EFFECTS OF SECOND LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY OF SPEAKERS AND LISTENERS ON PERSON PERCEPTION AND BEHAVIOURAL INTENTION: A STUDY OF CHINESE BILINGUALS

Do people at different levels of second language proficiency perceive and interact with other speakers differently? Conceptual analyses suggested three possibilities. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the hypotheses derived from the conceptual analyses. Forty Chinese undergraduates (half of whom were high and half of whom were low in English language proficiency) listened to English speeches by either high or low proficiency speakers, and rated the speakers on ten personality traits and ten behavioural intention items. High and low proficiency listeners did not differ in their impressions of the speakers or the behavioural intention towards them. However, speaker proficiency strongly affected the listeners' person perception and behavioural intention. Results from a hierarchical multiple regression supported the hypothesis that speaker proficiency influenced person perception, which in turn influenced behavioural intention.     

A COMPARISON OF DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT AND NONCONTINGENT REINFORCEMENT TO TREAT FOOD SELECTIVITY IN A CHILD WITH AUTISM

We compared differential reinforcement plus escape extinction to noncontingent reinforcement plus escape extinction to treat food selectivity exhibited by a young child with autism. The interventions were equally effective for increasing bite acceptance and decreasing problem behaviors. However, a social validity measure suggested that noncontingent reinforcement was preferred by the child's caregiver.     

Adolescent Sexual Risk-Taking in the Informal Settlements of Nairobi, Kenya: Understanding the Contributions of Religion

Young people in sub-Saharan Africa are at the centre of the global HIV epidemic as they account for a disproportionate share of new infections. Their vulnerability to HIV has been attributed to a myriad of factors, in particular, risky sexual behaviours. While economic factors are important, increasing attention has been devoted to religion on the discourse on sexual decision-making because religious values provide a perspective on life that often conflicts with risky sexual behaviours. Given the centrality of religion in the African social fabric, this study assesses the relationship between adolescent religiousness and involvement in risky sexual behaviours using data from the informal settlements of Nairobi. Guided by social control theory, the paper explores if and how religion and religiosity affect sexual risk-taking among adolescents.     

Group Intensive Family Training (GIFT) for preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders

Early, intensive behavioral intervention is effective in treating children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), but can be cost prohibitive. Expenses may be defrayed if children can benefit from parents acting as therapists. This quantitative case series examines the efficacy of the Group Intensive Family Training (GIFT) program, a 12‐week (180 h, delivered 3 h each weekday) parent‐training for preschoolers with ASDs. Parents were individually mentored in the hands‐on application of behavior analytic techniques, implementing these skills in vivo within a group of six parent–child dyads. Seventy‐two parents and children (ages 25–68 months) with ASDs participated in this study. Children's cognitive and adaptive functioning was assessed before and after the intervention program. Analyses revealed average gains of eight standard score points on the Mullen Early Learning Composite and five standard score points on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Composite after 12 weeks of treatment. Additionally, 14% and 11% of the children moved from the ‘impaired’ to ‘non‐impaired’ range on Mullen and Vineland composite scores, respectively. This preliminary investigation suggests that GIFT's behavioral, group parent‐training can lead to significant, yet cost‐ and time‐efficient gains for children with ASDs. Results must be interpreted with caution because of the absence of a control group. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perfectionistic Concerns,Social Negativity,and Subjective Well‐Being: A Test of the Social Disconnection Model

Partner‐specific perfectionistic concerns (PC) include concern over mistakes, self‐criticism, and socially prescribed perfectionism as it pertains to one's partner. The social disconnection model proposes that PC influences well‐being indirectly through interpersonal problems. Thus, we hypothesized that social negativity (expressed anger, hostility, and rejection) would mediate the relationship between dyadic PC and subjective well‐being. Data from 203 romantic dyads (92.1% heterosexual) were collected using self‐report surveys and a four‐wave, 4‐week longitudinal design. Participants were predominantly female (53.1%), young (M = 22.69 years), and Caucasian (82.3%). Data were analyzed using an actor‐partner interdependence model with multilevel structural equation modeling. There were significant actor effects at the between‐subjects and within‐subjects levels, and significant partner effects for the relationship between PC and social negativity at the within‐subject level. Social negativity mediated the relationships between PC and both negative affect and life satisfaction. However, positive affect was more weakly related to PC and social negativity. The social disconnection model was supported. PC was positively associated with one's own social negativity and evoked hostile behaviors from one's partner. Hostile, rejecting behaviors reduced the well‐being of the actor, but not the partner. Results suggest perfectionism may be best understood within an interpersonal context.     

