A linear relationship between postnatal geomagnetic activity and self-reports of epileptic seizures in young adults

To test the hypothesis of a linear relationship between the intensity of geomagnetic activity during the first two days after birth and the development of epilepsy, the responses of the item "I have had an epileptic seizure" was obtained from the Personal Philosophy Inventories of 1,453 students who had been enrolled in first-year psychology courses over a 13-yr. period. The only statistically significant effect was linear and was between the successive 10 nT (nanoTesla) increments of the intensity of geomagnetic activity during the two days after birth and the percentage of students who reported epileptic seizures. The percentage of subjects reporting a history of seizures ranged from 1% for those born when the activity was less than 10 nT to 4% for those born when this activity exceeded 40 nT.     

Seeing the mind behind the art. People can distinguish abstract expressionist paintings from highly similar paintings by children, chimps, monkeys, and elephants

Museumgoers often scoff that costly abstract expressionist paintings could have been made by a child and have mistaken paintings by chimpanzees for professional art. To test whether people really conflate paintings by professionals with paintings by children and animals, we showed art and nonart students paired images, one by an abstract expressionist and one by a child or animal, and asked which they liked more and which they judged as better. The first set of pairs was presented without labels; the second set had labels (e.g., "artist," "child") that were either correct or reversed. Participants preferred professional paintings and judged them as better than the nonprofessional paintings even when the labels were reversed. Art students preferred professional works more often than did nonart students, but the two groups' judgments did not differ. Participants in both groups were more likely to justify their selections of professional than of nonprofessional works in terms of artists' intentions. The world of abstract art is more accessible than people realize.     

大学生心理健康变迁的横断历史研究

自恢复高考至今, 中国的高等教育取得了巨大进步, 这一历史时期大学生整体的心理健康水平如何变化呢？本研究对1986至2010年间237项采用90项症状自评量表(SCL-90)的研究报告进行了横断历史的元分析, 以考察这些研究(被试为30多万名大学生)所测心理问题的9个因子得分随年代的变化趋势。结果表明：(1)SCL-90各因子均值与年代之间均呈负相关, 年代可以解释9个因子4%至36%的变异; 25年来9个因子均值分别下降了1%至13%, 其中偏执、人际关系、抑郁、敌对因子变化较明显。这说明25年来大学生的心理问题逐渐减少, 即大学生心理健康的整体水平逐步提高。(2)25年来大学生心理健康水平的提高, 主要体现在大学一年级以上的学生上, 而且重点大学学生(较之非重点大学)、城市生源学生(较之农村)、男生(较之女生)的心理健康改善更快。     

Memory deficits and memory surfeits: differential cognitive consequences of tokenism for tokens and observers

Historically, women and minority group members have been underrepresented in the professions and in better paying, high-status jobs. Even when they have been admitted to such positions, these underrepresented persons often have been the only member of their social category: a token. Previous field and laboratory research has shown that "tokens" attract disproportionate attention and are either evaluated unfairly or evaluated on the basis of their normal reactions to differential treatment by majority group members. We tested the possibilities of whether tokens might suffer more cognitive deficits than would nontokens, and whether they do so even when they are treated no differently. College students were led to believe that they were sharing their views on everyday topics with three other students (actually videotaped confederates), who were either all of the student's own sex or all of the opposite sex. In a later memory test, token participants remembered fewer of the opinions that they and the three other students had expressed than did nontokens. Observers, in contrast, remembered more of what token subjects said than what the three other students said. Theoretical and public policy implications are discussed.     

