Reading and cognitive capacity usage: Adjunct question effects

Cognitive capacity usage during reading was measured in two experiments. During reading of a 27-page passage on marine biology, text-relevant inserted questions, irrelevant questions, or no questions were answered by undergraduates. Cognitive capacity usage increased when text-relevant questions began but not when irrelevant questions began or when no questions were given. The increase in cognitive capacity usage was largest on pages immediately following questions. Cognitive capacity is used in the elaborative stages of text processing.     

Training interpersonal skills among mentally retarded and socially dysfunctional children

Two moderately retarded boys, ages 11 and 12 yr, who resided in an inpatient unit for emotionally disturbed children, were treated for deficits in social skills. The deficits included physical gestures, facial mannerisms, eye contact, words spoken, and intonation and content of speech. The treatment package consisted of instructions, performance feedback, social reinforcement, modeling, and role-playing. The effects of the treatment in developing appropriate social performance were evaluated in separate multiple-baseline designs across behaviors for each child. The training improved social skills and brought children up to or beyond the level of normal control subjects who were the same age and gender.     

Morality,politics, and contingency

The influential realist thesis that politics and morals are distinct and mutually exclusive spheres of interest is one that has been challenged within the tradition of analytic moral and political theory. Over the last 50 years, several notable liberal analytic philosophers, including Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire, and Thomas Nagel, have argued that not only is politics not separate from and inimical to ethics but that there exists such a thing as political morality. This article contends that while the notion of political morality may make more sense of what is regarded as a central and troubling problem of politics, it also forces us to confront the more fundamental challenge of the radical contingency of our moral and political predicament. Whether analytic political theory is capable of producing a convincing response to the latter challenge remains precariously unclear.     

A COMPARISON OF MALE AND FEMALE COLLEGE STUDENTS' EXPERIENCES OF SEXUAL COERCION

Research comparing men's and women's experiences of sexual coercion has typically assessed differences in prevalence rates and risk. We extended this line of research by comparing the contexts of sexual coercion and reactions to sexually coercive experiences in an attempt to understand the meanings that men and women attribute to these events. Participants were 433 randomly selected college students who responded to an anonymous survey. In line with past research, more men than women reported being sexually coercive, and more women than men reported being sexually coerced in the preceding year. There was a great degree of correspondence between men's and women's reports of the contexts within which sexual coercion occurred. According to their reports, sexual coercion occurred primarily within the heterosexual dating context. Compared to men, however, women reported more negative reactions and stronger resistance to the use of sexual coercion. These findings emphasize how comparisons of prevalence rates alone may obscure important differences in the phenomenology of sexually coercive incidents for men and women. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for the development of education and prevention programs and the need to reevaluate current approaches to interpreting prevalence reports.     

Online racial discrimination and the protective function of ethnic identity and self-esteem for African American adolescents

A growing body of literature has shown that being victimized online is associated with poor mental health. Little is known about the factors that protect youth from the negative outcomes that may result from these victimization experiences, particularly those related to race. Using a risk and resilience framework, this study examined the protective function of ethnic identity and self-esteem among African Americans who experience online racial discrimination. For the sample of 125 adolescents, hierarchical regression results revealed that higher levels of ethnic identity and self-esteem significantly moderated the negative impact of online racial discrimination on anxiety levels. These findings show that ethnic identity and self-esteem can buffer the negative mental health outcomes associated with online racial discrimination, at least with respect to adolescents' anxiety. Findings from the current study have significant implications for adolescent adjustment given the increased time youth spend doing online activities.     

Evidence for a Multi-Dimensional Latent Structural Model of Externalizing Disorders

Strong associations between conduct disorder (CD), antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and substance use disorders (SUD) seem to reflect a general vulnerability to externalizing behaviors. Recent studies have characterized this vulnerability on a continuous scale, rather than as distinct categories, suggesting that the revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) take into account the underlying continuum of externalizing behaviors. However, most of this research has not included measures of disorders that appear in childhood [e.g., attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)], nor has it considered the full range of possibilities for the latent structure of externalizing behaviors, particularly factor mixture models, which allow for a latent factor to have both continuous and categorical dimensions. Finally, the majority of prior studies have not tested multidimensional models. Using lifetime diagnoses of externalizing disorders from participants in the Fast Track Project (n?=?715), we analyzed a series of latent variable models ranging from fully continuous factor models to fully categorical mixture models. Continuous models provided the best fit to the observed data and also suggested that a two-factor model of externalizing behavior, defined as (1) ODD+ADHD+CD and (2) SUD with adult antisocial behavior sharing common variance with both factors, was necessary to explain the covariation in externalizing disorders. The two-factor model of externalizing behavior was then replicated using a nationally representative sample drawn from the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication data (n?=?5,692). These results have important implications for the conceptualization of externalizing disorders in DSM-5.     

Bilingualism changes children's beliefs about what is innate

Young children engage in essentialist reasoning about natural kinds, believing that many traits are innately determined. This study investigated whether personal experience with second language acquisition could alter children's essentialist biases. In a switched‐at‐birth paradigm, 5‐ and 6‐year‐old monolingual and simultaneous bilingual children expected that a baby's native language, an animal's vocalizations, and an animal's physical traits would match those of a birth rather than of an adoptive parent. We predicted that sequential bilingual children, who had been exposed to a new language after age 3, would show greater understanding that languages are learned. Surprisingly, sequential bilinguals showed reduced essentialist beliefs about all traits: they were significantly more likely than other children to believe that human language, animal vocalizations, and animal physical traits would be learned through experience rather than innately endowed. These findings suggest that bilingualism in the preschool years can profoundly change children's essentialist biases.     

Social Judgments of Responsibility in Elder Self-Neglect Cases

In this study, 1,038 case judgments made by 26 adult protective service (APS) workers in the United States were examined using hypothetical elder self-neglect vignettes. The independent variables used to construct realistic vignettes were based on the relevant literature, the law in the jurisdiction being studied, and other practical considerations. The factorial survey method was used in the vignette construction phase, and multiple regression was used for analysis. The independent variables of age, household income, disability, family presence and involvement, and the form and consequence of the self-neglect revealed statistically significant findings, but the main effect rested with the social perception of disability in assigning responsibility. Over 25% of the variance was explained in the model, the majority of which could be attributed to the victim's disability. The findings indicate that judgment of responsibility was almost entirely due to the perception of the victim's disability. Responsibility, in the present study and as applied to elder self-neglect in general, seems to be a unidimensional social judgment phenomenon.