Love styles, shyness, and patterns of emotional self-disclosure

Previous research has shown a relationship between love styles and shyness. This study explored the possibility that this effect may be due to differences in patterns of self-disclosure associated with shyness. University student participants (N = 143) completed the Love Attitudes Scale, the Emotional Self-Disclosure Scale, and the Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale. Correlations between the measures were calculated and significant results ranged from r = .18 to .30. Findings supported previous research in showing significant relationships between shyness and love styles; self-disclosure showed no relationship with shyness but did show some direct associations with love style scores. Results are discussed in relation to the importance of self-disclosure in relationship development.     

Focusing on children and youth: The role of social capital in educational outcomes in the context of immigration and diversity

Social capital matters for young people, especially for immigrant and minority youth; however what counts as social capital for young people is poorly specified. This paper reviews recent studies on the influences of parents, communities and schools; then focuses on youth social networks that begin to reveal how young people form, develop and use social capital. In light of this knowledge base, we address social and educational policy-making, making suggestions for capacity building for future policy and research. We conclude with recommendations toward a model of social capital accumulation.     

INCREASING HABILITATIVE SERVICES FOR PERSONS WITH PROFOUND HANDICAPS: AN APPLICATION OF STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS TO STAFF MANAGEMENT

We evaluated a structural analysis methodology for enhancing the utility of a staff management program. In Experiment 1, a structural analysis of direct-care staff behavior in a mental retardation facility revealed differences in work patterns over time. Specific times were identified when few basic care duties were necessary and staff engaged in nonwork activity. In Experiment 2, a management program was implemented to increase staff members' training activities during periods identified through the structural analysis. The program was accompanied by increases in training activities and decreases in nonwork behavior. The improvements were maintained during a 43-week period while the most labor-intensive component of the program was withdrawn. Staff acceptability measures indicated a positive response to the management intervention, although responses varied across components within the multifaceted program. The increased training was accompanied by beneficial changes among clients with profound handicaps. Results are discussed regarding practical considerations for improving staff performance and for adopting innovations resulting from applied research.     

Implicit sequence learning in deaf children with cochlear implants

Deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs) represent an intriguing opportunity to study neurocognitive plasticity and reorganization when sound is introduced following a period of auditory deprivation early in development. Although it is common to consider deafness as affecting hearing alone, it may be the case that auditory deprivation leads to more global changes in neurocognitive function. In this paper, we investigate implicit sequence learning abilities in deaf children with CIs using a novel task that measured learning through improvement to immediate serial recall for statistically consistent visual sequences. The results demonstrated two key findings. First, the deaf children with CIs showed disturbances in their visual sequence learning abilities relative to the typically developing normal-hearing children. Second, sequence learning was significantly correlated with a standardized measure of language outcome in the CI children. These findings suggest that a period of auditory deprivation has secondary effects related to general sequencing deficits, and that disturbances in sequence learning may at least partially explain why some deaf children still struggle with language following cochlear implantation.     

Oriental approaches to masculine and feminine subtle energy principles

According to ancient Indian and Chinese texts the subtle energy (prana or chi) flows through several thousand anatomically indistinguishable channels or meridians (nadis). Three channels are especially important (ida, pingala, and sushumna). The ida and pingala channels correlate with left and right uninostril breathing, respectively. Like yin and yang, they are considered to represent the masculine and feminine principles present in all creation irrespective of sex. From this perspective these principles are assumed to be present simultaneously in persons of both sexes. This suggests that any sex-specific effects of uninostril breathing may be associated with sex-based physiological differences, not with 'masculine' and 'feminine' attributes of the channels (and the corresponding nostrils).     

False Consensus and Adolescent Peer Contagion: Examining Discrepancies between Perceptions and Actual Reported Levels of Friends’ Deviant and Health Risk Behaviors

Adolescents perceptions of their friends behavior strongly predict adolescents own behavior, however, these perceptions often are erroneous. This study examined correlates of discrepancies between adolescents perceptions and friends reports of behavior. A total of 120 11th-grade adolescents provided data regarding their engagement in deviant and health risk behaviors, as well as their perceptions of the behavior of their best friend, as identified through sociometric assessment. Data from friends own report were used to calculate discrepancy measures of adolescents overestimations and estimation errors (absolute value of discrepancies) of friends behavior. Adolescents also completed a measure of friendship quality, and a sociometric assessment yielding measures of peer acceptance/rejection and aggression. Findings revealed that adolescents peer rejection and aggression were associated with greater overestimations of friends behavior. This effect was partially mediated by adolescents own behavior, consistent with a false consensus effect. Low levels of positive friendship quality were significantly associated with estimation errors, but not overestimations specifically.     

Relations among regular and irregular morphologically related words in the lexicon as revealed by repetition priming

Several experiments examined repetition priming among morphologically related words as a tool to study lexical organization. The first experiment replicated a finding by Stanners, Neiser, Hernon, and Hall (Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1979,18, 399-412), that whereas inflected words prime their unaffixed morphological relatives as effectively as do the unaffixed forms themselves, derived words are effective, but weaker, primes. The experiment also suggested, however, that this difference in priming may have an episodic origin relating to the less formal similarity of derived than of inflected words to unaffixed morphological relatives. A second experiment reduced episodic contributions to priming and found equally effective priming of unaffixed words by themselves, by inflected relatives, and by derived relatives. Two additional experiments found strong priming among relatives sharing the spelling and pronunciation of the unaffixed stem morpheme, sharing spelling alone, or sharing neither formal property exactly. Overall, results with auditory and visual presentations were similar. Interpretations that repetition priming reflects either repeated access to a common lexical entry or associative semantic priming are both rejected in favor of a lexical organization in which components of a word (e.g., a stem morpheme) may be shared among distinct words without the words themselves, in any sense, sharing a “lexical entry.”     

The I Ching and the psyche-body connection

Carl G. Jung's fateful meeting with Richard Wilhelm in 1929 has helped to build a bridge of depth psychological understanding between the East and the West. When Jung emerged from his 'confrontation with the unconscious', he felt validated by Wilhelm in his discovery of the healing power of medieval alchemical symbolism for the European psyche. Analytical psychology however offers a scientific, psychological understanding of Chinese wisdom as contained in the I Ching and Taoist alchemy. The Taoist alchemical tradition (also known as the Inner Elixir tradition of which 'The Secret of the Golden Flower' is a sample text) is based on the premise that psychological experience of the Tao can be achieved through mental and physiological means such as breathing and meditative techniques, gymnastics, dietary regimens such as fasting, consumption of medicinal herbs and minerals, and special sexual practices. This tradition incorporates the I Ching and traditional Chinese medicine in the alchemical opus. Taoist alchemy assumes the primacy of the physical body in the process of self-realization. The psychological and cosmic forces of the trigrams of the I Ching are stored in the internal organs of the body and are the basic material for the experience of Tao. The internal organs are the foundation of the material and subtle bodies and through cultivation, the body becomes spiritualized as the spirits are embodied. The body as a reflection of the entire cosmos becomes the residence of the gods. The realization of a new consciousness is symbolized by the hexagram Fu, meaning rebirth. The Chinese notion of Tao coincides with Jung's postulation of the unus mundus, the unity of existence which underlies the duality of psyche and matter, the psycho-physical background of existence. In this light, in the world of inner experience, East and West follow similar paths symbolically.