大学英语四、六级考试分数等值研究

对现有的大学英语四、六级考试分数等值模式中存在的若干问题进行了深入的分析,并提出了新的解决方案——一个基于铆题设计和两参数IRT模型的解决方案。主要包括：（1）用两参数逻辑斯蒂模型替代原来的Rasch模型,以改进题目模型的适合性;（2）用共同题目的等值设计取代原来的共同被试等值设计,解决共同被试等值设计中,等值考生的动机水平难以控制的难题;（3）建立专用的等值用题库,并且一次性完成其中铆题的预测和参数标定工作,以解决原来等值模式中存在的误差累积问题。同时,由于铆题的保密工作难度较小,因此,等值专用题库对保证等值结果的可靠性也具有重大意义;（4）本文还对新的分数等值方案进行了真实的考试数据等值计算实验,并得到了一个令人满意的分数等值结果。     

Religious Schools,Home Schools,and the Timing of First Marriage and First Birth

The timing of individuals’ family formation is important for a number of socioeconomic and health outcomes. We examine the influence of religious schools and home schools on the timing of first marriage and first birth using data from the Cardus Education Study Graduate Survey (N = 1,496). Our results from life tables and event-history regression models show that, on average, graduates of evangelical Protestant schools—but not Catholic school or homeschool graduates—have earlier marriages and births than public school graduates. Catholic school students have later first births on average than public school graduates. Models interacting schooling type with age and age-squared suggest that evangelical schoolers’ higher odds of marriage stem from higher odds of marrying at ages 21–30, and their higher odds of first birth stem from higher odds of births from ages 25–34. Catholic school and nonreligious private school students also have higher odds of marrying in the mid-20s and early-30s than do public school students. Evangelical, non-religious private, and Catholic school students all have lower odds of teenage births than public school students but higher odds of birth later in the life course. Homeschoolers do not differ on either outcome at any age. Our findings suggest that schools socialize their students with distinctive attitudes toward family formation that influence their behavior even many years after graduation, though these schools do not appear to be particularly harmful to life chances in terms of fostering marriage or childbearing at very young ages.     

Interrelationships between anxiety,lifestyle self-reports and fitness in a sample of Hong Kong University students

Although anxiety in university students has been well documented, the influence of lifestyle and fitness status in relation to anxiety has not been investigated from a cultural perspective previously. To make recommendations regarding the avoidance or management of anxiety in this anxiety-prone cohort that are rationally based, this preliminary investigation examined the interrelationship between anxiety, lifestyle self-reports and aerobic fitness in Hong Kong Chinese University students. The State Trait Anxiety Inventory (Form Y-2) and a lifestyle questionnaire were completed by 213 students. Female students were more anxious than male students. Subjects with high anxiety reported more deleterious lifestyle behaviours including higher salt consumption and lower levels of exercise; in addition to more frequent symptoms of anxiety such as headaches and daytime somnolence. The extremes of this sample were stratified into a low anxiety group (n = 17) and a high anxiety group (n = 14) to compare their fitness status. Although both groups had below normal aerobic capacity, the higher systolic blood pressure observed for the high anxiety group is consistent with signs of anxiety, or greater deconditioning in this group or both. The results of this study have highlighted anxiety as a concern in Hong Kong University students and identified some lifestyle and fitness correlates. Understanding lifestyle and pathophysiological correlates of anxiety in Hong Kong University students that may have a cultural basis, is a crucial step toward averting or managing anxiety when these students are studying either in Hong Kong or abroad.     

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN REASONING ABOUT MILITARY INTERVENTION

The question of gender associations with moral reasoning and values has received a great deal of attention since Gilligan first published In a Different Voice in 1982. Various authors have argued that women are less hierarchical, more relational, more caring, more empathetic, and more concerned about not harming others than men. Yet, these claims have been questioned by other scholars. Data from a small survey of college students are used to address this question. We found that, in examining students' narrative justifications of their opinion on a particular question of military intervention, gender was related to the type of justification used in a manner consistent with the arguments of Gilligan. We argue that "objective" tests are less likely to detect this difference than content analyses of narratives. The different bases of judgments have implications for political opinions as well as interpersonal interactions.     

For Whom is this World Just?: Sexual Orientation and AIDS

The "just world" hypothesis has been used to explain victim blaming, or the attributions that people have for why a person has been victimized. Based on some of the premises of the just world hypothesis it was predicted that people would be more likely to attribute blame to a gay man with AIDS than they would to a heterosexual man with AIDS. From a sample of 79 undergraduate students it was found that a gay man was given more personal blame for contracting AIDS than a heterosexual man. Furthermore, the more intolerant people were towards gay men and the more fearful they were of contact with AIDS, the more likely they were to blame the gay man for contracting AIDS. Although preliminary, these results indicate the usefulness of the just world hypothesis for understanding the stigmatization of people with AIDS.     

