Mathematics ability and related skills in preschoolers born very preterm

Children born very preterm (VPT) are at risk for academic, behavioral, and/or emotional problems. Mathematics is a particular weakness and better understanding of the relationship between preterm birth and early mathematics ability is needed, particularly as early as possible to aid in early intervention. Preschoolers born VPT (n = 58) and those born full term (FT; n = 29) were administered a large battery of measures within 6 months of beginning kindergarten. A multiple-mediation model was utilized to characterize the difference in skills underlying mathematics ability between groups. Children born VPT performed significantly worse than FT-born children on a measure of mathematics ability as well as full-scale IQ, verbal skills, visual–motor integration, phonological awareness, phonological working memory, motor skills, and executive functioning. Mathematics was significantly correlated with verbal skills, visual–motor integration, phonological processing, and motor skills across both groups. When entered into the mediation model, verbal skills, visual–motor integration, and phonological awareness were significant mediators of the group differences. This analysis provides insights into the pre-academic skills that are weak in preschoolers born VPT and their relationship to mathematics. It is important to identify children who will have difficulties as early as possible, particularly for VPT children who are at higher risk for academic difficulties. Therefore, this model may be used in evaluating VPT children for emerging difficulties as well as an indicator that if other weaknesses are found, an assessment of mathematics should be conducted.     

Evaluating the Impact of Careless Responding on Aggregated-Scores: To Filter Unmotivated Examinees or Not?

When examinees' test-taking motivation is questionable, practitioners must determine whether careless responding is of practical concern and if so, decide on the best approach to filter such responses. As there has been insufficient research on these topics, the objectives of this study were to: a) evaluate the degree of underestimation in the true mean when careless responses are present, and b) compare the effectiveness of two filtering procedures in purifying biased aggregated-scores. Results demonstrated that: a) the true mean was underestimated by around 0.20 SDs if the total amount of careless responses exceeded 6.25%, 12.5%, and 12.5% for easy, moderately difficult, and difficult tests, respectively, and b) listwise deleting data from unmotivated examinees artificially inflated the true mean by as much as .42 SDs when ability was related to careless responding. Findings from this study have implications for when and how practitioners should handle careless responses for group-based low-stakes assessments.     

Executive dysfunction affects word list recall performance: Evidence from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases

The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) is widely used in clinical practice to evaluate verbal episodic memory. While there is evidence that RAVLT performance can be influenced by executive dysfunction, the way executive disorders affect the serial position curve (SPC) has not been yet explored. To this aim, we analysed immediate and delayed recall performances of 13 non‐demented amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients with a specific mild executive dysfunction (ALSci) and compared their performances to those of 48 healthy controls (HC) and 13 cognitively normal patients with ALS. Moreover, to control for the impact of a severe dysexecutive syndrome and a genuine episodic memory deficit on the SPC, we enrolled 15 patients with a diagnosis of behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and 18 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD). Results documented that, compared to cognitively normal subjects, ALSci patients had a selective mid‐list impairment for immediate recall scores. The bvFTD group obtained low performances with a selectively increased forgetting rate for terminal items, whereas the AD group showed a disproportionately large memory loss on the primary and middle part of the SPC for immediate recall scores and were severely impaired in the delayed recall trial. These results suggested that subtle executive dysfunctions might influence the recall of mid‐list items, possibly reflecting deficiency in control strategies at retrieval of word lists, whereas severer dysexecutive syndrome might also affect the recall of terminal items possibly due to attention deficit or retroactive interference.     

Explicit and implicit shame aversion predict symptoms of avoidant and borderline personality disorders

Research on the connections between shame and personality disorders (PDs) has focused predominantly on shame proneness. We examined the relationships of shame aversion, or experiencing shame as painful and unbearable, with avoidant and borderline personality disorders. Participants completed self-report measures assessing avoidant and borderline PDs, shame aversion, shame proneness and general experiential avoidance, as well as the recently developed questionnaire-based implicit association test that assessed shame aversion. Self-reported and implicit shame aversion correlated with both PDs, and hierarchical regression models showed that shame aversion incrementally predicted these PDs over and above shame proneness and general experiential avoidance. These findings suggest that individuals who perceive shame as particularly aversive tend to resort to maladaptive behavioral patterns that may impair personality functioning.     

False consensus in situational judgment tests: What would others do?

We introduce an alternative response instruction to reduce the fakability of situational judgment tests. This novel instruction is based on the false consensus effect, a robust social psychological bias whereby people infer that the majority of other people’s thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors are aligned with their own. In four studies, including both field and laboratory data (total N = 882), we demonstrate that participants show a false consensus bias when asked what others would do in situational judgment tests. Furthermore, the situational judgment test based on the false consensus effect turned out to relatively difficult to be fake, and produced scores that were meaningfully correlated with conceptually related traits, as well as both self-reported and behavioral outcomes.     

浅谈内隐社会认知的研究与现状

内隐社会认知是无意识思想、认知理论和社会心理研究日渐整合的结果。作为认知心理学研究的一个组成部分,内隐社会认知的研究从方法论上,得益于内隐记忆研究中逐步完善的间接测量方法;从内容上,尽管内隐社会认知的研究还比较初浅,但却已经涵盖了社会认知、社会态度以及归因评价的多个方面。     

印象整饰与内隐态度效应

运用内隐联想测验对不同印象整饰水平个体的内隐态度进行了研究。结果表明：不同自我监控者的内隐性态度是存在的,高自我监控者的内隐态度和外显态度存在分离。研究对“印象整饰对强迫服从后态度改变的影响”的结果做出解释：自我监控者强迫服从后的态度中庸是其关注自身的公众形象而有意压抑和控制其内隐性的评价造成的。     

质性研究中编码者信度的多种方法考察

质性研究中检验编码者信度的方法有归类一致性指数、编码信度系数、相关系数、中位数检验、概化系数等。基于教师胜任力访谈数据集,对编码者信度考察结果表明,归类一致性指数和编码信度系数受相同编码数影响而不稳定,相关系数受数据类型制约,中位数检验受研究设计影响,概化系数则受编码者和编码项目的数量影响。研究中须合理选用。     

《中学生心理健康诊断测验》结构的探索及修改

在浙江省8个城市的6所高中和6所初中,采取分层整群抽样方法选取初一到高三600名学生,用修改后的《心理健康诊断测验》(MHT)进行了测查,着重检验该测验的结构。结果发现,因素分析所获取的因素与原测验相一致,但对原测验的项目进行了一些删减。因素分析和相关分析结果以及内部一致性系数显示,修改后的问卷具有较高的信度,其效度也符合心理测量的要求。     

考试自我效能感是考试焦虑影响考试成绩的中介变量

本文采用结构方程的统计分析技术．依据Baron(1986)提出的确定中介变量的规则和标准．对265名中学生的特质考试焦虑、考试自我效能感、数学期末考试成绩的关系进行了探讨。考试焦虑,考试自我效能感和数学考试成绩是三个潜变量。结果表明,考试焦虑通过考试自我效能感这一中介变量对考试成绩产生影响,考试自我效能感对考试成绩有直接的影响作用,是考试焦虑影响考试成绩的中介变量。