Self-Interest, Symbolic Attitudes, and Support for Public Policy: A Multilevel Analysis

This paper examines the role of self-interest and symbolic attitudes as predictors of support for two domestic policy issues—guaranteed jobs and incomes and national health insurance—in the American National Election Survey (ANES) between 1972 and 2004. As was the case in 1976 when Sears, Lau, Tyler, and Allen (1980 ) first explored this topic, symbolic attitudes continue to be much more important predictors of policy attitudes than various indicators of self-interest over the 30 years we analyze. We explore this finding further to determine whether any individual/internal and external/contextual variables affect the magnitude of self-interest effects on policy support. Five possible internal moderators of self-interest effects are examined: (1) political knowledge, (2) issue publics, (3) political values, (4) social identifications, and (5) emotions, but none are found to boost the magnitude of the self-interest effect. However, we do find some evidence that contextual variables representing the social/information environment moderate the impact of self-interest on public opinion.     

小学儿童互选友谊的发展趋势及攻击行为的影响：3年追踪研究

对小学3、4年级的285名儿童进行了3年追踪调查,分析了儿童分别与男、女生互选友谊数的变化趋势及其在个体间的差异,探讨了外部攻击和关系攻击分别对两类互选友谊数的影响。结果表明：（1）儿童的男、女生互选友谊数在3年时间内都有显著的增加趋势,并表现出显著的性别差异,儿童与同性互选友谊数显著多于他们与异性的互选友谊数,男生与女生互选友谊数的增加速度比女生与女生互选友谊数增加速度慢,儿童与男生的互选友谊数越多,他/她与女生的互选友谊数就越少,表明了性别隔离现象的存在。（2）在控制了关系攻击的影响后,儿童的外部攻击对他们在各时间点测得的与女生的互选友谊数有显著的消极影响,而对他们与男生的互选友谊数影响不显著;在控制了外部攻击的影响后,儿童的关系攻击对他们在各时间点测得的与女生的互选友谊数有显著的积极影响,而对他们与男生的互选友谊数影响不显著。这说明外部攻击和关系攻击对儿童互选友谊数的影响存在性别差异     

3~5岁儿童母亲抚养压力类型特点及其影响因素

通过对6021名3~5岁儿童母亲抚养压力进行潜在剖面分析,探讨母亲抚养压力的类型特点及其影响因素.结果表明:(1)3~5岁儿童母亲的抚养压力可以分为五类:低压力型(22.31%,指来自儿童发展和自身承担母亲角色的压力均最低)、适度压力型(38.17%,指来自两方面的压力均处于平均水平)、高儿童侧面压力型(26.39%,指来自儿童发展的压力较高)、高家长侧面压力型(8.62%,指来自母亲角色的压力较高)和高综合压力型(4.52%,指来自两方面的压力均最高);(2)生育年龄和家庭收入较低的母亲更可能属于高儿童侧面压力型,对儿童期望较高的母亲更可能属于高家长侧面压力型;学历较低、夫妻关系较差的母亲更可能属于高儿童侧面、高家长侧面和高综合压力型.     

动机性视角与认知加工视角下三重自我的层级关系

自我并非是一个单一的、整体的认知结构,至少包含3个基本的自我表征形式:个体自我、关系自我与集体自我。从动机性视角出发,3种自我的层级关系存在4种可能的假设:(1)个体自我首要性假设;(2)关系自我首要性假设;(3)集体自我首要性假设;(4)情境性假设。以往动机性视角出发的研究偏向于支持个体自我首要性假设,但其结论仍需通过进一步考察其他可能变量的作用而加以验证。从认知视角考虑三重自我的层级关系时,以往的研究结果并不统一,缺乏同时比较个体自我、关系自我、集体自我的层级关系的整合性研究。今后需要重点探索将三重自我整合起来的新的实验范式,从而有助于对三重自我层级关系的分析与探究。     

工作投入的短期波动

随着研究取向从静态到动态、从个体间到个体内部的转变, 工作投入的短期波动开始成为研究主流。针对国内尚未涉及工作投入波动研究的现状, 将引入状态性工作投入的概念, 并分析其波动的理论和构成来源。介绍了状态性工作投入的测量工具、日记研究和经验取样方法, 以及重复测量的多层线性模型。在分析现有工作投入波动理论、相关变量和边界条件的基础上, 构建了工作投入的研究框架, 总结了工作投入波动的形式。     

Effects of classroom organization on letter-word reading in first grade

Teacher organization is a crucial part of classroom functioning; however, its relation to student achievement has not been investigated as extensively as that of instruction. In this study, organization is defined as the amount of time teachers spend explaining the purpose and procedures of learning activities and daily routines. Data from first-grade classrooms (N = 44) observed three times during the school year (fall, winter, and spring) are analyzed, along with students' (N = 108) literacy skills at fall and spring. Hierarchical Linear Modeling reveals that, controlling for students' fall word reading and vocabulary skills, as well as amount of language arts instruction they receive, both amount and change in amount over time in classroom organization significantly predicts spring word reading skills. Specifically, children in classrooms observed in higher amounts of classroom time in organization at the beginning of the school year, followed by sharp decreases over the school year, demonstrated stronger letter and word reading skills by spring, and this was a main effect (p < .05). Practical and research implications are discussed.     

