A Review and Meta‐Analysis Examining Conceptual and Operational Definitions of Problematic Internet Use

This study examined different conceptual and operational definitions of problematic Internet use (PIU). 3 perspectives of PIU are described along with a meta‐analytic review (K = 112) conducted to explore the implications stemming from how PIU is measured. The results offer evidence to support the construct validity of measures developed from the impulse control disorder and relationship resource deficits traditions but raise questions about substance dependence measures of PIU. Additionally, there were small but noteworthy differences in the associations between PIU and key antecedents and outcomes that could be attributed to PIU measurement tradition. Suggestions for developing a more robust body of scholarship on PIU are offered.     

Muslim attitudes and spirituality: relationships with Dark Triad and Harmony Control in Iranian teachers

Iranian teachers (N?=?250) responded to Muslim attitude and spirituality measures in a project testing the hypothesis that Muslim personality functioning will reflect beliefs in the beneficence of society and a consequent need to restrain personal desires. Muslim attitudes were especially noteworthy in displaying negative relationships with disturbances in personal restraint as represented by the Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, and Narcissism components of the Dark Triad. Muslim attitudes even more strongly predicted lower Machiavellianism and Psychopathy when Muslim spirituality was also high. Muslim attitudes and spirituality both correlated positively with at least some factors of a Harmony Control Scale that essentially presupposes beliefs in the beneficence of society. Although complexities appeared, these data supported the argument that aspects of Muslim personality functioning reflect beliefs in the beneficence of society.     

Study on a Christian Chinese sample: sense of self-worth,well-being and locus of control

The purpose of this study was to explore Chinese Christians’ sense of self-worth, well-being, locus of control and the correlations between these variables. One hundred and two Chinese Christians with a range of 18–40 years old were surveyed by the Scale of Self-worth, Chinese version of General Well-Being Scale and internal–external Locus of Control Scale. A control group of 134 Chinese non-Christians participated in the same survey. Christians scored lower on locus of control and higher on self-worth than the non-Christians. No significant general well-being difference was between the Christian and non-Christian samples. The correlations were significant between locus of control and self-worth/general well-being (negative) and between self-worth and general well-being (positive). Results suggest that Christians experience better self-worth and tend to be internals on locus of control.     

Multi-scale control influences sense of agency: Investigating intentional binding using event-control approach

Control exercised by humans through interactions with the environment is critical for sense of agency. Here, we investigate how control at multiple levels influence implicit sense of agency measured using intentional binding. Participants are asked to hit a moving target using a joystick with noisy control followed by an intentional binding task initiated by the target hitting action. Perceptual-motor level control was manipulated through noise in the joystick controller (experiment 1) and goal-level control in terms of feedback about successful hit (experiments 2a and 2b). In the first experiment, intentional binding increased with amount of joystick control only when goal was not achieved and independent otherwise suggesting that the two levels interact hierarchically. In the second experiment, the estimated duration was dependent on when participants knew about goal completion. The results are similar to those obtained with explicit measures of sense of agency indicating that multi-scale event control influences agency.     

The mindful eye: Smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements in meditators and non-meditators

BackgroundThis study examined the effects of cultivated (i.e. developed through training) and dispositional (trait) mindfulness on smooth pursuit (SPEM) and antisaccade (AS) tasks known to engage the fronto-parietal network implicated in attentional and motion detection processes, and the fronto-striatal network implicated in cognitive control, respectively.MethodsSixty healthy men (19–59 years), of whom 30 were experienced mindfulness practitioners and 30 meditation-naïve, underwent infrared oculographic assessment of SPEM and AS performance. Trait mindfulness was assessed using the self-report Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ).ResultsMeditators, relative to meditation-naïve individuals, made significantly fewer catch-up and anticipatory saccades during the SPEM task, and had significantly lower intra-individual variability in gain and spatial error during the AS task. No SPEM or AS measure correlated significantly with FFMQ scores in meditation-naïve individuals.ConclusionsCultivated, but not dispositional, mindfulness is associated with improved attention and sensorimotor control as indexed by SPEM and AS tasks.     

