Measures of life stress and social support specific to an Asian student population

We designed two new measures—the Index of Life Stress (ILS) and the Index of Social Support (ISS)—to assist in the prediction of cultural adjustment for an Asian international student population. In the present study, these two measures were administered to 101 Asian international students. Stability estimates over 1 month were high: .97 for the ILS and .81 for the ISS. Construct validity, assessed via factor analyses, and concurrent validity, assessed via regression analyses to criteria of depression, hopelessness, and suicide ideation were satisfactory. Incremental validity for these two measures relative to extant measures of life stress and social support were computed. Results from these analyses indicated that these two measures added incrementally to the prediction of adjustment beyond that offered by existing measures.     

A psychometric examination of the multidimensional perfectionism scale

The Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS), developed by Frost, Marten, Lahart, and Rosenblate (1990), was constructed using an all female sample at an elite university. This study examined the psychometric properties of the instrument using a more typical sample (n=278) of college students from a large state university and a small liberal arts college, both located in the South. Significant differences were found on the overall MPS score as well as six of the seven subscales between this sample and that of Frostet al. No gender differences were found for any of the MPS scores. Internal reliability was found to be .88 for the total score, with subtests ranging from .57 to .95. Interscore correlations were relatively consistent with the Frostet al. sample except for a negative correlation between the PS subscale and the total score. There was a strong confirmation of the underlying factor structure reported by Frostet al. The overall impression was that the MPS is a psychometrically sound instrument of potential value in studying the construct of perfectionism.     

LONG-TERM FOLLOW-UP OF ECHOLALIA AND QUESTION ANSWERING

A long-term follow-up of echolalia and correct question answering was conducted for 6 subjects from three previously published studies. The follow-up periods ranged from 26 to 57 months. In a training site follow-up, subjects were exposed to baseline/posttraining conditions in which the original trainer and/or a novel person(s) presented trained and untrained questions. Four subjects displayed echolalia below baseline levels, and another did so in some assessments. Overall, echolalia was lower than in baseline in 80.6% of the follow-ups. Five subjects displayed correct responding above baseline levels. No clear differences were noted in correct responding or echolalia between the trainer and novel-person presentations or between trained and untrained questions. In a follow-up in a natural environment conducted by a novel person, lower than baseline levels of echolalia were displayed by 3 subjects; 2 subjects displayed lower than baseline levels in some assessments. Two subjects consistently displayed correct responding above baseline, and 3 did so occasionally. Issues related to the study of maintenance are discussed.     

Utilization and predicted trends of behavioral inventories

Published articles (N=1703) during the period 1975 to 1982 in three behavioral journals (Behavior Therapy, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, andJournal of Applied Behavior Analysis) were reviewed for the utilization of preintervention and categories of behavioral inventories. Results revealed that (a) the three forms of the Fear Survey Schedule (FSS) and the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SADS) were the most utilized traditional behavioral measures, (b) new self-developed inventories were reported with significantly (p<.05) different frequencies across the three journals, (c) numerous published inventories beyond the traditional FSS and SADS were reported, and (d) an expanded use of IQ measures in preintervention behavioral assessment was also found. Trends regarding the nature of behavioral inventories among the three journals and a discussion on advances in behavioral assessments are presented.     

Comparability of peer-assessment measures: A multitrait-multimethod and selection analytic approach

This research attempted to assess the relationship among the Pupil Evaluation Inventory (PEI), sociometric nominations, and sociometric ratings in terms of (1) a multitrait-multimethod analysis, (2) selection agreement indices of extreme individuals, and (3) stability over an 8-week period. Subjects were members of four second-grade classrooms at a regional school serving a diverse population of children. While stability estimates for measures were adequate and evidence for convergent validity was reasonably good, evidence for divergent validity was weaker. Selection agreement analyses yielded highly variable results, indicating that different samples of children tend to be selected by different instruments despite the similarity in dimensions being tapped. Methodological and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.This work was based on the first author's M.S. thesis under the direction of the second author.     

