Toward a unifying model of identification with groups: integrating theoretical perspectives.

Building on the contributions of diverse theoretical approaches, the authors present a multidimensional model of group identification. Integrating conceptions from the social identity perspective with those from research on individualism-collectivism, nationalism- patriotism, and identification with organizations, we propose four conceptually distinct modes of identification: importance (how much I view the group as part of who I am), commitment (how much I want to benefit the group), superiority (how much I view my group as superior to other groups), and deference (how much I honor, revere, and submit to the group's norms, symbols, and leaders). We present an instrument for assessing the four modes of identification and review initial empirical findings that validate the proposed model and show its utility in understanding antecedents and consequences of identification.     

Plagiarism: Words and Ideas

Plagiarism is a crime against academy. It deceives readers, hurts plagiarized authors, and gets the plagiarist undeserved benefits. However, even though these arguments do show that copying other people's intellectual contribution is wrong, they do not apply to the copying of words. Copying a few sentences that contain no original idea (e.g. in the introduction) is of marginal importance compared to stealing the ideas of others. The two must be clearly distinguished, and the 'plagiarism' label should not be used for deeds which are very different in nature and importance.     

On Enrolling More Female Students in Science and Engineering

Many people hold this truth to be self-evident that universities should enroll more female students in science and engineering; the main question then being how. Typical arguments include possible benefits to women, possible benefits to the economy, and the unfairness of the current female under-representation. However, when clearly stated and scrutinized these arguments in fact lead to the conclusion that there should be more women in scientific disciplines in higher education in the sense that we should expect more women (which various kinds of discrimination may prevent), not that we should actively enroll more women. Outreach programs towards high school students may therefore be logically incompatible with the arguments supposed to justify them. They should purport to allow women to graduate in a field congruent with her abilities and desires, rather than try to draw as many of them to scientific disciplines as possible: one cannot try to 'recruit' as many female students as possible while claiming to help them choose more freely.     

To Watch is to Work: a Review of NeuroImaging Data on Tool Use Observation Network

Neuropsychology Review - Since the discovery of mirror neurons in the 1990s, many neuroimaging studies have tackled the issue of action observation with the aim of unravelling a putative homolog...     

Student Explanations in the Context of Computational Science and Engineering Education

Creating explanations is an important process for students, not only to make connections between novel information and background knowledge, but also to be able to communicate their understanding of any given topic. This article explores students’ explanations in the context of computational science and engineering, an important interdisciplinary field that enables scientists and engineers to solve complex problems. Specifically, this study explores: (a) students’ approaches to create written explanations of programing code and (b) the relationship between students’ explanations and their ability to do computer programing. Students wrote in-code comments for 3 MATLAB^® worked-examples, which were qualitatively analyzed using a coding scheme. Different approaches to self-explain were identified using hierarchical cluster analysis, and differences in students’ ability to do computer programing were identified using analysis of variance. The resulting approaches to self-explain were: original solution, mechanistic, principle-based, limited, and goal-based. The findings suggest that experienced students wrote simple in-code comments to self-explain, but students with lower ability to do computer programing wrote more comprehensive explanations, as they may take this as a learning opportunity.     

The dynamic and recursive interplay of embodiment and narrative identity

Although there is an increase in research into how narrative identity interrelates with embodiment, the mechanisms underlying this interplay are hardly addressed. In this paper, I target this hiatus in the literature by proposing two mechanisms that can help to (non-exhaustively) elucidate the dynamic interplay of narrative identity and embodiment. I start by briefly sketching the debate so far and then go on to argue that the way narrative self-understanding affects our embodiment can be understood on the model of narrative self-programming. After that I turn to the other side of the interaction. Drawing on research in ecological psychology and phenomenology, I show how embodiment affects our narrative self-understanding through the way in which we engage with affordances in our narrative background. After that I highlight the dynamic and recursive character of this interplay. I end with some conclusions and unresolved issues.     

From terror to joy: automatic tuning to positive affective information following mortality salience

Reminders of death tend to produce strong cognitive and behavioral responses, but little or no emotional response. In three experiments, mortality salience produced an automatic coping response that involved tuning to positive emotional information. Subjects showed increased accessibility of positive emotional information (Experiments 1 and 3) and gave more weight to positive emotion in their judgments of word similarity (Experiment 2) after contemplating death than after thinking about dental pain. This automatic coping response was found both after a delay (Experiments 1 and 2) and directly after the mortality-salience manipulation (Experiment 3), which suggests that the coping process begins immediately. Tuning to positive emotional information in response to mortality salience was unconscious and counterintuitive (Experiment 3). These findings shed light on the coping process that ensues immediately following mortality salience and help to explain why a delay is often necessary to produce effects in line with terror management theory.     

Does impulsivity relate to perceived dependence on and actual use of the mobile phone?

Several authors have studied the risks arising from the growth in mobile phone use (e.g. large debts incurred by young people, banned or dangerous use of cellular phones). The aim of this study is to analyse whether impulsivity, which has often been related to various forms of addictive behaviours, is associated with massive use of and dependence on the mobile phone. In this study, 108 female undergraduate psychology students were screened using a questionnaire evaluating actual use of and perceived dependence on the mobile phone, and with the French adaptation of the UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale. This scale identifies four distinct components associated with impulsive behaviour: Urgency, lack of Premeditation, lack of Perseverance, and Sensation Seeking. The results showed that a relationship can be established between the use of and perceived dependence on the cellular phone and two facets of impulsivity: Urgency and lack of Perseverance. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Speech perception and motor control in children with Down syndrome.

Twelve children with and without Down syndrome (DS) performed eight subtests of an apraxia battery to determine under what conditions children with DS had difficulty performing representational and nonrepresentational gestures. Participants with DS also completed a dichotic listening test. Participants with DS performed just as well as control participants on all aspects of the apraxia battery except a subtest in which they were required to pantomime tool use from verbal instruction. This suggests that children with DS have difficulty generating an action from memory following verbal instruction. Given the sufficient context or visual demonstration, children with DS performed similar to the other participants. As well, there was a great deal of within-group variability for dichotic listening ear advantage. Participants with a greater left ear advantage on the dichotic listening test committed more errors on an imitation test that also included a verbal component than participants with a greater right ear advantage.     

The development of facial emotion recognition: the role of configural information

The development of children's ability to recognize facial emotions and the role of configural information in this development were investigated. In the study, 100 5-, 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds and 26 adults needed to recognize the emotion displayed by upright and upside-down faces. The same participants needed to recognize the emotion displayed by the top half of an upright or upside-down face that was or was not aligned with a bottom half that displayed another emotion. The results showed that the ability to recognize facial emotion develops with age, with a developmental course that depends on the emotion to be recognized. Moreover, children at all ages and adults exhibited both an inversion effect and a composite effect, suggesting that children rely on configural information to recognize facial emotions.