Individual differences in children's mathematical competence are related to the intentional but not automatic processing of Arabic numerals

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on the role played by basic numerical magnitude processing in the typical and atypical development of mathematical skills. In this context, tasks measuring both the intentional and automatic processing of numerical magnitude have been employed to characterize how children’s representation and processing of numerical magnitude changes over developmental time. To date, however, there has been little effort to differentiate between different measures of ‘number sense’. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between automatic and intentional measures of magnitude processing as well as their relationships to individual differences in children’s mathematical achievement. A group of 119 children in 1st and 2nd grade were tested on the physical size congruity paradigm (automatic processing) as well as the number comparison paradigm to measure the ratio effect (intentional processing). The results reveal that measures of intentional and automatic processing are uncorrelated with one another, suggesting that these tasks tap into different levels of numerical magnitude processing in children. Furthermore, while children’s performance on the number comparison paradigm was found to correlate with their mathematical achievement scores, no such correlations could be obtained for any of the measures typically derived from the physical size congruity task. These findings therefore suggest that different tasks measuring ‘number sense’ tap into different levels of numerical magnitude representation that may be unrelated to one another and have differential predictive power for individual differences in mathematical achievement.     

Cooperation as a signal of genetic or phenotypic quality in female mate choice? Evidence from preferences across the menstrual cycle

Previous research highlighting the role sexual selection may play in the evolution of human cooperation has yet to distinguish what qualities such behaviours actually signal. The aim here was to examine whether female preferences for male cooperative behaviours are because they signal genetic or indirect phenotypic quality. This was possible by taking into account female participants' stage of menstrual cycle, as much research has shown that females at the most fertile stage show greater preferences specifically for signals of genetic quality than any other stage, particularly for short-term relationships. Therefore, different examples of cooperation (personality, costly signals, heroism) and the mate preferences for altruistic traits self-report scale were used across a series of four experiments to examine females' attitudes towards cooperation in potential mates for different relationship lengths at different stages of the menstrual cycle. The results here consistently show that female fertility had no effect on perceptions of cooperative behaviour, and that such traits were considered more important for long-term relationships. Therefore, this provides strong evidence that cooperative behaviour is important in mate choice as predominantly a signal of phenotypic rather than genetic quality.     

Cognitive behavioral group treatment for Chinese people with depressive symptoms in Hong Kong: participants' perspectives

This study documents the experiences of 20 Chinese people in Hong Kong who participated in group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). They were asked to comment on the aspects of the group content and process that they found to be useful or not useful in dealing with their depressive moods. In general, they reported that the groups helped them gain awareness of their thought and behavioral patterns and learn new cognitive and behavioral strategies. Certain aspects of the group process, however, such as the outpouring of negative emotions, were considered by the participants to be counterproductive to their learning and practice of CBT.     

A Friend in Creed: Does the Religious Composition of Geographic Areas Affect the Religious Composition of a Person's Close Friends?

Numerous theories of religion rest on the assumption that the religious composition of local populations influences the religious identities of a person's close friends, but there have been few empirical tests of this assumption. Using a combination of data on the religious identity of close friends (from the 1988 and 1998 General Social Survey) and information on the religious composition of counties (from the U.S. Religious Congregations and Membership Study) we find that despite tendencies toward religious homogeneity, the religious composition of the surrounding population has an effect on the proportion of a respondent’s same‐religion friends and on the proportion of friends belonging to specific other religious groups. Local population characteristics are unrelated to the proportion of respondents’ friends known in congregational settings. Results have implications for a broad range of sociological theories of religion as well as research examining the impact of same‐congregation and same‐religion friends (e.g., health and well‐being).     

The role of behavior analysis in the rehabilitation of persons with dementia

With the rapidly aging population, it is expected that increases in cases of dementia will double over the next 20 years. Currently, there is no cure for diseases such as Alzheimer's disease or frontotemporal dementia (FTD) that cause progressive dementia, and only a few pharmacological interventions that slow the progression of the decline exist. Given that there is no cure available, a rehabilitation approach that emphasizes maintaining existing abilities and removing excess disability (as opposed to emphasizing cure or recovery) for as long as possible is warranted. The current paper proposes that nonpharmacological rehabilitation efforts need to target 5 broad areas/targets: memory enhancement, altering social contingencies and communication styles, improving self-care skills, the arrangement of physical environments to maintain and improve functioning, and increasing physical fitness/physical activity. The purpose of this paper is to review specific behaviorally oriented interventions that target these 5 areas and show promise for inclusion in comprehensive rehabilitation efforts for individuals with dementia.     

