Impact du type de buts et du sentiment d'auto-efficaciaté sur l'autorégulation et la performance dans une tâche cognitive

The aim of this study was to examine two hypotheses derived from theoretical models of the role of learning and performance goals in cognitive functioning. The first predicts that being highly focused on performance goals leads students to develop lower levels of self-efficacy than those who are less focused on performance. The second hypothesis predicts that the combination of high performance goals and low self-efficacy will have a negative impact on students' self-regulation and performance in a new task. After having filled out a questionnaire assessing their goals, 128 female students were met individually and asked to solve a verbal concept formation task. Self-efficacy was assessed prior to the resolution of the task during which self-regulation and performance were observed. Contrary to the first hypothesis, students having high performance goals were found to have higher self-efficacy than those having low goals. In addition, no interaction between self-efficacy and performance goals was found on self-regulation and performance on the task. The results showed that whatever students' goals, self-efficacy is a powerful determinant of self-regulation and performance. The discussion emphasizes the role of self-efficacy and the value of a motivational profile combining high concern for both performance and learning goals in cognitive functioning.     

Towards an Interactive Acculturation Model: A Social Psychological Approach

The first part of this paper proposes a continuum of ideological premises that seeks to account for the broad range of immigrant integration policies adopted by Western democratic states. In the second part, a review of Social Psychological models of immigrant acculturation strategies demonstrates the need to explain more clearly the interactive nature of immigrant and host community relations. The Interactive Acculturation Model (IAM) presented next proposes that relational outcomes are the product of the acculturation orientations of both the host majority and immigrant groups as influenced by state integration policies. The model makes predictions regarding the acculturation combinations most likely to produce consensual, problematic, and conflictual relational outcomes between immigrants and members of the host community. Social psychological research is needed to test the validity of the IAM model empirically.     

Cut-free sequent and tableau systems for propositional Diodorean modal logics

We present sound, (weakly) complete and cut-free tableau systems for the propositional normal modal logicsS4.3, S4.3.1 andS4.14. When the modality is given a temporal interpretation, these logics respectively model time as a linear dense sequence of points; as a linear discrete sequence of points; and as a branching tree where each branch is a linear discrete sequence of points.Although cut-free, the last two systems do not possess the subformula property. But for any given finite set of formulaeX the superformulae involved are always bounded by a finite set of formulaeX* _L depending only onX and the logicL. Thus each system gives a nondeterministic decision procedure for the logic in question. The completeness proofs yield deterministic decision procedures for each logic because each proof is constructive.Each tableau system has a cut-free sequent analogue proving that Gentzen's cut-elimination theorem holds for these latter systems. The techniques are due to Hintikka and Rautenberg.Presented byDov M. Gabbay     

Post‐conversion experiences of native British converts to Islam

Research¹ has been carried out on native British converts to Islam. It was based on formal interviews with 70 converts to Islam, 50 males and 20 females. Interviews were done in various parts of England. The sample consïsted of 66 English, 3 Irish, and 1 Welsh. Fifty‐one had been Anglicans, 12 Catholics, 3 Methodists, and 4 Jews. The research was designed to find out the pre‐conversion, conversion, and post‐conversion experiences of the converts interviewed. The present article is part of the research, looking at the converts’ post‐conversion experiences with regard to intellectual, moral, and social changes, changes in beliefs and practices, behaviour, and social relations.     

Local and global factors of similarity in visual search

Effects of the similarity between target and distractors in a visual search task were investigated in several experiments. Both familiar (numerals and letters) and unfamiliar (connected figures in a 5 × 5 matrix) stimuli were used. The observer had to report on the presence or absence of a target among a variable number of homogeneous distractors as fast and as accurately as possible. It was found that physical difference had the same clear effect on processing time far familiar and for unfamiliar stimuli: processing time decreased monotonically with increasing physical difference. Distractors unrelated to the target and those related to the target by a simple transformation (180° rotation, horizontal or vertical reflection) were also compared, while the physical difference was kept constant. For familiar stimuli, transformational relatedness increased processing time in comparison with that fort unrelated stimulus pairs. It was further shown in a scaling experiment that this effect could be accounted for by the amount of perceived similarity of the target-distractor pairs. For unfamiliar stimuli, transformational relatedness did have a smaller and less pronounced effect. Various comparable unrelated distractors resulted in a full range of processing times. Results from a similarity scaling experiment correlated well with the outcome of the experiments with unfamiliar stimuli. These results are interpreted in terms of an underlying continuum of perceived similarity as the basis of the speed of visual search, rather than a dichotomy of parallel versus serial processing.     

