Developmental effects of economic and educational change: Cognitive representation in three generations across 43 years in a Maya community

We studied the implications of social change for cognitive development in a Maya community in Chiapas, Mexico, over 43 years. The same procedures were used to collect data in 1969–1970, 1991, and 2012—once in each generation. The goal was to understand the implications of weaving, schooling and participation in a commercial economy for the development of visual pattern representation. In 2012, our participants consisted of 133 boys and girls descended from participants in the prior two generations. Procedures consisted of placing colored sticks in a wooden frame to make striped patterns, some familiar (Zinacantec woven patterns) and some novel (created by the investigators). Following Greenfield (2009), we hypothesised that the development of commerce and the expansion of formal schooling would influence children's representations. Her theory postulates that these factors move human development towards cognitive abstraction and skill in dealing with novelty. Furthermore, the theory posits that whatever sociodemographic variable is changing most rapidly functions as the primary motor for developmental change. From 1969 to 1991, the rapid development of a commercial economy drove visual representation in the hypothesised directions. From 1991 to 2012, the rapid expansion of schooling drove visual representation in the hypothesised directions.     

Subjective well‐being and human welfare around the world as reflected in the Gallup World Poll

We present data on well‐being and quality of life in the world, including material quality of life such as not going hungry, physical health quality of life such as longevity, social quality of life such as social support, environmental health such as clean water, equality in income and life satisfaction, and levels of subjective well‐being (SWB). There are large differences between nations in SWB, and these are predicted not only by economic development, but also by environmental health, equality and freedom in nations. Improving trends in SWB are seen in many countries, but declining SWB is evident in a few. Besides average differences in SWB between nations, there are also large disparities within many countries. We discuss the policy opportunities provided by national accounts of SWB, which are increasingly being adopted by many societies. They provide the opportunity to inform policy deliberations with well‐being information that reflects not only economic development, but also other facets of quality of life as well. National accounts of SWB reflect the quality of life in areas such as health, social relationships and the natural environment, and therefore capture a broader view of societal well‐being than afforded by measures of economic progress alone.     

Suddenly included: Cultural differences in experiencing re‐inclusion

In the current research, we examined whether re‐inclusion (i.e. the change from a previous state of exclusion to a new state of inclusion) was perceived differently by people with individualistic and collectivistic cultural backgrounds. Individualists (German and Austrian participants) but not collectivists (Chinese participants) experienced re‐inclusion differently than continued inclusion: While collectivistic participants did not differentiate between both kinds of inclusion, individualistic participants showed reduced fulfilment of their psychological needs under re‐inclusion compared to continued inclusion. The results moreover revealed that only participants from individualistic cultures expressed more feelings of exclusion when re‐included than when continually included. These exclusionary feelings partially mediated the relationship between the different states of inclusion and basic need fulfilment.     

Imitation: definitions, evidence, and mechanisms

Imitation can be defined as the copying of behavior. To a biologist, interest in imitation is focused on its adaptive value for the survival of the organism, but to a psychologist, the mechanisms responsible for imitation are the most interesting. For psychologists, the most important cases of imitation are those that involve demonstrated behavior that the imitator cannot see when it performs the behavior (e.g., scratching one's head). Such examples of imitation are sometimes referred to as opaque imitation because they are difficult to account for without positing cognitive mechanisms, such as perspective taking, that most animals have not been acknowledged to have. The present review first identifies various forms of social influence and social learning that do not qualify as opaque imitation, including species-typical mechanisms (e.g., mimicry and contagion), motivational mechanisms (e.g., social facilitation, incentive motivation, transfer of fear), attentional mechanisms (e.g., local enhancement, stimulus enhancement), imprinting, following, observational conditioning, and learning how the environment works (affordance learning). It then presents evidence for different forms of opaque imitation in animals, and identifies characteristics of human imitation that have been proposed to distinguish it from animal imitation. Finally, it examines the role played in opaque imitation by demonstrator reinforcement and observer motivation. Although accounts of imitation have been proposed that vary in their level of analysis from neural to cognitive, at present no theory of imitation appears to be adequate to account for the varied results that have been found.     

Identification, situational constraint, and social cognition: studies in the attribution of moral responsibility

In three experiments we studied lay observers' attributions of responsibility for an antisocial act (homicide). We systematically varied both the degree to which the action was coerced by external circumstances and the degree to which the actor endorsed and accepted ownership of the act, a psychological state that philosophers have termed "identification." Our findings with respect to identification were highly consistent. The more an actor was identified with an action, the more likely observers were to assign responsibility to the actor, even when the action was performed under constraints so powerful that no other behavioral option was available. Our findings indicate that social cognition involving assignment of responsibility for an action is a more complex process than previous research has indicated. It would appear that laypersons' judgments of moral responsibility may, in some circumstances, accord with philosophical views in which freedom and determinism are regarded to be compatible.     

Modeling college women's perceptions of elite leadership positions with Social Cognitive Career Theory

The utility of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) for predicting college women's interests and goals for positions of elite leadership was examined with 156 undergraduate women at a public university. They completed measures of elite leadership self-efficacy expectations, outcome expectations, interests, and goals. Results supported SCCT as a theoretical framework for understanding internal factors that may contribute to women's elite leadership interests and goals. Self-efficacy and outcome expectations for elite leadership positions related positively to interests and goals for such positions, and self-efficacy and outcome expectations each contributed unique variance to the prediction of elite leadership interests. Outcome expectations partially mediated the relation between elite leadership self-efficacy and interests, interests partially mediated the relation between elite leadership outcome expectations and goals, and the combination of elite leadership interests and outcome expectations completely mediated the relation between self-efficacy for elite leadership positions and elite leadership goals.