The influence of the feminist subculture in changing sex-role attitudes

A recent analysis of longitudinal data indicates that protest participation does not explain the modernization of sex-role attitudes which has occurred on campus during the past decade. As an alternative, it is suggested that the consciousness raising (CR) groups that have characterized the subcultural phase of the women's movement are partially responsible for these dramatic changes. To test this hypothesis, changes in the sex-role attitudes of 66 students in a 10-week introductory women studies class were analyzed. While a comparison group of 121 students in an introductory sociology class showed no change in attitudes toward the female sex role, the women studies students significantly increased in sex-role modernism. Female students showed significantly greater increases than males. These findings support the subcultural thesis that sex-role modernism, a subcultural value of the feminist movement, has been successfully promoted through the mechanism of CR groups, such as the one studied here. While other factors undoubtedly have affected this change in sex-role attitudes, the spread of CR groups in the 1970s must be give a prominent role.The author would like to express appreciation to Christine Bose for reading and commenting on an earlier draft of this article.     

Social-emotional characteristics of gifted accelerated and non-accelerated students in the Netherlands

Background. In the studies of acceleration conducted so far a multidimensional perspective has largely been neglected. No attempt has been made to relate social-emotional characteristics of accelerated versus non-accelerated students in perspective of environmental factors. Aims. In this study, social-emotional characteristics of accelerated gifted students in the Netherlands were examined in relation to personal and environmental factors. Samples. Self-concept and social contacts of accelerated (n = 148) and non-accelerated (n = 55) gifted students, aged 4 to 27 (M = 11.22, SD = 4.27) were measured. Method. Self-concept and social contacts of accelerated and non-accelerated gifted students were measured using a questionnaire and a diary, and parents of these students evaluated their behavioural characteristics. Gender and birth order were studied as personal factors and grade, classroom, teachers’ gender, teaching experience, and the quality of parent-school contact as environmental factors. Results. The results showed minimal differences in the social-emotional characteristics of accelerated and non-accelerated gifted students. The few differences we found favoured the accelerated students. We also found that multiple grade skipping does not have negative effects on social-emotional characteristics, and that long-term effects of acceleration tend to be positive. As regards the possible modulation of personal and environmental factors, we merely found an impact of such factors in the non-accelerated group. Conclusions. The results of this study strongly suggest that social-emotional characteristics of accelerated gifted students and non-accelerated gifted students are largely similar. These results thus do not support worries expressed by teachers about the acceleration of gifted students. Our findings parallel the outcomes of earlier studies in the United States and Germany in that we observed that acceleration does not harm gifted students, not even in the case of multiple grade skipping. On the contrary, there is a suggestion in the data that accelerated students are more socially competent than non-accelerated students. The findings in this study can reassure those parents and teachers who worry about the social-emotional consequences of acceleration in school: If a student is gifted, acceleration seems to be a sound and, in many cases, appropriate measure in gifted education.     

Is the truth in the details? Extended narratives help distinguishing false “memories” from false “reports”

The present study examined the effects of fantasy proneness on false "reports" and false "memories", of existent and non-existent footage of a public event. We predicted that highly fantasy prone individuals would be more likely to stand by their initial claim of having seen a film of the event than low fantasy prone participants when prompted for more details about their experiences. Eighty creative arts students and 80 other students were asked whether they had seen CCTV footage preceding the attack on Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh up to, and including, non-existent footage of the actual moment of the attack. If affirmative, they were probed for extended narratives of what they claimed to have seen. Overall, 64% of participants provided a false "report" by answering yes to the initial question. Of these, 30% provided no explicit details of the attack, and a further 15% retracted their initial answer in their narratives. This left 19% of the sample who appeared to have false "memories" because they provided explicit details of the actual moment of the attack. Women scored higher than men and art students scored higher than other students on fantasy proneness, but there was no effect on levels of false reporting or false "memory". Memories were rated more vivid and clear for existent compared to non-existent aspects of the event. In sum, these data suggest a more complex relationship between memory distortions and fantasy proneness than previously observed.     

