婚姻压力与婚姻质量:婚姻承诺和夫妻支持的调节作用

选取北京389对夫妻,采用婚姻压力、婚姻质量、婚姻承诺和夫妻支持问卷,探讨了婚姻压力和婚姻质量、婚姻承诺和夫妻支持的现状,以及承诺和支持在压力对婚姻质量影响中的调节效应。结果发现:(1)丈夫的婚姻质量、婚姻承诺及提供信息支持的水平显著高于妻子。(2)婚姻压力显著负向预测夫妻各自的婚姻质量,但只有妻子感知的婚姻压力能显著负向预测丈夫的婚姻质量。(3)婚姻承诺和夫妻支持的调节作用存在性别差异,即自身和配偶的承诺和支持水平,只能在妻子的婚姻压力对自身婚姻质量的预测中起到调节作用,而丈夫身上并未发现这一效应。     

Language Shift and the Inclusion of Indigenous Populations in Large-Scale Assessment Programs

Indicators of academic achievement for bilingual students can be inaccurate due to linguistic heterogeneity. For indigenous populations, language shift (the gradual replacement of one language by another) is a factor that can increase this heterogeneity and poses an additional challenge for valid testing. We investigated whether and how indigenous populations can be validly included in a large-scale assessment program. We gave Mexican preschool Mayan students aged 5 to 6 years the same set of mathematics items in three versions: (1) original in Spanish, (2) Mayan translation, and (3) content equivalent, developed from scratch in Mayan. Also, we collected information on the students’ and the teachers’ use of Spanish and Mayan, and on the communities’ support of the two languages. Students performed poorly on the three versions. Generalizability theory-based analyses revealed considerable performance inconsistency across items and language versions and low generalizability and dependability coefficients. This performance instability appears to stem from a dwindling support of the Mayan language in Mayan schools and communities. Fair, valid assessment of indigenous populations in either their languages or their countries’ dominant languages appears to be difficult to accomplish with current testing models and policies.     

The contribution of prefixes to morphological processing of Spanish words

Three series of priming experiments were conducted to probe the morphological and phonological contributions to visual word recognition in Spanish. Prefixed, e.g., INCAPAZ (incapable), and pseudoprefixed, e.g., INDUSTRIA (industry) target words were presented for recognition following a prefixed, e.g., infeliz (unhappy), or pseudoprefixed, e.g., insulto (insult), prime starting with the same syllable as the target, at masked short or long stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). At long SOAs the recognition of prefixed targets was facilitated by prefixed primes and inhibited by pseudoprefixed ones, whereas both prefixed and pseudoprefixed primes facilitated the recognition at short SOAs. In contrast, the recognition of pseudoprefixed targets was unaffected by the kind of prime presented, even when we used pairs of words overlapping in syllables that cannot be prefixes in Spanish. These results support a special status for morphological elements in access to meaning in reading.     

Cognitive aspects of lexical availability

Lexical availability measures the ease with which a word can be generated as a member of a given category. It has been developed by linguistic studies aimed, among other things, at devising a rational basis for selecting words for inclusion in dictionaries. The measure accounts for the number of people who generated a given word as a member of a designated semantic category and the position in which they produce the word. We present an analysis of lexical availability from a cognitive perspective. Data were analysed for Spanish speakers generating words from five semantic categories—clothes, furniture, body parts, animals, and intelligence. Six properties of words were investigated as potential predictors of lexical availability. Predictors were concept familiarity, typicality, imageability, age of acquisition, word frequency, and word length. Categories differed on these variables, and regression analysis found concept familiarity, typicality, and age of acquisition to be significant predictors of lexical availability. The cognitive basis of these findings and the practical consequences of selecting words on the basis of lexical availability are considered.     

Activation of end-terms in syllogistic reasoning

We report five experiments showing that the activation of the end-terms of a syllogism is determined by their position in the composite model of the premises. We show that it is not determined by the position of the terms in the rule being applied (Ford, 1994), by the syntactic role of the terms in the premises (Polk & Newell, 1995; Wetherick & Gilhooly, 1990), by the type of conclusion (Chater & Oaksford, 1999), or by the terms from the source premise (Stenning & Yule, 1997). In our first experiment we found that after reading a categorical premise, the most active term is the last term in the premise. In Experiments 2, 3, and 4 we demonstrated that this pattern of activity is due to the position of the concepts in the model of the premises, regardless of the delay after reading the premises (150 or 2000 msec) or the quantity of the quantifiers (universal or existential). The fifth experiment showed that the pattern switches around after participants evaluate a conclusion. We propose that the last element in the model maintains a higher level of activity during the comprehension process because it is generally used to attach the incoming information. After this process, the first term becomes more active because it is the concept to which the whole representation is referred. These results are predicted by the mental model theory (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991), but not by the verbal reasoning theory (Polk & Newell, 1995), the graphical methods theory (Yule & Stenning, 1992), the attachment-heuristic theory (Chater & Oaksford, 1999), or the mental rules theory (Ford, 1994).     

Abstractness and Messages Describing Consequences Promote Healthier Behavioral Intentions

Many health-risk behaviors present a self-control conflict in which the short-term outcomes of an action conflict with its long-term consequences. Across three studies, we find that an abstract construal level leads people to focus on long-term rather than short-term consequences when both are described in a message (vs. no message). Studies 1 and 2 explore this hypothesis through a risk behavior (snacking on sugary products), and Study 3 does the same through a health behavior (physical exercise). In Study 1, the Behavioral Identification Form scale is used to measure the construal level as a personal disposition; Studies 2 and 3 use a priming task designed by Freitas, Gollwitzer, and Trope to manipulate the construal level. All these studies show that, under an abstract mindset, people who have read a mixed-outcome message (vs. no message) tend to base their behavioral plans on long-term outcomes. Individually or in small groups (e.g. school class, therapy groups) health messages can be presented along with protocols to change construal level and thus, promote healthier intentions.