Bounded rationality and cognitive development: Upper limits on growth?

Piaget's characterization of formal operational thought and human judgment psychologists' model of bounded rationality are considered as two conflicting models dealing with the same domain of interest: the nature and limits of mature thought. Piaget's suggestion that the formal operational thinker brings the skills of hypothetico-deductive logic to deal adequately with environmental complexity is in sharp contrast with judgment psychologists' evidence that information-processing limitations and faulty reasoning leave decision makers poorly equipped to deal with their decision environments. While the two approaches have generated conflicting models, a look at the respective data bases demonstrates their complementarity. Considered together, the literatures in formal operations and bounded rationality make a formidable contribution to understanding the capacities and limits of mature cognition.     

Commentary: Moral growth in medical students

Knight has shown how the moral growth of medical students involves a spiritual journey. He may, however, present too sanguine a portrayal of the extent to which the medical education environment promotes this moral and spiritual growth. Medical school may indeed be more abusive than supportive. Admitting more women to medical school and teaching more humanities courses, while worthwhile, will not necessarily promote the goals that Knight appropriately advocates.     

Perspective taking in children's narratives about jealousy

This study explored relationships between perspective‐taking, emotion understanding, and children's narrative abilities. Younger (23 5‐/6‐year‐olds) and older (24 7‐/8‐year‐olds) children generated fictional narratives, using a wordless picture book, about a frog experiencing jealousy. Children's emotion understanding was assessed through a standardized test of emotion comprehension and their ability to convey the jealousy theme of the story. Perspective‐taking ability was assessed with respect to children's use of narrative evaluation (i.e., narrative coherence, mental state language, supplementary evaluative speech, use of subjective language, and placement of emotion expression). Older children scored higher than younger children on emotion comprehension and on understanding the story's complex emotional theme, including the ability to identify a rival. They were more advanced in perspective‐taking abilities, and selectively used emotion expressions to highlight story episodes. Subjective perspective taking and narrative coherence were predictive of children's elaboration of the jealousy theme. Use of supplementary evaluative speech, in turn, was predictive of both subjective perspective taking and narrative coherence.     

Age-related differences in selection by visual saliency

We examined the ability of older adults to select local and global stimuli varying in perceptual saliency—a task requiring nonspatial visual selection. Participants were asked to identify in separate blocks a target at either the global or the local level of a hierarchical stimulus, while the saliency of each level was varied (across different conditions, either the local or the global form was the more salient and relatively easier to identify). Older adults were less efficient than young adults in ignoring distractors that were higher in saliency than were targets, and this occurred across both the global and local levels of form. The increased effects of distractor saliency on older adults occurred even when the effects were scaled by overall differences in task performance. The data provide evidence for an age-related decline in nonspatial attentional selection of low-salient hierarchical stimuli, not determined by the (global or local) level at which selection was required. We discuss the implications of these results for understanding both the interaction between saliency and hierarchical processing and the effects of aging on nonspatial visual attention.     

Informal Home Education: Philosophical Aspirations put into Practice

Informal home education occurs without much that is generally considered essential for formal education—including curriculum, learning plans, assessments, age related targets or planned and deliberate teaching. Our research into families conducting this kind of education enables us to consider learning away from such imposed structures and to explore how children go about learning for themselves within the context of their own socio-cultural setting. In this paper we consider what and how children learn when no educational agenda is arranged for them and we link this manner of learning to the Deweyan ideas of learning as transactional and learning-in-context. We also use our empirical evidence to explore the notion of ZPD with regard to informal learning and to consider how children, without specific guidance, go about charting a course of learning through the ZPD. We consider the quality of informal learning particularly with regard to the educational aim of developing reflective and critical thinking, showing how these are integral to informal learning. We suggest that a much wider conception of what learning is and how it happens is needed, away from the confines of formal educational structures.     

Disability and participation: It's about us but still without us!

Participation is often espoused as a strategy to promote inclusion, social justice and equality. Exactly how to facilitate participation in practice is often not explicated, nor are the challenges or issues highlighted. By drawing on interview data, the first aim of this paper is to identify the key barriers to participation in an organizational planning activity as experienced by 12 disabled and non‐disabled staff and board members in a small community‐based disability advocacy organization. The second aim is to draw upon Jim Ife's principles of participation to further analyse the factors that hinder and enable participation in organizations. Reported barriers to participation were categorized at individual, interpersonal and organizational levels of analysis, and included a lack of skills and competence, interpersonal conflicts, poor resourcing and ad hoc processes. The importance of understanding the dynamic interplay of individual and structural factors, valuing different forms of participation and having participatory structures and processes embedded in organizational settings are all highlighted. This study illustrates that, even in an organization that is specifically attuned to meeting the needs of disabled people, there is still considerable exclusion and institutional discrimination. Strategies to promote participation within an organizational context may include providing sufficient time for reflection and support, and opportunities for board members to learn how to take part in constructive planning activities and to develop their strengths. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Some Current Student Attitudes Toward Presidential Candidates of Different Categories (Racial and Religious): I

Changes in the perception of the body midline due to monocular light stimulation and starting position of the tactual stimulus are reported for four different age groups. In general, the effects are a function of age, sex, and the nature of the stimulus. The magnitude of directional shifts in the perceived midline is greatest at ages 7 and 68 and least at age 20. The direction of change is consistently toward the side of stimulation. At early ages females are clearly more influenced than males by the visual and tactual stimulus variables. Such findings are viewed within an organismic developmental framework.     

Psychological Adjustment and Life Style of Single Lesbians and Single Heterosexual Women

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and a 60-item structured interview questionnaire were administered to 25 white single homo-sexually-oriented women and 25 white single heterosexually-oriented women between the ages of 20 and 45 years in order to investigate their psychological adjustment and current life styles. Groups were equivalent on age, marital status, educational and occupational levels, and other demographic variables. Groups did not differ in total psychological adjustment as measured by scale scores on the MMPI nor as evaluated by blind expert raters using the MMPI profiles. Groups differed significantly on the Masculinity-Femininity (Mf) scale (p <.001) and the Hypomania (Ma) scale (p <.05). On the interview questionnaire, which included current living situations, roles and relationships, behavior and friendship patterns, and drinking, drug, and suicidal behavior, no major differ ences between groups were found. Differences between groups were found only on items directly related to sexual orientation. The findings clarify some of the myths and misconceptions about lesbianism.