Improving Motor Performance During Initial Skills Acquisition Through Regulatory Fit: An Experimental Study Based on Ball Throwing Task and Small Financial Reward

Regulatory focus theory (RFT) suggests that performance will be enhanced when there is a match between individual characteristics and environmental cues. Given that the application of RFT in the context of motor performance has been rarely examined, a ball-throwing task with small financial reward was conducted to test the theory. A total of 51 undergraduate students participated in this study. They were randomly assigned to either the promotion- or prevention-oriented task (which were different in terms of how the reward was instructed to be given). Results indicated that students performed better on ball throwing when the given instruction fit their relatively dominant regulatory focus. This finding supports the expectations of RFT. Implications and limitations were discussed.     

职中和高中学生的自我概念与内外参照模型

通过自我概念量表,对职业高中和普通高中一年级学生进行问卷调查,用多因素多元方差分析比较了这两类学生自我概念的差异;对学科成绩与学科自我概念做了分组相关分析,并做了,比较。结果表明：(1)职中生的自我概念显著低于高中生。(2)职中生与高中生的学科自我概念与学科成绩之间的关系有同有异,但都符合内外参照模型。     

A Theory of Truthmaker Content I: Conjunction,Disjunction and Negation

I develop a basic theory of content within the framework of truthmaker semantics and, in the second part, consider some of the applications to subject matter, common content, logical subtraction and ground.     

Are you sure about that? Eliciting confidence ratings may influence performance on Raven's progressive matrices

Confidence ratings (CR) have often been integrated into reasoning and intelligence tasks as a means for assessing meta-reasoning processes. Although it is often assumed that eliciting these judgements throughout reasoning tasks has no effect on the underlying performance outcomes, this is yet to be established empirically. The current study examines whether eliciting CR from participants during a fluid-reasoning task influences their performance and how this effect is moderated by their initial self-confidence in their own reasoning abilities. In a first experiment, we found that participants performing CR during Raven's Progressive Matrices significantly outperformed a control group who did not provide ratings. Additionally, a second experiment demonstrated that CR only facilitated performance in participants who have a high level of initial self-confidence in their reasoning ability, whereas they were detrimental to participants low in self-confidence.     

Truth-Maker Semantics for Intuitionistic Logic

I propose a new semantics for intuitionistic logic, which is a cross between the construction-oriented semantics of Brouwer-Heyting-Kolmogorov and the condition-oriented semantics of Kripke. The new semantics shows how there might be a common semantical underpinning for intuitionistic and classical logic and how intuitionistic logic might thereby be tied to a realist conception of the relationship between language and the world.     

Relationships between Protestant Work Ethic and Work Effort in a Field Setting

Soixante-huit étudiants ont relevé leurs activatés quotidiennes pendant sept journées consécutives. Ils ont ensuite passé l'échclle de Mirels et Garrett, le Protestant Work Ethic datant de 1971 (P.W.E.). Les sujets qui présentent un score élevé au P.W.E. consacrent plus de temps a leurs etudes et moins à leurs loisirs (par comparaison avec ceux dont le résultat au P.W.E. est faible). Ces différences existent pour les jours ouvrés, mais pas pour le week-end.
Sixty-eight student subjects recorded their daily activities for seven consecutive days, and afterwards completed Mirels and Garrett's (1971) Protestant work ethic (PWE) scale. Compared to low PWE scorers, high PWE scorers worked longer hours on their study and spent less time on leisure. These differences occurred during weekdays but not at the weekend.