Gender and Race Achievement Profiles of Black and White Third-Grade Students

The interrelationships between gender, race, and academic achievement levels were examined. Third-grade students (N = 107) were randomly selected from the poulation of a desegregated metropolitan school district in the deep South. The school district provided the researchers with the gender, race, and California Achievement Test (CAT) score of each student. Results showed that, although the average scores for all subjects on all CAT areas exceeded the national third-grade average, females and whites outperformed males and blacks in all 11 academic areas. The results support the Grant-Sleeter (1986) thesis that important information is neglected if race and gender are treated discretely.     

Mechanisms of change in adolescent life satisfaction: A longitudinal analysis

This study explored the psychosocial mechanisms of change associated with differences in levels and linear change of adolescents' global life satisfaction across a 2-year time period. Based on a theoretical model proposed by Evans (1994), this study tested the relations between selected personality (i.e., extraversion and neuroticism) and environmental (stressful life events) variables and global life satisfaction when mediated by internalizing and externalizing problems. The results suggested support for internalizing problems as a mediator of the relationship of personality and environmental variables with life satisfaction. Pathways mediated by internalizing problems significantly predicted levels and linear change of life satisfaction across a 2-year time span. Furthermore, pathways mediated by externalizing problems significantly predicted the level but not the linear change of life satisfaction. Thus, behavior problems and their antecedents appear to relate significantly to adolescents' perceptions of their quality of life. Implications for adolescent mental health promotion were discussed.     

A Rigorous Test of the Fit of the Circumplex Model to Big Five Personality Data: Theoretical and Methodological Issues and Two Large Sample Empirical Tests

Our objective was to apply the rigorous test developed by Browne (1992) to determine whether the circumplex model fits Big Five personality data. This test has yet to be applied to personality data. Another objective was to determine whether blended items explained correlations among the Big Five traits. We used two working adult samples, the Eugene-Springfield Community Sample and the Professional Worker Career Experience Survey. Fit to the circumplex was tested via Browne's (1992) procedure. Circumplexes were graphed to identify items with loadings on multiple traits (blended items), and to determine whether removing these items changed five-factor model (FFM) trait intercorrelations. In both samples, the circumplex structure fit the FFM traits well. Each sample had items with dual-factor loadings (8 items in the first sample, 21 in the second). Removing blended items had little effect on construct-level intercorrelations among FFM traits. We conclude that rigorous tests show that the fit of personality data to the circumplex model is good. This finding means the circumplex model is competitive with the factor model in understanding the organization of personality traits. The circumplex structure also provides a theoretically and empirically sound rationale for evaluating intercorrelations among FFM traits. Even after eliminating blended items, FFM personality traits remained correlated.     

Extraversion,Neuroticism, and Face-Name Learning

Previous research has attempted to relate personality traits to paired-associate learning. We tested name recall as a function of extraversion and neuroticism (as assessed by the Eysenck Personality Inventory) and task difficulty. Face photographs were paired with one of three levels of information: names only (an easy task); names and occupations; or names, occupations, and interests (a difficult task). On the easy and difficult tasks, extraverted subjects recalled more names than did subjects scoring at the median or below on that trait. Contrary to expectations, subjects scoring high on neuroticism recalled more names than did subjects scoring low on that trait. Neither trait was significantly related to recall on the moderately difficult task. There was no interaction between traits for name recall, but there was for interests: Neurotic introverts were significantly impaired at recalling interests, whereas the other subjects recalled interests better than names. These findings thus differ from those of paired-associate learning tasks using words and nonsense syllables.     

Self Reports of Being Falsely Accused of Criminal Behavior

The occurrence of false accusations of illegal behavior is investigated using cross-sectional, long-term recall data for two generations of a national probability sample of individuals. The analysis examines whether being a “usual suspect” based on past criminal behavior; “guilt by association” based on the illegal behavior of one's friends; academic achievement based on self-reported grades in school; and sociodemographic variables including gender, ethnic majority/minority status, and socioeconomic status have an impact on the likelihood of being falsely accused of illegal behavior. The results indicate some consistency across the different subsamples in the characteristics of those most likely to be falsely accused of illegal behavior. Implications for policy and future research are considered.     

