How Children Determine the Size of 3D Structures: Investigating Factors Influencing Strategy Choice

This study explores changes in students’ strategies as they solve different types of volume problems. Fifth graders were presented with pictures showing 3D objects and a unit cube; they determined how many cubes made up the object and explained their responses. We examined whether children transferred strategies across problem types, varying in terms of (a) availability of grids that divided objects into individual unit cubes, (b) order of items, (c) object shape, and (d) availability of the unit cube. Children's strategy choices varied systematically with object and task characteristics. They were more likely to use conceptually appropriate strategies when presented with grids. With non-gridded objects, they were more likely to treat a 3D object as a collection of 2D faces. Presenting gridded items first increased the use of conceptually appropriate strategies on the non-gridded items. We discuss findings in the context of Siegler's theory of strategy choice and address educational implications.     

Modifying Students' Classroom Behaviors Using an Electronic Daily Behavior Report Card

This study examined the effects of e-mailed daily behavior report cards (DBRC) on students' disruptive classroom behaviors. Additionally, teacher acceptability of e-mailed DBRC as an intervention was assessed. Participants included 46 elementary students (37 males and 9 females), that were assigned to one of three conditions; delayed treatment control, e-mailed DBRC, and e-mailed DBRC with performance feedback. Student behaviors were measured by direct observations and teacher ratings. Results suggest that e-mailed DBRC can decrease students' disruptive behaviors, that e-mailed DBRC with performance feedback did not produce superior outcomes, and that e-mailed DBRC was perceived as acceptable.     

Analyzing Multiplicity: A Postmodern Perspective on Some Current Psychoanalytic Theories of Subjectivity

Tensions between modernism and postmodernism in psychoanalytic theory and practice are evident in the allegedly “postmodern” view of subjectivity as not unified but plural. Suggesting that a thoroughgoing postmodern clinical practice does not exist at present, I distinguish between U. S. and European models of the postmodern multiple subject and between modern and postmodern varieties of pluralism in the current psychoanalytic theorization of subjectivity in this country, proposing that all such pluralist theories are in fact mixed models. I argue that these theories do not reflect objective, essential traits of selfhood but are complexly shaped by the cultural presuppositions and intrapsychic needs of the analyst; hence attempts to theorize subjectivity with reference to science (including developmental schemas) are problematic. Because a thoroughgoing postmodern pluralism cannot accommodate such concepts as agency and authenticity or a coherent narrative of the treatment process, clinical psychoanalysis, at least at present, inevitably includes major elements of the modernist approach, in which subjectivity is seen as unified. At this time of paradigm shift between modernism and postmodernism, therefore, it is important that pluralists decenter from their theories and respect the continuing influence of modernism on psychoanalytic theory and practice.     

Parental Influence on Children during Educational Television Viewing in Immigrant Families

It has been suggested by researchers that educational television programmes may support the language and literacy development for children, especially those in immigrant families. In an immigrant family, many family characteristics appear to be related to educational television programme viewing of children at home, for example, parental acculturation (the process of adapting to the new culture) and parental mediation (supervision and guidance) of television viewing. In the present work, the parental influence on children during educational television viewing was studied quantitatively, based on a sample (n = 171) of immigrant families with children aged 3–6 years collected across the U.S. The results have revealed that significant differences existed between Asian and Hispanic groups in coviewing mediation and in their children's educational television viewing. Furthermore, language in parental acculturation significantly predicted instructive and restrictive parental mediation, and parental occupation significantly predicted language in parental acculturation. This study initiates the attention to the topic of educational television viewing in immigrant families, which warrants further investigations in the future as the Asian and Hispanic immigrant population increases rapidly in the U.S. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Generalized Strategy for Measuring Performance in the Velocity-Position Phase Plane

Subjects pressed a key down as fast as possible but controlled the response duration of the keypress. The task required long (300 ±100 msec) and short (150±50 msec) durations in both simple (long only or short only) and choice (mixed long and short) conditions. Choice reaction time was slower than simple reaction time, but reaction time for long and short durations did not differ significantly for either simple or choice conditions. This finding fails to support a study by Klapp, Wyatt, and Lingo (1974) which found reaction time differences between long and short durations for choice but not simple conditions.     

