Conceptions of Plagiarism and Problems in Academic Writing in a Changing Landscape of External Regulation

The aim of this study was to investigate the consequences of the use of text-matching software on teachers’ and students’ conceptions of plagiarism and problems in academic writing. An electronic questionnaire included scale items, structured questions, and open-ended questions. The respondents were 85 teachers and 506 students in a large Finnish university. Methods of analysis included exploratory factor analysis, t-test, and inductive content analysis. Both teachers and students reported increased awareness of plagiarism and improvements in writing habits, as well as concerns and limitations related to the system. The results suggest that teachers are inclined to think of plagiarism as part of a learning process rather an issue of morality, which may have consequences for how they understand the role of text matching. The introduction of text-matching software has supported teachers’ work, but at the same time teachers emphasized their own responsibility in detecting problems in student writing. The survey provides a limited sample of “Case Finland,” where implementation of text-matching software nationwide has been remarkably rapid; it offers a glimpse into one institution’s implementation of a newly introduced policy for mandatory plagiarism detection.     

Social Support and Neighborhood Stressors Among African American Youth: Networks and Relations to Self-Worth

Although neighborhood stressors have a negative impact on youth, and social support can play a protective role, it is unclear what types and sources of social support may contribute to positive outcomes among at-risk youth. We examined the influences of neighborhood disadvantage and social support on global self-worth among low-income, urban African American youth, both concurrently and longitudinally. We examined social support from both a structural and functional perspective, and tested the main-effects and the stress-buffering models of social support. Participants included 82–130 youth, in 6th–8th grade, who completed self-report measures. Network support results suggest participants received emotional, tangible, and informational support most often from mothers and other female relatives, with friends, fathers, and teachers also playing important roles. Model testing accounted for neighborhood stressors and support from various sources, revealing support from close friends was associated with concurrent self-worth; whereas, parent support predicted self-worth longitudinally, above and beyond initial levels of self-worth. The findings provide evidence for the main-effects model of social support and not the stress-buffering model. Our findings illustrate the importance of extended family networks and the types of support that youth rely upon in African American impoverished communities, as well as how support contributes to global self-worth. Implications and suggestions for future research and intervention are discussed.     

A tale of two negatives: differential memory modulation by threat-related facial expressions

Facial expressions serve as cues that encourage viewers to learn about their immediate environment. In studies assessing the influence of emotional cues on behavior, fearful and angry faces are often combined into one category, such as "threat-related," because they share similar emotional valence and arousal properties. However, these expressions convey different information to the viewer. Fearful faces indicate the increased probability of a threat, whereas angry expressions embody a certain and direct threat. This conceptualization predicts that a fearful face should facilitate processing of the environment to gather information to disambiguate the threat. Here, we tested whether fearful faces facilitated processing of neutral information presented in close temporal proximity to the faces. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated that, compared with neutral faces, fearful faces enhanced memory for neutral words presented in the experimental context, whereas angry faces did not. In Experiment 2, we directly compared the effects of fearful and angry faces on subsequent memory for emotional faces versus neutral words. We replicated the findings of Experiment 1 and extended them by showing that participants remembered more faces from the angry face condition relative to the fear condition, consistent with the notion that anger differs from fear in that it directs attention toward the angry individual. Because these effects cannot be attributed to differences in arousal or valence processing, we suggest they are best understood in terms of differences in the predictive information conveyed by fearful and angry facial expressions.     

Enhanced response inhibition during intensive meditation training predicts improvements in self-reported adaptive socioemotional functioning

We examined the impact of training-induced improvements in self-regulation, operationalized in terms of response inhibition, on longitudinal changes in self-reported adaptive socioemotional functioning. Data were collected from participants undergoing 3 months of intensive meditation training in an isolated retreat setting (Retreat 1) and a wait-list control group that later underwent identical training (Retreat 2). A 32-min response inhibition task (RIT) was designed to assess sustained self-regulatory control. Adaptive functioning (AF) was operationalized as a single latent factor underlying self-report measures of anxious and avoidant attachment, mindfulness, ego resilience, empathy, the five major personality traits (extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience), difficulties in emotion regulation, depression, anxiety, and psychological well-being. Participants in Retreat 1 improved in RIT performance and AF over time whereas the controls did not. The control participants later also improved on both dimensions during their own retreat (Retreat 2). These improved levels of RIT performance and AF were sustained in follow-up assessments conducted approximately 5 months after the training. Longitudinal dynamic models with combined data from both retreats showed that improvement in RIT performance during training influenced the change in AF over time, which is consistent with a key claim in the Buddhist literature that enhanced capacity for self-regulation is an important precursor of changes in emotional well-being.     

