Was it designed to do that? Children's focus on intended function in their conceptualization of artifacts

Do young children who seek the conceptual kind of an artifact weigh the plausibility that a current function constitutes the function intended by the object designer? Three- and four-year-olds were encouraged to question adults about novel artifacts. After inquiring about what an object was, some children were shown a function that plausibly accounted for the structural features of the object; others were shown a possible, but implausible function. Children given implausible functions were less satisfied with these responses than those given plausible functions, as shown by their more persistent attempts to ask follow-up questions about function. Accordingly, preschoolers appear to take into account matters of intentional design when assigning artifacts to conceptual kinds.     

The Antecedent and Consequence of Person–Organization Fit: Ingratiation,similarity, hiring recommendations and job offer

This study investigates how the ingratiation and perceived similarity of a job applicant can affect the judgment of an interviewer in determining person–organization fit (P–O fit), hiring recommendations and the job offer during a job interview. Data were collected from 144 interviewers and 184 applicants from 28 companies in Taiwan. The results suggest that applicant ingratiation has a positive effect on an interviewer's perceived similarity with the applicant, and that this perceived similarity mediates the relationship between applicant ingratiation and the interviewer's judgment of the applicant's P–O fit. The results further suggest that the relationship between the interviewer's judgment of the applicant's P–O fit and the job offer is mediated by hiring recommendations. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Educating the Whole Child: Implications of Behaviorism as a Science of Meaning

New conceptions of what constitutes meaning for the organism have recently arisen within the behavioral tradition. These conceptions are a function of reformulations of traditional topics such as reinforcement and verbal behavior. This paper will review these reformulations and discuss their implications for education. It is argued that teachers are in need of a more comprehensive framework for understanding human behavior than the technique-based behaviorism to which they are frequently exposed. The present paper suggests that advances in our understanding of choice behavior and verbal behavior put us within reach of a comprehensive framework for making sense of the interconnectedness of social, self, and academic 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.     

Zur Differenzierung zwischen unsicheren und aggressiven Teilnehmern beim Gruppentraining Sozialer Kompetenzen (GSK) im Straf- und Maßregelvollzug

The cognitive-behavioural group training for social competence “GSK” [16] has proven to also be effective in the penal system [28]. The present study examines if a targeted differentiating assessment prior to the intervention and a thereon based homogeneous group composition with regard to insecure and aggressive behaviour patterns can enhance the effectiveness of the “GSK” in the penal system and in a forensic hospital unit. Altogether 48 male delinquents across both settings were therefore divided into a “homogeneous insecure” group, a “homogeneous aggressive” group and a “heterogeneous” group. Pre-post-comparisons show that the intervention is effective for all three groups and also in both settings, the penal system and the forensic hospital unit. The “homogeneous aggressive” group revealed the strongest intervention effects.     

A Mutually Facilitative Relationship Between Learning Names and Learning Concepts in Preschool Children: The Case of Artifacts

Two studies investigated the relationship between learning names and learning concepts in preschool children. More specifically, we focused on the relationship between learning the names and learning the intended functions of artifacts, given that the intended function of an artifact is generally thought to constitute core conceptual information about an artifact's category. We asked whether learning the intended function of a novel artifact facilitates retention of its name and whether learning the name of a novel artifact prompts the search for information about its intended function. In Experiment 1, 3- and 4-year-old children better retained the names of novel artifacts when the intended functions of these artifacts were revealed. The comparison condition involved providing perceptually relevant and conceptually irrelevant information about the objects. In Experiment 2, 4-year-old children who were provided with the names of novel artifacts were more likely to seek out information about the objects' functions than children provided with conceptually irrelevant information about the artifacts. Together, the studies demonstrate the intimate and mutually facilitative relationship between names and concepts in young children.     

Contextual factors in neophobia and its habituation: The role of absolute and relative novelty

In four experiments we investigated the role of contextual cues in the habituation of neophobia in rats. Experiment 1 showed that the consumption of a novel flavour increased across a series of presentations in one context (A) but fell when the flavour was subsequently presented in a second, novel, context (B). In Experiments 2 and 3, subjects again received exposure to a flavour in context A, but also were familiarized with the test context, B. These subjects consumed the flavour with equal readiness, whether it was presented in Context A or in Context B at test. Experiment 4 replicated the results of Experiment 1 and also showed that the consumption of a novel flavour was not influenced by whether it was presented in a novel or a familiar context. Several mechanisms by which the novelty or familiarity of the context might interact with the novelty or familiarity of the flavour were discussed.     

A puzzling misinterpretation of the Asch ‘conformity’ study

In this article, we examine the interpretations by social psychologists of Asch's widely cited study of independence and conformity. Though it has become known as the ‘Asch Conformity Study’, Asch equally, if not more, intended and interpreted it as demonstrating the powers of independence. The evidence for this analysis consists of 99 accounts in social psychology textbooks published between 1953, following the appearance of his study, and 1984. We asked whether these accounts were accurate, or whether, as we suspected, they minimized the role of independence and exaggerated that of conformity. We found that authors have often distorted Asch's findings, and that this trend has increased substantially with time: they have increasingly accentuated the role of conformity and underestimated that of independence. We suggest several reasons for this distortion. For one, there has been insufficient care in reading the findings and drawing conclusions. Second, authors have generally limited themselves to reports of quantitative results. Although these were strong and beyond question, authors have usually neglected the intimately connected qualitative findings, which would have discouraged the misinterpretations. Third, the study of Asch was an integral part of his perspective on social psychology, which authors again ignored, thus encouraging a limited and out-of-context view of his study. We conclude with a thematic presentation of Asch's general theoretical framework, showing how it bears on independence and conformity.