交往的情境下,识记、再现词汇的年龄差异和性别差异:4岁儿童在教养员在场时熟记材料的成绩较好,在实验者在场时,成绩稍差,在母亲和伙伴在场时,成绩最差;6岁儿童除伙伴在场外,在同各种成人交往时,几乎都能同样地完成熟记任务。在整个实验中,4岁和6岁两个年龄组的女孩再现词汇的数量都比男孩多。研究存分别对4岁和6岁儿童在与不同对象交往时的自我表现进行了饶有兴趣的质的分析。     

危害儿童社会化发展的因素

在少数一些领域里有比在社会领域里更多、更严重的危害社会化发展的因素。如果社会行为低于社会期望,那么,它将危及群体对儿童的认同。这种情况的发生,使儿童丧失了学习成为社会人的机会,因而他们的社会化程度越来越落后于其同龄伙伴。儿童的行为低于社会期望时,他们就被认为是不受欢迎的,也导致了不良的自我评价。     

性别标定和性别类型行为的选择

本研究采用性别标定作业,测验了43名出生21个月到40个月的儿童辨别男女孩和男女成人图片的能力,并在通常按性别类型分的三种行为(选择玩具、攻击性和同龄游戏伙伴的选择)上对通过性别作业的儿童(平均年龄30个月)与未通过性别作业的儿童(平均年龄26个月)进行了比较.本研究预测,通过了性别作业的儿童会选择同性伙伴和更有性别特点的玩具,通过了性别作业的女孩攻击性会减弱,男孩则没有变化.但结果只证实了攻击性和选择同龄伙伴的预测,选择玩具的预测则没有得到证实.     

父母的行为方式与儿童自尊心的发展

自尊心就是个人对自己的尊重、相信自己的能力和自己从事工作的价值.近年来,美国心理学家研究了自尊心的发展问题.他们以儿童为研究对象,测量了他们的能力和对自己的认识.测量以后,他们把儿童分为三组:高自尊心组、中自尊心组和低自尊心组,然后,在家庭、学校,工作和与伙伴相处等情境中继续加以研究.他们发现,高自尊心组的儿童主动、活跃;他们能表达自己的思想,成绩优良,与伙伴相处友好,讨论时不光听别人讲,而且主动发言,领导讨论;他们对许多问题感兴趣,相信自己能完成所做的事情;他们很少疲倦和生病.     

小学一年级儿童入学准备状况及其家庭危险和保护因素的研究

以北京市某郊区310名儿童为研究对象,考察儿童的入学准备现状,并进一步探讨入学准备不足儿童的家庭危险和保护因素。结果发现:(1)儿童入学准备整体不足的比例为15.80%,各领域准备不足的比例依次为身体健康和动作技能(20.30%)、认知和一般知识(20.00%)、学习方式(19.70%)、情绪和社会性(17.70%)以及言语发展(13.90%)。(2)儿童(7岁)在入学准备整体和学习方式、言语发展领域的准备状况好于年龄较大儿童(≥7岁)。女生的身体健康和动作技能准备好于男生。(3)父母高学历、权威教养方式和户外互动是儿童入学准备不同领域的保护因素,专制和放任教养方式是其不同领域的危险因素。     

社会认知因素对儿童有关损人者情绪归因的影响

文章简要介绍了儿童社会-道德发展领域中有关“快乐的损人者”现象的研究概况, 回顾了儿童社会认知发展领域有关情绪理解和归因的研究,指出在损人者情绪归因研究中引 入有关社会认知变量的必要性,并讨论了未来的研究方向。     

儿童气质和人格研究领域的新进展

本文共分成三部分,首先介绍了目前儿童气质领域中缺乏研究一致性的状况以及主要原因,然后,介绍了成人人格研究领域中五因素人格理论的兴起和该五个因素在不同年代研究中的发展及其稳定性。最后,针对目前儿童气质和人格领域的状况提出了研究儿童期类似成人五因素人格结构的问题,并介绍了该项研究的指导思想和方法。     

Network Hubs and Opportunity for Complex Thinking Among Young British Muslims

This study examines whether individuals in a network esteem peers who think in integratively complex ways about religious issues in the context of a small‐group educational course comprised of young British Muslims. Integrative complexity (IC) measures the degree to which an individual's information processing is characterized by (a) rigid, black‐and‐white thinking or (b) ability to recognize the validity of, and integrate, multiple perspectives. A novel measurement procedure was developed for this research called the Social Field Generator. Results from seven groups (n = 55) showed that (a) participants with levels of IC were described by their peers with more positive sentiment than their low‐IC counterparts; (b) the higher the IC scores of participants, the closer peers felt toward them; and (c) the highest IC individuals were consistently selected as sources of advice, whereas the lowest IC individuals were not viewed as sources of advice. This research shows that within an educational environment aimed at promoting complex thinking, group processes and grassroots religious leadership can encourage higher levels of IC as a group norm.     

