Fusing Apples and Oranges: A Rejoinder to Carver & Scheier and to Fenigstein

ABSTRACT A simple parable is introduced that serves as an analogy to the private/public self-focus distinction The analogy elucidates that the reliability of the effects observed by the private/public research direction is not the focus of the Wicklund and Gollwitzer critique Rather, the critique questions the validity of the explanations offered More importantly, the analogy implies the conclusion that construing social dependency as an issue of self-focus does injustice to both the social dependency and self-focus concepts     

Teacher ratings of children's problem and competence behaviors: Normative and parametric characteristics

Teacher-rated adjustment differences among young elementary school children from (a) a recent sample and a 1974 cohort, and (b) urban/suburban, male/female, and grade-level subgroups were examined. A problem behavior checklist (Classroom Adjustment Rating Scale) and a school competence measure (Health Resources Inventory) for 974 children from 5 urban and 5 suburban schools were completed by 101 first- to fourth-grade teachers. Children from the more current cohort were rated as significantly more maladjusted than those from the earlier sample on 8 of 10 adjustment variables. In the recent sample, girls and suburban children evidenced a greater number of school competencies and fewer problem behaviors than boys and urban children, respectively. The implications of these findings for the future use of the teacher rating scales are discussed.     

Variations on the Ramsey test: More triviality results

The purpose of this note is to formulate some weaker versions of the so called Ramsey test that do not entail the following unacceptable consequenceIf A and C are already accepted in K, then if A, then C is also accepted in K. and to show that these versions still lead to the same triviality result when combined with a preservation criterion.     

Conceptual pragmatism

The paper puts forward the thesis of conceptual pragmatism: that there are pragmatic choices to be made between distinct but similar concepts within various contexts. It is argued that this thesis should be acceptable to all who believe in concepts, whether the believers are platonists, realists or anti-realists. It is argued that the truth of the thesis may help to resolve many long-standing debates, and that in any case it will lead to an extension of philosophical method. The paper then briefly considers the concepts of belief and desire as a case-study, and argues for the recognition of the practical reasoner's stance (to stand alongside Dennett's intentional stance), relative to which we should select concepts of belief and desire which are broadly cartesian.I am grateful to the following for their help (varying from detailed comments and criticisms on earlier drafts, to general advice and encouragement): David Archard, Simon Blackburn, Jack Copeland, Dan Dennett, Susan Levi, Christopher McKnight, Derek Parfit, Michael Slote, Tim Williamson, and Crispin Wright.     

信息整合模型与中国人印象形成的特点

24名大学生各自独立地完成了两组由3×3因子设计的材料(人格特质形容词)构成的印象形成的任务。结果表明,信息整合理论的实验设计思想可以在中国文化的背景下应用。中国被试印象形成时的信息整合模型与西方学者的结果比较一致,但同时又体现出其独特的特点。文中对此做了讨论。     

小学儿童公益劳动观念发展的研究

本研究从被试对摆脱成人惩罚影响按行为本身好坏作出判断的反应、对摆脱行为客观后果按行为者主观动机作出判断的反应、对公益劳动的不同行动倾向的反应,对公益劳动的不同情感体验的反应诸方面,较全面地探究了小学儿童公益劳动观念的发展特点。研究结果表明:我国小学儿童在9.5岁基本形成了公益劳动观念,形成公益劳动观念的重大变化在7.5～9.5岁之间;西方价值观辨析学派关于敢于坦露和倾吐情感体验应是衡量是否具有相应道德观念的“指征(indicator)”之一的观点,是否适合于考察中国儿童道德观念的发展尚需进一步研究。     

Completion norms for 40 three-letter word stems

This is a report of the completion responses for 40 three-letter word stems (e.g., ABO) produced by 100 undergraduate students at the University of California at San Diego. The report includes a list of the different words that were written as stem completions, their frequency of occurrence as completions, and their frequency of occurrence in English according to published norms. This list of materials is useful for the construction of completion tests for future investigations of direct priming phenomena, and it may provide an important covariate in the analysis of performance on completion tests. Preliminary analyses of the results reveal three primary factors that determine overall performance on a stem-completion test: word frequency, word length, and meanings per word. Analyses of the completions produced for each individual word stem, however, reveal that usually only one of these factors makes a significant contribution to performance.     

Effect of EMG-biofeedback training in reduction of muscle tension for individuals displaying type A behavior patterns

This study investigated the effect of EMG biofeedback training in reducing muscle tension among subjects who displayed Type A behavior. 22 Type A college students (19 to 22 yr. old) were randomly assigned to either a biofeedback group or a control group. After 6 wk. of training, Type A subjects showed a significant reduction in muscle tension for both resting and aroused states; however, the reduction of muscle tension did not result in reduction of Type A behavior patterns.     

The role of phonemes and syllables in the perceived similarity of speech sounds for children

In two experiments, we investigated the factors that influence the perceived similarity of speech sounds at two developmental levels. Kindergartners and second graders were asked to classify nonsense words, which were related by syllable and phoneme correspondences. The results support the existence of a developmental trend toward increased attention to individual phonemic segments. Moreover, one significant factor in determining the perceived similarity of speech sounds appears to be the position of the component correspondences; attention to the beginning of utterances may have developmental priority. An unexpected finding was that the linguistic status of the unit involved in a correspondence (whether it was a syllable or a phoneme) did not seem particularly important. Apparently, the factors which contribute to the perceived similarity of speech sounds in the classification task are not identical to those which underlie performance in explicit segmentation and manipulation tasks, since in the latter sort of task, syllables are more accessible than phonemes for young children. The present task may tap a level of processing that is closer to the one entailed in word recognition and lexical access.