The Contributions of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Reading Motivation to the Development of Reading Competence over Summer Vacation

This study addressed the role of reading motivation as a potential determinant of losses or gains in reading competence over six weeks of summer vacation (SV). Based on a sample of 223 third-grade elementary students, structural equation analyses showed that intrinsic reading motivation before SV contributed positively to both word and sentence comprehension after SV when controlling for comprehension performance before SV. These effects were mediated by reading amount. Extrinsic reading motivation did not show significant associations with end-of-summer comprehension scores. Taken together, the findings suggest that intrinsic reading motivation facilitates students’ development of reading comprehension over SV.     

Levels of phonological awareness in three cultures

This study focused on syllable phoneme onset levels of phonological awareness in relation to reading of Chinese and English in kindergarten and first-grade children from Xian (China), Hong Kong, and Toronto, cultures that differ substantially in approaches to reading instruction. English syllable awareness among native Chinese speakers was as good as or better than that among English speakers, indicating that the Chinese language may promote syllable-level awareness in children. Hong Kong children recognized significantly more words in both English and Chinese but were significantly poorer than the Xian children in both syllable and phoneme onset deletion tasks, suggesting that Pinyin training (given in Xian only) may promote phonological awareness even at the syllable level. In both Xian and Hong Kong, measures of syllable awareness consistently predicted Chinese character recognition better than did phoneme onset awareness. In contrast, English word recognition was predicted differently by syllable and phoneme onset awareness across cultures. These results underscore the roles of both language and writing system in understanding levels of phonological awareness.     

Predicting participation in premarital prevention programs: the health belief model and social norms

The development of effective programs to prevent marital dysfunction has been a recent focus for marital researchers, but the effective dissemination of these programs to engaged couples has received relatively little attention. The purpose of this study is to determine which factors predict couples' participation in premarital counseling. Predictive factors were derived from the health prevention literature, with a particular focus on the health belief model (HBM). Couples' beliefs and attitudes about premarital counseling were assessed at least six months before their wedding, and participation was assessed after their wedding. Results indicate that the strongest predictors of couples' participation were couples' perceptions of barriers to counseling and whether they had counseling recommended to them. These variables predicted participation even after controlling for important demographic variables. Recommendations for recruiting engaged couples for premarital counseling are made based on the findings.     

Anxiety sensitivity interacts with marijuana use in the prediction of anxiety symptoms and panic-related catastrophic thinking among daily tobacco users

The present investigation evaluated whether anxiety sensitivity interacted with marijuana use in relation to the prediction of panic-relevant variables among young adult tobacco smokers (n=265). Approximately 73% of the sample was composed of current marijuana smokers, with 78.5% of this sub-sample using marijuana more than once per week. As expected, after covarying cigarettes per day, alcohol use, and negative affectivity, the interaction between marijuana use and anxiety sensitivity predicted anxiety symptoms and agoraphobic cognitions. Partially consistent with prediction, the interaction between frequency of marijuana use and anxiety sensitivity predicted only anxiety symptoms. These results are discussed in relation to better understanding the potential role of regular marijuana use and anxiety sensitivity for panic-relevant emotional vulnerability among regular tobacco smokers.     

Precision of imitation as a function of preschoolers' understanding of the goal of the demonstration

The authors argue that imitation is a flexible and adaptive learning mechanism in that children do not always reproduce all of the details they can from a demonstration. Instead, they vary their replications depending on their interpretation of the situation. Specifically, the authors propose that when children do not understand the overall reason for a model's behavior, they will be more likely to imitate precisely. By copying conservatively in these situations, children may have a good chance of reproducing the action of the model correctly. In contrast, when the reason for an action is clear, children will be more likely to deviate from the manners and flourishes of the model and use their own means to complete the action.     

Family Instability and Child Maladjustment Trajectories During Elementary School

This study examines the relation between family instability and child maladjustment over a 6-year period in 369 children from four communities. Measures were collected annually from kindergarten through fifth grade. In associative growth curve models, family instability trajectories predicted children's externalizing and internalizing behavior trajectories during this time period. High levels of family instability also incrementally predicted the likelihood of meeting criteria for a DSM IV diagnosis during elementary school, above and beyond prediction from earlier measures of maladjustment. However, the timing of family instability had a different effect on externalizing versus internalizing disorders. In general, stronger relations were found between family instability and externalizing behaviors relative to internalizing behaviors, although children with comorbid disorders experienced the highest levels of family instability.The Conduct Problems Prevention Research group is comprised of Karen L. Bierman (Pennsylvania State University), John D. Coie (Duke University), Kenneth A. Dodge (Duke University), E. Michael Foster (Pennsylvania State University), Mark Greenberg (Pennsylvania State University), John E. Lochman (University of Alabama), Robert J. McMahon (University of Washington), and Ellen E. Pinderhughes (Tufts University)     

The role of structural prediction in rapid syntactic analysis

A number of recent electrophysiological studies of sentence processing have shown that a subclass of syntactic violations elicits very rapid ERP responses, occurring within around 200 ms of the onset of the violation. Such findings raise the question of how it is possible to diagnose violations so quickly. This paper suggests that very rapid diagnosis of errors is possible specifically in situations where the diagnosis problem is tightly constrained by specific expectations generated before the critical word is presented. In an event-related potentials (ERP) study of visual sentence reading participants encountered violations of a word order constraint (...Max's of...) that has elicited early ERP responses in previous studies. Across conditions the illicit sequence was held constant, while sentence context was used to manipulate the expectation for a noun following the possessor Max's, by manipulating the possibility of ellipsis of the head noun. Results showed that the anterior negativity elicited by the word category violation was attenuated when the availability of ellipsis reduced the expectation for a noun in the position of the offending preposition of, with divergence between conditions starting around 200 ms after the onset of the violation. This suggests a role for structural expectations in accounting for very fast syntactic diagnosis processes.     

Psychological measures as predictors of military training performance

The predictive validity of 7 ability tests, the Big Five, and the Rorschach method administered to 71 male applicants at the Naval Special Forces (NSF) of Norway was evaluated based on pass/fail results in training. The findings showed: (a) small correlations between the ability tests, the Big Five scales, and the success criterion; (b) Rorschach variables measuring stress tolerance, reality testing, cognition, and social adjustment correlated significantly (r =.25 to.48) with pass/fail results in training, and (c) logistic regression analysis revealed that 3 of the Rorschach variables accumulated incrementally in the prediction of training completion when entered after the ability tests and the Big Five scales, thus supporting the merit of using Rorschach variables for predicting NSF training performance     

Tridimensional personality traits of college student marijuana users

The present study examined the possibility that marijuana use among college students might be associated with particular personality traits. College student volunteers (N = 176) were administered the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire and a drug-use questionnaire. Analysis of variance showed that the mean score on Novelty Seeking was significantly higher and on Persistence significantly lower among lifetime marijuana users than among nonmarijuana using peers. Programs for prevention among college students may be enhanced by approaches tailored to individuals scoring high on Novelty Seeking and low on Persistence.