Immigrant Youth: Acculturation, Identity, and Adaptation

Cet article présente plusieurs des principaux résultats d’une grande étude internationale sur l’acculturation et l’adaptation de jeunes immigrés (âgés de 13 à 18 ans) qui se sont implantés dans treize pays (N = 5,366); il y est adjoint un échantillon de jeunes nationaux (N = 2,631). La recherche s’appuyait sur trois questions centrales: comment les jeunes migrants gèrent‐ils le processus d’acculturation? Comment parviennent‐ils à s’adapter? Et y a‐t‐il un lien manifeste entre la forme d’acculturation et le succès de l’adaptation? L’analyse en clusters déboucha sur quatre profils d’acculturation: intégrateur, ethnique, national et diffus. L’analyse factorielle de cinq variables d’adaptation mit en évidence deux types d’adaptation: psychologique et socioculturel. Il existe une forte relation entre la façon dont les jeunes s’acculturent et leur adaptation: ceux qui présentent un profil intégrateur bénéficient des meilleurs indicateurs d’adaptations psychologique et socioculturelle alors que ceux souffrant d’un profil diffus ont les pires. Entre les deux, le profil ethnique présente une adaptation psychologique relativement bonne et une adaptation socioculturelle plutôt pauvre, tandis que le profil national a une adaptation psychologique relativement pauvre et une adaptation socioculturelle légèrement négative. Cette configuration de résultats fut en grande partie retrouvée à travers une modélisation en équation structurelle. Les conséquences pour l’implantation des jeunes immigrés sont claires: ils devraient être encouragés à préserver l’appartenance à leur culture d’origine tout en établissant des liens étroits avec la société d’accueil. This paper reports some of the main findings from a large international study of the acculturation and adaptation of immigrant youth (aged 13 to 18 years) who are settled in 13 societies (N= 5,366), as well as a sample of national youth (N= 2,631). The study was guided by three core questions: How do immigrant youth deal with the process of acculturation? How well do they adapt? Are there important relationships between how they acculturate and how well they adapt? Cluster analysis produced four distinct acculturation profiles: integration, ethnic, national, and diffuse. Factor analysis of five adaptation variables revealed two distinct forms of adaptation: psychological and sociocultural. There were substantial relationships between how youth acculturate and how well they adapt: those with an integration profile had the best psychological and sociocultural adaptation outcomes, while those with a diffuse profile had the worst; in between, those with an ethnic profile had moderately good psychological adaptation but poorer sociocultural adaptation, while those with a national profile had moderately poor psychological adaptation, and slightly negative sociocultural adaptation. This pattern of results was largely replicated using structural equation modeling. Implications for the settlement of immigrant youth are clear: youth should be encouraged to retain both a sense of their own heritage cultural identity, while establishing close ties with the larger national society.     

Identity, Reasoning, and Emotion: An Empirical Comparison of Three Sources of Moral Motivation

Prior research on moral motivation has primarily emphasized moral reasoning and moral emotion; however, identity may also play an important role. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine the relative importance of prosocial identity, prosocial moral reasoning, and empathy in predicting prosocial behavior. The sample included 91 university students, ages 19–35 years (M=21.89; SD=3.01; 80% European American; 65% female). Prosocial identity and empathy, but not prosocial moral reasoning, were positively associated with overall prosocial behavior. Exploratory analyses examined how these three sources of prosocial motivation differentially related to six forms of prosocial behavior. Results suggest the importance of considering the roles of all three sources of moral motivation.     

Infinite lies and explanatory ties: idealization in phase transitions

Synthese - Infinite idealizations appear in our best scientific explanations of phase transitions. This is thought by some to be paradoxical. In this paper I connect the existing literature on the...     

History Assessments of Thinking: A Validity Study

This article reports a validity study of History Assessments of Thinking (HATs), which are short, constructed-response assessments of historical thinking. In particular, this study focuses on aspects of cognitive validity, which is an examination of whether assessments tap the intended constructs. Think-aloud interviews with 26 high school students were used to examine the thinking elicited by 8 HATs and multiple-choice versions of these tasks. Results showed that although both HATs and multiple-choice items tapped historical thinking processes, HATs better reflected student proficiency in historical thinking than their multiple-choice counterparts. Item format also influenced the thinking elicited, with multiple-choice items eliciting more instances of construct-irrelevant reasoning than the constructed-response versions. Implications for history assessment are discussed.     

