Self‐evaluation and social comparison amongst adolescents with learning difficulties

Two studies are presented which examine self‐evaluation in adolescents with learning difficulties and how these adolescents strategically protect their self‐concept through the use of social comparison. Study one involved 145 adolescents with learning difficulties and the same number of non‐disabled adolescents aged between 11 to 16 years. All adolescents completed Harter's ‘Self Perception Profile for Children’ (SPPC). No significant overall differences were found between the self‐evaluations of the adolescents with learning difficulties and non‐disabled adolescents. In addition, adolescents with learning difficulties strategically devalued less favourable comparison dimensions and valued more positive comparison attributes. Study two utilized a four condition between‐groups design with a sample of 68 adolescents with learning difficulties. All participants completed the SPPC, but the availability of a social comparison group was systematically varied between conditions. The self‐evaluations made by adolescents changed significantly when the social comparison group made available was altered. The findings are discussed with regard to their theoretical implications and in terms of inclusion policies for adolescents with learning difficulties. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self‐concept: a tourism application

Although well accepted by consumer behaviourists in general, self‐concept has received relatively little attention from tourism researchers. This is despite the potential it would appear to offer in terms of enabling an enhanced understanding of how tourists feel and what they seek from the tourism experience. The application of a model of self‐concept in this study suggests self‐concept may provide an alternative segmentation base, giving insights into how people perceive themselves in the tourist role and their consequent behaviour. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications.     

核心知识系统及其对相关研究的启示

核心知识系统出现于人类个体发展和种系发展的早期,在人类复杂认知能力的发生发展中起着建构模块的作用。该文以表征物体和数量关系的两类核心知识系统的性质及二者在儿童的“数”概念形成和成人的数学思维中所起的作用为例,综述了以灵长类动物、婴儿、儿童和成人为被试的研究证据,并进而提出了核心知识系统给相关研究带来的若干启示。     

Stimulus equivalence and transitive associations: A methodological analysis

When a number of two-stimulus relations are established through training within a set of stimuli, other two-stimulus relations often emerge in the same set without direct training. These, termed "transitive stimulus relations," have been demonstrated with a variety of visual and auditory stimuli. The phenomenon has served as a behavioral model for explaining the emergence of rudimentary comprehension and reading skills, and the development of generative syntactic repertoires. This article considers the range of relations that can arise between a given number of stimuli in a class, the number of directly established two-stimulus relations necessary for the emergence of transitive relations, the forms that training sets of stimuli can take, and the number of transitive two-stimulus relations that can be induced without direct training. The procedures needed to establish and assess transitive stimulus control, the possible interactions between the training and testing procedures, and the constrainst these interactions place upon the analysis of transitive stimulus control are also examined. The present analysis indicates that in a transitivity test, choice among such stimuli may be controlled by (1) the relation between the sample and the positive comparison stimulus (transitive stimulus control), (2) the relation between the sample and the negative comparison stimulus (S- rule control), and (3) possible discriminative properties that may inadvertently be established in the positive and negative comparison stimuli (valence control). Methods are described for distinguishing these three forms of stimulus control.     

Concept formation in non-verbal categorization tasks in brain-damaged patients with and without aphasia

The study of thinking in patients with aphasic language impairments has long since been considered as means for learning about neuropsychological processes. In the present investigation, a non-verbal categorization task was used, requiring the subjects to sort several common objects according to different principles. The experimental group consisted of aphasic patients with motor and sensory aphasia. Two control groups were used, one consisting of normal subjects and the other of non-aphasic patients with injuries in the right hemisphere of the brain. The sorting behaviour was analysed according to several aspects. The final product of the categorization was assessed, as well as the behavioural processes observed during the sorting. The results were expressed in terms of different conceptual levels achieved. The results of the investigation showed that the aphasics were significantly inferior to normal controls both quantitatively and qualitatively in all sorting aspects. Possible mechanisms underlying the deficiencies in the sorting behaviour of the two aphasic groups were discussed.     

Concept learning by monkeys with video picture images and a touch screen.

