How Does the Neighborhood “Come through the Door?” Concentrated Disadvantage,Residential Instability,and the Home Environment for Preschoolers

Living in a disadvantaged neighborhood is associated with heightened risk for poor school readiness and health outcomes in early childhood, and the home environment is thought to be a primary mechanism by which neighborhood context impacts preschoolers. This study examined the effects of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage and neighborhood residential instability on the home physical environment and home learning environment for preschoolers in economically disadvantaged families (N = 187). Using structural equation modeling, mothers' perceived neighborhood disorder and depressive symptoms were examined as mechanisms by which neighborhood context “comes through the door.” Mothers' neighborhood social embeddedness was also explored as a protective factor. Results showed that concentrated disadvantage was negatively associated with the quality of the home physical environment, and residential instability was negatively associated with the quality of the home learning environment. Concentrated disadvantage had an indirect effect on the home learning environment through mothers' perceived neighborhood disorder and depressive symptoms. The effects of concentrated disadvantage on the home environment were buffered by mothers' neighborhood social embeddedness. Study findings advance understanding of socioeconomic‐ and place‐based disparities in developmental outcomes and identify potential targets for interventions aimed at lessening effects of neighborhood disadvantage on families with young children.     

Relationships between anxiety,self-consciousness,and cognitive failure

Abstract

Two studies of correlates of the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) are reported. The first study tested for empirical personality correlates of the CFQ; the second study investigated the role of self-consciousness as a possible mediator of the association betyeen cognitive failures and stress vulnerability. Study 1 (n = 60) showed significant correlations between CFQ score and several 16PF primary and secondary traits, notably anxiety. Study 2 (n = 100) used multiple regression to verify the hypothesis that the positive association between CFQ score and anxiety is at least partially mediated by individual differences in self-consciousness. It is concluded that high CFQ subjects are vulnerable to stress because self-attentional processing disrupts their coping strategies.     

Effects of Weight and Syntactic Priming on the Production of Cantonese Verb-Doubling

Verb-doubling, where a copy of the main verb occurs both before and after the direct object, is a structure commonly used in Chinese in sentences containing a frequency or duration phrase. In Cantonese, verb-doubling is highly optional and therefore problematic for existing syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic accounts of its distribution in Mandarin. The current study investigates the role of grammatical weight and syntactic priming in the choice of verb-doubling in Cantonese. Following (Hawkins in Efficiency and complexity in grammars, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004) theory of efficiency and complexity in grammars, we hypothesized that speakers would choose verb-doubling over the canonical structure more often when the object NP was heavy, in order to minimize processing domains. In addition, we expected an effect of syntactic priming whereby the choice of structure is influenced by a previously encountered structure. The results of two elicited production experiments revealed no weight-based preference for verb-doubling, and only minor effects of grammatical weight, but clear effects of syntactic priming: (1) for both canonical primes and verb-doubling primes, speakers tended to repeat previously heard structures; (2) the priming effect was just as strong in the heavy NP condition, where speakers made more errors recalling the semantic content of the sentence, suggesting that semantic information is represented separately from syntactic information; (3) the priming effect was stronger for informationally accurate responses, suggesting that recently activated structures are easier to produce than other structures under conditions of increased cognitive load. We conclude that the choice between verb-doubling and canonical structure in Cantonese is easily influenced by the structure of recently encountered sentences, with weight effects, if any, being more difficult to detect.     

Something in the way we move: Motion dynamics, not perceived sex, influence head movements in conversation

During conversation, women tend to nod their heads more frequently and more vigorously than men. An individual speaking with a woman tends to nod his or her head more than when speaking with a man. Is this due to social expectation or due to coupled motion dynamics between the speakers? We present a novel methodology that allows us to randomly assign apparent identity during free conversation in a video-conference, thereby dissociating apparent sex from motion dynamics. The method uses motion-tracked synthesized avatars that are accepted by naive participants as being live video. We find that 1) motion dynamics affect head movements but that apparent sex does not; 2) judgments of sex are driven almost entirely by appearance; and 3) ratings of masculinity and femininity rely on a combination of both appearance and dynamics. Together, these findings are consistent with the hypothesis of separate perceptual streams for appearance and biological motion. In addition, our results are consistent with a view that head movements in conversation form a low level perception and action system that can operate independently from top-down social expectations.     

