Development and validation of adolescent-perceived microsystem scales: Social support,daily hassles,and involvement

Developed and validated instruments for urban and culturally diverse adolescents to assess their self-reported transactions with family, peer, school, and neighborhood microsystems for the constructs of social support, daily hassles, and involvement. The sample of 998 youth were from schools in three Eastern cities with high percentages of economically disadvantaged youth. Data were collected before and after the transition to junior high school or to senior high school. Blacks constituted 26%, whites 26%, and Latinos 37% of the sample. Factor analyses confirmed and enhanced the hypothesized four-factor microsystem factor structure for support, hassles, and involvement; internal consistency and stability coefficients were consistent with these structures. In general, the microsystem factors were common across gender, ethnicity, and age. However, when group differences did occur on these demographic variables, they tended to validate the salience of microsystem specificity. In contrast to the total scores, the microsystem-specific factors yielded more meaningful and differential information with regard to demographic differences and the mediating processes across a school transition.     

Peer networks and bullying in schools

This study looked at how the social constellations in school classes relate to bullying problems. Using peer-evaluation questionnaires, the peer networks of children with different participant roles (such as victim, bully, assistant of bully, reinforcer of bully, defender of victim, outsider) were explored. The subjects were 459 sixth-grade-children (218 girls, 241 boys), aged 11 to 12 years, in Finland. The main findings were: 1) Children who tended to behave in either similar or complementary participant roles in situations of bullying formed networks with each other. The individual child's behavior in bullying situations was strongly connected to how the members of his/her network behaved in such situations. 2) Bullies, assistants, and reinforcers belonged to larger networks than did defenders, outsiders and victims. 3) Children outside the networks were most often victims. It was concluded that behavior in bullying situations can be said to be one feature around which the peer networks in school classes are organized. Thus prevention, as well as intervention strategies against bullying should focus not only on individual children, but also on the wider social context of the class.     

The Structure of Problem and Positive Behavior Among American Indian Adolescents: Gender and Community Differences

Using Problem-Behavior Theory as a framework, the latent structure of problem and positive behaviors was examined within a sample of 1,894 American Indian adolescents. Support was found for a two-factor second-order structure in which problem behaviors (antisocial behavior, alcohol use, drug use, and risky sexual behavior) and positive behaviors (school success, cultural activities, competencies, and community-mindedness) represented two relatively uncorrelated aspects of behavior. Hierarchical multiple regressions demonstrated that the positive behaviors construct contributed significant incremental construct validity in the statistical prediction of psychosocial outcomes, over and above the problem behaviors. In addition, the fit of the structure was examined across gender and the four participating communities. The importance of the inclusion of positive behaviors is discussed from the standpoint of both prevention/promotion activities and the communities' perceptions. Further recommendations are made for deeper understandings of community concerns and strengths in conducting preventive/promotive research efforts.     

Adolescent AIDS Prevention in Context: The Impact of Peer Educator Qualities and Classroom Environments on Intervention Efficacy

Peer-led, school-based interventions show promise for preventing AIDS among adolescents, but little is known about the processes underlying effective peer education or the conditions that promote its efficacy. This study examined the implementation in one school of an effective, peer-led AIDS prevention program for inner-city 7th-grade participants (n = 123) and identified the qualities of peer educators (n = 15) and classroom environments (n = 5) that contributed to improvement in participants' postintervention AIDS-related attitudes. The Peer Educator Rating Scale was developed to assess two dimensions of participants' perceptions of peer educators: positive regard and perceived similarity. Participants reported greater positive regard for more highly individuated and less shy peer educators, and participants' positive regard for peer educators in turn was associated with lowered AIDS risk as measured by perceptions of peer norms regarding sexual activity and self-efficacy for peer communication regarding sexual topics and condoms. Participants' perceived similarity was not associated with any postintervention improvements in AIDS-related knowledge and attitudes. Participants' classroom membership was associated with improvements in all 5 knowledge and attitude scales, and exploratory classroom-level findings indicated that classroom intervention environments perceived as more organized by participants showed slightly greater overall improvements across AIDS-related knowledge and attitudes scales. Consistent with individual-level findings regarding participants' positive regard for peer educators, the two classrooms with the greatest positive regard for their peer educator teams showed the most student improvement. Implications for further research and the design of future prevention and promotion programs for adolescents are discussed.     

