What does it mean to ‘live’ and ‘die’? A cross‐linguistic analysis of parent–child conversations in English and Indonesian

Previous work on children's intuitive knowledge about the natural world has documented their difficulty in acquiring an overarching concept of biological life that includes plants as well as humans and non‐human animals. It has also suggested that the acquisition of fundamental biological concepts like alive and die may be influenced by the language used to describe them, as evidenced by differences between English‐ and Indonesian‐speaking children's performance in tasks involving these concepts. Here, we examine one particularly important source of linguistic information available to children during this acquisition process: everyday conversations with their parents. We take a cross‐linguistic approach in analysing the evidence available to English‐ and Indonesian‐speaking children as they acquire meanings for words corresponding to the concepts alive and die . Our analysis illustrates that young children acquiring English and Indonesian are faced with distinct problems, but that parental input in both languages does little to support the acquisition of broad, inclusive biological concepts.     

Inferred characteristics of successful suicides as function of gender and context.

This paper examines college students' attributions about suicide as a function of gender and context (athletic vs. relationship failure). Results indicated that male athletes who suicided were considered more emotionally well-adjusted compared to males who suicided because of a relationship failure and all females. Male and female athletes who suicided were seen as more competent and less distressed compared to those who suffered a failed relationship. Females were also seen as more distressed compared to males. These results are discussed in terms of a positive bias toward athletes in our society as well as gender stereotypes. Implications of these findings as well as methodological limitations are discussed.     

A measurement model of women's behavioral risk taking.

The current study was designed to gain a better understanding of the nature of the relationship between substance use and sexual risk taking within a community sample of women (N = 1,004). Using confirmatory factor analysis, the authors examined the factor structure of sexual risk behaviors and substance use to determine whether they are best conceptualized as domains underlying a single, higher order, risk-taking propensity. A 2 higher order factor model (sexual risk behavior and substance use) provided the best fit to the data, suggesting that these 2 general risk domains are correlated but independent factors. Sensation seeking had large general direct effects on the 2 risk domains and large indirect effects on the 4 first-order factors and the individual indicators. Negative affect had smaller, yet still significant, effects. Impulsivity and anxiety were unrelated to sexual health risk domains.     

Reducing STD/HIV Stigmatizing Attitudes Through Community Popular Opinion Leaders in Chinese Markets

Reducing STDs and HIV/AIDS incidence requires campaigns designed to change knowledge, attitudes, and practices of risky sexual behavior. In China, a significant obstacle to such changes is the stigma associated with these diseases. Thus 1 campaign intervention strategy is to train credible community leaders to discuss these issues in everyday social venues. This study tested the effectiveness of such an approach on reducing HIV/AIDS stigma, across 2 years, from a sample of over 4,500 market vendors, in 3 conditions. Results showed an increasing growth in market communication about intervention messages, and concomitant declines in stigmatizing attitudes, across time, with the greatest changes in community popular opinion leaders, significant changes in intervention nonopinion leaders, and little change in the control markets.     

Binocular cues in the perception of distance of a point source of light

The ability to make egocentric distance estimates of a single point source of light, seen in darkness and without the cues of changing size and luminance, was investigated in sixteen observers. The attenuation required to maintain constant luminance, when the target was viewed from different distances, was shown to follow the inverse square law providing the angle subtended by the light was less than 20 s arc. Distance changes were also simulated by means of a split mirror which produced vergence cues, or by test lenses to provide accommodation cues. Over the range 0.5 to 9.2 m distance estimates were surprisingly accurate, although there was some overestimation of near and underestimation of far distances. Most observers made good judgements when only convergence cues were varied, whereas no observers made consistently good judgements when only accommodation cues were varied. The difficulties are discussed in terms of the accommodation-convergence link. When distance was simulated by changing convergence and accommodation cues, estimates were not as good as when real distance was changed. Since good estimates were made with brief target exposures, these judgements were not based on subsequent convergence or accommodation changes. It is suggested that the metric or reference against which the apparently absolute judgements were made was the efferent demand signal associated with a 'resting' position of convergence in darkness.     

SPEECH CONVERGENCE AND SPEECH EVALUATION IN FACT-FINDING INTERVIEWS

The purpose of this study was to examine speech convergence and speech evaluation in fact-finding interviews conducted in the field. Forty interviewers (ERs), undergraduates enrolled in a class on interviewing processes, conducted 20–30 minute interviews with selected interviewees (EEs), business persons and professionals in fields of interest to the ERs. Speech behaviors examined included response latency, speech rate, and turn duration; these were coded per one minute intervals of each interaction. Time series regression procedures indicated that both ERs and EEs converged speech rate and response latency toward their interlocutors' performances of these behaviors. Although turn duration convergence did not characterize the entire data set, male-male dyads did converge significantly and male (ER)-female (EE) dyads significantly diverged turn duration. Regarding speech evaluation, there was some evidence that greater response latency similarity, greater speech rate and response latency convergence, and faster ER speech and slower EE speech were positively related to the competence and social attractiveness judgments of participants. Limitations and implications are discussed.