Validation of the Chinese Revision of Emotional and Behavioral Screener among Preschoolers (4–7 years old)

The study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese revision of the Emotional and Behavioral Screener (EBS), and to extend its application to preschoolers (4–7 years old). Teachers and parents of 216 preschoolers (age M?=?5.11, SD?=?0.9) were invited to complete the EBS, and some of the teachers were also asked to complete the Preschool Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (PreBERS) (N?=?80) and the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaires (SDQ) (N?=?90). Results of confirmatory factor analysis suggested that the original single-factor model of the EBS didn’t fit the data well. Based on the results of a series of exploratory factor analyses, we proposed a two-factor model instead, representing externalizing and internalizing problems respectively. The Chinese revision demonstrated satisfactory internal reliability, inter-rater reliability, convergent validity and divergent validity. All these evidences supported its use among Chinese preschoolers to identify those who will be at risk of suffering from emotional and behavioral disturbances.     

Grammatical Aspect in Early Child Mandarin: Evidence from a Preferential Looking Experiment

The study assessed 30-month-old Mandarin-speaking children’s awareness of aspectual distinctions involving the perfective marker le and the imperfective marker zhe in a preferential looking experiment. In the experiment, we presented our child subjects with a choice between two video clips (one depicting a closed event and the other depicting an on-going event), in the presence of an auditory stimulus (either the le sentence, the zhe sentence or the control sentence without any aspect marker). Children’s looking behavior in the task was recorded and analyzed. The results revealed 30-month-old children’s emerging sensitivity to the aspectual contrast between le and zhe. This was manifest by an increase in looking to the closed event when hearing the le sentence and an increase in looking to the on-going event when hearing the zhe sentence. The absence of le or zhe in the control sentence did not result in any increase or decrease in looking to either event. We also found that the effect of le on children’s looking behavior was immediate whereas the effect of zhe was late. We attributed this difference to the facilitative role of le in children’s sentence processing as well as their preference for the event boundary. The results lend support to the continuity view that functional morphemes like aspect markers are available to children early in language development.     

教师支持与心理素质对中学生学业成绩的影响

采用学生感知教师支持行为问卷和中学生心理素质问卷,对西南地区两所中学7~12年级的824名在校中学生进行调查研究,探讨教师整体支持和不同类型支持与中学生学业成绩的关系及心理素质在其中的中介作用。结果发现：（1）教师整体支持与中学生心理素质、学业成绩间存在显著正相关;教师情感支持与中学生心理素质、学业成绩间存在显著正相关,教师学习支持、能力支持与中学生心理素质存在显著正相关,但与学业成绩相关均不显著;（2）控制性别和年龄后,心理素质在教师整体支持与学业成绩的关系中起完全中介作用;心理素质在教师情感支持与学业成绩关系中起部分中介作用,在教师学习支持与学业成绩、教师能力支持与学业成绩关系中均起完全中介作用。     

Counterfactual comparison modulates fairness consideration in the mini‐ultimatum game: An event‐related potentials study

Existing literature on the mini‐ultimatum game indicates that counterfactual comparison between chosen and unchosen alternatives is of great importance for individual's fairness consideration. However, it is still unclear how counterfactual comparison influences the electrophysiological responses to unfair chosen offers. In conjunction with event‐related potentials’ (ERPs) technique, the current study aimed to explore the issue by employing a modified version of the mini‐ultimatum game where a fixed set of two alternatives (unfair offer vs. fair alternative, unfair vs. hyperfair alternative, unfair offer vs. hyperunfair alternative) was presented before the chosen offer. The behavioral results showed that participants were more likely to accept unfair chosen offers when the unchosen alternative was hyperunfair than when the unchosen alternative was fair or hyperfair. The ERPs results showed that the feedback‐related negativity (FRN) elicited by unfair chosen offers was insensitive to the type of unchosen alternative when correcting for possible overlap with other components. In contrast, unfair chosen offers elicited larger P300 amplitudes when the unchosen alternative was hyperunfair than when the unchosen alternative was fair or hyperfair. These findings suggest that counterfactual comparison may take effect at later stages of fairness consideration as reflected by the P300.     