A longitudinal analysis of anger and inhibitory control in twins from 12 to 36 months of age

Inhibitory control (IC) is a dimension of child temperament that involves the self-regulation of behavioral responses under some form of instruction or expectation. Although IC is posited to appear in toddlerhood, the voluntary control of emotions such as anger begins earlier. Little research has analyzed relations between emotional development in infancy and later emerging IC. We examined phenotypic associations and genetic and environmental influences on parent- and laboratory-assessed anger and IC in a twin sample from 12 to 36 months of age. Typically, twins with low levels of IC had high levels of anger. Behavioral genetic findings confirmed significant genetic influences on anger and IC as assessed by parents, and on lab-based anger assessments. Shared environmental factors contributed to twin similarity on lab-assessed anger and IC at 36 months. Phenotypic covariance between anger and IC was largely due to overlapping genetic factors for parent ratings, and environmental factors in the laboratory.     

A meta-analytic approach to the association between inhibitory control and parent-reported behavioral adjustment in typically-developing children: Differentiating externalizing and internalizing behavior problems

Impairments in inhibitory control (IC) are traditionally seen as a vital aspect in the emergence and course of maladaptive behavior across early childhood. However, it is currently unclear whether this view applies to both the externalizing and internalizing domain of parent-reported behavioral adjustment. Furthermore, past (meta-analytic) developmental research and theory characterizing this association have largely neglected the vast heterogeneity of IC measures and conceptualizations. The present meta-analyses examined the association of IC with parent-reported externalizing (N = 3160, 21 studies) and internalizing (N = 1758, 12 studies) behavior problems, assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), in non-clinical populations of children aged 2–8 years. They further investigated the moderating effects of a priori IC categorization, according to a recently proposed two-factor model of IC (“Strength/Endurance” account, Simpson & Carroll, 2019). In line with previous research in the clinical domain, the current results corroborate the notion of a robust, but small association between IC and externalizing behavior problems (r = ?0.11) in early childhood. However, although frequently proposed in the literature, no significant linear association could be identified with internalizing behavior problems. Furthermore, in both meta-analyses, no significant moderating effects of IC categorization could be revealed. These findings enhance our knowledge about the cognitive underpinnings of early-emerging maladaptive behavior, indicating that different subtypes of IC are statistically related with externalizing, but not internalizing behavior problems. Overall, the small association of IC ability with behavior problems in non-clinical populations provokes broader questions about the role of IC in behavioral adjustment.     

The Contribution of Individualism vs. Collectivism to Cross-national Differences in Display Rules

Despite the fact that display rules are an important concept of theories of emotion and contemporary psychology, relatively little cross-cultural research has been done on them. This study examined cross-national differences in display rules of emotion, and investigated the degree to which those differences could be attributed to Individualism and Collectivism (IC) measured on the individual level. Participants in the US, Japan, South Korea, and Russia completed a comprehensive measure of display rules assessing behavioral tendencies for seven universal emotions in four social contexts in two rating domains. They also completed Matsumoto et al .'s (1997) Individualism–Collectivism Interpersonal Assessment Inventory. The results confirmed the existence of cross-national differences in IC and display rules, and indicated that IC and display rules were correlated. Significant differences between the countries remained even after IC was controlled for, and effect size analyses comparing cross-national differences when IC was controlled and not indicated that IC accounted for approximately 30% of the effect sizes related to cross-national differences. This study is unique in that it not only used the concept of IC to explain and predict differences; it also quantitatively assessed the degree to which IC contributed to those differences. These findings are discussed in terms of the utility of the IC concept to understanding cross-cultural and cross-national differences in emotion.     

The cognitive processing of politics and politicians: archival studies of conceptual and integrative complexity

This article reviews over 30 years of research on the role of integrative complexity (IC) in politics. IC is a measure of the cognitive structure underlying information processing and decision making in a specific situation and time of interest to the researcher or policymaker. As such, it is a state counterpart of conceptual complexity, the trait (transsituationally and transtemporally stable) component of cognitive structure. In the beginning (the first article using the measure was published in 1976), most of the studies were by the author or his students (or both), notably Philip Tetlock; more recently, IC has attracted the attention of a growing number of political and social psychologists. The article traces the theoretical development of IC; describes how the variable is scored in archival or contemporary materials (speeches, interviews, memoirs, etc.); discusses possible influences on IC, such as stress, ideology, and official role; and presents findings on how measures of IC can be used to forecast political decisions (e.g., deciding between war and peace). Research on the role of IC in individual success and failure in military and political leaders is also described.     

Conflict Inhibitory Control Facilitates Pretense Quality in Young Preschoolers

The present research explores the role of inhibitory control (IC) in young preschoolers’ pretense ability using an ego depletion paradigm. In Experiment 1 (N = 56), children's pretense ability was assessed either before or after participating in conflict IC or control tasks, and in Experiment 2 (N = 36), pretense ability was measured after children engaged in either conflict or delay IC tasks. In both experiments, pretense scores were significantly higher only after engaging in conflict IC tasks. Further, pretense scores were positively correlated with IC scores when conflict IC was not experienced first. This pattern of results suggests that IC may underlie pretense, and conflict IC can boost the quality of children's subsequent pretending.     

