JUSTICE IN CHOICE BEHAVIOR

Une série d'études inter-culturelles a été consacrée à L'effet de L'équité sur le comportement de choix, dans un jeu de type Dilemme du Prisonnier. Les résultats antérieurement collectés montrent que les sujets américains choisissent de maximiser leur gain en fonction de leur niveau d'estime de soi: une distribution des récompenses en fonction du mérite semble correspondre à un besoin d'équité; mais les sujets italiens qui ont une faible estime d'eux-mêmes tendent à maximiser plus fréquemment leur gain: ils ont tendance à être “ ego-défensifs”. Dans les études qui sont présentées ici, une récompense initiale est donnée à L'un des deux partenaires, sur la base d'un “test” d'aptitude à la prédiction (Distribution Juste), ou bien la récompense est donnée arbitrairement, sans tenir compre du test (Distribution Injuste). Les sujets doivent ensuite faire une serie de cinquante choix. Les choix des sujets américains renètent un besoin d'équité dans la condition Distribution Injuste, le sujet qui a reçu une récompense choisit moins souvent de maximiser ses gains que le sujet qui n'a pas reçu de récompense; dans la condition Distribution Juste, les sujets maintiennent L'inégalité créée par la récompense initiale. Sur L'ensemble des trois échantillons italiens qui ont été étudiés séparément, on observe une tendance à minimiser L'injustice dans la condition Distribution Injuste; mais dans la condition Distribution Juste, on observe un effet de défense du moi. Différentes interprétations théoriques des résultats sont discutées.     

Adolescent girls' representations of their genital inner space

Psychoanalytical theory and research based on Freud's observations have viewed female sexual development mainly in terms of the fantasies and sensations aroused by the external genitals of the child. Other authors refer to the significance of females' inner sexual organs that define the cavity surrounded by body mass, included in the body image. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between girls' representative modalities of their genital inner space and their identity formation. Randomly selected adolescent girls (n = 275) aged 11 to 18 years were asked to make a drawing (1) of the inside of their body and (2) of their sexual organs. Analysis of the main qualitative features of the drawings indicates that structuration and integration of genital inner space in the body image is a slow developmental process.     

Validation of a role-play measure of children's social skills

A videotape-administered role-play test of children's social skills was developed and its psychometric properties tested. Performance criteria for the test were derived from popular children's ratings of the effectiveness of different role-play responses. The test was administered to 157 fourth- and fifth-grade boys and girls who had been classified as popular, average, neglected, or rejected, on the basis of sociometric testing. The test evidenced good interrater, test-retest, and internal consistency reliabilities. Children's role-play performance correlated significantly with teacher ratings of social competence and with peer-liking ratings. Neglected children performed more poorly on the role-play test than popular children. When differences in intelligence among social status groups were statistically controlled, social status groups did not differ on the role-play test. Results of the discriminant analyses support the conclusion that teacher ratings are better than role-play tests for identifying rejected children, whereas role-play tests and measures of intelligence appear more accurate than teacher ratings for identifying neglected children.     

Technology vs. science: The cognitive fallacy

There are fundamental differences between the explanation of scientific change and the explanation of technological change. The differences arise from fundamental differences between scientific and technological knowledge and basic disanalogies between technological advance and scientific progress. Given the influence of economic markets and industrial and institutional structures on the development of technology, it is more plausible to regard technological change as a continuous and incremental process, rather than as a process of Kuhnian crises and revolutions.     

Group-based Life Design Counseling in an Italian context

This study examined the effectiveness of group-based Life Design Counseling using the Career-Story Interview. Written exercises were used to implement the seven topics in the Career-Story Interview. The present study employed an experimental design that involved two groups of Italian entrepreneurs from the agricultural and trade sectors, namely an experimental group (38 participants) who received Life Design Counseling (Savickas, 2010) and a control group (34 participants). The results showed a decrease in career decision-making difficulties (Lack of Information and Inconsistent Information) and an increase in career decision-making self-efficacy in the experimental group thus suggesting the value of group-based Life Design Counseling.     

Is the face-perception system human-specific at birth?

The present study investigates the human-specificity of the orienting system that allows neonates to look preferentially at faces. Three experiments were carried out to determine whether the face-perception system that is present at birth is broad enough to include both human and nonhuman primate faces. The results demonstrate that the newborns did not show any spontaneous visual preference for the human face when presented simultaneously with a monkey face that shared the same features, configuration, and low-level perceptual properties (Experiment 1). The newborns were, however, able to discriminate between the 2 faces belonging to the 2 different species (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, the newborns were found to prefer looking at an upright, compared with an inverted, monkey face, as they do for human faces. Overall, the results demonstrate that newborns perceive monkey and human faces in a similar way. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the system underlying face preference at birth is broad enough to bias newborns' attention toward both human and nonhuman primate faces.     

Retrieval of concrete words involves more contextual information than abstract words: multiple components for the concreteness effect

The current study used the directed forgetting paradigm in implicit and explicit memory to investigate the concreteness effect. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to explore the neural basis of this phenomenon. The behavioral results showed a clear concreteness effect in both implicit and explicit memory tests; participants responded significantly faster to concrete words than to abstract words. The ERP results revealed a concreteness effect (N400) in both the encoding and retrieval phases. In addition, behavioral and ERP results showed an interaction between word concreteness and memory instruction (to-be-forgotten vs. to-be-remembered) in the late epoch of the explicit retrieval phase, revealing a significant concreteness effect only under the to-be-remembered instruction condition. This concreteness effect was realized as an increased P600-like component in response to concrete words relative to abstract words, likely reflecting retrieval of contextual details. The time course of the concreteness effect suggests advantages of concrete words over abstract words due to greater contextual information.