Acculturation,stress, and depressive symptoms among Korean immigrants in the United States

A sample of 157 Korean immigrants responded to measures of acculturation level, stress from acculturation, and depressive symptoms. The authors hypothesized that adaptive acculturation would depend on assimilation regarding social interactions and the host culture's language as well as on retention of a core identity, including values and traditions of the culture of origin. Consistent with the mediation hypothesis, acculturation, based on a factor representing language use and social relationships, was related to lower acculturative stress and, in turn, lower depression. However, there was no direct support for the integrative, or bicultural, strategy of acculturation. Stress did not mediate the effect of a 2nd acculturation factor, identity and tradition-based acculturation. Rather, this measure of acculturation was directly related to higher depression (i.e., immigrants reporting abandonment of Korean identity, traditions, and values scored higher for depression).     

Win-shift and win-stay learning in the short-beaked echidna (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Tachyglossus aculeatus</Emphasis>)

Numerous previous investigators have explained species differences in spatial memory performance in terms of differences in foraging ecology. In three experiments we attempted to extend these findings by examining the extent to which the spatial memory performance of echidnas (or "spiny anteaters") can be understood in terms of the spatio-temporal distribution of their prey (ants and termites). This is a species and a foraging situation that have not been examined in this way before. Echidnas were better able to learn to avoid a previously rewarding location (to "win-shift") than to learn to return to a previously rewarding location (to "win-stay"), at short retention intervals, but were unable to learn either of these strategies at retention intervals of 90 min. The short retention interval results support the ecological hypothesis, but the long retention interval results do not. Electronic Publication     

Conversations, Conferences, and the Practice of Intellectual Discussion

This paper analyzes a conference panel discussion entitled "Identity in Crisis: The Issue of Agency in Social Constructionism and Postmodernism" in order to identify some limits to intellectual discussion. The panel participants made a deliberate attempt to engage in a self-reflexive language game about the language game of intellectual discussion in the conference format. This attempt revealed the highly sedimented nature of discursive practice in the conference setting, at least, and perhaps more generally. This analysis of the extent to which sedimented practices limit the exercise of agency highlights academic practices which typically are hidden or considered too obvious to merit attention.     

The relationship between social anxiety and social support in adolescents: a test of competing causal models

This study compared the strength of competing causal models in explaining the relationship between perceived support, enacted support, and social anxiety in adolescents. The social causation hypothesis postulates that social support causes social anxiety, whereas the social selection hypothesis postulates that social anxiety causes social support. The reciprocal model combines the two hypotheses by arguing that the causal relationship between social support and social anxiety is largely reciprocal. This study tests a modification of the reciprocal model by specifying perceptions of support as a mediating construct. Two waves of data with an interval of three months were collected on 357 college students. Structural equation modeling was used to compare the reciprocal and mediated reciprocal causal models. The study found some support for the mediated reciprocal model, but the magnitude of the relationships were weaker than expected. Limitations and suggestion for future research are discussed.     

The effect of implicit person theory on performance appraisals

Four studies examined whether implicit person theory (IPT) regarding the malleability of personal attributes (e.g., personality and ability) affects managers' acknowledgment of change in employee behavior. The extent to which managers held an incremental IPT was positively related to their recognition of both good (Study 1) and poor (Study 2) performance, relative to the employee behavior they initially observed. Incremental theorists' judgments were not anchored by their prior impressions (Study 3). In the 4th study, entity theorists who were randomly assigned to a self-persuasion training condition developed a significantly more incremental IPT. This change in IPT was maintained over a 6-week period and led to greater acknowledgment of an improvement in employee performance than was exhibited by entity theorists in the placebo control group.     

Validity and reliability of the audit and CAGE-AID in Northern Plains American Indians

According to the Indian Health Service, substance abuse and Type 2 diabetes are serious problems among Native Americans. To assess substance use in a medical setting, valid screening tests are needed so the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), a simple brief screen for excessive drinking, and the CAGE-adapted to Include Drugs (CAGE-AID) for identifying primary care patients with alcohol and drug disorders were given 50 Northern Plains American Indians with diabetes. Both are short, easy to administer, have good sensitivity and specificity, and can be easily incorporated into a medical history protocol or intake procedure. Reliability coefficients were above .90 and appeared to have sufficient concurrent and divergent validity indicated by moderate correlations with the General Well-being Schedule (rs=-.39 and -.36), the Family-Adaptation, Partnership, Growth, Affection, & Resolve (r =-.47 and -.36), and the Beck Depression Inventory-IT (r = .36 and .29).     

Updating target location at the end of an orienting saccade affects the characteristics of simple point-to-point movements

Six results are reported. (a) Reaching accuracy increases when visual capture of the target is allowed (e.g., target on vs. target off at saccade onset). (b) Whatever the visual condition, trajectories diverge only after peak acceleration, suggesting that accuracy is improved through feedback mechanisms. (c) Feedback corrections are smoothly implemented, causing the corrected and uncorrected velocity profiles to exhibit similar shapes. (d) Initial kinematics poorly predict final accuracy whatever the condition, indicating that target capture is not the only critical input for feedback control. (e) Hand and eye final variability are unrelated, suggesting that gaze direction is not a target signal for arm control. (f) Extent errors are corrected without modification of movement straightness; direction errors cause path curvature to increase. Together these data show that movements with straight paths and bell-shaped velocity profiles are not necessarily ballistic.     

A Review of the Effects of Interspersing Procedures on the Stages of Academic Skill Development

Basic and applied research related to the effects of interspersing trials of maintenance (i.e., review) tasks among trials of acquisition tasks on academic skill development is reviewed. In general, empirical research suggests that interspersing procedures are effective in facilitating acquisition, learning rate, and maintenance. However, some inconsistency exists among the data that suggests student learning, in some instances, may be impeded. Research also suggests that interspersing procedures are not conducive to facilitating generalization. The discrepancy between various research findings and the consistent failure of research on interspersing procedures to increase generalization is critically reviewed in relation to a hierarchical learning theory set forth by Haring and Eaton (1978). From this hierarchical learning theory perspective, inconsistent results may be better understood and predicted. Implications for current practice and directions for future research are also discussed.