At the interface of social cognition and psychometrics: Manipulating the sex of the reference class modulates sex differences in personality traits

Psychometric surveys suggest that sex differences in personality are minimal. Herein, we argue that (a) the mind is likely biased toward assessing oneself relative to same-sex others, and (b) this bias may affect the measurement of sex differences in personality. In support of this, an experiment demonstrates modulation of sex differences on the HEXACO facets by manipulating the sex of the “reference class”—the group of people subjects compare themselves to when making self-assessments on survey items. Although patterns varied across traits, sex differences were relatively small in the “unspecified” and “same-sex” reference class conditions—but substantially larger in the “opposite-sex” condition. These findings point to a same-sex comparison bias that may impact the measurement of sex differences in personality.     

The role of detection and recollection of change in list discrimination

In two experiments, we examined the importance of the detection and recollection of change for list discrimination. Two lists of pairs were presented, with the right-hand member being changed between lists for some pairs. Participants in Experiment 1 were instructed to explicitly indicate when they detected a change between pairs during the presentation of List 2, whereas participants in Experiment 2 were not instructed to do so. At the time of test, participants in both experiments were presented with a pair and asked whether it had been presented in List 2. Next, recollection of change was measured by asking whether the right-hand member of the pair was changed between the lists. The results from Experiment 1 revealed high correspondence between the detection of change during the presentation of List 2 and the recollection of change at the time of test. Consequently, change recollection at test can serve as a measure of earlier change detection, in combination with access to memory for change at the time of test. In both experiments, as compared to control conditions, proactive facilitation in list discrimination was observed when change was recollected, whereas proactive interference was observed when change was not recollected. These results were interpreted as showing that recursive reminding—bringing a List 1 pair to mind during the presentation of its changed List 2 pair—embeds memory for the earlier event into memory for the later event, and doing so preserves information about list membership.     

The reality of the past versus the ideality of the future: emotional valence and functional differences between past and future mental time travel

Mental time travel (MTT) is the ability to mentally project oneself backward or forward in time in order to remember an event from one’s personal past or to imagine a possible event in one’s personal future. Past and future MTT share many similarities, and there is evidence to suggest that the two temporal directions rely on a shared neural network and similar cognitive structures. At the same time, one major difference between past and future MTT is that future as compared to past events generally are more emotionally positive and idyllic, suggesting that the two types of event representations may also serve different functions for emotion, self, and behavioral regulation. Here, we asked 158 participants to remember one positive and one negative event from their personal past as well as to imagine one positive and one negative event from their potential personal future and to rate the events on phenomenological characteristics. We replicated previous work regarding similarities between past and future MTT. We also found that positive events were more phenomenologically vivid than negative events. However, across most variables, we consistently found an increased effect of emotional valence for future as compared to past MTT, showing that the differences between positive and negative events were larger for future than for past events. Our findings support the idea that future MTT is biased by uncorrected positive illusions, whereas past MTT is constrained by the reality of things that have actually happened.     

Atomistic simulations of cross-slip of jogged screw dislocations in copper

We have performed atomic-scale simulations of cross-slip processes of screw dislocations in copper, simulating jog-free dislocations as well as different types of jogged screw dislocations. Minimum-energy paths and corresponding transition state energies are obtained using the nudged-elastic-band path technique. We find low barriers and effective masses for the conservative motion along the dislocations of elementary jogs on both ordinary {111}<110> and nonoctahedral {110}<110> slip systems. The jogs are found to be constricted and therefore effectively act as pre-existing constrictions; the cross-slip activation energy is thereby dramatically reduced, yielding values in agreement with experiment.     

The emergence of brain and mind amid chaos through maximum‐power evolution

A new brain algorithm based Neurological Positivism (NP) is described that is reconcilable with emergent evolution. The maximum‐power evolution of brain and mind amid chaos is described. It is proposed that with the maximum‐power evolution of mind (a) a chaotic/fractal dynamical algorithmic isomorphy among world, brain, and mind is erected, and (b) we witness the origin of the mechanism of evolutionary epistemology—the origin of knowing energy. The maximum‐power evolution of symbols is described as resulting from features of chaos and fractal geometry. Finally, a neurological positivistic explanation of the workability of mathematics in the real world is proposed.     

A Review of: Growing Up With Autism: Working With School-Age Children and Adolescents With Autism,edited by Robin L. Gabriels and Dina E. Hill (Eds.).

The influence of adult presence, peer smiling, and peer praise on the unprogrammed generalization of physical sharing over time was investigated. During free play three groups of five preschool children were taught to share toys via a behavioral training package composed of instructions, modeling, behavior rehearsal, prompts, and praise. Immediately following free play the children were given art materials and observed in the presence of different adults. An ABA design with a manipulation of adult presence nested within east phase was used. For all three groups, regardless of the adult presence manipulation, treatment facilitated sharing in both settings. In addition, two groups continued to share in both settings after termination of the training. The presence of an adult was necessary for unprogrammed maintenance of treatment gains in both settings whereas peer smiling and peer praise were not. Observer presence suppressed physical sharing and smiling prior to, during, and after treatment. Implications for behavioral assessment and applied significance are discussed.     

Instructional Patterns in Science An Exploratory Study

This article describes a re-analysis of a national study of instructional practices in seventh- and eighth-grade science classes. Responses from a subset (n = 81) of Christian-school teachers taken from the original study population (n = 543) was analyzed to determine what instructional practices predominated in Christian-school science classes. Results indicate the use of a variety of both teacher- and student-centered instructional approaches by science teachers in Christian schools.     

Adventist Perspectives on Faith Integration: Subject Index for Christ in the Classroom,Volumes 21–40

Abstract

This article presents a bibliography of essays from the Christ in the Classroom collection, organized by subject. The essays focus on various aspects of the intersection of faith and academic fields of study. This article presents the subject index for volumes 21 through 40 of the collection, including volumes produced in the French, Portuguese, and Spanish languages. The index for volumes 1–20 was printed in 2017. All essays listed here are freely available for download at http://ChristInTheClassroom.org/.     

Instructional Practices in Fifth-through Eighth-grade Science Classrooms of a Selected Seventh-day Adventist Conference

This investigation focused on instructional practices within fifth- through eighth-grade science classes of selected Seventh-day Adventist schools. Teachers reported regular use of discussion, student projects, and tests or quizzes. Most respondents said they did not feel prepared or had “never heard of” inquiry, the learning cycle, or constructivism. Over half the respondents felt discussion, student-projects, and hands-on laboratory work were effective instructional practices in science classrooms. Learning cycle and constructivism were described by most respondents as “not at all” effective; many respondents had “never heard of” these same two instructional approaches.     

Old dogs,new tricks – Rethinking country‐image studies

In international marketing, countries are often conceptualised as image constructs that have an influence on product image formation. Destination image and country of origin image are held to account for bias in consumer perceptions towards products because of the country from which they originate. Studies in these areas are typically underpinned by attitude‐based Likert or semantic differential scale methods, analysed using structural equation models. This paper achieves two key outcomes. Firstly, it adds to the small but growing body of literature that looks at the impact of tourism on post‐tour, export product evaluations. Secondly, it compares this traditional attitude‐based approach to country‐image studies with an alternative associative network theory approach, operationalised with a free‐choice, pick‐any survey method, which is popular within the branding literature. We compare the two methods by applying each to the same set of respondents to establish if the two methods are complementary, and find they produce different outcomes that could have critical implications for how country‐image studies are conceptualised and executed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.