ASSOCIATIVE SYMMETRY,ANTISYMMETRY, AND A THEORY OF PIGEONS' EQUIVALENCE‐CLASS FORMATION

Five experiments assessed associative symmetry in pigeons. In Experiments 1A, 1B and 2, pigeons learned two‐alternative symbolic matching with identical sample‐ and comparison‐response requirements and with matching stimuli appearing in all possible locations. Despite controlling for the nature of the functional stimuli and insuring all requisite discriminations, there was little or no evidence for symmetry. By contrast, Experiment 3 demonstrated symmetry in successive (go/no‐go) matching, replicating the findings of Frank and Wasserman (2005). In view of these results, I propose that in successive matching, (1) the functional stimuli are stimulus‐temporal location compounds, (2) continual nonreinforcement of some sample‐comparison combinations juxtaposed with reinforcement of other combinations throughout training facilitates stimulus class formation, (3) classes consist of the elements of the reinforced combinations, and (4) common elements produce class merger. The theory predicts that particular sets of training relations should yield “antisymmetry”: Pigeons should respond more to a reversal of the nonreinforced symbolic baseline relations than to a reversal of the reinforced relations. Experiment 4 confirmed this counterintuitive prediction. These results and other theoretical implications support the idea that equivalence relations are a natural consequence of reinforcement contingencies.     

Causation and contrast classes

I argue that causation is a contrastive relation: c-rather-than-C* causes e-rather-than-E*, where C* and E* are contrast classes associated respectively with actual events c and e. I explain why this is an improvement on the traditional binary view, and develop a detailed definition. It turns out that causation is only well defined in ‘uniform’ cases, where either all or none of the members of C* are related appropriately to members of E*.

Re-conceptualizing the past: Historical data in vocational interest research

Noteworthy progress has been made in the development of statistical models for evaluating the structure of vocational interests over the past three decades. It is proposed that historically significant interest datasets, when combined with modern structural methods of data analysis, provide an opportunity to re-examine the underlying assumptions of J.L. Holland’s [Holland, J. L. (1959). A theory of vocational choice. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 6, 35–45; Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices (3rd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources] RIASEC model. To illustrate this potential, data obtained from J. P. Guilford’s study of interest structure were re-analyzed using modern circumplex and hierarchical clustering techniques to evaluate Holland’s and I. Gati’s [Gati, I. (1979). A hierarchical model for the structure of interests. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 15, 90–106; Gati, I. (1991). The structure of vocational interests. Psychological Bulletin, 109, 309–324] interest structures. Obtained results indicate that a circumplex model can be used to effectively represent the structure underlying Guilford’s interest measures. However, hierarchical clustering results suggest that Holland’s RIASEC types may not be the most effective categories for grouping specific interest measures into broader interest areas. The current findings provide support for the continued investigation of alternatives to Holland’s interest categories using modern measures of basic interests.     

Free-energy and the brain

If one formulates Helmholtz’s ideas about perception in terms of modern-day theories one arrives at a model of perceptual inference and learning that can explain a remarkable range of neurobiological facts. Using constructs from statistical physics it can be shown that the problems of inferring what cause our sensory inputs and learning causal regularities in the sensorium can be resolved using exactly the same principles. Furthermore, inference and learning can proceed in a biologically plausible fashion. The ensuing scheme rests on Empirical Bayes and hierarchical models of how sensory information is generated. The use of hierarchical models enables the brain to construct prior expectations in a dynamic and context-sensitive fashion. This scheme provides a principled way to understand many aspects of the brain’s organisation and responses. In this paper, we suggest that these perceptual processes are just one emergent property of systems that conform to a free-energy principle. The free-energy considered here represents a bound on the surprise inherent in any exchange with the environment, under expectations encoded by its state or configuration. A system can minimise free-energy by changing its configuration to change the way it samples the environment, or to change its expectations. These changes correspond to action and perception, respectively, and lead to an adaptive exchange with the environment that is characteristic of biological systems. This treatment implies that the system’s state and structure encode an implicit and probabilistic model of the environment. We will look at models entailed by the brain and how minimisation of free-energy can explain its dynamics and structure.