A developmental assessment of children's verbal strategies for social action resolution

The objectives of this study were (1) to devise a method to assess children's developing verbal strategies for action resolution as expressed in reflection on a naturalistic, real-life social experience and (2) to examine these strategies in relation to differences in age and reflective social understanding level. In the design of this study the two independent variables were grade (second and third versus fourth and fifth) and level of reflective social understanding (level 1 versus level 2 on a social understanding interview schedule). Four small activity groups (six subjects per group), homogeneous with respect to grade and reflective social understanding level, were composed from 24 girls with middle class backgrounds. Each of the four groups met for twelve consecutive school weaks, once a week, for 90 minutes in adult supervised after-school cooperative group activities (e.g., putting on a puppet show).A Social Action Resolution Strategies interview was administered to each subject individually at the end of the twelve-week program in order to assess the child's preferred verbally expressed choice of action for resolving common conflits which arose in the activity group experience. Interviews were coded according to four levels of social action resolution strategies (0–3). Results indicated that the developmental sequence of social perspective-taking levels can be considered to underlie the range of strategies used by children to settle social conflicts as well as social understanding levels. A clear relation among level of social action resolution strategies, level of reflective social understanding, and grade was found.     

Supracompact inference operations

When a proposition is cumulatively entailed by a finite setA of premisses, there exists, trivially, a finite subsetB ofA such thatB B entails for all finite subsetsB that are entailed byA. This property is no longer valid whenA is taken to be an arbitrary infinite set, even when the considered inference operation is supposed to be compact. This leads to a refinement of the classical definition of compactness. We call supracompact the inference operations that satisfy the non-finitary analogue of the above property. We show that for any arbitrary cumulative operationC, there exists a supracompact cumulative operationK(C) that is smaller thenC and agrees withC on finite sets. Moreover,K(C) inherits most of the properties thatC may enjoy, like monotonicity, distributivity or disjunctive rationality. The main part of the paper concerns distributive supracompact operations. These operations satisfy a simple functional equation, and there exists a representation theorem that provides a semantic characterization for this family of operations. We examine finally the case of rational operations and show that they can be represented by a specific kind of model particularly easy to handle.     

Gossip and counselling: The tendency to gossip and its relation to vocational interests

In this study we attempted to treat gossip as a psychological disposition related to vocational interests, using a newly developed instrument, the Tendency to Gossip Questionnaire (TGQ). One hundred and twenty Israeli students (58 females, 62 males) at the Haifa Technion and the University of Haifa were administered the TGQ together with the Social Desirability Scale and the Ramak-Vocational Interests Questionnaire. We found that: (a) women tended to report that they gossiped more than men did, but this difference was confined to one specific content area of gossip only; and (b) interest in people-oriented professions was related to the tendency to gossip even when social desirability and gender were controlled for statistically. The last finding supports the ‘spillover’ hypothesis (Staines, 1980) on the relationship between vocational and avocational interests. The positive relationship between the tendency to gossip and an interest in people-oriented professions might mean that both derive from the same basic needs. We suggest that counselling and psychotherapy can be regarded as sublimated forms of gossip. It is our hope that the TGQ may be of help in expanding our knowledge about the relationship between the tendency to gossip and other psychological dispositions.

This paper attempts to examine the relationship between Existential thought & Client Centred approach to counselling. This task is undertaken by means of an examination of both the similarities and differences between the two fields, as well as relevant research. The paper draws upon thinking of major writers in the fields under consideration, and in doing so looks at such themes as meaning and existence, such concepts as philosophy and technique in psychotherapy and counselling and characteristics of the therapist and the counselling process.     

Suicide and self-inflicted injuries

The present study addressed itself to the problem of self-inflicted injuries (SII) in the Israeli army, and to the wider question whether non-fatal self injuries and suicide are part of the same phenomenon. The findings show that in some cases SII is an unsucessful suicide while in others SII is anything but a reflection of a death wish. It appears that the modus operandi is a major indication as to the intentions of the actor. The study also demonstrates the difference between the population of the suiciders and that of the SII victims. While suiciders seem to score higher on the Performance Prediction Score (PPS) and Combat Suitability Scale, the SII population seems to be overly represented in the lower parts of the PPS and the Combat Suitability Scale. The study used a data set that represents a 5 year period, and followed the consequences of the SII in terms of medical status and occupational assignment of the actors. The findings yielded some possible policy implications, in terms of a better classification of the relevant populations, and a possible attribution of a more refined meaning to the behavior. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

A Temporal Logic for Sortals

With the past and future tense propositional operators in its syntax, a formal logical system for sortal quantifiers, sortal identity and (second order) quantification over sortal concepts is formulated. A completeness proof for the system is constructed and its absolute consistency proved. The completeness proof is given relative to a notion of logical validity provided by an intensional semantic system, which assumes an approach to sortals from a modern form of conceptualism.     

