Learning difficulties,social intelligence,and self-concept: connections to bully-victim problems

Learning skills, social intelligence, and self-concept were related to each other and to bully-victim problems among fifth-grade children (79 boys and 62 girls, aged 11-12 years). In addition to exploring connections between single variables, a person-oriented approach was applied in order to analyze children's value patterns with respect to learning skills, self-concept, and social intelligence, and how these value patterns are related to bully-victim problems. Social intelligence was found to be positively correlated with learning skills, but negatively related to victimization. Bullying was positively correlated with self-concept scores. However, this was true only of boys. According to cross-tabulations, there were significantly more bullies among children with learning difficulties (LD) than would have been expected by chance. Victimization, on the other hand, was not related to LD. LD children's proposed victim status was in some degree supported by cluster analysis: a group of LD children emerged, who not only scored high on bullying, but also tended to be victimized by others. In addition, two groups of bullies appeared: one whose members could be interpreted as socially unskilled and another as socially skilled. This finding is in line with recent theoretical reasoning, which calls into question the idea of bullies as a unified group, lacking in social skills.     

Fifty Strategies for Counseling Defiant,Aggressive Adolescents: Reaching,Accepting, and Relating

Fifty strategies for establishing and maintaining a therapeutic relationship with defiant, aggressive adolescents are offered. Many of these are taken from the literature, whereas others are unique to this article. A variety of strategies, ranging from reframes to the use of paradox are provided, and take a transtheoretical approach using ideas from cognitive behavioral as well as existential, Gestalt, psychodynamic, and multicultural therapies. Strategies are arranged under 3 categories: reaching, accepting, and relating. The strong desire of defiant adolescents for freedom and autonomy is also discussed, with suggestions for using this in motivating defiant adolescents to work in counseling.     

Multidimensional Locus of Control in Prison Inmates1

This study examined public offenders' generalized expectancies of control as they relate to length of time in prison and behavior within the institution, in order to demonstrate the usefulness of a multidimensional modification of Rotter's locus of control scale with a prison sample. Inmates (N= 145) serving sentences in a large, state prison responded to three locus of control scales designed to measure separately expectancies of internality, of control by powerful others, and of control by chance forces. It was reasoned that if the separation of control into these three orientations is meaningful, then changes in perceptions of control by powerful others should be particularly relevant to the prison experience. As predicted, scores on the Powerful Others scale were significantly related to length of time in prison and number of times punished by solitary confinement.     

Courtship in the personals column: The influence of gender and sexual orientation

Eight hundred personal advertisements were analyzed, representing an equal sampling of male and female homosexual and heterosexual advertisers on the East and West Coast of the United States. In general, men were more concerned with physical characteristics, while women stressed psychological factors. Homosexuals were more concerned with sexuality, while heterosexuals specified a broader range of characteristics. Significant interactions between gender and sexual orientation point to the importance of sex-role expectations in the heterosexual context and suggest substantial differences between males and females who choose homosexuality.     

Production of narrative discourse in aphasia

The study described the abilities of a group of 15 moderately impaired aphasics and 15 normals to produce narrative discourse. The experimental tasks included telling stories, summarizing stories, and giving morals to stories. The data were analyzed in terms of sentential grammar, discourse grammar, and subjective ratings of content and clarity of language. The results showed that aphasics produced well-structured discourse. The language of the aphasics' discourse was reduced in both complexity and amount, as compared to that produced by normals. The reduction of language reflected selective reduction of hierarchically organized information. The findings of the study confirm the results of previous research on mildly impaired aphasics, which also showed preservation of discourse structure with selective reduction of information.     

How Do We Know Necessary Truths? Kant's Answer

It is traditionally held that our knowledge of necessity is a priori ; but the familiar theories of a priori knowledge – platonism and conventionalism – have now been discredited, and replaced by either modal skepticism or a posteriori essentialism. The main thesis of this paper is that Kant's theory of a priori knowledge, when detached from his transcendental idealism, offers a genuine alternative to these unpalatable options. According to Kant's doctrine, all epistemic necessity (which he calls "conviction" ( Ueberzeugung ) is grounded directly or indirectly on our capacity for clear and distinct rational intuition (which he calls "insight" ( Einsicht ). Insight, in turn, depends upon functions of the imagination for creating "mental models" of necessary truths. This doctrine is well exemplified by Kant's account of our knowledge of simple analytic truths.     

