Generating Relations Elicits a Relational Mindset in Children

Relational reasoning is a hallmark of human higher cognition and creativity, yet it is notoriously difficult to encourage in abstract tasks, even in adults. Generally, young children initially focus more on objects, but with age become more focused on relations. While prerequisite knowledge and cognitive resource maturation partially explains this pattern, here we propose a new facet important for children's relational reasoning development: a general orientation to relational information, or a relational mindset. We demonstrate that a relational mindset can be elicited, even in 4‐year‐old children, yielding greater than expected spontaneous attention to relations. Children either generated or listened to an experimenter state the relationships between objects in a set of formal analogy problems, and then in a second task, selected object or relational matches according to their preference. Children tended to make object mappings, but those who generated relations on the first task selected relational matches more often on the second task, signaling that relational attention is malleable even in young children.     

Factors influencing young children's risk of unintentional injury: Parenting style and strategies for teaching about home safety

This study examined mothers' teaching about home-safety issues to 24–30 month and 36–42 month old children, explored the relationship of teaching strategies to parenting styles, and assessed how these factors are related to children's risk of unintentional injury. A structured interview assessed home-safety issues relevant to falls, burns, cuts, poisoning, and suffocation/strangulation/choking. Mothers identified safety issues relevant to her child, and indicated the type and extent to which she utilized teaching as a strategy to address each safety issue. Standardized questionnaires provided information about parenting style and children's history of injuries. Results revealed that mothers' endorsements of home-safety issues did not vary with child age, mothers used teaching to manage safety issues for all types of injuries, and type of teaching strategy (explanations, rules, behavior modification) varied with parenting style. Greater use of explaining and less rule usage was linked to permissive parenting; these teaching strategies predicted children's medically-attended injury among highly-permissive mothers. Thus, teaching about safety is a common risk-management strategy mothers use to address hazards in the home. However, the specific type of teaching strategy used varies with parenting style, which has implications for children's risk of injury.     

Issues in brief counselling with postgraduate research students

In this study it is suggested that for some postgraduate research students, their ability to learn and their coping resources to deal with the emotionally demanding process of undertaking a PhD may derive in part from their attachment style, which in turn derives from early attachment experience. A time-limited counselling intervention resulted in a reduction in the CORE-OM global index of psychological distress from above the clinical cut-off point to below it in 10 out of 12 participants, and a significant reduction in the remaining two cases. All participants presented with concerns over their ability to complete their theses and yet all did so within four years or its part time equivalent. Self-report ratings of the degree of perceived impairment also reduced significantly and these correlated positively with reduction in global distress. It is further proposed that although a direct link between a counselling intervention and outcome of study has not been shown, the correlation shown here between global distress and reported academic impairment coupled with an earlier reported statistical association between difficulties experienced by students and outcome strongly suggests such a link.     

积极的应对研究

积极心理学是当前心理学的趋势,应激与应对研究中亦体现着这种特点。从应激源、应对方式与过程以及应对后果(复原力)三方面,综合探讨了当前应激与应对研究领域内的新变化,认为应激与应对研究正处于积极的应对研究潮流中,并展望了对未来应激与应对的研究发展。     

The Relation of Personal Epistemology to Parenting Style and Goal Orientation in College Mothers

This study sought to establish the relevance of mothers’ epistemic beliefs to their parenting style and preferred academic goals for their child. College mothers (N = 163) from primarily working class families completed a variety of self-report measures including a modified version of Schommer’s [(1990). Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 498–504] Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire, the Parental Attitudes Questionnaire-Revised [Reitman, Rhode, Hupp, & Altobello (2002). Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 24(2), 119–127], and several goal orientation scales. Results indicated that a view of learning as effortful and under the learner’s control and a view of knowledge as actively constructed were associated with an authoritative parenting style and with a preference for their child to focus on learning, improvement, and effort in approaching academic tasks. By contrast, a view of learning as quick, straightforward, relatively passive and as based in innate constraints and a view of knowledge as consisting of discreet, unambiguous facts were associated with authoritarian and permissive styles and the adoption of performance goals for one’s child. Portions of this study were presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development in Atlanta, April, 2005.     

城乡高中生认知方式与创造力关系的比较研究

对随机抽取的1216名城乡高中生实施《镶嵌图形测验》,然后抽取其中766名学生分别作场独立组和场依存组,并实施《创造性思维测验》。发现:1、城乡高中各年级场独立性学生在创造力方面较场依存性学生有明显优势。2、城乡高中场依存和场独立学生在创造力三个特性上各自存在不同程度的性别差异、文理科差异,某些方面表现出较明显的城乡差异。     

明式家具和现代家具审美偏好的眼动研究

本研究采用EyelinkⅡ眼动仪对不同类型家具的审美偏好进行考察,共有36名不同年龄被试参与实验。结果发现:(1)不同类型家具的总注视时间、总注视次数和平均注视次数均存在显著差异,明式家具显著多于现代家具;(2)不同家具类型兴趣区的总注视次数存在显著差异,明式家具显著多于现代家具;(3)不同年龄被试的总注视时间、总注视次数和平均注视次数不存在显著差异,即年龄因素对被试的审美偏好没有影响。     

《青少年心理健康素质调查表》应对分量表的编制

在应激和应对理论的基础上,确定了应对风格的理论模型,依此编制了青少年应对风格分量表。因素分析结果显示该量表由8个因子构成：注重问题情境的应对策略,注重情绪表达的应对策略,理智—合理化策略,针对情绪的身体策略,否认—压抑策略,躲避和求助策略,独自宣泄、忍耐和顺从策略和针对情绪的行为策略。青少年应对风格分量表具有比较理想的心理测量学特征,可以作为测评中国青少年应对风格的测量工具。     

青少年心理一致感水平及其与应付方式的关系

本研究以265名高中生为被试,探讨青少年心理一致感发展的特点以及与应付方式的关系。研究结果表明,(1)被试在心理一致感发展水平上存在显著的年级差异;(2)三个年级被试的应付方式存在显著的差异;(3)被试心理一致感水平与问题解决、求助两种应付方式存在显著的正相关;(4)被试心理一致感水平与自责、幻想、退避、合理化四种应付方式存在显著的负相关。高心理一致感个体在压力调节上倾向于采用成熟而积极的应付方式。本研究从压力应对的过程角度分析心理一致感与应付方式之间的关系。     

Rats’ visual-spatial working memory: New object choice accuracy as a function of number of objects in the study array

When rats had to find new (jackpot) objects for rewards from among previously sampled baited objects, increasing the number of objects in the sample (study) segment of a trial from 3 to 5 and then to 7 (Experiment 1) or from 3 to 6 and 9 (Experiments 2 and 3) or from 6 to 9 and 12 (Experiment 4) did not reduce rats’ test segment performance. Increasing study segment size improved test segment performance contrary the limited-capacity hypothesis concerning rats’ spatial working memory. This effect occurred when objects either differed visually (Experiments 1, 2, 4) or only by odor (Experiment 3). Rats performed no better than chance in finding a jackpot on their first choice from among three visually different objects in Experiments 1 and 2. Furthermore, results from Experiments 2 and 3 indicate that differences in the probability of finding a jackpot by chance in Experiment 1 were not responsible for failure to find the predicted inverse relationship. Results from Experiment 4 indicate that those from Experiments 2 and 3 were not solely due to size of test arrays. We discussed whether our findings could be attributed to innate foraging or perceptual isolation processes during testing or to perceptual encoding processes during exposure to study segment arrays.