Audience Design in Multiparty Conversation

How do speakers design what they say in order to communicate effectively with groups of addressees who vary in their background knowledge of the topic at hand? Prior findings indicate that when a speaker addresses a pair of listeners with discrepant knowledge, that speakers Aim Low, designing their utterances for the least knowledgeable of the two addressees. Here, we test the hypothesis that speakers will depart from an Aim Low approach in order to efficiently communicate with larger groups of interacting partners. Further, we ask whether the cognitive demands of tracking multiple conversational partners' perspectives places limitations on successful audience design. We find that speakers can successfully track information about what up to four of their partners do and do not know in conversation. When addressing groups of 3–4 addressees at once, speakers design language based on the combined knowledge of the group. These findings point to an audience design process that simultaneously represents the perspectives of multiple other individuals and combines these representations in order to design utterances that strike a balance between the different needs of the individuals within the group.     

The perception of false self scale for adolescents: Reliability,validity, and longitudinal relationships with depressive and anxious symptoms

A scale assessing generalized false self‐perceptions (Perceptions of False Self, POFS) was developed and tested across three studies involving a total of 331 adolescents (11–16 years). In Study 1, interviews were conducted to develop items for the scale. In Study 2, psychometric techniques were used to derive a scale composed of 16 items. Study 2 also assessed the validity of the scale: depressive symptoms were found to increase POFS across 10 weeks, whereas false self‐perceptions had a reciprocal effect on anxiety. In Study 3, the convergent validity of the POFS scale was established. Overall, the evidence suggests that the POFS scale is a reliable and valid measure of generalized false self‐perceptions.     

The relation between problem categorization and problem solving among experts and novices

These investigations were conducted to examine the relationship between problem-solving ability and the criteria used to decide that two classical mechanics problems would be solved similarly. We began by comparing experts and novices on a similarity judgment task and found that the experts predominantly relied on the problems' deep structures in deciding on similarity of solution, although the presence of surface-feature similarity had a clear adverse effect on performance. The novices relied predominantly on surface features, but were capable of using the problems' deep structures under certain conditions. In a second experiment, we compared groups of novices, at the same level of experience, who tended to employ different types of reasoning in making similarity judgments. Compared to novices who relied predominantly on surface features, novices who made greater use of principles tended to categorize problems similarly to how experts categorized them, as well as score higher in problem solving. These results suggest that principles play a fundamental role in the organization of conceptual and procedural knowledge for good problem solvers at all levels.     

The power within: Mass media,scientific entertainment,and the introduction of psychical research into China, 1900–1920

How did a new science initially promoted by only a few individuals eventually become a widespread cultural phenomenon practiced and known by thousands of people? Following a transnational approach, this article traces the introduction of psychical research into China during the first two decades of the 20th century. Known in the Republican period (1912–1949) as Spiritual Science (xinling kexue or xinling yanjiu), psychical research flourished between the 1920s and 1930s, playing a key role in the popularization of applied psychology and mind-cure across China. This article takes a step back from the heyday of Spiritual Science by looking at the period that immediately preceded and helped define it. Focused on wide-circulation newspapers, popular manuals, and stage performances, it teases out the ways in which Chinese popular culture translated European, American, and Japanese psychical research to local Chinese audiences in the midst of China's search for modernity. By naturalizing the reality of psychic powers, spiritual scientists blurred the boundaries between science and superstition in a period when these were posited as diametrically opposed.     

Parental alcohol consumption and postneonatal mortality

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of maternal and paternal alcohol consumption as independent risk factors in postneonatal mortality. Questions on the frequency and quantity of alcoholic drinks consumed were included in a questionnaire used as part of a case-control study. Over a period of 11 months the families of 157 cases and 468 controls, matched for age and locality, were interviewed. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were obtained by matched univariate analysis and by multiple conditional logistic regression. Maternal consumption during pregnancy, maternal consumption during breastfeeding and maternal consumption in the past year were not risk factors for postneonatal mortality. A multiple matched analysis did not alter these results. Matched univariate analysis of paternal alcohol consumption gave several positive results, including variables pertaining to the father's consumption in a multiple logistic regression model with traditional risk factors, which revealed that the frequency of paternal consumption in the last year, as estimated by the mother, was found to have a significant effect on postneonatal mortality.     

Some correlates of health locus of control among multicultural individuals

The relationship of locus of control to depression, anxiety, hostility, and physical health was assessed in a sample of multicultural college students (N = 162). Powerful Others Health Locus of Control was correlated with depression, anxiety, hostility, and recent physical symptoms while Chance Health Locus of Control (CHLC) was correlated with all of the above as well as chronic physical symptoms and major health problems. When controlling for a variety of health risk factors (viz., age, sex, body mass, exercise, smoking, salt, alcohol, and caffeine), only CHLC remained significant in the physical health models. Results support the cognitive model of mental health which emphasize the importance of adaptive beliefs. Specifically, they suggest that issues about control are related to negative affect and indicate that the often-cited relationship of an external locus of control to depression and anxiety also holds for hostility. The findings do not, however, support the view that anxiety and depression are associated with different types of external locus of control but rather suggest a unified set of locus of control beliefs underlying the three types of negative affect. In addition, evidence is provided for the external validity of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) Scales with respect to mental health. Further, the results indicate that belief about one’s health may play a significant role in one’s physical health and that the health behavior model of the relationship between locus of control and physical health is insufficient to explain the relationship. As the Chance and Powerful Others MHLC scales were not related to health habits in this sample but were related to mental health (viz., depression, anxiety, and hostility), locus of control beliefs may be related to physical health via their relationship with mental health.