Sleep patterns and sleep disruptions in school-age children

This study assessed the sleep patterns, sleep disruptions, and sleepiness of school-age children. Sleep patterns of 140 children (72 boys and 68 girls; 2nd-, 4th-, and 6th-grade students) were evaluated with activity monitors (actigraphs). In addition, the children and their parents completed complementary sleep questionnaires and daily reports. The findings reflected significant age differences, indicating that older children have more delayed sleep onset times and increased reported daytime sleepiness. Girls were found to spend more time in sleep and to have an increased percentage of motionless sleep. Fragmented sleep was found in 18% of the children. No age differences were found in any of the sleep quality measures. Scores on objective sleep measures were associated with subjective reports of sleepiness. Family stress, parental age, and parental education were related to the child's sleep-wake measures.     

PROVIDING A LESS RESTRICTIVE ENVIRONMENT FOR PROFOUNDLY RETARDED PERSONS BY TEACHING INDEPENDENT WALKING SKILLS

A basic right of all handicapped persons is to live in the least restrictive environment possible. In this investigation, procedures were evaluated for teaching four institutionalized males with profound retardation necessary skills to increase their individual freedom of movement. Following baseline, a travel training program with a backward chaining format was implemented to teach each person to walk independently from his living area to school. Travel training included instructions, practice, praise, feedback, verbal reprimands, prompts, and edible reinforcers. Each resident began walking the entire distance to school independently during training and also began walking back to the living area, although the latter set of skills was not specifically trained. Following termination of the formal investigation, follow-up measures of 1 to 8 weeks showed the residents continued going to school independently. A survey of residential facilities in 43 states provided social validation for the seriousness of the problems associated with transporting seriously retarded persons to school. Also, time efficiency measures indicated that training independent travel resulted in reductions of staff time required in school transportation. Results were discussed in light of the potential contributions of behavior analysis in providing less restrictive environments for seriously handicapped persons.     

Sex differences in listening comprehension

In order to examine the effect of sex of the speaker on listening comprehension in a public speaking situation, 60 male and 60 female subjects viewed either a male or female speaker presenting a talk on either a masculine (chess), feminine (interior decorating), or neutral (snow skiiing) topic. The results supported the hypotheses that when a male speaks he is listened to more carefully than a female speaker, even when she makes the identical presentation. No differences were found when the topic was biased towards one sex; males were still recalled better than females. The above relationships were also true for male and female subjects; both recalled information more accurately from male speakers than from female ones. Rating of informativeness of the presentation showed no difference for sex of the speaker; but effectiveness ratings of the speaker indicated that while both male and female subjects rated male speakers equally effective, the same was not true for the female speakers. Male subjects rated the female speakers significantly more effective than they did male speakers, whereas female subjects rated male and female speakers equally effective.This article is based in part on the first author's master's thesis, submitted to the Graduate School, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, under the direction of the second author. This research was supported in part by the Center for Creative Leadership, Greensboro, North Carolina. A portion of this paper was presented at the 23rd Southeastern Psychological Association Convention, Hollywood, Florida, May 1977.     

Collective guilt,moral outrage,and support for helping the poor: A matter of system versus in‐group responsibility framing

We examined how the framing of responsibility for reducing socio‐economic inequality affects individuals' emotional reactions towards the poor and the willingness to engage in prosocial actions. Attribution of responsibility to either the system (government and institutions), the less deprived in‐group, or the disadvantaged out‐group (poor) was measured (Study 1) and manipulated (Study 2). Consistent with our hypotheses, moral outrage was higher than collective guilt when system responsibility for inequalities was put forth, but collective guilt arose to reach the level of moral outrage when in‐group responsibility was emphasized. Moreover, distinguishing between collective guilt for action and for inaction, we found guilt for inaction more difficult and thus less likely to arise, unless responsibility was put on the in‐group. Collective emotions were also found to be negatively linked to system justification motivation illustrating the palliative function of legitimization processes. Finally, moral outrage predicted the willingness to act upon socio‐economic inequalities both when the system's and in‐group's responsibility was emphasized, whereas collective guilt for action (but not for inaction) predicted support for prosocial actions only when the in‐group's responsibility was engaged. These findings suggest that the specific group‐based emotions in response to poverty depend on whether the system or the in‐group is held responsible and differentially predict individuals' commitment to act.     

The Personality Inventory for Youth: validity and comparability of English and Spanish versions for regular education and juvenile justice samples

In this study we examined the comparability of the Personality Inventory for Youth (PIY; Lachar & Gruber, 1993, 1995)--Spanish version to its English counterpart among bilingual Mexican American male and female high school students (n = 120), and among incarcerated bilingual Mexican American male adolescents (n = 52). Results indicated that language (English vs. Spanish) was not associated with a significant effect on the PIY scales or subscales for male adolescents in the juvenile justice facility, but was associated with a marginal effect for regular education adolescents; more specifically, regular education students completing the PIY in Spanish reported somewhat lower levels of symptoms than those completing the English version. Also, incarcerated males obtained significantly higher scores than regular education males on all 9 clinical and 19 out of 24 clinical subscales. Overall, the results of this study suggest that both language versions of the PIY may be applied usefully in the study and treatment of a variety of problems relevant to juvenile populations. Additional findings are discussed.     

Experiences in virtual reality entail different processes of retrieval as opposed to conventional laboratory settings: A study on human memory

Current Psychology - Recently, it has been claimed that real-life, autobiographical events are processed differently compared to conventional laboratory events. Virtual reality might bridge the gap...     

交多少朋友合适?谈亚里士多德对"大量交友"的评论

引言 结交多少个朋友合适?提出这样的问题似乎是钻牛角尖,也不属于哲学家的兴趣.然而,古代的哲学家并未忽视这个问题的重要性,他们都直接或间接地关注过"友谊".实际上,提出交多少朋友合适的问题,就是提出友谊的限度问题,更确切地说,是提出了与他人特殊关系的延展问题.我们看到,这种关系并不要求排他性,但将其无限扩展则难免使其变质.