Empirically defined symptom scales using the DISC 2.3

Empirically defined scales of depressive, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional-defiant disorder, and conduct symptoms from the lay-administered National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC), version 2.3, and evidence of their reliability and validity, are presented. The scales were developed using factor analyses of data obtained from an epidemiologic survey of over 1,200 children drawn from four sites across the U.S. and Puerto Rico (the NIMH Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders, or MECA Study). Their psychometric properties were tested in a subsample of children reinterviewed by clinicians. The findings support the use of these continuous measures. The scales are strongly related to the diagnostic categories and show good test-retest reliability. The scales can be used to characterize severity in children with diagnoses and to describe problems and symptoms in children without diagnoses. Because these scales can measure gradations in symptomatology, they may be more useful than categorical measures. Like categorical measures, the scales based on the DISC are greatly influenced by the informant, whether child or parent.This research was supported by grant MH-46732 from the National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland.The MECA Program is an epidemiologic methodology study performed by four independent research teams in collaboration with staff of the Division of Clinical Research, which was reorganized in 1992 with components now in the Division of Epidemiology and Services Research and the Division of Clinical and Treatment Research, of the NIMH, Rockville, Maryland. The NIMH Principal Collaborators are Darrel A. Regier, MD, MPH, Ben Z. Locke, MSPH, Peter S. Jensen, MD, William E. Narrow, MD, MPH, and Donald S. Rae, MA; the NIMH Project Officer was William J. Huber. The Principal Investigators and Coinvestigators from the four sites are as follows: Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, UO1 MH46725: Mina K. Dulcan, MD, Benjamin B. Lahey, PhD, Donna J. Brogan, PhD, Sherryl Goodman, PhD, and Elaine Flagg, PhD; Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene at New York State Psychiatric Institute (Columbia University), New York, New York, UO1 MH46718: Hector R. Bird, MD, David Shaffer, MD, Myrna Weissman, PhD, Patricia Cohen, PhD, Denise Kandel, PhD, Christina Hoven, PhD, Mark Davies, MPH, Madelyn S. Gould, PhD, and Agnes Whitaker, MD; Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, UO1MH46717: Mary Schwab-Stone, MD, Philip J. Leaf, PhD, Sarah Horwitz, PhD, and Judith H. Lichtman, MPH; University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico, UO1 MH46732: Glorisa Canino, PhD, Maritza Rubio-Stipec, MA, Milagros Bravo, PhD, Margarita Alegría, PhD, Julio Ribera, PhD, Sarah Huertas, MD, and Michael Woodbury, MD.The authors gratefully acknowledge Zenaida González and José Martínez who performed the data nalayses, as well as Elizabeth Pastrana, and Felícita Laboy, secretaries, for their valuable contributions to this work.     

Correlates of gender role orientation during pregnancy and the postpartum

This study was designed to examine the relationship between gender role orientation and psychological adjustment during pregnancy and the postpartum period in a large sample of French-speaking Caucasian mothers. Gender role was assessed with the Bem Sex Role Inventory, which classifies subjects into four categories: androgynous, masculine, feminine, and undifferentiated. A discriminant analysis showed a relationship between androgyny and the following measures of psychological adaptation: self-esteem, satisfaction with social support, and level of apprehension toward perinatal stressors. The masculine gender role was linked with self-esteem, work involvement, age, and severity of perinatal stress. No relationship was found between gender role and the level of antenatal or postnatal depressive symptomatology. Stress, marital support, and social support were among the predictors of postpartum depression, which underlined the importance of taking these variables into account when studying the well-being of mothers during the postnatal period. Results are discussed in light of previous literature on the association between gender role and motherhood. The limitations of Bem's model and inventory are also considered.