Altering Reinforcer Variety or Intensity Changes the Within-Session Decrease in Responding

Operant responding often changes systematically within experimental sessions. McSweeney, Hinson, and Cannon (1996) argued that sensitization and habituation produce within-session changes in responding. The present study tested two predictions of the sensitization–habituation explanation. In two experiments, rats pressed a lever for reinforcers delivered by a multiple variable interval 15-s variable interval 15-s schedule. In Experiment 1, the variety of reinforcers delivered during the session was manipulated by varying the percentage of programmed reinforcers replaced with qualitatively different reinforcers from 0 to 75%, in five different conditions. In Experiment 2, the intensity of the reinforcer was manipulated by varying the concentration of sucrose in the sucrose and water solution used as the reinforcer from 0 to 30%, in five different conditions. Increasing the variety or the intensity of the reinforcers slowed the within-session decrease in responding. The results are consistent with the predictions of a sensitization–habituation explanation of within-session changes in responding.     

Emotions during the Covid-19 pandemic: Fear,anxiety, and anger as mediators between threats and policy support and political actions

The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed the lives of most people. It has been described as the most severe global health disaster of modern times by the United Nations. No doubt such a major crisis influences what citizens think of different policies, and how they become politically active, not to mention, the forceful emotional experiences that the Covid-19 pandemic brings. This study evaluates how emotions affect support for policies related to restricting the spread of the virus and economic assistance, and how emotions affect intentions to engage politically. In an experiment (N = 1,072), we manipulated emotional reactions to threat by highlighting different aspects of the pandemic. Our findings show that different experimental treatments elicit different emotions, and that fear, anxiety, and anger are all related to policy support and political action intentions, but in different ways. Fear and anger predict support for restrictive policies to limit the spread of the virus, while anxiety predicts support for economic policies. Anger and anxiety, but not fear, increase intentions to engage politically. Hence, we find support for a mechanism where different aspects of the Covid-19 crisis evoke different emotional reactions, which in turn affects policy support and political actions differently.     

Characteristics of Children in Foster Care,Family-Style Group Care,and Residential Care: A Scoping Review

When risky child and family circumstances cannot be resolved at home, (temporary) 24-h out-of-home placement of the child may be an alternative strategy. To identify specific placement risks and needs, care professionals must have information about the child and his or her family, care history, and social-cultural characteristics at admission to out-of-home care. However, to date information on case characteristics and particular their similarities and differences across the three main types of out-of-home settings (namely foster care, family-style group care, and residential care) is largely lacking. This review compiles and compares characteristics of school-aged children of average intelligence and their families at the time of each child’s admission to one of the three care modalities. A scoping review technique that provides a broad search strategy and ensures sufficient coverage of the available literature is used. Based on the 36 studies included, there is consensus that the majority of normally intelligent children in care demonstrate severe developmental and behavioral problems. However, the severeness as well as the kinds of defining characteristics present differ among the children in foster care, family-style group care, and residential care. The review also identifies several existing knowledge gaps regarding relevant risk factors. Future research is recommended to fill these gaps and determine the developmental pathway in relation to children’s risks and needs at admission. This will contribute to the development of an evidence-based risks and needs assessment tool that will enable care professionals to make informed referrals to a specific type of out-of-home care when such a placement is required.     

Quality of Jobs for Female Workers: A Comparative Study of South Korea and Australia

This study conducts a comparative analysis regarding the quality of job in Australia and South Korea on the basis of ordered logit model using two countries’ household data sets during 2003–2009. We compose the quality of job into various subgroups by combining hourly wage, job security and working hours, and verify that despite having similar Affirmative Action (AA) systems in the two countries, Australian women are more likely to work in jobs with higher quality compared to South Korean women subject to the loose incentive operation of AA.