跨文化研究方法的回顾及展望

文化现象是行为科学关注的重要课题, 跨文化研究从文化对比的角度对文化现象进行阐释, 不过这类研究在研究方法上要面对一些相对独特的问题, 本文将从研究设计、测量、数据统计等方面分析跨文化研究中值得研究者关注的方法问题。作者首先从研究设计的角度分析如何通过汇聚方法(consilience methods)加强检验跨文化研究的因果关系的能力, 然后分析跨文化研究中测量对等性(measurement invariance/equivalence)问题以及相关的统计方法, 最后简要介绍了多层线性模型(hierarchical linear modeling)在跨文化研究中的应用、并讨论跨文化研究方法的发展趋势。     

Modal Platonism: an Easy Way to Avoid Ontological Commitment to Abstract Entities

Modal Platonism utilizes “weak” logical possibility, such that it is logically possible there are abstract entities, and logically possible there are none. Modal Platonism also utilizes a non-indexical actuality operator. Modal Platonism is the EASY WAY, neither reductionist nor eliminativist, but embracing the Platonistic language of abstract entities while eliminating ontological commitment to them. STATEMENT OF MODAL PLATONISM. Any consistent statement B ontologically committed to abstract entities may be replaced by an empirically equivalent modalization, MOD(B), not so ontologically committed. This equivalence is provable using Modal/Actuality Logic S5@. Let MAX be a strong set theory with individuals. Then the following Schematic Bombshell Result (SBR) can be shown: MAX logically yields [T is true if and only if MOD(T) is true], for scientific theories T. The proof utilizes Stephen Neale’s clever model-theoretic interpretation of Quantified Lewis S5, which I extend to S5@.     

Analyzing conditions for recognizing pictures of family members in a patient with Alzheimer's disease

In the present study, an 89‐year‐old woman with the neurocognitive disorder Alzheimer's disease participated. The purpose was to study recognition of the participant's relatives' faces with the use of sorting tests and matching‐to‐sample (MTS) trainings and tests for emergent relations. The stimuli used were pictures of her relatives, their written names, and their family relationship. The study also focused on how responding to pictures of relatives changed over time. Therefore, the participant was presented with experimental conditions over three time periods. Time Period 1 included only sorting tests. In Time Period 2, which began 9 months after Time Period 1, the participant was presented with both sorting tests and conditional discrimination training and testing. In Time Period 3, which began 1 year after Time Period 2, both sorting tests and conditional discrimination training and testing were again presented. The results from Time Periods 2 and 3 showed that the percentage of stimuli sorted correctly was maintained over time. Additionally, the results from the MTS training and tests were maintained at the second follow‐up periods.     

Simple discrimination training with differential responses to establish functional and equivalence classes with preschool children

The present study assessed whether simple discrimination training with differential responses would produce functional and equivalence classes with preschool children. In Experiment 1, we exposed 10 children to simple successive discrimination training in which they had to press different buttons (selection‐based responses). Response 1 (R1) was reinforced only in the presence of A1, B1, or C1, and Response 2 (R2) was reinforced only in the presence of A2, B2, or C2. We assessed the formation of functional classes by training new selection responses in the presence of one member of each class (A1‐R3, A2‐R4) and testing to see if these responses would occur in the presence of other members. Eight children responded consistently with functional class formation. Four of these eight children also responded consistently with the formation of equivalence classes. Experiment 2 investigated whether differential motor responses (i.e., gestures) would improve equivalence class yields. Three of six children showed both functional and equivalence class formation. In general, the results indicate that the simple discrimination procedure with differential responses yielded functional and equivalence class formation.     

Evaluating Factorial Invariance: An Interval Estimation Approach Using Bayesian Structural Equation Modeling

In this study, we introduce an interval estimation approach based on Bayesian structural equation modeling to evaluate factorial invariance. For each tested parameter, the size of noninvariance with an uncertainty interval (i.e. highest density interval [HDI]) is assessed via Bayesian parameter estimation. By comparing the most credible values (i.e. 95% HDI) with a region of practical equivalence (ROPE), the Bayesian approach allows researchers to (1) support the null hypothesis of practical invariance, and (2) examine the practical importance of the noninvariant parameter. Compared to the traditional likelihood ratio test, simulation results suggested that the proposed Bayesian approach could offer additional insight into evaluating factorial invariance, thus, leading to more informative conclusions. We provide an empirical example to demonstrate the procedures necessary to implement the proposed method in applied research. The importance of and influences on the choice of an appropriate ROPE are discussed.     