The relationship between differential stimulus relatedness and implicit measure effect sizes

Implicit measures have been hypothesized to allow researchers to ascertain the existence and strength of relations between stimuli, often in the context of research on attitudes. However, little controlled behavioral research has focused on whether stimulus relations, and the degree of relatedness within such relations, are indexed by implicit measures. The current study examined this issue using a behavior‐analytic implicit‐style stimulus relation indexing procedure known as the Function Acquisition Speed Test (FAST). Using a matching‐to‐sample (MTS) procedure to train stimulus equivalence relations between nonsense syllables, the number of iterations of the procedure was varied across groups of participants, hence controlling stimulus relatedness in the resulting equivalence relations. Following final exposure to the MTS procedure, participants completed a FAST. Another group of participants was exposed to a FAST procedure with word pairs of known relatedness. Results showed that increasing relatedness resulted in a linear increase in FAST effect size. These results provide the first direct empirical support for a key process‐level assumption of the implicit literature, and offer a behavior‐analytic paradigm within which to understand these effects. These results also suggest that the FAST may be a viable procedure for the quantification of emergent stimulus relations in stimulus equivalence training.     

Language development at 18 months is related to multimodal communicative strategies at 12 months

The present study investigated the degree to which an infants’ use of simultaneous gesture–speech combinations during controlled social interactions predicts later language development. Nineteen infants participated in a declarative pointing task involving three different social conditions: two experimental conditions (a) available, when the adult was visually attending to the infant but did not attend to the object of reference jointly with the child, and (b) unavailable, when the adult was not visually attending to neither the infant nor the object; and (c) a baseline condition, when the adult jointly engaged with the infant's object of reference. At 12 months of age measures related to infants’ speech-only productions, pointing-only gestures, and simultaneous pointing–speech combinations were obtained in each of the three social conditions. Each child's lexical and grammatical output was assessed at 18 months of age through parental report. Results revealed a significant interaction between social condition and type of communicative production. Specifically, only simultaneous pointing–speech combinations increased in frequency during the available condition compared to baseline, while no differences were found for speech-only and pointing-only productions. Moreover, simultaneous pointing–speech combinations in the available condition at 12 months positively correlated with lexical and grammatical development at 18 months of age. The ability to selectively use this multimodal communicative strategy to engage the adult in joint attention by drawing his attention toward an unseen event or object reveals 12-month-olds’ clear understanding of referential cues that are relevant for language development. This strategy to successfully initiate and maintain joint attention is related to language development as it increases learning opportunities from social interactions.     

On Association Coefficients for 2×2 Tables and Properties That Do Not Depend on the Marginal Distributions

We discuss properties that association coefficients may have in general, e.g., zero value under statistical independence, and we examine coefficients for 2×2 tables with respect to these properties. Furthermore, we study a family of coefficients that are linear transformations of the observed proportion of agreement given the marginal probabilities. This family includes the phi coefficient and Cohen’s kappa. The main result is that the linear transformations that set the value under independence at zero and the maximum value at unity, transform all coefficients in this family into the same underlying coefficient. This coefficient happens to be Loevinger’s H.     

非物质文化遗产跨国保护的法律对策

虽然国际社会对非物质文化遗产的保护进行了相关的立法,但是由于非物质文化遗产本身的特性和各国立法理念的差异,非物质文化遗产的跨国保护一直没有形成有效的机制。以至于出现了跨国侵犯非物质文化遗产权益的现象。我国拥有丰富的非物质文化遗产以及收集、保护的传统,同样面临着不断被外国组织或团体侵犯非物质文化遗产权益的现状。我国应当借鉴他国立法经验,进一步完善相关立法．积极参与国际规则的制定,提升非物质文化遗产的跨国保护水平。     

Implicit partner affect, relationship satisfaction, and the prediction of romantic breakup

The current research investigated the role of spontaneous partner feelings (implicit partner affect) in the dynamics of relationship satisfaction, commitment, and romantic dissolution. Participants completed a variant of the name-letter task as a measure of implicit partner affect, and self-report measures of relationship satisfaction and commitment. Approximately 4 months later, participants were contacted to assess their current relationship status. Overall, participants showed a biased preference for their partner’s initials (after adjusting for proper baselines), indicating the presence of positive implicit partner affect. Participants with more positive implicit partner affect were more satisfied with, but not more committed to, their relationship. Additionally, implicit partner affect exerted a significant indirect effect on relationship stability. These effects were independent of relationship length, age, and gender. Implications for the role of automatic affective processes in relationship processes and the utility of indirect measures for shedding light on relationship dynamics are discussed.