A biosocial interaction in predicting early onset of offending

Research has shown several factors increase the likelihood of early onset of offending; however, interactions among prenatal risk factors and sociological factors in predicting early onset have been a neglected area of research. The purpose of this study was to test the interactive effect of material cigarette smoking during pregnancy and the absence of the father from the household in predicting early onset of offending. The longitudinal data utilized for this study of 215 inner-city, African-American youth offenders were taken from the Philadelphia portion of the Collaborative Perinatal Project. A logistic regression analysis indicated that the combined effect of maternal cigarette smoking and absence of father from the household had a significant influence in predicting early onset of offending beyond the direct effects of the independent variables while controlling for sex of youth.     

Searching for one versus two identical targets: when visual search has a memory

A recent study has suggested that observers' visual explorations of the external world can proceed unimpaired when the visual environment precludes the operation of memory processes (as, for instance, when the display elements change locations every 100 ms). One theoretical limitation of this study was that distractors were the only elements that had the potential to be tagged during visual search. The present study sought to clarify the amnesic-search hypothesis by investigating whether memory processes can guide search in other contexts in which targets also have the potential to be tagged. Accordingly, the experimental conditions of the previous study were repeated using a different search task in which observers had to decide whether one target or two were present among a variable number of similar distractors. Under these search conditions, the present findings provided strong evidence that memory processes can guide visual search.     

Dyadic association between aggressive pretend play and children’s anger expression

This study investigates the association between children’s peer-reported expression of anger and their pretend play with aggressive/negative themes observed during spontaneous play with classmates. Participants comprised 104 Chinese children (M_age = 8.98 years, SD = 0.97, 49% girls) and were filmed playing in peer dyads with toys. Aggressive and non-aggressive negative pretend themes were coded at five-second intervals for 10 minutes. Children’s expression of anger in real situations was reported by peers. Analysis using actor–partner interdependence modelling (APIM) revealed significant partner effects, indicating that children were more likely to engage in pretend play with aggressive themes when they were playing with a partner who was perceived by their peers as more easily angered. It was also found that boys were more likely to engage in pretend play with both aggressive and non-aggressive negative themes compared with girls.     

Impression management and overclaiming on job applications: Related to future sales performance?

Despite decades of research on the role of socially desirable responding (SDR) in hiring contexts, it remains unclear whether job applicant SDR is related to future employee performance. Drawing on a large sample of 1,084 retail sales employees and their original job application data, this study examined the predictive validity of two operationalizations of SDR: (a) impression management captured using a personality scale and (b) overclaiming familiarity with a list of products that were directly relevant to the job. Neither measure was used to inform the hiring decisions. Results showed that job applicant impression management and overclaiming were unrelated to four indicators of future sales performance as employees. Implications for organizational selection policies involving applicant SDR are discussed.     

Utopias and Comparative Assessments of Justice

When we make public policy choices, is it helpful to know how utopia (that is, the perfectly just institutional design) would look? Amartya Sen argues that it is neither necessary, nor sufficient, nor even contributory. He claims that before making a policy choice one should compare several feasible institutional designs to see which promotes justice most (a “comparative assessment” of justice), and that it is misleading to use the perfect design as a standard in those comparisons. Principles of justice are the proper standard. The present article contends that the perfect design has nevertheless an important role to play in the prior task of identifying and refining our principles of justice. It also shows that the perfect design—in at least one sense of this term—may be a legitimate long‐term goal for present policy choices.     

Native Amazonian children forego egalitarianism in merit‐based tasks when they learn to count

Cooperation often results in a final material resource that must be shared, but deciding how to distribute that resource is not straightforward. A distribution could count as fair if all members receive an equal reward (egalitarian distributions), or if each member's reward is proportional to their merit (merit‐based distributions). Here, we propose that the acquisition of numerical concepts influences how we reason about fairness. We explore this possibility in the Tsimane’, a farming‐foraging group who live in the Bolivian rainforest. The Tsimane’ learn to count in the same way children from industrialized countries do, but at a delayed and more variable timeline, allowing us to de‐confound number knowledge from age and years in school. We find that Tsimane’ children who can count produce merit‐based distributions, while children who cannot count produce both merit‐based and egalitarian distributions. Our findings establish that the ability to count – a non‐universal, language‐dependent, cultural invention – can influence social cognition.     

Number gestures predict learning of number words

When asked to explain their solutions to a problem, children often gesture and, at times, these gestures convey information that is different from the information conveyed in speech. Children who produce these gesture‐speech “mismatches” on a particular task have been found to profit from instruction on that task. We have recently found that some children produce gesture‐speech mismatches when identifying numbers at the cusp of their knowledge, for example, a child incorrectly labels a set of two objects with the word “three” and simultaneously holds up two fingers. These mismatches differ from previously studied mismatches (where the information conveyed in gesture has the potential to be integrated with the information conveyed in speech) in that the gestured response contradicts the spoken response. Here, we ask whether these contradictory number mismatches predict which learners will profit from number‐word instruction. We used the Give‐a‐Number task to measure number knowledge in 47 children (M_age = 4.1 years, SD = 0.58), and used the What's on this Card task to assess whether children produced gesture‐speech mismatches above their knower level. Children who were early in their number learning trajectories (“one‐knowers” and “two‐knowers”) were then randomly assigned, within knower level, to one of two training conditions: a Counting condition in which children practiced counting objects; or an Enriched Number Talk condition containing counting, labeling set sizes, spatial alignment of neighboring sets, and comparison of these sets. Controlling for counting ability, we found that children were more likely to learn the meaning of new number words in the Enriched Number Talk condition than in the Counting condition, but only if they had produced gesture‐speech mismatches at pretest. The findings suggest that numerical gesture‐speech mismatches are a reliable signal that a child is ready to profit from rich number instruction and provide evidence, for the first time, that cardinal number gestures have a role to play in number‐learning.     

Missional Formation for Life‐giving Interfaith Encounter

Our world is characterized by a plurality of religions and cultures, including people who do not profess any religious faith or belief. Each religion cherishes and reveres its norms and ethos and seeks to uphold and project its sacredness both publicly and privately. If the multiplicity of religious expressions is not accepted as a gift, it may fuel and sustain unhealthy rivalry. With this understanding in mind, the need for pedagogy that prepares Christian missioners and workers to engage in life‐affirming dialogue and cooperation with people of other belief systems remains crucial. This article seeks to reinforce the case for a missional formation that includes and mainstreams basic aspects of interfaith knowledge, knowing full well that mission activities are not carried out in a vacuum, but among human beings in their social and communal locations.     

School Sense of Community,Teacher Support,and Students’ School Safety Perceptions

This study examined the association between two characteristics of school climate (sense of community and teacher support, measured both at the individual and at the school level) and students’ feelings of being unsafe at school. The study involved a sample of 49,638 students aged 10–18 years who participated in the 2010–2012 California Healthy Kids Survey. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), our findings revealed that, at the individual level, students perceiving higher levels of sense of community and teacher support at school were less likely to feel unsafe within the school environment. At the school level, sense of community was negatively associated with unsafe feelings, whereas there was no association between school‐level teacher support and feelings of being unsafe at school.