Cyberbullying in a diverse society: comparing Jewish and Arab adolescents in Israel through the lenses of individualistic versus collectivist cultures

The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in cyberbullying (bystanders, victims, bullies) between Jewish and Arab adolescents in Israel. The findings could uncover critical implications for children, educators, and policymakers for understanding Cyberbullying in a diverse society. In particular, the differences in cyberbullying between collective and individualistic societies and the effect of gender bias on the likelihood of engaging in cyberbullying. Two cultural contexts in Israel were explored: one representing a collectivist orientation (Arab-Muslim and Arab-Christian culture), the other representing a more individualistic orientation (Jewish culture). The study included 901 junior high and high school students (501 Jewish-Israelis and 400 Arab–Israelis), which filled in an online cyberbullying survey. Findings revealed that Jewish adolescents reported being cybervictims and cyberbystanders more than Arab adolescents, yet contrary to expectation, Arab adolescents reported being cyberbullies more than Jewish adolescents. Contrary to expectation, no gender differences in being a bully were found among Jewish adolescents, while among Arab adolescents, girls reported higher bullying than boys. The cultural difference was significant among girls, revealing that Jewish girls were higher than Arab girls on bystanding and victimization, yet Arab girls were higher than Jewish girls on bullying in cyberspace. The cultural difference was not significant among boys. Using online communication as a theoretical framework, this study observed aspects of cyberbullying in the diverse and multicultural society of Israel through the lenses of individualistic versus collectivist cultures. The findings and their implications are further discussed and shed more light on cyberbullying in a diverse and multicultural society.     

Which one made it go? The emergence of diagnostic reasoning in preschoolers

We evaluate the hypothesis that children's diagnostic causal reasoning becomes more sophisticated as their understanding of uncertainty advances. When the causal status of candidate causes was known, 3- and 4-year-olds were capable of diagnostic inference (Experiment 1) and could revise their beliefs when told their initial diagnosis was incorrect (Experiment 2). In Experiments 3 and 4, only 4-year-olds made successful inferences when the causal status of candidate causes was uncertain. The results suggest that by age 3, children appreciate that an effect can have multiple candidate causes, but it is not until age 4 that they begin to reason correctly when the causal status of candidate causes is unknown.     

Watch this! Observed tool use affects perceived distance

Recent research has shown that being able to interact with an object causes it to be perceived as being closer than objects that cannot be interacted with. In the present study, we examined whether that compression of perceived space would be experienced by people who simply observed such interactions by others with no intention of performing the action themselves. Participants judged the distance to targets after observing an actor reach to an otherwise unreachable target with a tool (Experiment 1) or illuminate a distant target with a laser pointer (Experiment 2). Observing either type of interaction caused a compression of perceived space, revealing that a person’s perception of space can be altered through mere observation. These results indicate that shared representations between an actor and observer are engaged at the perceptual level easily and perhaps automatically, even in the absence of cooperation or an observer’s own intention to interact.     

Transposed-letter priming effect in Hebrew in the same-different task

We investigated the interaction between morphological structure and transposed-letter priming using the same-different task with Hebrew, a Semitic language in which morphology has been shown to play a key role in visual word recognition. In contrast to the results observed with lexical decision (e.g., Velan & Frost, 2009, 2011), a transposed-letter priming effect was observed irrespective of the morphological structure of the words. We take these results to suggest that morphological decomposition occurs only in the service of lexical access. We discuss further a unique feature of written Arabic, another Semitic language, to explain the apparent conflict between our findings and those reported by Perea, Abu Mallouh, García-Orza, and Carreiras (2010).     

The Role of Career Aspiration,Self-Esteem,Body Esteem,and Gender in Predicting Sense of Well-being Among Emerging Adults

During emerging adulthood, one’s sense of well-being undergoes many rapid changes. Although emerging adults often present considerable energy, creativity, and hopefulness, both in higher education classrooms and workplaces, they often experience a decrease in well-being due to experience confusion, stress encounters, and difficulties in transitioning to adulthood. The authors examined four noteworthy key socioemotional factors that may be linked to emerging adults' sense of well-being: career aspiration, self-esteem, body esteem, and gender. Three hundred 20- to 29-year-old university students participated in the study. Results showed that well-being was correlated positively with self-esteem and body esteem, and body esteem was correlated negatively with gender (men scored higher). Regression analyses revealed that for both men and women, self-esteem and body esteem predicted well-being. Nevertheless, when the gender was analyzed separately, career aspiration predicted well-being only for men, whereas body esteem predicted well-being only for women. The study findings illuminates the importance of generating preventive measures in childhood and adolescence, through reinforcing skills such as resilience and self-esteem with the aim of passing through emerging adulthood with as little harm as possible to the sense of well-being.     