Bestiarium Judaicum: Unnatural Histories of the Jews,by Jay Geller,New York,Fordham University Press, 2017, ix + 404 pp., US$75.00 (hardback), ISBN 978 0 8232 7559 5

This review article celebrates the massive contributions José Ignacio Cabezón’s Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism has made to the fields of Buddhist studies, South Asian studies, and studies in gender and sexuality. After introducing the vast scope of Cabezón’s masterwork, the article draws attention to Cabezón’s notably minimalist treatment of tantra, which he asserts did no more to challenge the denigration of queer people than exoteric Buddhism did. Even so, this article picks up on the possibility Cabezón puts forward, if only hesitantly, that Mahāyāna antinomianism and tantra have the (as yet unrealized) potential for a queer Buddhist theology, with the aim of inviting further scholarship on this potential.     

‘A kaleidoscope of themes’: intensive psychotherapy with a girl on the autistic spectrum

This paper is an account of the intensive psychotherapy of a young girl on the autistic spectrum. It describes her confusing presentation and how this suggested a tendency to oscillate between mainly unintegrated states of mind. Important themes that emerged included the phantasy of inhabiting a claustrum; the use of adhesive identification to defend against the bodily felt terror of separation; and fear of damage to the maternal object. The paper also discusses the trans-generational aspects of her difficulties and considers how her therapy helped growth to take place.     

Belief bias in the perception of sample size adequacy

In two experiments participants were instructed to set aside their own, complete knowledge of a statistical population parameter and to take the perspective of an agent whose knowledge was limited to a random sample. Participants rated the appropriateness of the agent's conclusion about the adequacy of the sample size (which, objectively, was more than adequate). They also rated the agent's intelligence. Whereas previous work suggests that unbelievable statistical conclusions impact reasoning by provoking critical thought which enhances the detection of research flaws, the present studies presented participants an unflawed scenario designed to assess effects of believability on bias. The results included the finding that participants’ complete knowledge did indeed bias their perceptions not only of the adequacy of the sample size, but also of the rationality of the agent drawing the conclusion from the sample. The findings were interpreted in the context of research on belief bias, social attribution, and Theory of Mind.     

Immunizing children against the negative effects of reward: A further examination of intrinsic motivation training techniques

An investigation was conducted to extend previous research on the effect of intrinsic motivation focus sessions on children's subsequent motivational orientation and creativity in an expected‐reward situation. Numerous earlier studies have demonstrated the over justification effect: Initially interested in an activity, an individual who is led to engage in that activity in the presence of some salient extrinsic constraint will judge him‐ or herself to be motivated by the constraint and not by his own interest. This phenomenon has been demonstrated across the life span. Even very young children who work on an interesting task in order to obtain a reward evidence lower subsequent intrinsic motivation than do children not working for a reward. Other research has shown similar negative effects on creativity. However, two recent investigations indicated that the usual over justification effect need not always occur. These studies demonstrated that the undermining of school children's intrinsic motivation and creativity may be counteracted by means of videotaped modeling and directed discussion sessions that explicitly (a) deal with ways to cognitively distance oneself from reward contingencies and (b) focus on intrinsic reasons for working in school. The present study incorporates important refinements of these earlier immunization attempts and provides particularly strong evidence for the hypothesis that children participating in sessions designed to focus on intrinsic reasons for doing things in school will later treat reward as an actual augmentation of intrinsic motivation. Theoretical and practical implications of this phenomenon are discussed.     

Understanding smoking after acute illness: An application of the sentinel event method

The sentinel event theory provides a stepwise approach for building models to understand how negative events can spark health behaviour change. This study tested a preliminary model using the sentinel events method in a sample (N = 300) of smokers who sought care for acute cardiac symptoms. Patients completed measures on: smoking-related causal attribution, perceived severity of the acute illness event, illness-related fear and intentions to quit smoking. Patients were followed up one week after the health event and a seven-day timeline follow back was completed to determine abstinence from tobacco. Structural equation models were performed using average predictor scale scores at baseline, as well as three different time anchors for ratings of illness severity and illness-related fear. Quit intentions, actual illness severity and age were the consistent, positive and independent predictors of seven-day point prevalence abstinence. Additional research on the influences of perceptions and emotional reactions is warranted.