Demographic,psychosocial, and cultural predictors of entitlement in a multiethnic Canadian undergraduate sample

The current study sought to examine the demographic, psychosocial, and cultural predictors of psychological entitlement (PE) and academic entitlement (AE) and their impacts on psychological...     

Local translational order in the icosahedral quasicrystalline phase of V41Ni36Si23

Abstract

The local translational order of the icosahedral quasicrystalline phase in rapidly solidified V₄₁Ni₃₆Si₂₃ has been investigated by means of selected-area electron diffraction and high-resolution electron microscopy. Experimental results show that translational order always occurs in the twofold direction and can be observed when the quasicrystal is examined along its fivefold and threefold as well as twofold axes. Sometimes it occurs in two or three coplanar twofold directions simultaneously. In these cases some crystalline islands exist in the icosahedral quasicrystal and this corresponds to the initial stage of transformation from a quasicrystal to the stable crystalline phase.     

The Connection Between Happiness and Service Businesses: A Preliminary Study

Happiness may be one of the most important goals that many people pursue in the world. This study adopts a qualitative approach to investigate the determinants of happiness for Taiwanese/Chinese people. Further, we investigate related service opportunities for happiness via a field survey of 808 respondents. This study identifies four happiness segments for people in Taiwan/China: Influential & Outgoing, Adequately Settled, Pleasure Seeking, and Young & Restless. These four happiness segments differ markedly in terms of characteristics and potential service opportunities. The findings of this study have implications for researchers who are seeking to understand happiness in an Asian country.     

Chinese characters elicit face-like N170 inversion effects

Recognition of both faces and Chinese characters is commonly believed to rely on configural information. While faces typically exhibit behavioral and N170 inversion effects that differ from non-face stimuli (Rossion, Joyce, Cottrell, & Tarr, 2003), the current study examined whether a similar reliance on configural processing may result in similar inversion effects for faces and Chinese characters. Participants were engaged in an orientation judgment task (Experiment 1) and a one-back identity matching task (Experiment 2). Across two experiments, the N170 was delayed and enhanced in magnitude for upside-down faces and compound Chinese characters, compared to upright stimuli. The inversion effects for these two stimulus categories were bilateral for latency and right-lateralized for amplitudes. For simple Chinese characters, only the latency inversion effects were significant. Moreover, the size of the right-hemisphere inversion effects in N170 amplitude was larger for faces than Chinese characters. These findings show the N170 inversion effects from non-face stimuli closely parallel effects seen with faces. Face-like N170 inversion effects elicited by Chinese compound characters were attributed to the difficulty of part-whole integration as well as the disrupted regularity in relational information due to inversion. Hemispheric difference in Chinese character processing is also discussed.     

Individual and sex differences in reminiscence

Inverted alphabet printing, rotary pursuit, and mirror tracking tasks were administered to 84 subjects in order to ascertain (a) reproducibility of reminiscence scores within and between tasks and (b)sex differences in reminiscence. With prerest performance levels held constant by second-order partial correlation procedures, reproducibility of individual reminiscence differences within tasks was significant but quite low, while predictability of reminiscence from one task to another was negligible. The sexes reminisced essentially alike on inverted alphabet printing, but females reminisced more than males on the other tasks, presumably because they were relatively more depressed by massed practice on these tasks. Thus, individual and sex differences were essentially task specific. Implications of results for reminiscence theories and for the credibility of alleged relationships between reminiscence and other organismic variables were discussed.     

Fertile Ground for Community: Inner-City Neighborhood Common Spaces

Research suggests that the formation of neighborhood social ties (NSTs) may substantially depend on the informal social contact which occurs in neighborhood common spaces, and that in inner-city neighborhoods where common spaces are often barren no-man's lands, the presence of trees and grass supports common space use and informal social contact among neighbors. We found that for 145 urban public housing residents randomly assigned to 18 architecturally identical buildings, levels of vegetation in common spaces predict both use of common spaces and NSTs; further, use of common spaces mediated the relationship between vegetation and NSTS. In addition, vegetation and NSTs were significantly related to residents' senses of safety and adjustment. These findings suggest that the use and characteristics of common spaces may play a vital role in the natural growth of community, and that improving common spaces may be an especially productive focus for community organizing efforts in inner-city neighborhoods.     

第二语言阅读中的元认知

在第二语言习得领域,元认知自20世纪90年代中后期开始引起了研究者的关注并逐渐被应用于阅读、写作、听力和口语等各种教学实践中。该文以元认知结构的二分法为框架,说明了心理学研究者致力于探讨第二语言学习者通过元认知监控来使用元认知知识的内部加工过程的特点,并从影响第二语言阅读的自我观念、文本内容和策略使用意识等方面系统介绍了元认知知识、监控与第二语言阅读的关系,最后对元认知的研究方法进行了归纳和展望     

工作倦怠结构的验证性因素分析

用所编制的工作倦怠问卷,先后对541名被试的调查,对工作倦怠的结构进行探讨。结果表明,工作倦怠由耗竭、人格解体和成就感降低三个因素构成。工作倦怠的三因素结构模型在三个职业样本的验证性因素分析中都得到了支持。工作倦怠问卷的信度与效度指标也都达到了心理测量学的要求。