Using Popular Films to Enhance Classroom Learning: The Good, the Bad, and the Interesting

ABSTRACT— Popular history films sometimes contain major historical inaccuracies. Two experiments investigated how watching such films influences people's ability to remember associated texts. Subjects watched film clips and studied texts about various historical topics. Whereas the texts contained only correct information, the film clips contained both correct information (consistent with the text) and misinformation (contradicted by the text). Before watching each clip, subjects received a specific warning, a general warning, or no warning about the misinformation. One week later, they returned for a cued-recall test about the texts. Watching a film clip increased correct recall of consistent information relative to recall of the same information when subjects did not see the clip. However, when the information in the film contradicted the text, subjects often (falsely) recalled misinformation from the film. The specific warning substantially reduced this misinformation effect. Teachers should use popular history films with caution and should warn students about major inaccuracies in the films.     

Demographic Correlates of Domain-Based Life Satisfaction Reports of College Students

Despite the interest in assessing quality of life issues among college students, there is limited research on domain-specific life satisfaction. This preliminary study investigated the demographic correlates of the Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS) from a sample of 522 students at a Midwestern University. A 4 × 2 × 2 between-groups analysis of variance was performed to detect differences in overall life satisfaction score means and for each individual BMSLSS domain (family, friends, school, self, living environment, and globally) in relation to year in school, gender, and race, and the interactions of these variables. Mean overall scores did not differ significantly by gender, year in school, or race. However, main effects were observed for race in the School and Self domains, where Caucasian students reported greater satisfaction with school and self than minority students. These preliminary data may provide a useful reference for researchers engaged in quality of life research with college students.     

Belief in common fate and psychological well‐being among Chinese immigrant women

Three studies were conducted to develop and test a construct of Chinese marital commitment in the context of immigration. ‘Belief in common fate’ refers to an unfailing devotion to a Confucian ideal of the marital union as hierarchical without regard for external contingencies or individual needs. Women who did not believe in common fate reported a more positive affect. When women reported the occurrence of a severe life stressor, a strong belief in common fate was associated with psychological distress and negative affect. We discuss the importance of considering contextual factors, such as migration and life adversity, in interpreting the significance of cultural belief systems.     

Varieties of (Scientific) Creativity: A Hierarchical Model of Domain-Specific Disposition, Development, and Achievement

ABSTRACT— Prior research supports the inference that scientific disciplines can be ordered into a hierarchy ranging from the "hard" natural sciences to the "soft" social sciences. This ordering corresponds with such objective criteria as disciplinary consensus, knowledge obsolescence rate, anticipation frequency, theories-to-laws ratio, lecture disfluency, and age at recognition. It is then argued that this hierarchy can be extrapolated to encompass the humanities and arts and interpolated within specific domains to accommodate contrasts in subdomains (e.g., revolutionary versus normal science). This expanded and more finely differentiated hierarchy is then shown to have a partial psychological basis in terms of dispositional traits (e.g., psychopathology) and developmental experiences (e.g., family background). This demonstration then leads to three hypotheses about how a creator's domain-specific impact depends on his or her disposition and development: the domain-progressive, domain-typical, and domain-regressive creator hypotheses. Studies published thus far lend the most support to the domain-regressive creator hypothesis. In particular, major contributors to a domain are more likely to have dispositional traits and developmental experiences most similar to those that prevail in a domain lower in the disciplinary hierarchy. However, some complications to this generalization suggest the need for more research on the proposed hierarchical model.     

Scene perception and memory revealed by eye movements and receiver-operating characteristic analyses: does a cultural difference truly exist?

Cultural differences have been observed in scene perception and memory: Chinese participants purportedly attend to the background information more than did American participants. We investigated the influence of culture by recording eye movements during scene perception and while participants made recognition memory judgements. Real-world pictures with a focal object on a background were shown to both American and Chinese participants while their eye movements were recorded. Later, memory for the focal object in each scene was tested, and the relationship between the focal object (studied, new) and the background context (studied, new) was manipulated. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves show that both sensitivity and response bias were changed when objects were tested in new contexts. However, neither the decrease in accuracy nor the response bias shift differed with culture. The eye movement patterns were also similar across cultural groups. Both groups made longer and more fixations on the focal objects than on the contexts. The similarity of eye movement patterns and recognition memory behaviour suggests that both Americans and Chinese use the same strategies in scene perception and memory.     

The effects of physical distance between regular and sale prices on numerical difference perceptions

This paper draws upon the psychological, psycho-physiological, and numerical cognition literature(s) to suggest that numerical difference perceptions may be influenced by the physical distance between two prices. In the context of four experiments, we find that a greater horizontal separation of prices leads to greater difference (and hence price-discount) perceptions. The greater price-discount perceptions are linked to a higher perceived value and increased purchase likelihood. The effect is not observed for prices separated by large versus small vertical distances. The processing mechanisms driving our results involve the automatic and non-conscious encoding of “magnitude representations” (i.e., judgments of relative size) related to both relevant (numerical difference) and non-relevant (physical distance) dimensions.     

Information–movement coupling in developing cricketers under changing ecological practice constraints

Changing informational constraints of practice, such as when using ball projection machines, has been shown to significantly affect movement coordination of skilled cricketers. To date, there has been no similar research on movement responses of developing batters, an important issue since ball projection machines are used heavily in cricket development programmes. Timing and coordination of young cricketers (n = 12, age = 15.6 ± 0.7 years) were analyzed during the forward defensive and forward drive strokes when facing a bowling machine and bowler (both with a delivery velocity of 28.14 ± 0.56 m s⁻¹). Significant group performance differences were observed between the practice task constraints, with earlier initiation of the backswing, front foot movement, downswing, and front foot placement when facing the bowler compared to the bowling machine. Peak height of the backswing was higher when facing the bowler, along with a significantly larger step length. Altering the informational constraints of practice caused major changes to the information–movement couplings of developing cricketers. Data from this study were interpreted to emanate from differences in available specifying variables under the distinct practice task constraints. Considered with previous findings, results confirmed the need to ensure representative batting task constraints in practice, cautioning against an over-reliance on ball projection machines in cricket development programmes.     

Jump start exit criterion: Exploring a new model of service delivery for the treatment of childhood feeding problems

While the literature on the assessment and treatment of childhood feeding disorders continues to grow, little research has focused on developing new forms of service delivery. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of a brief, intensive intervention for the treatment of food selectivity in three boys who had failed to progress in traditional outpatient treatment. The implications of this model of service delivery are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Everything Here is Fine: Protective Buffering by Military Spouses During a Deployment

To minimize potential distractions for deployed military service members (SMs), some nondeployed romantic partners have reported engaging in protective buffering, or intentionally withholding information or concerns to protect their deployed partner. This study assessed the associations of protective buffering and psychological distress and marital satisfaction for military couples during and after deployment. Additionally, the study explored whether protective buffering was related to SM reports of being distracted during deployment by family matters. A total of 54 couples provided data before, during, and after an Army deployment. In multilevel models, higher protective buffering by partners was associated with higher psychological distress and lower marital satisfaction for both SMs and partners during, but not after, deployment. Additionally, partners reported frequent use of protective buffering during deployment; however, protective buffering was not significantly correlated with family related distraction for SMs during deployment. Limitations and implications of these findings are discussed.     

A Presentist-Friendly Definition of “Endure”

Philosophia - It is a commonplace that things persist, though thinkers disagree over what persistence consist in. Views about time are closely related to views about persistence, though some have...