Transient attention does increase perceived contrast of suprathreshold stimuli: a reply to Prinzmetal, Long, and Leonhardt (2008)

Carrasco, Ling, and Read (2004) showed that transient attention increases perceived contrast. However, Prinzmetal, Long, and Leonhardt (2008) suggest that for targets of low visibility, observers may bias their response toward the cued location, and they propose a cue-bias explanation for our previous results. Our response is threefold. First, we outline several key methodological differences between the studies that could account for the different results. We conclude that the cue-bias hypothesis is a plausible explanation for Prinzmetal et al.'s (2008) results, given the characteristics of their stimuli, but not for the studies by Carrasco and colleagues, in which the stimuli were suprathreshold (Carrasco, Ling, & Read, 2004; Fuller, Rodriguez, & Carrasco, 2008; Ling & Carrasco, 2007). Second, we conduct a study to show that the stimuli used in our previous studies are not near-threshold, but suprathreshold (Experiment 1, Phase 1). Furthermore, we found an increase in apparent contrast for a high-contrast stimulus when it was precued, but not when it was postcued, providing more evidence against a cue-bias hypothesis (Experiment 1, Phase 2). We also show that the visibility of the stimuli in Prinzmetal et al. (2008) was much lower than that of Carrasco, Ling, and Read, rendering their stimuli susceptible to their cue-bias explanation (Experiment 2). Third, we present a comprehensive summary of all the control conditions used in different labs that have ruled out a cue bias explanation of the appearance studies. We conclude that a cue-bias explanation may operate with near-threshold and low-visibility stimuli, as was the case in Prinzmetal et al. (2008), but that such an explanation has no bearing on studies with suprathreshold stimuli. Consistent with our previous studies, the present data support the claim that attention does alter the contrast appearance of suprathreshold stimuli.     

A face recognition by similarity (FRBS) conjecture

Cohen (1963) investigated free recall in two lists of words. The first contained unrelated words. The second comprised words drawn from several semantic categories, where the number of categories was equal to the number of words in the first list. He found that recall of unrelated words was equal to the recall of categories. The face recognition by similarity (FRBS) conjecture proposes that this relation cannot be applied to face recognition. Following Cohen's design, two different experimental situations for generating two target faces were constructed. The findings showed that the number of correct recognitions of specific facial features belonging to the first target face (e.g., nose, chin) was greater than or equal to the number of categories of visually similar facial features belonging to the second target face (e.g., different long noses, round chins). In addition, theoretical underpinnings for the FRBS conjecture were suggested.     

Research Report: Self-harming behaviour: from lay perceptions to clinical practice

Self-harm is a complex phenomena that occurs in many different settings. Multi-factorial explanations predominate in the literature and accounts of treatment reflect this diversity, ranging through psychobiological and psycho-social theories. This study aims to identify, describe and interpret some of the accounts and understandings of self-harm from a cross section of the general population and then relate this to clinical practice. Q Methodology is used to explore various competing viewpoints of lay people in understanding and treating people who self-harm. Eight different accounts were produced from the Explanation Q-sort. All but the Biological account described self-harm as a coping strategy, utilized in response to feelings of helplessness following social interaction and were therefore psycho-social in nature. There were four treatment/policy viewpoints that were all psycho-social in nature. These were influenced by humanistic and cognitive types of therapy and were united by the importance of empathy, positive regard and empowerment. These viewpoints are fully explored in this study. Common themes and factors connecting the explanations and treatment Q-sorts are discussed. These findings are then discussed in terms of their implications to current working practice and further initiatives and research projects.     

Young people generating a repertoire of counselling psychology: Talking theory

This paper is concerned with how young people, who are trained as peer supporters in British secondary schools, construct a counselling repertoire. Issues of identity, boundaries and the dilemma of advice giving are all raised when pupils aged 14-17 talk about their roles in peer support. It becomes evident that young people's constructions of themselves and their schemes reflect the assimilation of both traditional psychological theories and contemporary counselling culture. In essence, their scheme may be marketed as a counselling/advising service, which could lead the young people to take on the role of 'counsellors'. On the other hand, their scheme may be promoted as a listening and/or support service and this will lead to young people questioning their role in the scheme. This paper will introduce these issues. This research is taken from an ongoing PhD project which uses language based research as its methodology.     

A cross‐cultural assessment of attitudes regarding perceived breaches of ethical conduct by both parties in the business‐consumer dyad

Recent initiatives in business curricula have included emphases on global business and ethics. Using 28 scenarios which reflect potential concerns regarding the conduct of either business or a consumer, this research combines these issues by comparing the ethical predisposition of business students in Australia with their Canadian counterparts. A sample of 264 students indicated that students in both countries generally hold high expectations for the behaviour of business and consumers. Both groups exhibited quite similar views in relation to the 28 consumer and business‐related scenarios. When comparing Canadian students to Australian students, four significant differences were documented in the 14 scenarios which address the behaviour of business entities. The assessment of attitudes regarding questionable consumer actions provided even more homogeneity as only one statistically significant difference was identified. The study concludes by documenting a series of attitudinal differences on the part of groups defined not by nationality, but rather on the basis of gender or age. These demographic differences were more pronounced than were the differences across the two countries. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications.