Aspirations and opportunity structures: 13-year-olds in areas with restricted opportunities

Some of the ways in which the occupational and educational aspirations and expectations of 13-year-olds are influenced by local opportunity structures are examined. The educational and occupational aspirations of 13-year-olds in contrasting local labour markets are explored, along with the ways in which their plans may be affected by living in an area with restricted opportunities. It is argued that differences in aspirations and expectations are largely explained by the socio-economic location of families rather than by the structure of the local labour market. However, 13-year-olds have an awareness of the limited nature of local job opportunities, and many realise that migration may be necessary if they are to fulfil their aspirations.     

The Specter of Metaphysics in Counseling Research and Practice: The Qualitative Challenge

After decades of scientific research, the specter of metaphysics pervades and hinders virtually all aspects of counseling research, theory, and practice. Qualitative research is suggested as capable of coming to terms with such issues. This article notes that qualitative research will gain acceptance when it takes a significant step toward solving a major problem in the discipline. A tentative outline of an approach to metaphysical problems involving radical empiricism and phenomenology is provided. Along the way, some necessary cognitive shifts are delineated, involving dialectical and abductive reasoning processes.     

Training self‐assessment and task‐selection skills to foster self‐regulated learning: Do trained skills transfer across domains?

Students' ability to accurately self‐assess their performance and select a suitable subsequent learning task in response is imperative for effective self‐regulated learning. Video modeling examples have proven effective for training self‐assessment and task‐selection skills, and—importantly—such training fostered self‐regulated learning outcomes. It is unclear, however, whether trained skills would transfer across domains. We investigated whether skills acquired from training with either a specific, algorithmic task‐selection rule or a more general heuristic task‐selection rule in biology would transfer to self‐regulated learning in math. A manipulation check performed after the training confirmed that both algorithmic and heuristic training improved task‐selection skills on the biology problems compared with the control condition. However, we found no evidence that students subsequently applied the acquired skills during self‐regulated learning in math. Future research should investigate how to support transfer of task‐selection skills across domains.     

A Normative Pragmatic Theory of Exhorting

We submit a normative pragmatic theory of exhorting—an account of conceptually necessary and potentially efficacious components of a coherent strategy for securing a sympathetic hearing for efforts to urge and inspire addressees to act on high-minded principles. Based on a Gricean analysis of utterance-meaning, we argue that the concept of exhorting comprises making statements openly urging addressees to perform some high-minded, principled course of action; openly intending to inspire addressees to act on the principles; and intending that addressees’ recognition of the intentions to urge and inspire creates reasons for addressees to grant a sympathetic hearing to what the speaker has to say. We show that the theory accounts for the design of Abraham Lincoln’s Cooper Union address. By doing so we add to the inventory of reasons why social actors make arguments, continue a line of research showing the relationship of arguing to master speech acts, and show that making arguments can be an effective strategy for inspiring principled action.     

Effects of pointing compared with naming and observing during encoding on item and source memory in young and older adults

Research showed that source memory functioning declines with ageing. Evidence suggests that encoding visual stimuli with manual pointing in addition to visual observation can have a positive effect on spatial memory compared with visual observation only. The present study investigated whether pointing at picture locations during encoding would lead to better spatial source memory than naming (Experiment 1) and visual observation only (Experiment 2) in young and older adults. Experiment 3 investigated whether response modality during the test phase would influence spatial source memory performance. Experiments 1 and 2 supported the hypothesis that pointing during encoding led to better source memory for picture locations than naming or observation only. Young adults outperformed older adults on the source memory but not the item memory task in both Experiments 1 and 2. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants manually responded in the test phase. Experiment 3 showed that if participants had to verbally respond in the test phase, the positive effect of pointing compared with naming during encoding disappeared. The results suggest that pointing at picture locations during encoding can enhance spatial source memory in both young and older adults, but only if the response modality is congruent in the test phase.     

Role of female behavior in controlling population growth in mice

Sex ratio does not appear to be a factor in generating the characteristic population growth curve. Freely growing populations of house mice, consisting of all females and one male, stopped their growth at approximately the same densities as normal sexratio populations used as references. The mechanism(s) of female control of population dynamics may be related to female aggressive behavior. As the all-female/one-male populations approached their maximum size, the females began to show wounding patterns and social hierarchies in much the same manner as males in populations with normal sex ratios. The male in each of the populations was severely wounded in the posterior region, and each lost its tail as a result of injuries which could have been inflicted only by the females. The female social hierarchy can be seen only when there has been reproduction and population growth. Assembled populations of all females rarely exhibit aggressive behavior. Female aggression becomes apparent only when the population approaches its maximum size and thereafter. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that males are competitive among themselves for territory and social rank, and ultimately to mate with the females. Other investigators have indicated that females respond to population size, which may reflect increased competition between the females with the establishment of territories. Thus female agression may control population growth, a role previously ascribed to male aggression.     

Perceptions of self-oriented and other-oriented “everyday” helpers

In two investigations, participants were asked to evaluate eight different young adults (Study 1) and children (Study 2) who had described (a) a situation in which they had offered assistance to another individual and (b) the reason why they had offered the assistance in that situation. Although other-oriented helpers and their motives were generally rated more favorably than self-oriented helpers and their motives, participants' evaluations were found to be influenced by the closeness of the helper-recipient relationship, the type of help provided (i.e., instrumental vs. expressive), and the participants' gender. A similar pattern of responses was found for the undergraduate (Studies 1 and 2) and preadolescent (Study 2) participants.