A little bit louder now: negative affect increases perceived loudness

Traditionally, perception was considered to be an encapsulated process that was unaffected by top-down processes like affect. Recent work in vision draws this framework into question by showing that changes in the affective state of the perceiver can impact many different aspects of visual perception. Here, we extend the relationship between affect and perception into another perceptual modality: audition. Participants were induced into a negative or neutral mood by writing about a frightening or neutral experience in their past. They then listened to a series of short, neutral tones (320 and 640 ms) and rated the loudness and duration of the tones. Participants in a negative mood rated the tones as significantly louder, but not longer, than participants in a neutral mood, suggesting that the difference between the groups was perceptual rather than just a response bias. This research shows for the first time that the role of affect in perceptual processes may be more pervasive than previously considered.     

Meta-insight: do people really know how others see them?

Although people can accurately guess how others see them, many studies have suggested that this may only be because people generally assume that others see them as they see themselves. These findings raise the question: In their everyday lives, do people understand the distinction between how they see their own personality and how others see their personality? We examined whether people make this distinction, or whether people possess what we call meta-insight. In 3 studies, we assessed meta-insight for a broad range of traits (e.g., Big Five, intelligent, funny) across several naturalistic social contexts (e.g., first impression, friends). Our findings suggest that people can make valid distinctions between how they see themselves and how others see them. Thus, people seem to have some genuine insight into their reputation and do not achieve meta-accuracy only by capitalizing on the fact that others see them similarly to how they see themselves.     

Spontaneous analogical transfer in 4-year-olds: a microgenetic study

The purpose of the current microgenetic study was to examine children's spontaneous application of analogical problem solving from story problems to physical tasks. Thirty-six 4-year-olds (M=54.7 months), randomly assigned to an experimental or a control condition, participated. The results indicate that 4-year-old children did, with varying success, spontaneously apply analogical solutions to physical problems across sessions. A positive effect over time on children's spontaneous analogical problem solving was found. Additionally, a few children even gave an analogical strategy-related explanation for their own physical behavior. There was much inter- and intra-individual variability, which may indicate that 4 years of age is a period of change in the development of analogical reasoning.     

“My Life is Too Chaotic to Practice What I Preach”: Perceived Benefits and Challenges of Being an Academic Women in Family Therapy and Family Studies Programs

The purpose of this study was to explore the experience of female faculty in family therapy and family studies graduate programs. Specifically, we were interested in how female faculty members in these programs experienced their roles as academics, partners, and/or parents. We conducted a discovery-oriented study qualitative study of 62 female academics in family studies and family therapy disciplines to identify the greatest concerns and benefits experienced by women in a family-studies-oriented academic field. Using a content analysis, we found that women in family studies/family therapy academic programs experience both high rewards and high demands and struggle with choosing among competing values. Additionally, the participants perceived support from colleagues, professional institutions, and family members as crucial to a female academic’s ability to perform up to expectations. We also offer suggestions for further research.     

Parents,Peers, and Places: Young Urban Adolescents’ Microsystems and Substance Use Involvement

Limited research is available that explains complex contextual and interactive effects of microsystems such as family relationships, peer networks, and place-based influences have on urban adolescent substance use. We contend that research into these complex processes is improved by integrating psychological, social, and geographic data to better understand urban adolescent substance use involvement. Accordingly, we tested a longitudinal, 3-way moderation model to determine if the direct effect of teen–parent relationships on substance use involvement is moderated by peer network characteristics, which in turn is moderated by the risk and protective attributes within urban adolescents’ activity spaces, among a sample of 248 adolescents. Results revealed that peer networks moderate the effects of relations with parents on substance use involvement for those adolescents with higher levels of risk attributes within their activity space, but not for those who spend time in locations with less risk. Thus, the teen–parent relationship interacts with peer network characteristics, for those urban adolescents whose activity space is constituted within high-risk environments. We conclude that peer networks have important interactive effects with family relationships that influence substance use, and that this is particularly salient for young adolescents who are exposed to risky environments. This finding underscores the importance of continued study into the interrelations among microsystems of urban adolescents, and provides further support that substance use is a social practice that is constituted within the unique geography of young adolescents’ lives.