Abstracting Sequences: Reasoning That Is a Key to Academic Achievement

The ability to understand sequences of items may be an important cognitive ability. To test this proposition, 8 first-grade children from each of 36 classes were randomly assigned to four conditions. Some were taught sequences that represented increasing or decreasing values, or were symmetrical, or were rotations of an object through 6 or 8 positions. Control children received equal numbers of sessions on mathematics, reading, or social studies. Instruction was conducted three times weekly in 15-min sessions for seven months. In May, the children taught sequences applied their understanding to novel sequences, and scored as well or better on three standardized reading tests as the control children. They outscored all children on tests of mathematics concepts, and scored better than control children on some mathematics scales. These findings indicate that developing an understanding of sequences is a form of abstraction, probably involving fluid reasoning, that provides a foundation for academic achievement in early education.     

To Jim,from Fiji

A braided epistolary essay, “To Jim, from Fiji,” explores three kinds of relationships: how musicians share music; the relationship of an artist to art itself; and human interaction with the divine via music. The article begins as a personal letter to the writer's Jungian therapist, then tells the story of a trip to Fiji, where music became the entryway to a deep and connective experience. The sections weave together to develop an inquiry into how humans use music to relate with each other and with a numinous reality, where the artist can become “vassal and vessel both.”     

The influence of perceived accountability and outcome interdependence on goals and effort

Self‐regulatory processes are central to achievement contexts, as individuals spend much of their time in these situations pursuing goals. This study investigated the effects of accountability and outcome interdependence on goal and effort regulation over time. Participants completed five task trials, reporting goals and intended effort prior to each trial and receiving performance feedback after each trial. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses indicated that there was a positive within‐person relationship between performance and subsequent goals. More importantly, findings indicated that the performance–goal relationship was moderated by accountability and the performance–effort relationship was moderated by outcome interdependence. These results reveal that the goal and effort regulation patterns observed in prior studies are influenced by common social contextual factors, leading to different patterns of self‐regulation.     

Work Experiences of Foreign‐Born Asian Women Counseling and Psychology Faculty

Eleven foreign‐born and ‐raised Asian women faculty in counseling and psychology programs in the United States were interviewed about their work experiences. Analysis using consensual qualitative research revealed 7 sources of stressors, 6 emotional reactions associated with stressors, 5 coping strategies, and 4 types of intrinsic rewards gained from encountering challenges. The results of the study provide information about the unique experiences of this understudied group and have implications for the U.S. higher education system. Se entrevistó a once profesoras universitarias asiáticas de programas de consejería y psicología en Estados Unidos nacidas y criadas en el extranjero acerca de sus experiencias de trabajo. Un análisis basado en investigación cualitativa consensuada reveló 7 fuentes de estrés, 6 reacciones emocionales asociadas a los motivos del estrés, 5 estrategias de afrontamiento y 4 tipos de recompensa intrínseca ganada por afrontar los desafíos. Los resultados del estudio proporcionan información sobre las experiencias únicas de este grupo que no ha sido estudiado suficientemente, y tienen implicaciones para el sistema de educación superior en Estados Unidos.     

On individual differences in person perception: raters' personality traits relate to their psychopathy checklist-revised scoring tendencies

This study investigated raters' personality traits in relation to scores they assigned to offenders using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). A total of 22 participants, including graduate students and faculty members in clinical psychology programs, completed a PCL-R training session, independently scored four criminal offenders using the PCL-R, and completed a comprehensive measure of their own personality traits. A priori hypotheses specified that raters' personality traits, and their similarity to psychopathy characteristics, would relate to raters' PCL-R scoring tendencies. As hypothesized, some raters assigned consistently higher scores on the PCL-R than others, especially on PCL-R Facets 1 and 2. Also as hypothesized, raters' scoring tendencies related to their own personality traits (e.g., higher rater Agreeableness was associated with lower PCL-R Interpersonal facet scoring). Overall, findings underscore the need for future research to examine the role of evaluator characteristics on evaluation results and the need for clinical training to address evaluators' personality influences on their ostensibly objective evaluations.     

Sun protective behaviour,optimism bias,and the transtheoretical model of behaviour change

This study investigated the relationship between sun protective behaviours and three psychological variables influencing health behaviour: decisional balance, optimism bias, and the transtheoretical model of behaviour change. Two hundred participants completed the ‘Readiness to Alter Sun Protective Behaviour’ questionnaire, and a short questionnaire investigating optimism bias, decisional balance, attitudes, and experiences of sun protection and skin cancer. Participants were evenly distributed between the precontemplation, contemplation, and action stages. Participants in the action stage were significantly more likely to endorse the perceived advantages associated with sun protective behaviour than participants in the precontemplation and contemplation stages. They also reported sunbathing significantly less—and being more concerned about contracting skin cancer—than participants in the earlier stages. Decisional balance and optimism bias scores varied systematically across the stages of change; however, decisional balance was the only significant psychological predictor of sun protective behaviours. Optimism bias was greatest in the precontemplation stage, whereas the action stage was characterised by more positive attitudes to sun protection. This suggests that knowledge of the real risks of skin cancer might be a precursor to behaviour change, but only a change in attitudes results in a move to the action stage and measurable behaviour change.     

Managing two cultural identities: the malleability of bicultural identity integration as a function of induced global or local processing

Increasingly, individuals identify with two or more cultures. Prior research has found the degree to which individuals chronically integrate these identities (bicultural identity integration; BII) moderates responses to cultural cues: High BII individuals assimilate (adopting biases that are congruent with norms of the cued culture), whereas low BII individuals contrast (adopting biases that are incongruent with these norms). The authors propose BII can also be a psychological state and modulated by shifts in processing styles. In four experiments, the authors induced a global or local processing style using physical posture (Experiment 1) and cognitive manipulations (Experiments 2-4) and found that BII is enhanced in contexts facilitating a more global processing style (i.e., smiling, high-level construal, and similarity focus). The authors also found that contrastive responses to cultural cues are diminished when BII is situationally enhanced. Implications for research on processing style, identity integration, and performance in culture-based situations are discussed.     

To Belong or Not to Belong. Affective Self-Nationalization in Thailand

Through analyzing conflict narratives regarding Khao Phra Wihan, a territorial conflict important for nationalists in Thailand, this article aims to detangle how nationalization is experienced and performed on an individual level. In this article, the concept “affective self-nationalization” is proposed to analyze the emotional and embodied practices through which individuals fashion themselves into nationalized subjects. In Thailand, self-nationalization is instigated by the governing agency through repeated, regular, mandatory, public performances of loyalty through which individuals create the nation collectively. These performances create automatic feelings to the nation, establishes national others as fearsome, and rule through the basic human need of belonging. At the same time, individuals’ emotions shape the society through how they decide to perform nationalization. The concept of “affective self-nationalization” captures the connections between the official nationalizing program of “outside” society in a form of nationalist emotional socialization with individual experience of nationalizing.     

Assessing the performance of brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula) on the Mechner counting procedure

Animal Cognition - This study assessed brushtail possums’ performance on the Mechner counting procedure. Six brushtail possums were required to produce different Fixed-Ratio (FR) response...