Nicholas of Cusa’s De pace fidei and the meta-exclusivism of religious pluralism

In response to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Nicholas of Cusa wrote De pace fidei defending a commitment to religious tolerance on the basis of the notion that all diverse rites are but manifestations of one true religion. Drawing on a discussion of why Nicholas of Cusa is unable to square the two objectives of arguing for pluralistic tolerance and explaining the contents of the one true faith, we outline why theological pluralism is compromised by its own meta-exclusivism.     

Effects of Deception on Children's Understanding of Second‐order False Belief

This research examined two questions: effects of deception on children's understanding of second‐order false belief, and possible effects of number of siblings on second‐order performance. Kindergarten children responded to 3 second‐order problems that varied in the presence and the nature of deception. Performance was better on the problems with deception, but significantly so only when the target for the belief attribution produced the deception. This finding helps to clarify differences between the two main paradigms for assessing second‐order false belief. There was no relation between number of siblings and performance. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Social and Personal Identities Scale: A Measure of the Differential Importance Ascribed to Social and Personal Self-Categorizations

A new measure sensitive to differences in the importance that people ascribe to their social (group) and personal identities is described. The Social and Personal Identities (SIPI) scale distinguishes between the interpersonal level of self which differentiates the individual as unique from others, and the social identity level of self whereby the individual is identified by his or her group memberships. In contrast to perspectives that emphasize the context-dependence of self-conception, our measure was designed to capture individual differences in participants' readiness to categorize themselves using group and personal self-categories as measured by the degree of importance or centrality assigned to each. Factor and reliability analyses support the scale's stability as a two-factor structure with high internal consistency, and these factors are modestly correlated. Results from six studies substantiate the scale's criterion and construct validity.     

Gamelike features might not improve data

Many psychological experiments require participants to complete lots of trials in a monotonous task, which often induces boredom. An increasingly popular approach to alleviate such boredom is to incorporate gamelike features into standard experimental tasks. Games are assumed to be interesting and, hence, motivating, and better motivated participants might produce better data (with fewer lapses in attention and greater accuracy). Despite its apparent prevalence, the assumption that gamelike features improve data is almost completely untested. We test this assumption by presenting a choice task and a change detection task in both gamelike and standard forms. Response latency, accuracy, and overall task performance were unchanged by gamelike features in both experiments. We present a novel cognitive model for the choice task, based on particle filtering, to decorrelate the dependent variables and measure performance in a more psychologically meaningful manner. The model-based analyses are consistent with the hypothesis that gamelike features did not alter cognition. A postexperimental questionnaire indicated that the gamelike version provided a more positive and enjoyable experience for participants than the standard task, even though this subjective experience did not translate into data effects. Although our results hold only for the two experiments examined, the gamelike features we incorporated into both tasks were typical of—and at least as salient and interesting as those usually used by—experimental psychologists. Our results suggest that modifying an experiment to include gamelike features, while leaving the basic task unchanged, may not improve the quality of the data collected, but it may provide participants with a better experimental experience.     

Natural language processing in an intelligent writing strategy tutoring system

The Writing Pal is an intelligent tutoring system that provides writing strategy training. A large part of its artificial intelligence resides in the natural language processing algorithms to assess essay quality and guide feedback to students. Because writing is often highly nuanced and subjective, the development of these algorithms must consider a broad array of linguistic, rhetorical, and contextual features. This study assesses the potential for computational indices to predict human ratings of essay quality. Past studies have demonstrated that linguistic indices related to lexical diversity, word frequency, and syntactic complexity are significant predictors of human judgments of essay quality but that indices of cohesion are not. The present study extends prior work by including a larger data sample and an expanded set of indices to assess new lexical, syntactic, cohesion, rhetorical, and reading ease indices. Three models were assessed. The model reported by McNamara, Crossley, and McCarthy (Written Communication 27:57-86, 2010) including three indices of lexical diversity, word frequency, and syntactic complexity accounted for only 6 % of the variance in the larger data set. A regression model including the full set of indices examined in prior studies of writing predicted 38 % of the variance in human scores of essay quality with 91 % adjacent accuracy (i.e., within 1 point). A regression model that also included new indices related to rhetoric and cohesion predicted 44 % of the variance with 94 % adjacent accuracy. The new indices increased accuracy but, more importantly, afford the means to provide more meaningful feedback in the context of a writing tutoring system.