Effects of the “intimate conviction” instruction on the processing of judicial information

Introduction and objectiveThe aim of this study was to examine the effects of the “intimate conviction” (IC) instruction on the processing of judicial information. The IC instruction encourages the use of impressions to form a verdict. As such, according to cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) (Epstein, 1994), it is more likely to (1) elicit experiential information processing, and (2) bias judgments, compared with instructions prompting the rational and objective processing of information running counter to IC (CIC).Method and resultsNinety-four mock jurors were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions (IC, opposite IC and control), and asked to view a video of a criminal appeal hearing, deliver judgments and perform a thought-listing task. Results confirmed that, in the IC and control conditions, participants were more likely to (1) process evidence in an experiential mode, (2) judge the defendant's acts as being more intentional than participants in the opposite IC condition. However, contrary to our expectations, the effects of the instructions on the attribution of intention were not mediated by the information processing mode.ConclusionDirections for future research and the implications of the present study for judicial systems using inquisitorial procedure are discussed.     

The role of the insular cortex in taste function

In spite of over 30 years of research, the role of the Insular Cortex (IC) in taste memory still remains elusive. To study the role of the IC in taste memory, we used conditioned taste aversion (CTA) for two different concentrations of saccharin; 0.1% which is highly preferred, and 0.5% which is non-preferred. Rats that had been IC lesioned bilaterally with ibotenic acid (15 mg/ml) before CTA showed significant learning impairments for saccharin 0.1% but not for saccharin 0.5%. To test CTA memory retention, rats lesioned a week after CTA training became completely amnesic for saccharin 0.1% yet only mildly impaired for saccharin 0.5%. Interestingly, the resulting preference for either concentration matched that of IC lesioned animals when exposed to either saccharin solution for the first time, but not those of sham animals, implying that IC lesions after CTA for either saccharin solution rendered complete amnesia, irrespective of the original preference. Our data indicate that an intact IC is essential for CTA learning and retention, as well as for an early neophobic response, but not for taste preference itself. Our data supports a model where the IC is involved in general taste rejection.     

Cholinergic activity in the insular cortex is necessary for acquisition and consolidation of contextual memory

Experiences with a high emotional content (aversive) tend to be stored as long-term memories; however, there are also contextual recollections, which form a significant part of our memories. Different research has shown that the insular cortex (IC) plays an important role during aversive memory formation, yet its role during incidental/non-aversive learning like pre-exposure contextual memory formation has received little attention. The objective of this research was to establish the role of cholinergic activity in the IC through its muscarinic receptors during the formation of inhibitory avoidance (IA) memory, as well as during pre-exposure contextual memory, using a paradigm such as latent inhibition (LI). Rats with bilateral cannulae directed into the IC were trained in the LI paradigm of IA or IA task alone. The muscarinic antagonist receptor scopolamine was infused bilaterally into the IC 5 min before the pre-exposure into the dark chamber of the IA cage, one day before the conventional IA training or during the IA training day. During the IA test, the entrance latency into the dark chamber of the IA cage was measured as an index of contextual memory. The results showed that scopolamine infused before and after IA training disrupts inhibitory avoidance memory. Also, it showed that the pre-exposed saline-infused animals (LI) had a lower entrance latency compared to the group not pre-exposed (IA). However, the group that received scopolamine into the IC before, but not after, the pre-exposure to the dark chamber, presented a similar latency to the IA group, showing a blockade of the latent inhibition of the IA. These results suggest that cholinergic activity in the insular cortex is necessary during the acquisition and consolidation of avoidance memory, but appears necessary only during the acquisition of pre-exposure non-aversive contextual memory.     

Neurocognitive development and externalizing problems: the role of inhibitory control deficits from 4 to 6 years

Executive processes have been posited as important regulators of externalizing problems (EP), but there has been little research on the relation between executive dysfunction and EP in early childhood. During the preschool period, maturation of the prefrontostriatal circuitry parallels increases in inhibitory control (IC). Poor IC development could result in elevated levels of aggressive, disruptive, and impulsive behavior. In this investigation, the development of the relation between IC and EP was examined in preschool and early elementary school children using the Day/Night and Tapping tasks. Children with more EP made more incorrect responses on both IC tasks, consistently across age and sex. The associations between EP and response latencies differed across children, however, with longer latencies on the Tapping task being most characteristic for boys with high levels of EP. This association was not apparent for girls. Two prominent aspects of early EP, aggressive and inattentive behavior, showed only weak unique associations with IC performance. These findings imply that diminished IC accompanies elevated EP as early as the preschool years, and that this decrement persists into the elementary school-age years for both girls and boys, and that accuracy and response latency may confer different information about the development of IC.