A Two Dimensional Tense-modal Sortal Logic

We consider a formal language whose logical syntax involves both modal and tense propositional operators, as well as sortal quantifiers, sortal identities and (second order) quantifiers over sortals. We construct an intensional semantics for the language and characterize a formal logical system which we prove to be sound and complete with respect to the semantics. Conceptualism is the philosophical background of the semantic system.     

Beyond Compliance: Mother–Child Joint Action During a “Do” Task

Much of the literature on parent-toddler interactions does not account for the lack of independence in data. This investigation used a theory and method appropriate for examining the moment-to-moment patterns of joint actions between mothers and toddlers during a “do” task. Using contextual action theory to guide a mixture of methods, we observed and described the joint goal-directed series of actions of mothers and their toddlers as well as mothers’ intentions, meanings, and emotions they ascribed to their actions. Additionally, the associations between the patterns of joint mother-toddler actions and children’s negative emotionality were examined. Thirty mothers and their children participated in the study. Data collection included video-recorded activity, video recall interviews, and self-report questionnaires. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data revealed that (a) children were mostly engaged in the task alongside with their mothers’ on-going involvement; (b) mothers attributed a range of meanings to their interactions with their children; and (c) mothers’ perceptions of their toddlers’ dimensions of emotional negativity were associated with the organization of dyads’ joint goal directed actions—both when children were engaged in the task or self-focused.     

Training‐induced recovery of low‐level vision followed by mid‐level perceptual improvements in developmental object and face agnosia

Long‐term deprivation of normal visual inputs can cause perceptual impairments at various levels of visual function, from basic visual acuity deficits, through mid‐level deficits such as contour integration and motion coherence, to high‐level face and object agnosia. Yet it is unclear whether training during adulthood, at a post‐developmental stage of the adult visual system, can overcome such developmental impairments. Here, we visually trained LG, a developmental object and face agnosic individual. Prior to training, at the age of 20, LG's basic and mid‐level visual functions such as visual acuity, crowding effects, and contour integration were underdeveloped relative to normal adult vision, corresponding to or poorer than those of 5–6 year olds (Gilaie‐Dotan, Perry, Bonneh, Malach & Bentin, 2009). Intensive visual training, based on lateral interactions, was applied for a period of 9 months. LG's directly trained but also untrained visual functions such as visual acuity, crowding, binocular stereopsis and also mid‐level contour integration improved significantly and reached near‐age‐level performance, with long‐term (over 4 years) persistence. Moreover, mid‐level functions that were tested post‐training were found to be normal in LG. Some possible subtle improvement was observed in LG's higher‐order visual functions such as object recognition and part integration, while LG's face perception skills have not improved thus far. These results suggest that corrective training at a post‐developmental stage, even in the adult visual system, can prove effective, and its enduring effects are the basis for a revival of a developmental cascade that can lead to reduced perceptual impairments.     

From Yeshiva to Academia: The Argumentative Writing Characteristics of Ultra-Orthodox Male Students

Argumentation - This study compares the argumentative writing characteristics of students from different sociocultural backgrounds. We focused on Jewish ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) students, educated...     

Criminal Justice and Community Psychology: Our Values and Our Work—The Introduction to the Special Issue

This special issue of The American Journal of Community Psychology originated from the Society for Community Research and Action Criminal Justice interest group, with a goal of exploring the work of community psychologists intersecting with criminal justice research, practice, and policy and shaped by our shared values—equity, collaboration, creative maladjustment, social justice, and social science in the service of social justice. In this introduction, we discuss the socio‐historical context of the special issue, followed by an outline of the special issue organization, and brief summary of the included papers. Across 13 papers and an invited commentary, we see the ways in which community psychologists are: (1) delivering and evaluating services, programming, or other supports to address the needs of system‐involved people; and (2) working to improve the systems, structures, and interactions with units of criminal justice systems. Across these two sections, authors highlight the guiding role of our values to influence change within and outside of criminal‐legal systems.