Two rhesus monkeys were trained in a same/different task to discriminate digitized computer-stored picture stimuli. The pictures were digitized from 35-mm slides and presented in pairs on a computer monitor. The monkeys were required to touch the pictures and then make a choice response to indicate whether the pictures were identical or nonidentical. The response areas and stimuli were located to the sides of the picture stimuli. Responses were defined and monitored by an infrared matrix touch screen. After learning the same/different task, both monkeys showed performance accuracy with novel picture stimuli similar to that with training picture stimuli. This accurate novel-picture transfer indicates that a same/different concept had been learned, a concept similar to the one they had previously demonstrated in a different apparatus with rear-projected slide stimuli and a response lever.     

A behavioral technology for producing concept formation in university students

Three experiments analyzed the effectiveness of a textbook incorporating "concept programming" in producing concept formation in university students. The concept programming portion of each lesson requires students to determine which concept is illustrated by each of 20 short fictional stories about everyday behavioral situations. The stories are selected to illustrate and contrast the concepts of that lesson. Student responses are heavily prompted during the initial stories of each lesson. The first experiment demonstrated that students generalize to entirely novel examples from the examples in the textbook. The second experiment demonstrated that the concept programming portion of the textbook is a critical component in producing generalization. The third experiment demonstrated that the amount of concept formation produced by the concept programmed textbook is greater than that produced by a widely used standard textbook.     

Same/different concept learning in the pigeon: the effect of negative instances and prior adaptation to transfer stimuli

Pigeons were trained on a matching-to-sample or oddity-from-sample task with shapes (circle and plus). Half of each group was exposed to “negative instance” trials i.e., for matching birds, neither comparison key matched the sample, and for oddity birds both comparison keys matched the sample. When all birds were transferred to a new task involving colors (red and green), nonshifted birds (transferred from matching to matching, or oddity to oddity) performed significantly better than shifted birds (transferred from matching to oddity, or oddity to matching), but only if they had experienced negative instances of the training concept. When all birds were exposed to negative instances of the transfer task and then transferred to a new color task (yellow and blue), dramatic transfer effects were observed. The effect of pre-exposure to the yellow and blue colors, in order to reduce transfer-stimulus novelty, had a minor effect on transfer.     

Motion as a natural category for pigeons: Generalization and a feature-positive effect

Three groups of pigeons were trained with a modified discriminative autoshaping procedure to discriminate video images of other pigeons on the basis of movement. Birds of all groups were shown the same video images of other pigeons, which were either moving or still. The group to whom food was presented only after moving images learned the discrimination very quickly. A second group, to whom food was given only after still images, and a pseudocategory group, to whom food was presented after arbitrarily chosen stimuli, showed no evidence of discrimination during acquisition training. Extinction conditions led to clear differences in peck rates to moving and still images in the second group but not in the pseudocategory group. The result is related to the feature-positive effect. Generalization tests showed that the discrimination performance was based on visual features of the stimuli but was invariant against changes of size, perspective, brightness, and color. Furthermore, discrimination was maintained when novel images of pigeons under different viewing angles and seven other types of motion categories were presented. It is argued that the discrimination is based not on a common motion feature but on motion concepts or high-order generalization across motion categories.     

补偿性消费行为：概念、类型与心理机制

补偿性消费行为是指为了弥补某种心理缺失或自我威胁而发生的消费行为, 是一种替代的心理需求满足工具。补偿性机制作为看待行为的重要视角, 可以解释许多看似不理性或不合常理的消费现象。自尊威胁、控制感缺失和归属感缺失是导致补偿性消费的3种动机来源。未来研究可以从以下4个方面对补偿性消费行为进行深入探讨：1)根据补偿机制的不同, 对补偿性消费的表现形式和类型进行细分; 2)评估消费行为的心理补偿效果; 3)探讨除消费外其他替代性的心理补偿方式, 以及消费补偿与其他补偿方式之间的关系; 4)挖掘中国社会文化环境下的补偿性消费行为的特点与产生机制。