Sources of motivation, interpersonal conflict management styles, and leadership effectiveness: a structural model

126 leaders and 624 employees were sampled to test the relationship between sources of motivation and conflict management styles of leaders and how these variables influence effectiveness of leadership. Five sources of motivation measured by the Motivation Sources Inventory were tested-intrinsic process, instrumental, self-concept external, self-concept internal, and goal internalization. These sources of work motivation were associated with Rahim's modes of interpersonal conflict management-dominating, avoiding, obliging, complying, and integrating-and to perceived leadership effectiveness. A structural equation model tested leaders' conflict management styles and leadership effectiveness based upon different sources of work motivation. The model explained variance for obliging (65%), dominating (79%), avoiding (76%), and compromising (68%), but explained little variance for integrating (7%). The model explained only 28% of the variance in leader effectiveness.     

Understanding the object benefit in visual short-term memory: the roles of feature proximity and connectedness

Past research has identified visual objects as the units of information processing in visual short-term memory (VSTM) and has shown that two features from the same object can be remembered in VSTM as well (or almost as well) as one feature of that object and are much better remembered than the same two features from two spatially separated objects. It is not clear, however, what drives this object benefit in VSTM. Is it the shared spatial location (proximity), the connectedness among features of an object, or both? In six change detection experiments, both location/proximity and connectedness were found to be crucial in determining the magnitude of the object benefit in VSTM. Together, these results indicate that location/proximity and connectedness are essential elements in defining a coherent visual object representation in VSTM.     

The development of executive functioning and theory of mind. A comparison of Chinese and U.S. preschoolers

Preschoolers' theory-of-mind development follows a similar age trajectory across many cultures. To determine whether these similarities are related to similar underlying ontogenetic processes, we examined whether the relation between theory of mind and executive function commonly found among U.S. preschoolers is also present among Chinese preschoolers. Preschoolers from Beijing, China (N= 109), were administered theory-of-mind and executive-functioning tasks, and their performance was compared with that of a previously studied sample of U.S. preschoolers (N= 107). The Chinese preschoolers outperformed their U.S. counterparts on all measures of executive functioning, but were not similarly advanced in theory-of-mind reasoning. Nonetheless, individual differences in executive functioning predicted theory of mind for children in both cultures. Thus, the relation between executive functioning and theory of mind is robust across two disparate cultures. These findings shed light on why executive functioning is important for theory-of-mind development.     

Resolution of activated background information in text comprehension

The present experiments explored the resolution of activated background information in text comprehension. In Experiment 1, participants read passages that contained an elaboration section that was either consistent or qualified (inconsistent but then corrected to be consistent) with respect to the subsequently presented target sentence (see O'Brien et al., 1998). However, the experiment used two target sentences, and several filler sentences were inserted between the first and second target sentence. The results showed that the reading times for the first target sentence in the qualified elaboration version were significantly longer than those in the consistent elaboration version. These were consistent with O'Brien's study, and further indicated that the basic process captured by the memory-based view appears to generalize to the Chinese reader better than does the here-and-now view. More importantly, the results showed that the reading times for the second target sentence in the qualified elaboration version were as long as those in the consistent elaboration version. These further indicated that the activation of background information not only maintained the coherence of the text, but also allowed for the relevant information to be updated, resulting in a unified information set. When the information was reactivated during ongoing reading, it would be in the form of unified information. In Experiment 2, the first target sentence in each passage from Experiment 1 was converted to a filler sentence, and the second target sentence became the target sentence. The results of Experiment 2 showed that the reading times for the target sentence in the qualified elaboration version were significantly longer than those for the consistent elaboration version. These indicated that the delay between the target sentences and the elaboration section was not responsible for the lack of differences in Experiment 1, and confirmed the conclusion of Experiment 1.     

虐待与儿童心理发展

儿童虐待问题近年来日益受到社会的广泛关注,本文旨在国内外已有的相关研究的基础上,阐述儿童期的虐待对儿童各个方面的心理发展的影响,以为心理和教育工作者对受虐待儿童的心理进行有效的干预和教育提供参考。