Ethical Antecedents of Cheating Intentions: Evidence of Mediation

Although the pedagogy literature indicates significant relationships between cheating intentions and both personal and situational factors, no published research has examined the joint effect of personal moral philosophy and perceived moral intensity components on students’ cheating intentions. Hence, a structural equation model that relates magnitude of consequences, relativism, and idealism to willingness to cheat, is developed and tested. Using data from undergraduate business students, the empirical results provide insight into these relationships and evidence of mediation for magnitude of consequences on idealism and students’ cheating intentions. Implications for educators are offered.     

Paul Everett Meehl

A brilliant thinker and a gifted teacher, Paul Meehl’s love for and dedication to the philosophy of science did not lead him, as it seems to have led others, to assume that all minds have the same structure and differ only parametrically. One of Meehl’s main interests in the latter part of his career was in taxometric methods for identifying psychological types or taxa. Another taxonomic method seeks traits that are very similar, for genetic reasons, in monozygotic twins, but not in other sib pairs. These emergenic traits may be more common than previously realized. Two examples are briefly discussed.     

社会支持与SARS应激反应的验证性研究

根据在SARS流行期间对中国17个省市1016人测验调查的资料。对社会支持与SARS应激反应的关系进行验证性研究。所建立的社会支持与SARS应激反应的模型A和模型B证实社会支持对SARS应激反应中的不同因素有不同的作用：社会支持程度高,恐慌程度小;而社会支持程度高,则防御反应更大。社会支持对SARS应激反应中认知和恐慌的作用是负向且微弱的;但是对心理障碍的影响及心理障碍对SARS应激反应的影响却是明显的,表明社会支持作为缓冲器与调节器,对SARS应激反应的直接影响不大,但径由心理障碍对SARS应激反应的影响却是明显的。结构方程分析表明,男女之闻存在诸多差异。女性社会支持对SARS应激反应中认知和恐慌的直接影响比男性更小。但社会支持径由心理障碍对SARS应激反应的影响更明显;女性社会支持对SARS防御反应的影响无论从直接途径还是径由心理障碍似乎都比男性要明显一些。男性的社会支持中,亲友支持的作用比女性更大。     

Variance Distribution in Sibling Relationships: Advantages of Multilevel Modeling Using Full Sibling Groups

The majority of research on sibling relationships has investigated only one or two siblings in a family, but there are many theoretical and methodological limitations to this single dyadic perspective. This study uses multiple siblings (541 adults) in 184 families, where 96 of these families had all siblings complete the study, to demonstrate the value in including full sibling groups when conducting research on sibling relationships. Two scales, positivity and willingness to sacrifice, are evaluated with a multilevel model to account for the nested nature of family relationships. The distribution of variance across three levels: relationship, individual, and family are computed, and results indicate that the relationship level explains the most variance in positivity, whereas the individual level explains the majority of variance in willingness to sacrifice. These distributions are affected by gender composition and family size. The results of this study highlight an important and often overlooked element of family research: The meaning of a scale changes based on its distribution of variance at these three levels. Researchers are encouraged to be cognizant of the variance distribution of their scales when studying sibling relationships and to incorporate more full sibling groups into their research methods and study design.     

汉语普通话儿童复合词法意识的发展研究

研究旨在考察5、6、7、8岁的汉语儿童在偏正、述宾和主谓三种复合词法意识上的发展状况。词法判断任务的结果发现:5岁组三种词法意识之间无显著差异;6岁和7岁组的偏正意识和述宾意识无显著差异,但均优于主谓意识;8岁组偏正意识优于述宾意识,且二者依然均优于主谓意识。以上结果表明汉语儿童的复合词法意识发展具有不平衡性,由强到弱呈现出偏正述宾主谓意识的词法结构效应,这种强弱趋势可能与词法独立性和句法独立性之间的冲突以及复合词的中心性差异有关。     

Providing therapy to children and families in foster care: a systemic-relational approach

Foster care is a system created to protect children from an unsafe home environment yet multiple foster home placements, conflictual or nonexistent relationships between foster parents and birth parents, long, drawn out court battles, and living in an on-going state of not knowing when or if they will be going home are just some of the challenges many children in care are expected to manage. This paper presents a guide for therapists working with families involved in foster care. Utilizing ideas from the postmodern therapies and structural family therapy, suggestions will be provided about who needs to talk to whom about what, when to have these necessary conversations, and how to talk to people in a way that mobilizes adults to take action for the children, with the goal of minimizing postplacement trauma, strengthening and repairing relational bonds, and moving children out of foster care and into permanent homes as quickly as possible.     

Stability and variability in the relationship between subjective well-being and income

Empirical studies typically find a moderate positive correlation between subjective well-being (SWB) and income. In the present paper, we examined stable and transient determinants of the relation between affective well-being and income in the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS; N = 37,041) and the relation between cognitive well-being and income in the BHPS (N = 31,871) and the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP; N = 43,565) with bivariate latent state-trait models. The results show that the relation between SWB and income is primarily driven by stable individual differences whereas transient changes in income are weakly related to transient changes in SWB. It is therefore important to consider stable dispositional and stable situational variables in studies on income and SWB.     

Appetitive and impulsive components in the Appetitive Motivation Scale

Measures of the Behavioral Activation System (BAS) often conflate reward-reactivity (the core of the BAS) and impulsivity-related variance. The Appetitive Motivation Scale (AMS), a recently-developed BAS measure, has been proposed as a one-dimensional scale which deals exclusively with core reward-reactivity. However, we show here how a two-dimensional interpretation of the scale reveals components which are linked with both the core of the BAS and impulsivity. A clear pattern of associations and dissociations with other BAS- and impulsivity-related measures provides support for such a two-dimensional interpretation. The results are discussed, highlighting the parallels between the AMS structure and other BAS-related measures, and emphasizing the theoretical challenges which are inherent in developing reliable BAS-related personality measures.     

Bifurcations à partir/en direction de carrières artistiques : analyse structurale de récits biographiques

Referring to the artistic careers that particularly attract young people today, the article seeks to clarify the process of changing direction in the light of the chain of experienced events and the thinking involved when choosing a professional career. Considering training periods as a valuable opportunity to look back at past experiences and look forward to a professional future, it examines four cases in which the subjects decided to retrain, involving a shift to or from artistic careers. Structural analyses of the biographical interviews enabled us to compare the main life events of the subjects, viewed in relation to the past, present and future, the agents intervening in their career path, and the arguments underlying their decisions. On this basis, the factors that triggered the bifurcation, the interventions of significant others, and the relationship with time when making the change, are described and discussed from a counselling perspective.     

Home Environment and Self‐Efficacy Beliefs among Native American,African American,and Latino Adolescents

Context helps determine what individuals experience in the settings they inhabit. Context also helps determine the likelihood that those experiences will promote adaptive development. Theory suggests likely interplay between various aspects of home context and development of ideas about self that influence patterns of development for children. This study addressed relations between two aspects of home life (companionship and investment, modeling and encouragement) and three types of self‐efficacy beliefs (enlisting social resources, independent learning, self‐regulatory behavior) considered important for long‐term adaptive functioning. The study focused on three groups of minority adolescents (Native American, African American, Latino). Relations were examined using regression models that also included four aspects of household risk that often hinder the development of self‐efficacy. Although findings varied somewhat across the three groups, significant relations emerged between the two domains of home life examined and self‐efficacy beliefs in all three groups, even controlling for overall household risk. Companionship and investment appeared particularly relevant for African American adolescents, while modeling and encouragement appeared particularly relevant for Native American adolescents. Both were relevant for Latino adolescents.