Psychometric properties of the Hawaiian Culture Scale--Adolescent Version

This article reports on the psychometric properties of a newly constructed Hawaiian Culture Scale--Adolescent Version. A total of 2,272 Native Hawaiian and 1,170 non-Hawaiian adolescents were administered this 50-item inventory that measures the source of learning the Hawaiian way of life, how much Hawaiian beliefs are valued and important to maintain, how much non-Hawaiian beliefs are valued, Hawaiian blood quantum, and specific cultural traditions (seven subscales = Lifestyles, Customs. Activities, Folklore, Causes-Locations, Causes-Access, and Language Proficiency). The results strongly supported the internal consistency and validity of the measures for both the Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian groups. On the basis of the demographic data, partial support was offered for cross-cultural theories of ethnic identity. More consistent support was found for multiculturalism in Hawai'i's adolescents. Further research is needed to link these measures with indicators of psychological adjustment (e.g., depression, anxiety, substance use).     

Being Brave, Being Nice: Themes of Agency and Communion in Children's Narratives

Although much is known about the presence of themes of agency and communion in adults' autobiographical stories, little is known about the presence of these themes in children's autobiographical stories. In this paper we examine the extent to which children describe themselves and others as agentic and communal beings in ordinary conversational narratives. Subjects were 96 rural, working-class children between the ages of 4 and 9 years. Personal narratives were elicited in the course of informal conversations with an adult experimenter. Narratives were analyzed for the presence of storyworld participants, and for the presence of themes of agency and communion. For both genders, themes of agency were more common than were themes of communion. Girls, however, were more likely to describe themes of communion than were boys, and were more likely to include family members in their narratives than were boys. Finally, correlations between themes of agency and communion were generally low. The findings extend the age to which the concepts of agency and communion can be productively applied to personal narratives. Implications for future theoretical and empirical work are also discussed.     

Attachments in the workplace: How attachment security in the workplace benefits the organisation

In four studies, we tested if workplace secure attachment entails organisational benefits, given that such relationships are associated with increased positive relationship emotions. In Study 1, employees rated the extent to which colleagues, supervisors, and other individuals fulfil the attachment functions. In Study 2, employees listed up to 10 individuals before completing the same rating task as Study 1. In the remaining studies, employees rated their attachment security with their supervisors (Study 3) or colleagues (Study 4), and completed measures of positive relationship emotions with these individuals, proactive behaviour, organisational allure, and organisational deviance. We found that supervisors and colleagues fulfil attachment functions (Studies 1–2), and that workplace attachment security confers organisational allure and proactive behaviour due to its association with positive relationships emotions. However, workplace attachment security directly lowers organisational deviance (Studies 3–4). Thus, supportive and trusting work environments may encourage workplace relationships that could bestow organisational benefits.     

Is the growth of subjective time in humans a linear or nonlinear function of real time?

The difficulties of deciding whether subjective time grows as a linear or nonlinear function of real time are discussed, and two experiments are presented to address this question. In Experiment 1, people received a 10-s standard duration and then had to judge what proportion other durations (ranging from 1 to 10 s) were of the standard. Counting was prevented by a concurrent task. The relation between judged and actual proportions was linear. In Experiment 2, people were required to average together three tone durations (mean duration 600 ms) and to judge whether subsequently presented comparisons were or were not the average. The spacing of the tone durations had no effect on judgements, suggesting a linear underlying time scale.     

Buyer beware of your shadow: how price moderates the effect of incidental similarity on buyer behavior

Using both a lab experiment and actual transaction data, we investigated whether and how incidental similarities (e.g., shared letters between buyer and seller's name) might influence buyer behavior. Particularly, while prior work suggests that consumers generally prefer incidental similarity, we use the context of Internet auctions to show that this preference reverses when prices are high. Under these conditions, buyers avoid incidentally similar sellers. We speculate that this effect is tied to individuals' motive to self‐protect. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Social epistemology and the aim(s) of education

In Knowledge in a Social World (1999) Alvin Goldman has defended a ‘veritistic’ or truth-oriented, monistic account of the aim of education. In particular, he argued that the inculcation of true belief constitutes the ultimate goal of education, with other educational activities having only instrumental value insofar as they aid in this goal. In contrast, Harvey Siegel has defended a pluralistic alternative, on which the critical capacity for sustaining rational belief represents an independent, non-instrumental epistemic end of education. I argue that while some of Siegel's objections represent challenges to the sufficiency of Goldman's veritistic model, his alternative account fails to recognise the necessity of truth as an educational goal. This therefore commits Siegel to an unsatisfying pluralism regarding the ideal aim of education. Crucially, this disagreement hinges on two very different ways of understanding the nature of rationality: as instrumental or as epistemic. On Goldman's instrumentalist view, rationality merely involves the ordering of one's means to the end of true belief. However, Kelly (2003) has raised significant counterexamples against the instrumentalist view, and I adapt these to the case of the epistemic ends of education. I thus defend a non-pluralistic account of the ultimate end of education as involving knowledge in the ‘strong’ sense. This, I argue, overcomes the objections raised against Goldman and Siegel's accounts, and better accords with the notion of an ideal characterisation of the aim of education.