At-risk children's causal inferences given emotional feedback and their understanding of the excuse-giving process

Italian male school children, ranging in age from 7 to 10 years, were identified as at-risk children on the basis of self-reports, teacher questionnaires, and peer nominations assessing aggression, emotional instability, and pro-social behaviour. Together with a normal control sample, these children participated in two studies guided by attribtional theory. In Study 1, following teacher emotional feedback of anger or sympathy for failure, attributional inferences regarding low ability or lack of effort as the cause of that failure were rated. In Study 2, controllable and uncontrollable causes of a social transgression were given, and participants rated the anticipated anger of the ‘victim’ and their intention to withhold or reveal the cause. Strong effects for both populations that were consistent with attributional predictions were reported. In addition, differences between the inferences, expectations, and behavioural intentions of the populations were found, with at-risk children being less likely to perceive sympathy as a cue for low ability, and anticipating more anger from others following a transgression, particularly when there was a ‘good’ (i.e. uncontrollable) reason for the broken social agreement. It was contended that the results support the social-cognitive approach to the understanding of mechanisms of risk and deviancy.     

Realismbei Frege: Reply to Burge

Frege is celebrated as an arch-Platonist and arch-realist. He is renowned for claiming that truths of arithmetic are eternally true and independent of us, our judgments and our thoughts; that there is a third realm containing nonphysical objects that are not ideas. Until recently, there were few attempts to explicate these renowned claims, for most philosophers thought the clarity of Frege's prose rendered explication unnecessary. But the last ten years have seen the publication of several revisionist interpretations of Frege's writings — interpretations on which these claims receive a very different reading. In Frege on Knowing the Third Realm, Tyler Burge attempts to undermine this trend. Burge argues that Frege is the very Platonist most have thought him — that revisionist interpretations of Frege's Platonism, mine among them, run afoul of the words on Frege's pages. This paper is a response to Burge's criticisms. I argue that my interpretation is more faithful than Burge's to Frege's texts.     

Clinical considerations in the conjoint use of the Rorschach and the MMPI

Contemporary clinical and research findings concerning the Rorschach and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) indicate that (a) objectivity and subjectivity are relative and not categorical dimensions of these two instruments; (b) apparent contradictions between Rorschach and MMPI results are generative and not invalidating; (c) within limits, false negative findings are not cause for concern in the clinical application of Rorschach and MMPI variables; and (d) differences between the Rorschach and the MMPI in how they are structured and what they measure demonstrate considerable advantage in using them in complementary fashion to support clinical inferences.     

Selection of consultees in school mental health consultation

To further understanding regarding the selection of teacher consultees, 15 mental health consultants completed a questionnaire. Consultants ranked teachers in their school consultation placements on ability to meet academic and socioemotional needs of children, receptivity to change, and likability. Next, after indicating which teachers they would most and least like to work with, consultants rated the teachers on nine 5-point rating scales. In general, results indicate that most preferred consultees, in comparison to least preferred consultees, are perceived as less needy of assistance around issues concerning children and lessons, more responsive to consultation, and more likable. It appears that teachers most in need of assistance are not selected for consultation.     

Feasibility of telecognitive assessment in dementia

Videoconferencing (VC) technology has been used successfully to provide psychiatric services to patients in rural and otherwise underserved settings. VC-based diagnostic interviewing has shown good agreement with conventional face-to-face diagnosis of dementia in several investigations, but extension of this technology to neurocognitive assessment has received little attention. To this end, the authors administered a brief battery of common neuropsychological tests via VC technology (telecognitive) and traditional face-to-face methods to 14 older persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 19 persons with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD). Highly similar test scores were obtained when participants were tested in-person or via VC. Telecognitive assessment appears to be a valid means to conduct neuropsychological evaluation of older adults with cognitive impairment. Furthermore, continued development of VC technology has implications for expanding neuropsychological assessment options in under-served populations.     

Self-concept and violent delinquency in urban African-American adolescent males

African-American adolescent males experience a disproportionate rate of victimization associated with and arrest for violent crime. This study examined the between self-concept and violent delinquency within a group of 155 urban African-American adolescent males. Walter Reckless's 1967 containment theory, which suggest that a positive self-concept will insulate a juvenile from delinquency and crime, served as the theoretical frame of reference. The participants included 155 African-American males aged 13 to 19 years who completed the Adolescent Life Survey, developed by the investigators, and the Tennessee Self-concept Scale. Quantitative measurments of self-concept and delinquency were obtained. In general, the findings did not support containment theory. However, the study does present new data regarding serious violent delinquency.     

Considerations in collecting Rorschach reference data

Recent Rorschach research with nonpatients has yielded reference data that differ in several respects from nonpatient normative data published for the Comprehensive System (Exner, 1995). Conclusions concerning the implications of these new findings are premature, however, pending careful consideration of appropriate guidelines for collecting Rorschach reference data. In proposing guidelines for future research of this kind, I note (a) that the relatively unstructured nature of Rorschach assessment may complicate obtaining useful data from nonpatient volunteers, (b) that normative studies should include various types of patient as well as nonpatient samples, and (c) that identification of psychological disturbance from Rorschach protocols may be guided more accurately by how closely a record resembles the records of patients with certain disturbances than by how much the record differs from the records of nonpatients.     

Entrepreneurship in young adults: Initial findings from the young entrepreneurs study

The scientific study of youth entrepreneurship is truly in its infancy, with research on the development of entrepreneurship constrained by theoretical foundations that rely on static, trait-like approaches that equate entrepreneurship with stable personality characteristics. In this article, we define entrepreneurship as a fluid process that relies on the bidirectional interplay between a developing individual and his or her context. We report initial findings from the Young Entrepreneurs Study that clarify how entrepreneurial intentions and actions manifest in youth. We present quantitative analyses that examined the relations between entrepreneurial strengths and entrepreneurial activities in a sample of 3461 college students, and we describe the results of semi-structured interviews from a 48-person subset of our larger sample that explored how entrepreneurial intentions and actions manifested in our sample. We describe a mixed-method triangulation that integrates these two sets of findings, then discuss implications for future research.