Dispositional optimism: a psychological resource for Mexican-origin mothers experiencing economic stress

Dispositional optimism is believed to be an important psychological resource that buffers families against the deleterious consequences of economic adversity. Using data from a longitudinal study of Mexican-origin families (N = 674), we tested a family stress model specifying that maternal dispositional optimism and economic pressure affect maternal internalizing symptoms, which, in turn, affects parenting behaviors and children's social adjustment. As predicted, maternal optimism and economic pressure had both independent and interactive effects on maternal internalizing symptoms, and the effects of these variables on changes over time in child social adjustment were mediated by nurturant and involved parenting. The findings replicate and extend previous research on single-parent African American families (Taylor, Larsen-Rife, Conger, Widaman, & Cutrona, 2010), and demonstrate the generalizability of the positive benefits of dispositional optimism in another ethnic group and type of family structure.     

Task‐related interactions between kindergarten children and their teachers: the role of emotional security

This study examined the emotional security of kindergarten children in dyadic task‐related interactions with their teachers. In particular, it examined the interrelations between security, task behaviours (persistence and independence), social inhibition, and teachers' support. Participants were 79 kindergartners (mean age=69.7 months) and their 40 regular teachers. Children were selected to approach a normal distribution of social inhibition. Children and teachers were filmed during a dyadic interaction task outside the classroom. Three groups of independent observers rated children's emotional security and their task behaviours, as well as teachers' supportive behaviours. Multilevel modelling revealed a positive link between teachers' support and emotional security. This link suppressed a negative relation between social inhibition and emotional security. In addition, emotional security was positively associated with children's task behaviours and mediated part of the positive link between these behaviours and teachers' support. Finally, security moderated the relation between support and persistence, such that the effect of teachers' support on persistent behaviours was amplified for relatively insecure children. These results highlight the importance of considering emotional security when examining the interactions between kindergarten children and their teachers. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relationship of emotional intelligence with academic intelligence and the Big Five

The present study examines the relationship of self‐ and other ratings of emotional intelligence with academic intelligence and personality, as well as the incremental validity of emotional intelligence beyond academic intelligence and personality in predicting academic and social success. A sample of 116 students filled in measures for emotional and academic intelligence, the Big Five, and indicators of social and academic success. Moreover, other ratings were obtained from four different raters on emotional intelligence and social success. Factor analysis revealed three emotional intelligence dimensions that were labelled as ‘Empathy’, ‘Autonomy’, and ‘Emotional Control’. Little evidence was found for a relationship between emotional and academic intelligence. Academic intelligence was low and inconsistently related to emotional intelligence, revealing both negative and positive interrelations. Strong relationships were found of the emotional intelligence dimensions with the Big Five, particularly with Extraversion and Emotional Stability. Interestingly, the emotional intelligence dimensions were able to predict both academic and social success above traditional indicators of academic intelligence and personality. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vultures as an overlooked model in cognitive ecology

Animal Cognition - Despite important recent advances in cognitive ecology, our current understanding of avian cognition still largely rests on research conducted on a few model taxa. Vultures are...     

Speed limits: orientation and semantic context interactions constrain natural scene discrimination dynamics

The visual system rapidly extracts information about objects from the cluttered natural environment. In 5 experiments, the authors quantified the influence of orientation and semantics on the classification speed of objects in natural scenes, particularly with regard to object-context interactions. Natural scene photographs were presented in an object-discrimination task and pattern masked with various scene-to-mask stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs). Full psychometric functions and reaction times (RTs) were measured. The authors found that (a) rotating the full scenes increased threshold SOA at intermediate rotation angles but not for inversion; (b) rotating object or context degraded classification performance in a similar manner; (c) semantically congruent contexts had negligible facilitatory effects on object classification compared with meaningless baseline contexts with a matching contrast structure, but incongruent contexts severely degraded performance; (d) any object-context incongruence (orientation or semantic) increased RTs at longer SOAs, indicating dependent processing of object and context; and (e) facilitatory effects of context emerged only when the context shortly preceded the object. The authors conclude that the effects of natural scene context on object classification are primarily inhibitory and discuss possible reasons.     