The mismeasure of morals: antisocial personality traits predict utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas

Researchers have recently argued that utilitarianism is the appropriate framework by which to evaluate moral judgment, and that individuals who endorse non-utilitarian solutions to moral dilemmas (involving active vs. passive harm) are committing an error. We report a study in which participants responded to a battery of personality assessments and a set of dilemmas that pit utilitarian and non-utilitarian options against each other. Participants who indicated greater endorsement of utilitarian solutions had higher scores on measures of Psychopathy, machiavellianism, and life meaninglessness. These results question the widely-used methods by which lay moral judgments are evaluated, as these approaches lead to the counterintuitive conclusion that those individuals who are least prone to moral errors also possess a set of psychological characteristics that many would consider prototypically immoral.     

Plasticity of human spatial cognition: spatial language and cognition covary across cultures

The present paper explores cross-cultural variation in spatial cognition by comparing spatial reconstruction tasks by Dutch and Namibian elementary school children. These two communities differ in the way they predominantly express spatial relations in language. Four experiments investigate cognitive strategy preferences across different levels of task-complexity and instruction. Data show a correlation between dominant linguistic spatial frames of reference and performance patterns in non-linguistic spatial memory tasks. This correlation is shown to be stable across an increase of complexity in the spatial array. When instructed to use their respective non-habitual cognitive strategy, participants were not easily able to switch between strategies and their attempts to do so impaired their performance. These results indicate a difference not only in preference but also in competence and suggest that spatial language and non-linguistic preferences and competences in spatial cognition are systematically aligned across human populations.     

Consistency of hand-preference across the early years: long-term relationship to verbal intelligence and reading achievement in girls

The relationship between consistency of hand preference, left hemispheric specialization, and cognitive functioning was examined in an ongoing longitudinal investigation. Children were classified as consistent or inconsistent in their hand preference across 5 assessments from ages 18 to 42 months. Findings demonstrated that (a) this early classification continued to reveal differences in cognitive functioning from 10 to 17 years but only for girls, (b) consistent girls' performances were continually higher relative to the inconsistent girls on measures of verbal intelligence and reading achievement, (c) differences between the female groups were specifically related to left-hemispheric language specialization, and (d) one factor influencing the consistent girls' development may be the amount of reading exposure received during infancy.     

Age-relevance of person characteristics: persons' beliefs about developmental change across the lifespan

The authors investigated normative beliefs about personality development. Young, middle-aged, and older adults indicated the age-relevance of 835 French adjectives by specifying person characteristics as typical for any age decade from 0 to 99 years. With this paradigm, the authors determined age-relevance (How typical is a characteristic for a given age decade?). Most characteristics were ascribed to young adulthood. The pattern differed across the lifespan, however, for positive and negative person characteristics as well as for physical, cognitive, and personal/expressive characteristics. Whereas the total number of ascribed positive characteristics peaked in young adulthood and declined thereafter, the number of ascribed negative person characteristics peaked during adolescence, remained fairly low during middle adulthood, and increased slightly in old age (70+ years). As a consequence, the most positive profile was ascribed to young olds (60 to 69 years), whereas the most negative personality profiles were ascribed to the oldest age groups (70+ years) and to adolescence (10 to 19 years). The negative profiles are primarily due to more negative physical characteristics ascribed to older adults and more negative cognitive characteristics ascribed to adolescence.     

Transportability of equivalence-based programmed instruction: efficacy and efficiency in a college classroom

College students in a psychology research-methods course learned concepts related to inferential statistics and hypothesis decision making. One group received equivalence-based instruction on conditional discriminations that were expected to promote the emergence of many untaught, academically useful abilities (i.e., stimulus equivalence group). A negative control group received no instruction, and a positive (complete instruction) control group received instruction on all possible relations (those taught to, and emerging untaught in, the stimulus equivalence group). On posttests, the stimulus equivalence group performed as well as the positive control group (and both outperformed the negative control group), but those in the equivalence-based instruction condition achieved this outcome with significantly less training, thereby demonstrating the efficiency of equivalence-based instruction. Social validity measures indicated that participants found the instruction to be beneficial and as enjoyable as traditional teaching methods.