Shades of disengagement: high school dropouts speak out

The purpose of this study was to describe how dropouts navigate their educational journeys. Eighty dropouts participated to individual interviews which were recorded and transcribed. The data analysis yielded three broad categories in answering the research question. Setting the stage in the family and the school, the dropouts described their teetering between in and out of school contexts and proceeded to explain how they ended their educational journey. For 20 dropouts, family turmoil represented a pervasive force negatively influencing their schooling. For 24 dropouts, problems in school set the stage for dropping out. Teetering represented juggling strategies to prolongand to sabotage the journey, while the end of the journey occurred as a result of a pivotal moment (48%) or a gradual fade out (52%) from the school context.

A Pilot Study Exploring PTSD Symptom Clusters as Mediators between Trauma Exposure and Attachment Behaviors in Married Adults

The purpose of this pilot study was to examine the mediating effect of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom clusters on the association between trauma exposure and attachment behaviors. Results from bootstrapped mediation analyses with a sample of 116 married adults revealed that total PTSD, avoidance, negative alterations in cognition/mood, and arousal symptoms partially mediated the effect of trauma exposure on perceived attachment behaviors in men only; the intrusion symptom cluster was not significant and there were no significant mediation effects for women. Findings shed light on possible gender variant mechanisms by which trauma may threaten secure attachment bonds in couples.     

A puzzle about desire

Synthese - This paper develops a novel puzzle about desire consisting of three independently plausible but jointly inconsistent propositions: (1) all desires are dispositional states, (2) we have...     

Cross-language message- and word-level transfer effects in bilingual text processing

The present study examined the nature of the mental representations bilinguals form when reading a text and to what extent they are language specific. English-French bilinguals read five pairs of passages in succession while their eye movements were tracked. Dependent measures were overall reading times on second passages and fixation latencies on target cognates embeddedin second passages. The first passage w as (1) identical tothe second passage in the pair, (2) related in content only (i.e., a translation), (3) related in content and some words (i.e., translation with cognates), (4) related in words only (i.e., different content with the same cognates), or (5) unrelated. There was substantial cross-language facilitation for passages that shared meaning, but the amount of transfer was less than that for identical passages, indicating that memory representations are largely meaning based but do contain some information about surface form. Cross-language transfer for cognates was observed but depended on the skill of the bilinguals in their second language, the direction of transfer, and whether the passages shared meaning. These results are discussed in relation to Raney's (2003) model of text representation.     

Understanding print: early reading development and the contributions of home literacy experiences

This study explored the development of children's early understanding of visual and orthographic aspects of print and how this is related to early reading acquisition. A total of 474 children, ages 48 to 83 months, completed standardized measures of phonological awareness and early reading skills. They also completed experimental tasks that tapped their understanding of what constitutes "readable" print. The parents of participants completed a questionnaire regarding their children's home literacy experiences. The data showed systematic development in children's understanding of print conventions and English orthography and spelling. Regression analyses indicated that print knowledge was related to early reading skill, even after accounting for variance due to age and phonological awareness. Furthermore, parents' ratings of the extent of their children's involvement in activities that led to practice in reading and writing most consistently predicted the development of emerging literacy skills, including understanding of the conventions of the English writing system. Little relation between print knowledge and the frequency of storybook reading by adults was observed.     

Homophone effects in lexical decision

The role of phonology in word recognition was investigated in 6 lexical-decision experiments involving homophones (e.g., MAID-MADE). The authors' goal was to determine whether homophone effects arise in the lexical-decision task and, if so, in what situations they arise, with a specific focus on the question of whether the presence of pseudohomophone foils (e.g., BRANE) causes homophone effects to be eliminated because of strategic deemphasis of phonological processing. All 6 experiments showed significant homophone effects, which were not eliminated by the presence of pseudohomophone foils. The authors propose that homophone effects in lexical decision are due to the nature of feedback from phonology to orthography.     

Training working memory: Limits of transfer

In two experiments (totaling 253 adult participants), we examined the extent to which intensive working memory training led to improvements on untrained measures of cognitive ability. Although participants showed improvement on the trained task and on tasks that either shared task characteristics or stimuli, we found no evidence that training led to general improvements in working memory. Using Bayes Factor analysis, we show that the data generally support the hypothesis that working memory training was ineffective at improving general cognitive ability. This conclusion held even after controlling for a number of individual differences, including need for cognition, beliefs in the malleability of intelligence, and age.     

Underlying Mechanisms Explaining the Link between Differentiation and Romantic Relationship Outcomes

Abstract

Differentiation of self has been associated with positive relationship outcomes, but little has been done to analyze the underlying mechanisms that promote these outcomes for highly differentiated people. Longitudinal data were collected from a sample of university students (N?=?162) and clinically relevant direct and indirect effects between I-position and emotional reactivity, anxious attachment, relationship efficacy, and relationship satisfaction and conflict hostility were analyzed using path analysis. In general, anxious attachment and relationship efficacy mediated the association between differentiation of self and conflict hostility. Clients may benefit from therapists assessing differentiation and attachment, facilitating conversations that contribute to increasing differentiation and attachment, and using both of these constructs as mechanisms to enhance relationships in young adults.     

Multi-Couple Group and Self-Directed PREP Formats Enhance Relationship Satisfaction and Improve Anger Management Skills in Air Force Couples

This study examined the effectiveness of delivering the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP) to volunteer couples in the U.S. Air Force in either a six-week instructional multi-couple group condition or a self-directed book condition. A standardized pre/post protocol was employed and outcomes included relationship satisfaction and anger management skills, two known risk factors for partner maltreatment. Significant improvement was found for the group condition in both relationship satisfaction and anger management skills, but only for anger management skills in the self-directed book condition. Finally, the group condition reported greater program satisfaction. Implications are discussed.     

Strategies in Forecasting Outcomes in Ethical Decision-Making: Identifying and Analyzing the Causes of the Problem

This study examined the role of key causal analysis strategies in forecasting and ethical decision-making. Undergraduate participants took on the role of the key actor in several ethical problems and were asked to identify and analyze the causes, forecast potential outcomes, and make a decision about each problem. Time pressure and analytic mindset were manipulated while participants worked through these problems. The results indicated that forecast quality was associated with decision ethicality, and the identification of the critical causes of the problem was associated with both higher quality forecasts and higher ethicality of decisions. Neither time pressure nor analytic mindset impacted forecasts or ethicality of decisions. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.