群体水平IRT模型及其应用——兼与IRT的比较

传统上,群体评估都是以个体的评估结果的平均值为基础进行的。而群体水平IRT理论则可以避开对个体的评估,直接实现对群体的评估,它具有许多传统方法难以企及的优点。本文将群体水平IRT模型应用于2007年某省高考英语阅读理解的410所学校的能力评估,评估结果发现：410所学校的英语阅读理解能力几乎都在[-1,1]区间内,没有能力极高或极低的学校。对这些学校而言,测验中所有项目的难度较易,区分度适中。所有的评估结果与IRT模型的评估结果在 的水平上相关显著,表明GIRT模型在实践中是可以选择的一种群体评估方法。     

Bringing out the agreeableness in everyone: Using a cognitive self-regulation model to reduce aggression

Research has shown that those individuals high in agreeableness recruit helpful thoughts in hostile contexts, presumably in the service of controlling aggressive behavior. The present experiment follows from such work, but importantly does so in a manner seeking to support causal conclusions. Participants were randomly assigned to an experimental training condition, in which hostile prime words were followed by helpful target words, or to a control condition that did not involve such pairings. Those assigned to the experimental condition subsequently exhibited lower levels of aggression in a laboratory task. Additional considerations and findings support the potential involvement of self-regulation processes. In general terms, the experiment reveals that a brief cognitive manipulation targeting processes thought to underlie aggression control was in fact causally effective in reducing subsequent levels of aggressive behavior.     

Strategy generalization across orientation tasks: testing a computational cognitive model

Humans use their spatial information processing abilities flexibly to facilitate problem solving and decision making in a variety of tasks. This article explores the question of whether a general strategy can be adapted for performing two different spatial orientation tasks by testing the predictions of a computational cognitive model. Human performance was measured on an orientation task requiring participants to identify the location of a target either on a map (find-on-map) or within an egocentric view of a space (find-in-scene). A general strategy instantiated in a computational cognitive model of the find-on-map task, based on the results from Gunzelmann and Anderson (2006) , was adapted to perform both tasks and used to generate performance predictions for a new study. The qualitative fit of the model to the human data supports the view that participants were able to tailor a general strategy to the requirements of particular spatial tasks. The quantitative differences between the predictions of the model and the performance of human participants in the new experiment expose individual differences in sample populations. The model provides a means of accounting for those differences and a framework for understanding how human spatial abilities are applied to naturalistic spatial tasks that involve reasoning with maps.     

Developing elementary science skills: Instructional effectiveness and path independence

We explore the immediate and longer term consequences of different types of instruction about a central topic in middle school science: the “Control of Variables Strategy” (CVS). CVS represents the procedural and conceptual basis for designing simple, unconfounded experiments, such that unambiguous causal inferences can be made. CVS appears to be what has been called a “developmentally-secondary” process, because even though infants and pre-schoolers can make simple causal inferences from data, middle school children do poorly at CVS unless they receive instruction on this important topic in the science curriculum. In this study, 72 third, fourth, and fifth-grade students were taught CVS via two instructional methods located at extreme points on the direct-to-discovery spectrum with respect to the amount of guidance, information, support, teacher control, and feedback provided during training. Our design included near- and far-transfer measures (at 1 week, 3 months and 3 years). There were two primary outcomes, both of which replicated and partially extended earlier work by Klahr and Nigam (2004) [Klahr, D., & Nigam, M. (2004). The equivalence of learning paths in early science instruction: Effects of direct instruction and discovery learning. Psychological Science, 15, 661–667] First, at each of the three grade levels, many more children learned CVS in the explicit condition than in the exploration condition. Second, but equally important, what students learned was a better predictor of far transfer than the way that they learned.     

Dimensions of control: Mediational analyses of the stress–health relationship

Multiple dimensions of control are examined in relations with stress and physical health outcomes. Factor analysis of six measures of control from 187 elderly individuals yielded two factors: Self-Efficacy, people’s beliefs about their ability to exercise control over themselves and their environment, and Need for Power and Autonomy, the desire to control others and exercise self-determination. Various hypotheses regarding the process by which control impacts the relationship between stress and health were then tested. Self-Efficacy partially mediated and moderated the relationship between stress and physical health, whereas the Need for Power and Autonomy served neither function. Self-efficacy appears to be a lens through which older adults view stress, affecting the way it is interpreted and managed, ultimately impacting health outcomes.