A Longitudinal Study of English as Foreign Language Learning: L1 Predictors in Italian Students

The present paper reports findings from a longitudinal study examining the development of English as foreign language learning in a sample of 86 Italian students tested at Grade 6 (mean age 11:3) and Grade 8 (mean age 13:3) . Two measures were examined: one relating to sustained learning ( i.e., English learning attainment), and one to short period development,(i.e., change in English proficiency). Different pattern of predictors were identified among L1 reading (speed and comprehension) and mathematics skills. The main findings indicated that calculation components of mathematics skills and reading comprehension predicted English learning attainments at Grade 8, whilst L1 reading speed at Grade 6 strongly predicted changes in English learning proficiency. The theoretical and empirical implications of the results are discussed in the specificity of a learning direction from a transparent L1 to a non‐transparent L2. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-stereotyping: the central role of an ingroup threatening identity

Self-stereotyping is a process by which people belonging to a stigmatized social group tend to describe themselves more with stereotypical traits as compared with traits irrelevant to the ingroup stereotype. The present work analyzes why especially members of low-status groups are more inclined to self-stereotype compared to members of high-status groups. We tested the hypothesis that belonging to a low-, rather than a high-status group, makes low-status members feel more threatened and motivates them to protect their self-perception by increasing their similarity with the ingroup. Specifically, we investigated the effects of an experimental manipulation that was conceived to either threaten or protect the natural group membership of participants from either a low- or a high-status group on the level of self-stereotyping. The findings supported the idea that only low-status group members protected themselves when their group identity was threatened through increased self-stereotyping.     

Interactive Effects of Discrimination and Racial Identity on Alcohol-Related Thoughts and Use

The interrelationships among racial discrimination, non race-based rejection, racial identity (RI), and alcohol cognitions and use were assessed in this research. In Study 1, individuals who experienced overt discrimination and who were high in RI were less likely than those low in RI to meet criteria for alcohol abuse disorder. In Study 2, discrimination and rejection were causally related to a faster reaction time in a lexical decision task to alcohol-related concepts as compared to neutral words, especially for those low in RI. Implications of discrimination and rejection on substance use and other risky health behaviors are discussed.     

Being prepared for acculturation: On the importance of the first months after immigrants enter a new culture

We hypothesized that perceived communication effectiveness at arrival and initial friendships with members of the receiving society during the first months after arrival in a new country have a long‐term effect on the development of acculturation orientations and that this effect is pronounced for individuals with a high need for cognitive closure (NCC). We examined the hypotheses in a study with Spanish‐speaking immigrants in Switzerland (n = 146) and in Italy (n = 147). We asked participants to indicate their current attitude to contact with the receiving society and cultural maintenance and report retrospectively their perceived communication effectiveness at arrival and initial friendships. In line with the predictions, the perceptions of high communication effectiveness at arrival and friendships with members of the receiving society during the initial phase in the new culture were positively correlated with the current attitude to contact with the receiving society assessed 7 years after arrival on average. Also, initial friendships with members of the receiving society were negatively correlated with present cultural maintenance. Moreover, with an increase in NCC, these correlations increased.     

Practical and transcendent wisdom: Their nature and some longitudinal findings

A self-report Adjective Check List (ACL) Practical Wisdom Scale (PWS) and external ratings of Transcendent Wisdom (TWR), based on subjects' examples of personally important wisdom, were used to study the personality correlates and life implications of two types of wisdom among participants in their 50s in a longitudinal study of women. High scorers on both the PWS and the TWR were cognitively complex, perceptive, insightful, and healthily self-directed. Only the PWS was associated with social initiative and leadership, empathy, and generativity. Only the TWR correlated with openness to experience, intuition, and creativity. ACL data from young adulthood were used to show that both the women and their spouses increased on the PWS from early to mature adulthood. For women, we demonstrated how occupation (psychotherapy) and traumatic life events (divorce) contributed to these agerelated gains.     

Writers and critics: Two types of vocational consciousness in the art system

Vocational interests, personality, work environment, and background of authors and critics, male and female, in children's literature are examined in terms of Holland's theory of vocational types, supplemented with concepts of an art system and styles of consciousness. On SVIB indicator scales, both authors and critics score as artistic types with “consistent” profiles, but authors are more “differentiated.” Critics have stronger social interests and less aversion to conventional activities, appropriate to their position as gate-keepers in the art system. In work style there are again common features, but authors describe themselves as having “alternative” states of consciousness, where critics emphasize their social roles and rationality. Both groups have peaks on Achievement via Independence (CPI), but the critics are more socially ascendant, efficient, and conventional. Most critics have full-time employment under institutional auspices; most writers do not. Difference in occupations of fathers of authors and critics are consistent with interest patterns of the subjects. Several personality and background findings, including interactions between sex and field, are interpreted as supporting the usefulness of supplementing Holland's theory.     

Cumulating Evidence about the Social Animal: Meta‐Analysis in Social‐Personality Psychology

Like most scientific fields, social‐personality psychology has experienced an explosion of research related to such central topics as aggression, attraction, gender, group processes, motivation, personality, and persuasion, to name a few. The proliferation of research can be a monster unless it is tamed with the scientific review strategy of meta‐analysis, literally analyses of past analyses that produce a quantitative and empirical history of research on a particular phenomenon. The purpose of this article is to outline the basic process and statistics of meta‐analysis, as they pertain to social‐personality psychology. Meta‐analysis involves: (i) defining the problem under review; (ii) gathering qualified reports and putting their findings and methods into a database, (iii) analyzing that database, and (iv) interpreting the results and reporting them. Use of meta‐analytic strategies has paralleled the knowledge explosion in social‐personality psychology, but must be used and consumed with careful discernment if the cumulated evidence about the social animal, Homo sapiens, is to have maximal value.     

"United We Stand, Divided We Fall"! The Protective Function of Self-Stereotyping for Stigmatised Members' Psychological Well-Being

Self-stereotyping is a process by which people who belong to a stigmatised social group tend to describe themselves more with both positive and negative stereotypical personality traits compared to traits that are irrelevant to the ingroup stereotype. A study is presented that shows how self-stereotyping serves to maintain psychological well-being among Southern Italian participants who suffer from an historical social stigma. Following the rejection-identification model ( Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999 ), perceptions of prejudice are directly negatively linked with well-being, but are compensated for via increased identification with the minority group that has a positive impact on psychological well-being. In the present study we propose that the compensatory role of ingroup identification on well-being is completely mediated by minority members' tendency to self-stereotype. A structural equation analysis provided support for this hypothesis. The present results highlight the importance of the self-stereotyping process in maintaining psychological well-being for members of low-status groups.