Children's use of conversational rules in a referential communication task

Three experiments investigating first-grade children's comprehension, of referentially ambiguous messages are reported. In the first one children were shown to interpret a literally ambiguous message by means of the strategy based on the conversational Maxim of Antecedent rather than that based on the more appropriate Maxim of Quantity. The results of the second experiment suggest that the Maxim of Quantity can be used by children, provided the situation is quite simple; they also suggest that after having used such a maxim in a simple situation, children can apply it in a more complex situation. This generalization to new situations, however, is not a mere perseveration since, as shown in the third experiment, children can adjust their comprehension strategy to the situation requirements. The results are discussed with reference to the recent proposals on referential ambiguity and children communication failures.     

Amanah and Muslim Identity: Relationships with Religious and Psychological Adjustment in Malaysia

Amanah refers to the accountability of Muslims to their community. In Malaysian Muslim university students (N = 209), an Amanah Scale predicted a stronger sense of identity along with more adaptive religious and psychosocial functioning. Multiple regression analyses identified Accountability to Society as especially influential, but Accountability to Allah exhibited at least some problematic implications. Amanah mediated Identity linkages with some measures of religious and psychological adjustment, but also suppressed Identity relationships with greater self-knowledge and lower anxiety. These data confirmed the importance of communal commitments in Muslim mental health, suggested that accountability may have limited liabilities as well as more obvious psychosocial advantages, and identified possible complexities in the assessment of Accountability to Allah.

     

A high implicit affiliation motive does not always make you happy: A corresponding explicit motive and corresponding behavior are further needed

Satisfaction of the implicit affiliation motive is known to be positively related to emotional well-being, whereas the frustration of the implicit affiliation motive leads to impairment of well-being. In the present research we specified two conditions that are responsible for the satisfaction and frustration of the implicit motive. Referring to research on the congruence of implicit and explicit motives, we assumed that a corresponding explicit affiliation motive leads to satisfaction of the implicit motive. Corresponding affiliation behavior constitutes the second condition. Three studies confirmed the hypothesis that both conditions must be fulfilled in order to positively connect the implicit affiliation motive to emotional well-being. Participants with high implicit and explicit affiliation motives and who additionally showed a large amount of affiliation behavior reported the lowest negative affectivity and the highest life satisfaction compared to participants who lacked one of the conditions.

On the existence of category-specific impairments. A reply to Parkin and Stewart

Parkin and Stewart (this issue) criticize Sartori, Miozzo, and Job's (this issue) demonstration of a category-specific naming impairment for living things when sets of living and non-living things were matched for familiarity, visual complexity, name frequency, and visual similarity. In this paper we discuss the points raised by Parkin and Stewart and argue that they do not undermine our demonstration of a category-specific impairment.