The influence of picture size on recognition and exploratory behaviour in raised-line drawings

We demonstrate the influence of picture size on haptic recognition and exploratory behaviour. The stimuli were raised-line drawings of everyday objects. Participants were instructed to think aloud during haptic exploration of the pictures. We measured the delay between initial correct speculation and final correct response. The results indicate that picture size influences accuracy but not response latency: large drawings are recognised more often but not faster. By analysing video recordings of the experiment we found that two-handed exploration increases when picture size increases and that, on average, 83% of the exploration time involves the use of two hands. The thinking-aloud data showed that the average time difference between the initial correct speculation and final correct response amounted to 23% of the total reaction time. We discuss our results with respect to the design of tactile aids and the ecological validity of single-finger exploration.     

Ethnic differences in teacher-oriented achievement motivation: a study among early adolescent students in the Netherlands

Among 4th-6th-grade students (165 girls, 150 boys) in the Netherlands, the author examined ethnic differences in two aspects of teacher-oriented academic motivation: working in order to please the teacher and dependence on the teacher for academic help. Given higher levels of power distance in Turkish and Moroccan versus Dutch culture, both measures and their correlates were compared for 132 Turkish- and Moroccan-Dutch students, and 183 ethnic Dutch students. Analyses showed that Turkish- and Moroccan-Dutch students scored higher on pleasing the teacher and dependence on the teacher. For them, but not for the ethnic Dutch students, teacher-oriented motivation was positively related to intrinsic motivation and perceived academic competence. Also, students from all groups reported more dependence on the teacher and more intrinsic motivation the more they appreciated their teachers. Results support the notion that teacher-oriented extrinsic motivation is autonomous, rather than controlled for students from power-distant cultures.     

Cross‐Linguistic Differences in Processing Double‐Embedded Relative Clauses: Working‐Memory Constraints or Language Statistics?

An English double‐embedded relative clause from which the middle verb is omitted can often be processed more easily than its grammatical counterpart, a phenomenon known as the grammaticality illusion. This effect has been found to be reversed in German, suggesting that the illusion is language specific rather than a consequence of universal working memory constraints. We present results from three self‐paced reading experiments which show that Dutch native speakers also do not show the grammaticality illusion in Dutch, whereas both German and Dutch native speakers do show the illusion when reading English sentences. These findings provide evidence against working memory constraints as an explanation for the observed effect in English. We propose an alternative account based on the statistical patterns of the languages involved. In support of this alternative, a single recurrent neural network model that is trained on both Dutch and English sentences is shown to predict the cross‐linguistic difference in the grammaticality effect.     

A wireless portable physiology recorder for psychophysiology research based on a personal digital assistant

Psychophysiology research is increasingly relying on portable instruments that can assess physiological responses during real-life situations at locations outside of research labs, such as at school, home, work, and outdoors. In this article, I report on the feasibility of a personal digital assistant-based portable physiology recording system with online signal graphing and wireless digital telemetry for psychophysiology research. I demonstrate that such a system can measure electrocardiogram and electrodermal activity and send this data over a wireless communication link to a PC. It enables users to inspect the integrity of the acquired signals on the portable device and on a PC base station, and it allows users to place time markers for online data analysis.     

Dynamic Testing in Selection for an Educational Programme: Assessing South African Performance on the Raven Progressive Matrices

This article describes the research results of an investigation into the use of dynamic testing for the selection of candidates for an educational programme. The selection of students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds for mathematics‐, science‐, and technology‐based programmes is a problem for which most South African higher education institutions still have to find adequate solutions. Dynamic testing procedures are often seen as more fair to use for selection than single‐session tests in situations of unequal educational opportunity. The possibility that a selection instrument using a dynamic testing process could add significantly to the selection effectiveness already achieved in a South African mathematics and science foundation year using single‐session tests was investigated. The performance of a group of educationally disadvantaged black South African students on the Raven Progressive Matrices is compared to that of other groups reported in research literature. Considering the disadvantaged nature of the South African group, the group performed well on the Raven test when compared with data from other countries.