Illustrating a mixed-method approach for validating culturally specific constructs

The purpose of this article is to illustrate a mixed-method approach (i.e., combining qualitative and quantitative methods) for advancing the study of construct validation in cross-cultural research. The article offers a detailed illustration of the approach using the responses 612 Sri Lankan adolescents provided to an ethnographic survey. Such surveys offer a connection between the primary methodologies used (i.e., ethnographic and factor analytic approaches) as they are predicated on qualitative inquiry and allow for the application of factor analysis. If the qualitatively derived constructs are comparable to factor analytic results, then triangulation across methods is achieved and a survey can be developed that is sensitive to culturally specific phenomena. The illustration of this approach uses data from an ethnographic survey of self-concept, as defined by Harter (1999) [Harter, S. (1999). The construction of the self: A developmental perspective. New York: The Guilford Press]. The construction of the self: A developmental perspective. New York: The Guilford Press]. The overall finding is that three constructs emerged from the factor analysis and were reconciled with the ethnographic data.     

The Level of Detail in Infants' Word Learning

ABSTRACT— This article summarizes recent findings on infant word learning and recognition. Infants initially store very detailed representations of words, including details that are not truly necessary for word recognition. As they are exposed to more varied productions of words, they develop more sophisticated knowledge about which details are important, and streamline their representations, allowing them to better recognize words across different contexts, speakers, and environments.     

Experiments Behind the Veil: Structural Influences on Judgments of Social Justice

In two experiments, participants judged the fairness of different distributions of wealth in hypothetical societies. In the first study, the level of meritocracy in the hypothetical societies and the frame of reference from which participants judged alternative distributions of wealth interacted to influence fairness judgments. As meritocracy increased, all participants became more tolerant of economic inequality, particularly when they judged fairness from a redistribution frame of reference that made salient transfers among socioeconomic classes. Liberal participants, however, placed a greater emphasis on equality than did conservative participants across all conditions. In the second study, reactions to income transfers depended on the efficiency of the transfers and the identity of the groups receiving the benefits, but conservatives placed a greater emphasis in their fairness judgments on tying benefits to workfare requirements, whereas liberals did not distinguish between unconditional welfare transfers and workfare transfers.     

Validity of the decisional process inventory

Empirical research on career indecision has been criticized for lacking theoretical conceptualization. To address this problem we examined the validity of the decisional process inventory (DPI), a measure of career decision making derived from a model based in Gestalt psychotherapy theory. Undergraduate college students (91 women, 110 men) responded to the DPI and criterion measures of career indecision and vocational identity. Results supported hypothesized relations between and among DPI items and subscales, and the ability of the measure to differentiate individuals by expressed career choice status. Significant intercorrelations among DPI subscales and criterion measures supported the concurrent validity of the DPI. Confirmatory maximum likelihood factor analysis of the DPI items did not support the hypothesized structure of the DPI to measure three career decision-making process dimensions: readiness, action, and resistance. Although results supported the basic psychometric properties of the DPI as a brief measure of career decision making, additional research is needed to clarify the underlying factor structure of the instrument.     

Failure to delay gratification following septal lesions in rats: Implications for an animal model of disinhibitory psychopathology

It has been proposed that dysfunction within a neural system composed of the medial septum, the posterior hippocampus and the orbito-frontal cortex (SHF system) may constitute the physiological basis of several disinhibitory syndromes in humans—psychopathy, hyperkinesis, alcoholism and extraversion. Consequently, the syndrome produced by lesions of the SHF system in animals is offered as a tentative behavioral model that may elucidate basic psychological components of human disinhibitory psychopathology. As predicted from this model, rats with septal lesions, like disinhibited humans, were less likely to delay gratification than controls when given a choice between waiting 10 sec for an assured reinforcement and an immediately available, though infrequently delivered, reinforcement. Inquiry into the nature of this deficit suggested that these rats are subject to an interference effect, such that the influence of future rewards on behavior could be disrupted or ‘eclipsed’ by the presence of more immediate, prominent, motivationally significant cues. The possibility that various disinhibitory syndromes in humans may also be due to a similar rigid focus of attention upon the most immediate or prominent motivationally significant event was briefly discussed.     

Self-control of smoking—I. effects of experience with imposed,increasing, decreasing and random delays

A test of a passive self-control training procedure suggested by Skinner was performed. After smoker's tolerance for delay of smoking was assessed, they were exposed to either an increasing, decreasing or random sequence of imposed delay of smoking and were then tested for tolerance to delay. Increasing delay significantly improved subjects' smoking inhibition while decreasing and random sequences had no significant effect. The results are attributed to either frustration extinction or rehearsal of coping responses to the aversiveness of delay.     

Allocation of study time and recall by learning disabled and nondisabled children of different ages

Study time and recall by learning-disabled and nondisabled children of five different ages were examined in a task requiring recall of digits that were presented at the child's own rate. Recall increased with age and was significantly higher by nondisabled than disabled children, particularly at older ages. As additional digits of each sequence were presented, study time by 8-year-old disabled and nondisabled groups were relatively constant, increased in older disabled and nondisabled children, but increased more in older nondisabled children than older learning disabled children. Instructions in hierarchical grouping of digits increased recall by all groups to a similar degree, but the increase by younger children and learning disabled children was associated with longer study times. The results suggest that allocation of study time and recall are developmentally delayed in learning disabled children.