Characteristics of academically-influential children: achievement motivation and social status

The contributions of academic achievement motivation and social status to peer-reported academic influence were explored in a sample of 322 children in grades three through five. Latent moderated structural equation modeling indicated that children who value academics are more likely to be rated by peers as academically influential. Social status also explained variability in academic influence, with well-liked and/or perceived popular children receiving more influence nominations than children low in social status. Additionally, social status moderated the relationship between motivation and influence such that children who were high in both academic value and social status were more likely to be nominated as academically influential than children low in those constructs. Contrary to expectations, academic self-efficacy was unrelated to peer-reported academic influence.     

Personality correlates of intimate partner violence subtypes: A latent class analysis

Perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV) represent a heterogeneous group who engage in a variety of aggressive acts which often co‐occur. However, few studies take this co‐occurrence into consideration. Failure to consider overlapping forms of IPV confounds understanding of risk factors for physical IPV, which in turn undermines identification, prevention, and intervention efforts. Though rarely studied in emerging adults, personality variables have recently been identified as important correlates of IPV. The primary aims of the current studies are to identify distinct subgroups of moderate and severe psychological and physical IPV and personality covariates of class membership. Two studies were conducted at different public regional universities in the northeast (n = 500; n = 497). Both samples were about two‐thirds female, approximately one‐half White, one‐fifth Black, and one‐quarter Latino, of any race. Latent Class Analysis identified three subgroups in both studies: low, moderate, and severe IPV. The severe and moderate IPV groups included those who reported threats and moderate physical IPV while the severe IPV group also included those who engaged in severe and injurious forms of physical IPV. Multinomial regression analysis showed that impulsive aggression discriminated moderate and severe from low IPV (Study 1), and more frequent emotionally abusive and controlling behavior, a hostile‐dominant interpersonal style and trait aggression discriminated among all three groups, with severe IPV having the greatest likelihood of controlling behavior and aggression (Study 2). IPV is represented by distinct subgroups that vary by severity of IPV with different personality covariates. General aggressive and domineering tendencies in relationships characterize those engaging in severe IPV.

     

Emergent Powers

Topoi - I shall introduce at the beginning of the paper a characterization of strong ontological emergence. According to it, roughly, something strongly emerges from some other thing(s) iff the...     

Reconsidering the Factor Structure of the Beavers Interactional Scales: Do External Ratings Mirror Self-Reports?

Factor analytic studies indicate that family relationships assessed by self-reports may be most clearly and parsimoniously differentiated along three dimensions, namely, Affective Expression, Behavioral Control, and Shared Activity. The present study explored the question of whether this were true of family ratings by outside parties. Confirmatory factor analysis was used with three data sets (n = 97, 91, and 95; N = 283) employing the Beavers Interactional Scales of family functioning. Multicollinearity of the observed variables was a pervasive problem. When the redundancy of the observed variables was pared down so that there were two observed variables for each latent factor, these three factors in oblique relationship provided a good fit to the observed data.     

Interevent differences in event memory: Why are some events more recallable than others?

Interitem differences in the free recall of action events were studied in five experiments. The action events were presented in three different formats: minitasks performed by the subjects in response to verbal instructions from the experimenter (SPTs), minitasks performed by the experimenter (EPTs), and task instructions (TIs). Not only were reliable interevent differences in recall probability demonstrated within each format, but these differences tended to correlate across formats, especially between the SPTs and EPTs; thus, a highly recallable SPT also tended to be a highly recallable EPT. Attempts to explain interitem recall differences in terms of differences in familiarity, vividness, and the availability of environmental cues were largely unsuccessful. An experimental analysis of the action events into action and object components showed the recall probabilities of our events to be mainly dependent on the recall probabilities of their action components, with only a minor dependence on the recall probabilities of their object components.     

Adolescents' Possible Selves and Their Relationship to Global Self-Esteem

Recent research indicates that adolescent girls'self-esteem is lower than that of boys, and adolescence has been identified as a particularly problematic period for female self-esteem. However, many studies use global self-esteem measures that mask important differences within the domains of self-concept that contribute to self-esteem. Further, some self-esteem measures assess components of male self-esteem but overlook aspects of female self-esteem. The possible selves approach was used to identify categories of adolescent male and female self-concept that correlate with self-esteem. Subjects were 212 high-school students. The sample was primarily (96%)Caucasian. Results indicate that female self-esteem is related to perceived likelihood of hoped-for and feared possible selves in multiple domains, whereas male self-esteem is related only to the likelihood of one domain of hoped-for possible selves.     

Tightness-Looseness Revisited: Some Preliminary Analyses in Japan and the United States

The construct of tightness-looseness is considered to be important in differentiating cultures (Pelto, 1968; Triandis, 1977, 1989). The objective of the present paper is to advance understanding of this construct. Specifically, we present a conceptual framework for the construct and formulate some general research hypotheses derived from our conceptualization. In addition, we examine one of our general hypotheses that cultures differing in the tight-loose dimension will differ in the way language is used. Using a data set from Osgood, May, and Miron (1975), we compared the Japanese and the US samples of this study and found evidence supporting the hypothesis that Japan is a tighter culture, as compared to the USA. In addition to studying the construct of individualism-collectivism, we suggest that tightness-looseness is an important cultural dimension that can explain and predict cultural differences in many kinds of social behaviour.