Measuring and reducing college students' procrastination

We examined college students' procrastination when studying for weekly in-class quizzes. Two schedules of online practice quiz delivery were compared using a multiple baseline design. When online study material was made available noncontingently, students usually procrastinated. When access to additional study material was contingent on completing previous study material, studying was more evenly distributed. Overall, the mean gain in percentage correct scores on weekly in-class quizzes relative to pretests was greater during contingent access than during noncontingent access conditions.     

A Preliminary Examination of Motivating Operation and Reinforcer Class Interaction

The interaction effects between motivating operations and reinforcer classes were evaluated using a superordinate multielement design. Two individuals with developmental disabilities participated. Participants were exposed to a motivating operation condition—pre‐session access until rejection or pre‐session restriction for 24 h—followed by a reinforcer assessment, in which the reinforcer response requirements progressively increased. Reinforcers, stimuli representative of primary, conditioned, and token reinforcers, were available on alternating sessions. The results showed that pre‐session access and restriction produced reliable evocative and abative effects across reinforcer classes. For one of the participants, the effectiveness of the motivating operation appeared to be influenced by the reinforcer class. The interaction effects between motivating operations and reinforcer classes are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceived cultural importance and actual self-importance of values in cultural identification

Cross-cultural psychologists assume that core cultural values define to a large extent what a culture is. Typically, core values are identified through an actual self-importance approach, in which core values are those that members of the culture as a group strongly endorse. In this article, the authors propose a perceived cultural importance approach to identifying core values, in which core values are values that members of the culture as a group generally believe to be important in the culture. In 5 studies, the authors examine the utility of the perceived cultural importance approach. Results consistently showed that, compared with values of high actual self-importance, values of high perceived cultural importance play a more important role in cultural identification. These findings have important implications for conceptualizing and measuring cultures.     

Myopic perception of having a deadline in negotiations: An anchoring effect due to question order

In negotiations, people tend to perceive a deadline as more detrimental to themselves than to their opponents. This phenomenon is termed myopic perception. The present research proposes that myopic perception can be understood as a result of an anchoring effect due to the question order used in probing the perception of a deadline. When people estimate deal prices before rating the influence of a deadline, their judgements are anchored on their negotiation outcomes, making their perception egocentric, which leads to myopic perception. As a result, myopic perception was hypothesized to be reduced by reversing the above question order to change the respondents' judgement anchor from negotiation outcomes to negotiation procedures. In Study 1, myopic perception disappeared when participants rated the general influence of a deadline before estimating deal price in a negotiation scenario. In Study 2, pairs of participants negotiated under a tight deadline. Myopic perception of a deadline was manipulated before the negotiation. Dyads without myopic perception had a smaller discrepancy in reservation price. However, myopic perception had no effect on impasse rates or final deal prices. The results are discussed with respect to behavioural forecasting and practical implications of myopic perception.     

Gender Labels on Gender-Neutral Colors: Do they Affect Children’s Color Preferences and Play Performance?

Gender-typed color preferences are widely documented, and there has been increasing concern that they affect children’s play preferences. However, it is unclear whether such color preferences exist across cultures, how they have emerged, and how gender color-coding affects performance. Chinese preschoolers (n?=?126) aged 59 to 94 months were tested. First, we assessed their gender-typed color preferences using forced-choice tasks with color cards and pictures of neutral toys in gender-typed colors. Second, we tested if gender labels could affect color preferences by labeling two gender-neutral colors as gender-typed and assessed children’s liking for them using a rating task and a forced-choice task with pictures of neutral toys in the labeled colors. Third, we assigned children a tangram puzzle (i.e., a puzzle using geometric pieces) painted either in the gender-appropriate or gender-inappropriate color and measured the number of pieces they completed and their speed. Results showed that Chinese children exhibited the same gender-typed color preferences as Western children did. Moreover, applying gender labels amplified a gender difference in color preferences, thus providing direct and strong evidence for the social-cognitive pathway underlying gender-typed preferences. Finally, color-coding as gender-appropriate or -inappropriate had no impact on performance but the gender labels improved boys’ performance. These results add to knowledge on how gender-related information affects children’s responses to the social world and suggest that the current gender color divide should be reconsidered.