The Moderating Effect of Anxiety on Development in Atypically Developing Toddlers

In typically developing children, researchers have found that anxiety disorders are associated with poorer intellectual abilities (Davis et al. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment 30:43–51, 2008). The aim of the current study was to examine the impact anxiety symptoms had on the developmental quotients of toddlers. A total of 170 toddlers ranging in age from 17 to 37 months were selected for inclusion in this study, all of whom were at risk for or had a developmental delay. Two factors indicative of behavioral symptoms of anxiety from the Baby and Infant Screen for Children with aUtIsm Traits-Part2 were utilized as the independent variables and the total developmental quotient from the Battelle Developmental Inventory, 2nd Edition was utilized for the dependent variable. Examination of results revealed that atypically developing toddlers with symptoms of anxiety had significantly lower developmental quotients when compared to toddlers without any anxiety symptoms. A discussion of the implications and limitations of this study are included.     

An exploratory study of differences in emotional intelligence in U.S. and Norwegian undergraduate students

The present study explored sex and cultural differences in Emotional Intelligence scores in samples from Norway (n = 297) and the United States (n = 234). Significant main effects for sex were found in overall Emotional Intelligence scores and the Empathy factor. In addition, results revealed a small but significant effect for culture in the Self-control factor, as well as support for an interaction between sex and culture in the Handling Relationships factor. The results are discussed in light of cultural differences between U.S. and Norwegian societies.     

Children's Production of Unfamiliar Word Sequences Is Predicted by Positional Variability and Latent Classes in a Large Sample of Child-Directed Speech

We explore whether children's willingness to produce unfamiliar sequences of words reflects their experience with similar lexical patterns. We asked children to repeat unfamiliar sequences that were identical to familiar phrases (e.g., A piece of toast) but for one word (e.g., a novel instantiation of A piece of X, like A piece of brick). We explore two predictions-motivated by findings in the statistical learning literature-that children are likely to have detected an opportunity to substitute alternative words into the final position of a four-word sequence if (a) it is difficult to predict the fourth word given the first three words and (b) the words observed in the final position are distributionally similar. Twenty-eight 2-year-olds and thirty-one 3-year-olds were significantly more likely to correctly repeat unfamiliar variants of patterns for which these properties held. The results illustrate how children's developing language is shaped by linguistic experience.     

Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace: A Critical Review

Cet article est une revue critique des théories et résultats empiriques favorables à l'intelligence émotionelle (I.E.) et à son prétendu rôle dans l'environnement professionnel. On s'intéresse au statut supposé de l'I.E. dans la performance au travail, la satisfaction et l'évaluation de la carrière et des compétences (surtout dans la domaine de la sélection et de l'orientation). Globalement, cette revue de questions prouve que les recherches récentes ont fait de grands pas dans la comprehénsion de l'utilité de l'I.E. au travail. Les preuves strictement scientifiques sont cependant insuffisantes, la littérature accordant une confiance excessive aux avis d'experts, aux anecdotes, aux études de cas et aux enquêtes privées non publiées. On propose, à la fin de l'article, quelques directives pratiques pour favoriser le développement et l'utilisation de mesures de l'I.E. dans les situations professionnelles.
This paper critically reviews conceptualisations and empirical evidence in support of emotional intelligence (EI) and its claimed role in the occupational environment. Consideration is given to the purported status of EI in occupational and career assessment (with particular emphasis on personnel selection and placement), job performance, and satisfaction. Overall, this review demonstrates that recent research has made important strides towards understanding the usefulness of EI in the workplace. However, the ratio of hyperbole to hard evidence is high, with over-reliance in the literature on expert opinion, anecdote, case studies, and unpublished proprietary surveys. The review concludes by providing a number of practical guidelines for the development and implementation of EI measures within occupational settings.