jThe Birth of Difference

Although birth marks the entrance of a human being into the world and establishes the very possibility of experience the philosophical implications of this event have been largely ignored in the history of thought. This is particularly troubling in phenomenology in general and in the work of Martin Heidegger in particular. While Heidegger raises the issue of birth he drops it very quickly on the path to defining Dasein's existence as constituted from the standpoint of death, as being-towards-death. In this paper I argue, contra Heidegger, that intentional existence can only be understood from the standpoint of birth. I begin by showing that intentionality inheres in a double difference that is fundamentally dependent on birth insofar as birth is an original differentiating from prenatal existence. I conclude with the argument that only a philosophy that regards Dasein from the standpoint of birth, as being-from-birth, can give an adequate account of humans as beings who live with others and who can initiate sense constitution and action.     

Appraisal and coping processes in acute time-limited stressful situations: A study of police officers

This study focuses on the appraisal and coping process in acute, time-limited stressful situations in a stress experienced group: 54 Swedish police officers. Each police officer retrospectively reported their thoughts, emotions, and actions during five recent stressful job events. The relations among appraisals of threat and of coping options, seven forms of problem- and emotion-focused coping strategies, and selfrated performance were examined. Compared with previous studies of ordinary people in stressful situations, the police officers felt less threatened, appraised the situations as more solvable, and used considerably more problem-focused forms of coping. Age had a significant effect on appraisal, while organizational position had a significant effect on coping. Using latent profile analysis, four appraisal styles were obtained. Consistency of cross-situational appraisal style amongst individuals was high. The functional relationships among variables, i.e. appraisal, coping, and performance, are discussed.     

Hand position as a variable determining the accuracy of aiming movements

Two experiments investigated the effect of hand position on the accuracy of short- and long-duration aiming movements in the presence and absence of visual feedback. In Experiment 1 (N = 16) short aiming movements were executed rapidly, which would require them to be predominantly programmed, whereas in Experiment 2(N = 8) these movements were performed slowly enough so that visual feedback, which implies that they were predominantly programmed. However, the long-duration, short-length movements of Experiment 2 were disrupted when visual feedback was removed, which suggests that these movements were being guided by visual feedback. Having the heel of the responding hand in contact with the target platform during the response resulted in greater accuracy than no hand contact for the short-length movements of both experiments. Taken together, these results indicated that hand contact produced greater aiming accuracy than no hand contact for both programmed- and feedback-based movements.     

THE EFFECTS OF TRAINING IN CRAWLING ON THE MOTOR AND MENTAL DEVELOPMENT OF INFANTS

LAGERSPETZ, K., NYGÅHD, M. & STRANDVIK, C. The effects of training in crawling on the motor and mental development of infants. Scand. J. Psychol. , 1971 12, 192–197.–Eleven infants under the age of 1 year were trained in creeping for 15 minutes daily for 3 weeks, while 11 children, who served as controls, spent the corresponding times with the experimenters without training. The experimental group learned to creep significantly earlier, and transfer effects on other locomotor development were observed. Even effects on factors other than motor developmental were obtained. A training experiment with a pair of monozygotic twins is also reported.     

Looks like a liar? Beliefs about native and non-native speakers' deception

We examined whether observers' beliefs about deception were affected by a speaker's language proficiency. Laypersons (N = 105) and police officers (N = 75) indicated which nonverbal and verbal behaviors were predictive of native versus non-native speakers' deception. In addition, they provided their beliefs about these speakers' interrogation experiences. Participants believed that native and non-native speakers would exhibit the same cues to deception. However, they did predict that non-native speakers would likely face several challenges during interrogations (e.g., longer interrogations and difficulties understanding the interrogator's questions). Police officers and laypersons also differed in their beliefs about cues to deception and interrogation experiences.