Detecting Duplication in Students’ Research Data: A Method and Illustration

Research integrity is core to the mission of higher education. In undergraduate student samples, self-reported rates of data fabrication have been troublingly high. Despite this, no research has investigated undergraduate data fabrication in a more systematic manner. We applied duplication screening techniques to 18 data sets submitted by psychology honors students for assessment. Although we did not identify any completely duplicated cases, there were numerous partial duplicates. Rather than indicating fabrication, however, these partial duplicates are likely a consequence of poor measure selection, insufficient data screening, and/or participant characteristics. Implications for the teaching and supervision of honors students are discussed.     

大学生群体中价值观、感知环境质量与环境意识的关系研究

本研究利用一项大学生环境意识调查数据,探讨了价值观、感知环境质量和环境意识之间关系,并对英格尔哈特的“客观问题和主观价值”假设进行检验。研究结果基本支持该假设,后物质主义者比物质主义者的环境意识更强,感知环境质量差者比感知环境质量好者的环境意识更强。此外,研究还发现,感知环境质量比价值观对大学生的环境意识作用更强;感知中国环境质量比感知家乡环境质量对大学生的环境意识作用更强。     

Sex differences in communication skills as measured by a modified relationship inventory

Previous studies have provided some indication that females are more empathic than males and that individuals show greater empathy when relating to persons of the same sex. Because the research has been equivocal, the present study attempted to replicate these findings for not only empathy but also three other communication skills measured by the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory: congruence, regard, and unconditionality of regard. The subjects for this study were 20 male and 41 female students in an undergraduate experiential course in interpersonal relations. All students were placed in training groups, and the co-trainers for these groups completed ratings on a modified Relationship Inventory for each of their students. Reliability data on this inventory were satisfactory. Female students were given slightly higher ratings on all skills at both the beginning and end of the group experience, but none of the differences were significant. Male co-trainers rated the skills of male students higher than did female co-trainers, but a comparable same-sex effect for female students was not demonstrated. Thus, the experimental hypotheses were partially supported.     

Birth order and civil disobedience: a test of Sulloway's "Born to Rebel" hypothesis

In Born to Rebel, F. Sulloway (1996) argued that, throughout history, later-borns have been more likely than first-borns to challenge the status quo. The authors tested Sulloway's hypothesis among a group of U.S. college students who had participated in civil disobedience as part of a labor dispute. The authors predicted that there would be a higher percentage of later-borns among those who had been arrested than among a group of their friends who had not participated in civil disobedience or among a control group of students drawn from classes at the college. The findings, in fact, revealed a significant relationship between the number of times the students had been arrested and birth order.     

Timely Completion of Class Requirements: Effects of Student and Faculty Gender

Male and female students have displayed different reactions to the gender of their faculty. This research was designed to explore whether biases exist early in the school term. Students unfavorable attitudes toward instructors were measured by the extent to which they delayed completing a course requirement: participation in a subject pool. Students scheduled a date upon which to participate in a research study. Discrepancies between their scheduled and their actual participation dates reveal that male students delayed their requirement (a) more when their instructors were female than when they were male, and (b) more than female students when the instructors were female. Supporting data suggest that the delayed completion time reflects lower evaluations of female faculty. Discussion focuses on implications in academic settings.     

Siblings as babysitters: responses of adolescents to younger siblings in problem situations.

Adolescents (75 males, 150 females) assumed the role of parent surrogate and responded to nine problem situations involving younger siblings. Responses were coded into 21 categories--grouped as high, medium, low and non-power as well as "effective" or "ineffective"--and analyzed by sex, grade (10, 11, or 12) and birth order (first-, second-, or laterborn). Ninety-two percent of responses were categorized as "ineffective" (i.e., not communicating own or sibling's feelings). Seniors used less high and more medium and non-power responses than younger students. Most students, particularly females, expressed interest in joining a group to learn better ways of relating to younger siblings.     

