Establishing the constructs of childhood behavioral disturbances in a Chinese population: A questionnaire study

The behavioral problems of Chinese children were examined in a questionnaire study of a representative sample of 3,069 seven-year-old Chinese schoolboys in Hong Kong using Rutter's questionnaires for completion by parents and teachers. Separate robust dimensions of hyperactivity, antisocial, and neurotic behaviors were evident. The correlations among different dimensions were similar to those reported in the West. Short-term longitudinal analysis suggested that these dimensions were stable over time and that antisocial behaviors might develop in hyperactive children. The finding highlights the necessity of differentiating the hyperactive domain from the antisocial one. A significant source effect was found in all three dimensions. Chinese schoolboys had nearly two times the level of questionnaire-rated hyperactivity compared with school boys in the West; but it is premature to conclude that hyperactivity is more common in Chinese schoolboys in Hong Kong. Cross-cultural differences in adults' expectations and tolerance remain a plausible explanation.This study was supported by the Croucher Foundation. We would like to thank the Education Department of Hong Kong for assistance in sampling. We are particularly grateful to the children, teachers, and parents who participated in this study.     

Cognitive Misfit of Problem-Solving Style at Work: A Facet of Person-Organization Fit

Based on Kirton's Adaption-Innovation Theory (1976, 1977) of problem-solving style at work, the construct of cognitive misfit was developed and proposed as one viable facet of Person-Organization fit. Cognitive misfit refers to the degree of mismatch between an individual's cognitive style of problem solving and the style demands of the work context. Relationships among cognitive misfit, job performance, and actual individual turnover after 3 years were examined in a sample of 253 engineers in either a Staff engineering function or a Research and Development (R&D) engineering function. The Staff function and the R&D function corresponded to a work context predominant in adaptive-style demands and a work context predominant in innovative-style demands, respectively. Results from logistic regression analyses showed that cognitive misfit was uncorrelated with job performance, but provided significant and substantial incremental validity in predicting actual turnover over the predictability provided by performance. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research were discussed in terms of levels of analysis issues and the current focus on Person-Organization fit in selection and organizational behavior research.     

Towards a theory of the organism

A tentative theory of the organism is derived from McClare’s (1971) notion ofstored energy and Denbigh’s (1951) thermodynamics of the steady state, as a dynamically closed, energetically self-sufficient domain of cyclic non-dissipative processes coupled to irreversible dissipative processes. This effectively frees the organism from thermodynamic constraints so that it is poised for rapid, specific intercommunication, enabling it to function as a coherent whole. In the ideal, the organism is a quantum superposition of coherent activities over all space-time domains, with instantaneous (nonlocal) noiseless intercommunication throughout the system. Evidence for quantum coherence is considered and reviewed.     

The Perception of Ideal Best Friends by Chinese Adolescents

This study examines the characteristics of ideal best friends endorsed by Chinese adolescents. A comprehensive measure of person perception was used in order to assess those dimensions of personality where gender, similarity, and complementarity might be related to the rating of ideal best friends. Results indicated that ideal female best friends were rated higher on the communal dimension of Helpfulness; ideal male best friends were rated higher on the agentic dimensions of Extroversion, Assertiveness, and Application. Similarity effects were found for Openness to Experience, Extroversion, and Emotional Stability; complementarity effects for Assertiveness. These results were explained in terms of Chinese gender stereotypes and the requirements for harmonious dyadic interaction.     

DECISION AFFECT THEORY:

Abstract— How do people feel about the outcomes of risky options? Results from two experiments demonstrate that the emotional reaction to a monetary outcome is nor a simple function of the utility of that outcome Emotional responses also depend on probabilities and unobtained outcomes Unexpected outcomes have greater emotional impact than expected outcomes Furthermore any given outcome is lets pleasant if an unobtained outcome is better We propose an account of emotional experiences associated with outcomes of decisions called decision affect theory. It incorporates utilities expectations and counterfactual companions into hedonic responses. Finally, we show that choices between risky options can be described as the maximization of expected emotional experiences as predicted by decision affect theory That is people choose the risky option for which they expect to feel better on average.     

An evaluation of methods for behavioral investigations of teleost audition

Auditory thresholds have been determined for the goldfish by six groups of workers and the data in the experiments varied by as much as 20–30 dB. In order to isolate the basis for this variability, auditory thresholds were determined using conditioned suppression of respiration and method of limits. These thresholds were very similar to those obtained with avoidance conditioning and a tracking method for threshold determination. Acoustic procedures were kept constant in the two series of experiments, and it appears that wide variation in auditory thresholds for goldfish shown in different experiments is due to acoustic conditions in the experiments.