Axiomatizing Relativistic Dynamics without Conservation Postulates

A part of relativistic dynamics is axiomatized by simple and purely geometrical axioms formulated within first-order logic. A geometrical proof of the formula connecting relativistic and rest masses of bodies is presented, leading up to a geometric explanation of Einstein’s famous E = mc ². The connection of our geometrical axioms and the usual axioms on the conservation of mass, momentum and four-momentum is also investigated.     

Social identity, status characteristics and social networks: Predictors of advice seeking in a manufacturing facility

In the sociological tradition, status characteristics and patterns of interpersonal relations within a social network are considered important in explaining organizational behaviour (e.g. influence, cooperation). In the social identity tradition, perceptions of shared psychological group membership and group prototypicality are considered important in explaining many of the same organizational behaviours. The present paper explores core variables within each of these perspectives as predictors of advice seeking among supervisors in a manufacturing facility. Dyadic measures of group assignment are found to better predict advice seeking than measures taken at the individual level. Identification with work groups predicted advice seeking from those perceived to be in the same group, and also from structural equivalents. Implications for theory and further research are discussed.     

Formation of partially and fully elaborated generalized equivalence classes

Most complex categories observed in real-world settings consist of perceptually disparate stimuli, such as a picture of a person's face, the person's name as written, and the same name as heard, as well as dimensional variants of some or all of these stimuli. The stimuli function as members of a single partially or fully elaborated generalized equivalence class when they occasion the mutual selection of each other after the establishment of some subset of relations among the stimuli. Indeed, it is these generalized relations among stimuli that enable an individual to respond appropriately to the inevitable flux of natural environments. The present experiments involved procedures for producing both types of generalized equivalence class and for evaluating their retention. Granting the formal and functional similarities that exist between generalized equivalence classes and natural categories, natural kinds, and fuzzy superordinate classes, the variables responsible for the emergence of the former might also account for the emergence of the latter three phenomena. In Experiment 1, After forming an A'-B' class, a B'-C relation was trained and generalization tests were conducted with B'-C, C-B', A'-C, and C'-A. Two of 5 participants passed the tests documenting the formation of A'-B'-C classes. Failures occurred in the A'-C and C-A' tests but not the B'-C and C-B' tests. Failures were also correlated with time between A'-B' class formation and C-based testing and with the absence of baseline confirmation when training and testing were separated by about one week. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 but presented baseline confirmation probes immediatley prior to testing when training and testing were separated by one week; all participants then formed partially elaborated generalized equivalence classes. In Experiment 3, 5 of 6 participants formed fully elaborated generalized equivalence classes, represented as A' = B' = C'.     

Instructional effects on performance in a matching-to-sample study

Conducting studies using an undergraduate participant pool is fraught with difficulties. Among them are problems with adequately motivating subjects both to come to the study, and once there, to actively engage the experimental task. Thirty-one college students participated in a matching-to-sample (MTS) study involving substantial training, testing, retraining, and retesting of conditional discriminations and equivalence relations among four 4-member classes of nonsensical words. The study was conducted during the end of the semester, when performance often had been observed to be poorer than at other points in the semester. Eleven of the participants, in addition to standard instructions about the task, received additional instructions specifying molar consequences for high rates of "correct" responses throughout the procedure. This subset of participants displayed markedly improved performance as compared to those who did not receive the additional instructions. Results suggest that specification of molar contingencies improves participants' sensitivity to molecular contingencies within the study. Instructions that specify and increase the consequential functions of feedback provided during MTS trials may be one means of reducing unwanted variability in human MTS performance.     

社会称许性量表的测量等价性探讨

若观测变量和潜在特质之间的关系在相比较的群体之间等同,就称该量表具备测量等价性。测量工具满足测量等价性的要求是进行组间差异比较的前提条件。该文首先明确测量等价性的概念及在结构方程模型中所要满足的5个条件,然后以社会称许性的性别差异为例,阐述测量等价性检验和建立的方法。结果表明,男性群体和女性群体的测量等价。文章最后讨论了该研究的理论意义和不足之处。