“They Danced Around in My Head and I Learned Them”: Children's Developing Conceptions of Learning

Two studies examined how 3–6-year-olds understand the process of learning. In study 1 examined how children spontaneously talk about learning via a CHILDES language analysis. Talk about the learning process increased between the ages of 3–5. Talk specifically about learning in terms of desire decreased during this period. This suggests the possibility that desire is important to children's initial understanding of learning, and children develop an understanding that various mental states including desire, attention, and intention, play a role in the learning process. In Study 2, we presented 4- and 6-year-olds with a set of stories designed to test their understanding of the role of these mental states. In both their judgments about whether someone learns and their justifications of their responses, younger children relied more on the character's desires whereas older children were more likely to integrate desire, attention, and intention together. These data suggest that children's understanding of the process of learning is developing during the early elementary school years.     

Fostering Children’s Reasoning about Disagreements through an Inquiry-based Curriculum

ABSTRACT

We investigated how young children evaluate disagreements between two people and whether formal education affects this capacity. We compared 120 first graders tested during the 2014–2015 academic year, who received a direct instruction-based curriculum, with 112 first graders tested in the same school system during the 2016–2017 academic year, who received an inquiry-based curriculum. All children were given a belief reasoning task that tested their ability to evaluate disagreements about matters of fact, matters of interpretation, and matters of preference. Children’s evaluations of disagreements about interpretations or preferences did not differ depending on curriculum. Children who received an inquiry-based curriculum were more likely to resolve disagreements concerning facts correctly than children who received a direct instruction-based curriculum. When asked to justify their responses to disagreements about facts, children who received the inquiry-based curriculum relied more on an examination of the state of the world. We suggest that an inquiry-based curriculum fosters a greater appreciation for how first-hand experiences can create knowledge.     

Preschoolers’ Compliance With Others’ Violations of Fairness Norms: The Roles of Intentionality and Affective Perspective Taking

ABSTRACT

Young children are remarkably compliant with social norms, especially those governing fairness and equality. Yet children also frequently observe and face opportunities to violate those social norms, particularly in situations in which doing so is self-beneficial. In 3 studies, we investigated the conditions under which children adhere to social norms using a novel resource distribution paradigm in which children met an experimenter who expressed either a norm-consistent (equal distribution) or norm-inconsistent (unequal distribution) intention. In Experiment 1, we found that preschoolers generally complied with an experimenter’s intention, regardless of its norm consistency. In Experiment 2, the experimenter again expressed a norm-consistent or norm-inconsistent intention but accidentally placed resources in the opposite distribution of that intended. Preschoolers mostly defaulted to the social norm of fairness. However, they were less likely to do so (and more likely to comply with the norm-violating experimenter) when the inequality was self-benefitting. The likelihood of norm defiance in the face of self-benefit appeared to relate to children’s affective perspective taking. In Experiment 3, we found that training preschoolers in affective perspective taking increased the likelihood children would defy a norm-violating experimenter’s unfair intention. Thus, although preschoolers were generally compliant, both fairness norms and affective perspective taking served as important mechanisms to help children selectively defy adults’ instructions and intentions.     

Poverty of the stimulus revisited

A central goal of modern generative grammar has been to discover invariant properties of human languages that reflect "the innate schematism of mind that is applied to the data of experience" and that "might reasonably be attributed to the organism itself as its contribution to the task of the acquisition of knowledge" (Chomsky, 1971). Candidates for such invariances include the structure dependence of grammatical rules, and in particular, certain constraints on question formation. Various "poverty of stimulus" (POS) arguments suggest that these invariances reflect an innate human endowment, as opposed to common experience: Such experience warrants selection of the grammars acquired only if humans assume, a priori, that selectable grammars respect substantive constraints. Recently, several researchers have tried to rebut these POS arguments. In response, we illustrate why POS arguments remain an important source of support for appeal to a priori structure-dependent constraints on the grammars that humans naturally acquire.     

Not Just Right Experiences: Association with Obsessive Compulsive Symptoms and Sensory Over-Responsivity

Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder describe “not just right experiences” as a constant uncomfortable feeling of imperfection toward sensory stimuli. This study examined the relation between “not just right experiences,” obsessive-compulsive disorder and sensory over-responsivity symptoms. Sixty college students participated in the in vivo “not just right experiences” assessment. This included four tasks for which participants rated pre-task discomfort, post-task discomfort, and urge to counteract auditory, visual, and tactile stimuli. “Not just right experiences” scores significantly correlated with obsessive-compulsive disorder scores. Tactile, auditory, and visual sensory over-responsivity scores were correlated with specific “not just right experiences” scores. Sensory over-responsivity is rarely addressed in obsessive-compulsive disorder while it contributes to symptomatology and participation.