Comparing memory skill maintenance across the life span: preservation in adults, increase in children

The authors examined life-span differences in the maintenance of skilled episodic memory performance by assessing 100 individuals (10 -11, 12-13, 21-26, and 66-79 years old) 11 months after termination of an intensive multisession mnemonic training program (Y. Brehmer, S.-C. Li, V. Müller, T. von Oertzen, & U. Lindenberger, 2007). Skill maintenance was tested in 2 follow-up sessions, the first without and the second with mnemonic reinstruction. Younger and older adults' average performance levels were stable across time. In contrast, both younger and older children's memory performance improved beyond originally attained levels. Older adults' performance improved from the first to the second follow-up session, presumably profiting from instruction-induced skill reactivation. Results suggest that (a) skill maintenance is largely intact in healthy older adults, (b) older adults need environmental support to fully reactivate their former skill levels (cf. F. I. M. Craik, 1983), and (c) children adapt a skill learned 11 months ago to their increasing cognitive capabilities.     

Support and self-care: professional reflections of six New Zealand high school counsellors

In many Western societies there is increasing demand for counselling; in turn, heightened levels of support needs have been identified for counsellors themselves. Despite calls for practitioners to adopt a more proactive approach to self-care, research suggests many still pay insufficient attention to alleviating on-the-job stress or achieving ‘work–life balance’. These issues were examined within the context of inviting six high school counsellors in New Zealand to talk generally about their professional lives. The authors suggest findings support calls for counsellor education programmes to offer structured opportunities for trainees to reflect upon the task of discursively constructing professional roles.     

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.     

Predatory aggression in lines of wild mice selected for interfemale aggression

Mice descending from lines previously selected for high and low levels of interfemale aggression and from a nonselected control line were exposed to live crickets on two consecutive test days. Latencies both to attack and to eat the cricket were recorded. No line or sex differences in attacking were found, although latency to attack decreased over test days. Control line mice were more likely to engage in the eating of the cricket than either the high or low selected lines, suggesting that the selection procedure may have dissociated attacking and eating components of predatory behavior.     

Derived manding in children with autism: synthesizing Skinner's verbal behavior with relational frame theory

Mand functions for two stimuli (A1 and A2) were trained for 3 children with autism and were then incorporated into two related conditional discriminations (A1-B1/A2 -B2 and B1-C1/B2-C2). Tests were conducted to probe for a derived transfer of mand response functions from A1 and A2 to C1 and C2, respectively. When 1 participant failed to demonstrate derived transfer of mand response functions, transfer training using exemplars was conducted. When participants had demonstrated derived transfer of mand functions, the X1 and X2 tokens that were employed as reinforcers for mand responses were incorporated into two conditional discriminations (X1-Y1/X2-Y2 and Y1-Z1/Y2-Z2). Tests were conducted for derived transfer of reinforcing functions. Finally, tests were conducted to determine if the participants would demonstrate derived manding for the derived reinforcers (present C1 and C2 to mand for Z1 and Z2, respectively). Derived transfer of functions was observed when the sequence of training and testing was reversed (i.e., training and testing reinforcing functions before mand response functions) and when only minimal instructions were provided.