Children's use of inanimate transitional objects in coping with hassles.

This study examined children's use of inanimate transitional objects when coping with daily hassles. Mothers of 50 preschoolers rated their children on frequency of hassles, intensity of reaction to daily hassles, coping effectiveness, and frequency of object use. No significant differences were found between those children with an inanimate transitional object and those without such an object. Among those children with an object, a significant object effect on frequency of hassles (p less than .05) and a significant object effect on coping effectiveness were found. A significant age effect was also found, indicating that older children used their inanimate transitional objects more often than younger children. Among those children with an inanimate transitional object, significant positive relationships were found between frequency of hassles, intensity of reaction to hassles, coping effectiveness, and frequency of object use. The results indicated that children who used their thumb as an inanimate transitional object experienced fewer hassles than children who used a soft object. The results also suggested that an increase in the number of hassles experienced was related to more intense reactions to hassles, less effective coping, and an increase in object use. The nature of the object and the developmental issue of separation-individuation are considered as well.     

基诺族左右利手分布的再调查

1981年,全国利手研究协作组对基诺族的左右利手分布作了首次调查。这次调查的结果是,基诺族全部是强右利手。这是一个非常特殊的结论。为此,一九八九年我们对基诺族的左右利手分布又作了一次调查。调查发现,基诺族并不都是强右利手,他们当中既有一般的右利手,也有混合利手,还有左利手,甚至有1.79％的强左利手。基诺族的左利率高于汉族,但与其他少数民族接近。基诺族的左利率偏高占其传统文化有关。全国利手研究协作组的调查结果应该修正。     

Rats (Rattus norvegicus) modulate eating speed and vigilance to optimize food consumption: effects of cover, circadian rhythm, food deprivation, and individual differences.

The eating behavior of rats (Rattus norvegicus) given food pellets of specified size was examined as a function of environmental, circadian, and experiential influences. Eating times were shorter in lighted, exposed environments than in dark, covered environments, even though in novel, exposed conditions the rats made many scanning movements as they ate. Eating time also varied as a function of the circadian cycle in that eating times were shorter in the night portion of the day-night cycle. Finally, eating times decreased if rats were food deprived, and deprivation had a small but enduring influence. Within the tests there were differences in the eating times of individual rats that were not attributable to the experimental manipulations. That rats can optimize food intake by varying eating speed is discussed in relation to physiological regulation of feeding and to optimal foraging theory.     

Assessing School Academic Productivity: The Case of Chicago School Reform

This paper considers the issues raised in using standardized achievement test scores for purposes of examining the academic productivity of schools. We critique some commonly used practices by urban school districts and suggest an alternative approach – the school productivity profile. This profile is based on an assessment of each school's contribution to student learning, or value-added, rather than just the overall level of student attainment. We illustrate, using 10-year achievement trend data from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), both the problems with some commonly reported indicators of school effectiveness and the idea of a school productivity profile. While our analyses suggest broad-based improvements in student learning in many Chicago schools over the past 10 years, we also found that the current testing system is not well designed to make such judgments accurately. We conclude that extant standardized testing systems, like the ITBS used in Chicago, do not afford an accurate basis for assessing school productivity and how this might be changing over time. These results have important policy implications. As school districts seek to become more outcome oriented, they will need to invest in better testing and reporting systems in order to know whether they are making genuine progress in this regard.     

Factors Influencing the Development of Psychology in China

The factors that have influenced the development of Chinese psychology are identified as: politics and ideologies, economic development, traditional culture, higher education, and human resources. This article focuses on the dynamics of the development of psychology as a discipline. Consideration is given to the process by which the discipline is facilitated or impeded in its development. Special emphasis is on those characteristics that are specifically relevant to the development of psychology in the Chinese social environment.     

Choice, experience, and the generalized matching law

Five pigeons were exposed to different pairs of concurrent variable-interval, variable-interval schedules on nine experimental conditions of 30 sessions each. For every session, the parameters of the generalized matching equation were computed for the first five, six, seven, eight, and nine experimental conditions. The exponent a, both for response and time distribution, tended to decrease with increases in number of experimental conditions and to increase with number of sessions per condition, but values of k (bias) varied unsystematically. When the subjects were exposed to five new pairs of schedules, with 55 sessions per condition, the findings were confirmed. Data from the literature on the generalized matching law suggest that the variability of exponent values may be explained in part by the use of naive or experienced subjects in different investigations and by the variability in number of experimental conditions and in number of sessions per condition.