Socialization of sex roles in the counseling setting: Differential counselor behavioral and attitudinal responses to typical and atypical female sex roles

Counseling and therapy have frequently been attacked by feminists for the role they play in socializing women to a limited and ultimately untenable sex role. Male counselors in particular have been singled out as special oppressors of women. This study attempted to determine whether, in fact, counselor behavior and attitudes operated as a means of sex-role socialization, and whether male counselors tended to be more biased than female counselors when interacting with female clients. Subjects were eight male and eight female graduate students in counseling psychology who conducted initial interview sessions with two client-confederates, volunteer graduate students trained in role-playing situations representing a typical and an atypical sex-role condition. Videotapes of the interviews were subsequently analyzed to assess counselor reinforcement patterns of specific client cue sentences. In addition to these behavioral data, paper-and-pencil inventories were used to determine counselors' perception of clients, counselors' degree of attitudinal sex-stereotyping, and client-confederates' subjective evaluation of counselors. Contrary to expectations, results indicated that counselors as a whole exhibited more behavioral bias with typical than with atypical clients. Further, counselors reacted more positively toward the atypical than toward the typical clients, and counselor response to a global sex-role inventory indicated that counselors described the healthy, well-adjusted female as significantly more instrumental than the healthy, well-adjusted male. Female counselors appeared to be both more reinforcing and less punishing than male counselors with female clients in both roles, as well as less behaviorally biased than the male counselors. Female counselors also evaluated the atypical clients more positively than did the male counselors, and were in turn evaluated more positively than were the male counselors by clients in both roles. The study concludes with a discussion of implications for counselor training.     

The study of suicidal behavior in the schools

The studies reviewed indicate that suicidal behavior is infrequent among school children (12%), but increases progressively among junior high (35%), high school (65%), and college students (50-65%). Though considerable, these values are lower than those of similar-age psychiatric populations. Estimates of the rate of actual attempts were 3% for elementary students, 11% for high school students, and 15-18% for college students. Most were low-lethality attempts for which medical or other attention was not sought. Accordingly, the vast majority of suicide attempts will not be uncovered by investigations dealing solely with clinical or medically identified populations. The most commonly identified correlates of suicidal behaviors included depressive symptoms, social problems, family disorganization and problems, life stress, and poor problem-solving skills. Academic problems were not as important. These findings must be interpreted in light of methodological constraints. Response rates have been low, samples have been small, minorities have been underrepresented, nonstudents have been ignored, and volunteers of unreported characteristics have predominated. The representativeness of such groups is questionable. The definition and categorization of behaviors have varied considerably, making between-study comparisons difficult. The differences among thoughts, threats, and attempts (the most frequently used categories) have often not been taken into account. Rather, in analyses, these behaviors have been treated as if they were homogeneous entities and grouped together. Where attempters have been separated from ideators, they too have been treated as a single entity. Many deliberately survived attempts are manipulative and oriented toward the benefits the individual survivors expect. Such attempts probably differ substantially in nature from those attempts where survival is not intended. Understanding of this phenomenon could be enhanced by a comparison of the characteristics of those with high- and low-lethality attempts. Similarly, a third group of behaviors--that of chronic behavior patterns that potentially hasten death (alcoholism, drug abuse, self-mutilation, and risk taking)--has not been adequately addressed in terms of its relationship to more discrete suicidal events. Data have generally been obtained via anonymous self-administered questionnaires. The accuracy of retrospective self-reports on emotionally laden events is suspect. Only in two instances have self-reported questionnaire data been validated via interviews with subjects alone or subjects and their families. The time frames on which the referent behaviors has been collected have included "last week", "last month", "last year", "lifetime", and not specified. The longer the interval between the occurrence of the behavior and the report, the greater the likelihood that some reporting inaccuracies may occur.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)