Home environmental influences on children's language and reading skills in a genetically sensitive design: Are socioeconomic status and home literacy environment environmental mediators and moderators?

This twin study examined how family socioeconomic status (SES) and home literacy environment (HLE) contributes to Chinese language and reading skills. It included 312 Chinese twin pairs aged 3 to 11. Children were individually administered tasks of Chinese word reading, receptive vocabulary and reading‐related cognitive skills, and nonverbal reasoning ability. Information on home environment was collected through parent‐reported questionnaires. Results showed that SES and HLE mediated shared environmental influences but did not moderate genetic influences on general language and reading abilities. Also, SES and HLE mediated shared environmental contributions to receptive vocabulary and syllable and rhyme awareness, but not orthographic skills. The findings of this study add to past twin studies that focused on alphabetic languages, suggesting that these links could be universal across languages. They also extend existing findings on SES and HLE's contributions to reading‐related cognitive skills.     

EARLY HEAD START FAMILIES’ EXPERIENCES WITH STRESS: UNDERSTANDING VARIATIONS WITHIN A HIGH‐RISK,LOW‐INCOME SAMPLE

The federal Early Head Start program provides a relevant context to examine families’ experiences with stress since participants qualify on the basis of poverty and risk. Building on previous research that has shown variations in demographic and economic risks even among qualifying families, we examined possible variations in families’ perceptions of stress. Family, parent, and child data were collected to measure stressors and risk across a variety of domains in families’ everyday lives, primarily from self‐report measures, but also including assay results from child cortisol samples. A cluster analysis was employed to examine potential differences among groups of Early Head Start families. Results showed that there were three distinct subgroups of families, with some families perceiving that they experienced very high levels of stress while others perceived much lower levels of stress despite also experiencing poverty and heightened risk. These findings have important implications in that they provide an initial step toward distinguishing differences in low‐income families’ experiences with stress, thereby informing interventions focused on promoting responsive caregiving as a possible mechanism to buffer the effects of family and social stressors on young children.     

Eliciting Subjective Probabilities through Pair‐wise Comparisons

We propose and test a novel approach for eliciting subjective joint probabilities. In the proposed approach, judges compare pairs of possible outcomes and identify which of the two is more likely and by how much. These pair‐wise comparative judgments create a matrix of ratio judgments from which the target probabilities are extracted using the rows' (or columns') geometric means. In Study 1, subjects provided direct assessments of the likelihood of joint events (e.g., sunny days and stock market gains) and also made pair‐wise comparisons of the same joint events. Subjects in Study 2 learnt the distribution of hypothetical events pairs and provided direct and ratio estimates. In both studies, the ratio estimates were significantly more accurate than the direct estimates. The results suggest that it is possible to elicit probabilistic estimates without explictly asking for probabilities and that the pair‐wise approach is a candidate for complementing or replacing traditional elicitation approaches. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

父母温暖与青少年情绪表达能力的关系:害羞和自尊的中介作用

采用父母教养方式问卷、情感交流能力测验(ACT)、Rosenberg自尊量表和害羞量表测量449名高中生。探讨害羞和自尊在父母温暖与青少年情绪表达能力之间的中介作用。结果表明:父母温暖与自尊和情绪表达能力均呈显著正相关、与害羞呈显著负相关;自尊与情绪表达能力呈显著正相关,而害羞与情绪表达能力呈显著负相关;自尊和害羞在父母温暖与情绪表达能力之间起部分中介作用。因此,父母温暖不仅可以直接影响青少年的情绪表达能力,也可以通过提高自尊或减少害羞进而有助于青少年情绪表达能力的发展。     

服务型领导影响员工建言的双重机制研究

从自我提升和角色领会两个角度,聚焦服务型领导对员工建言的促进作用,提出了服务型领导影响员工建言的双重作用机制。通过分析260份来自苏州地区33家企业的配对样本,结果发现服务型领导能够正向预测员工建言行为;此外,与自我提升理论的预测一致,建言效能感中介了两者的正向关系;根据角色认同理论,建言角色认同中介了两者的正向关系;同时,建言效能感和建言角色认同的中介作用都受到感知到的领导权力的调节。     

Parental Support for Autonomy and Child Depressive Symptoms in Middle Childhood: The Mediating Role of Parent–Child Attachment

To facilitate understanding of the factors associated with child depressive symptoms in middle childhood, we examined the roles of parental support for autonomy and parent–child attachment in child depressive symptoms among 150 Chinese parent–child dyads. The participating children’s ages ranged from 6 to 12 years old. Parental support for autonomy was coded from a conflict resolution and a cooperation task. Children reported their depressive symptoms and their attachment relationships with the participating parents. After controlling for parent depressive symptoms, parental support for autonomy was associated with fewer child depressive symptoms. The association between parental support for autonomy and child depressive symptoms was mediated by parent–child attachment quality, suggesting that parental support for autonomy was negatively associated with child depressive symptoms through its positive association with parent–child attachment quality. Moreover, the positive association between parental support for autonomy and parent–child attachment quality was stronger for older children. The current study expanded the knowledge on parental support for autonomy in middle-childhood and its association with parent–child relationships and child mental health. Future research is encouraged to pay more attention to the role of parental support for autonomy in various aspects of child development for children in middle-childhood and pre-adolescence.     

羞怯与敌对的关系:同伴侵害和偏执的复合中介效应

对648名在校大学生进行大学生羞怯量表、SCL-90、同伴侵害量表的施测,以考察偏执、同伴侵害在羞怯与敌对的关系中的作用。结果发现:(1)个体的羞怯程度可以显著正向预测敌对倾向;(2)偏执、同伴侵害在羞怯与敌对的关系中起多重中介作用;(3)羞怯也可以通过同伴侵害对偏执思维的影响预测敌对倾向。     

Children's knowledge of the earth: a new methodological and statistical approach

In the field of children’s knowledge of the earth, much debate has concerned the question of whether children’s naive knowledge—that is, their knowledge before they acquire the standard scientific theory—is coherent (i.e., theory-like) or fragmented. We conducted two studies with large samples (N = 328 and N = 381) using a new paper-and-pencil test, denoted the EARTH (EArth Representation Test for cHildren), to discriminate between these two alternatives. We performed latent class analyses on the responses to the EARTH to test mental models associated with these alternatives. The naive mental models, as formulated by Vosniadou and Brewer, were not supported by the results. The results indicated that children’s knowledge of the earth becomes more consistent as children grow older. These findings support the view that children’s naive knowledge is fragmented.     

宗教理解和宗教多元论问题

我们几乎都能肯定,诸宗教之问或多或少都有"排他"倾向,认为真理掌握在自己的手里,其他宗教信仰或多或少是错误的.一般宗教都在宣传自己的优越性,为自己的存在合理性寻找依据,即使是那些自认为是"非宗教的宗教"也是如此.     

高二理科生物理问题创造性解决的表象特征研究

物理问题创造性解决是一个发散思维和聚合思维交替运行的过程,而表象对问题的创造性解决具有重要作用。本研究通过自编的物理问题对天津市某中学109名高二理科学生进行物理问题创造性解决测验,探讨高中理科学生物理问题创造性解决中的表象特征。验证了表象与物理问题创造性解决中的发散思维具有显著的正相关,与聚合思维无显著相关。对109名高二理科学生K聚类分析发现：物理问题解决过程中,高创造性和中等程度创造性的学生人数较少,而低创造性的学生人数较多;表象丰富性很高和较高的学生较少,表象丰富性较低的学生较多。