Assessing Child and Adolescent Pragmatic Language Competencies: Toward Evidence-Based Assessments

Using language appropriately and effectively in social contexts requires pragmatic language competencies (PLCs). Increasingly, deficits in PLCs are linked to child and adolescent disorders, including autism spectrum, externalizing, and internalizing disorders. As the role of PLCs expands in diagnosis and treatment of developmental psychopathology, psychologists and educators will need to appraise and select clinical and research PLC instruments for use in assessments and/or studies. To assist in this appraisal, 24 PLC instruments, containing 1,082 items, are assessed by addressing four questions: (1) Can PLC domains targeted by assessment items be reliably identified?, (2) What are the core PLC domains that emerge across the 24 instruments?, (3) Do PLC questionnaires and tests assess similar PLC domains?, and (4) Do the instruments achieve content, structural, diagnostic, and ecological validity? Results indicate that test and questionnaire items can be reliably categorized into PLC domains, that PLC domains featured in questionnaires and tests significantly differ, and that PLC instruments need empirical confirmation of their dimensional structure, content validity across all developmental age bands, and ecological validity. Progress in building a better evidence base for PLC assessments should be a priority in future research.     

医本仁术 命大于天——反思一尸两命案

孕妇因呼吸道感染求诊,必须实施剖腹产手术,医院因陪同人员拒不在手术知情同意书上签字,未能进行手术并眼睁睁地看着孕妇和胎儿死亡。本案是个极其个别的案例,但是仔细反思足以说明当前的相关法律法规尚有不足,医院处理也有许多值得商榷之处。除了法律法规之外,不仅医患沟通出了障碍,临床医务人员之间的交流,更是需要大大加强。     

现代社会中医患沟通视野下的医学涵义

现代社会派生出许多新生事物,对医学与医疗影响深远。其中,医患沟通作为当今中国医学界高度重视的新概念与新行为,与现代医学模式相吻合,引发出医患双方的共同目标——健康生存,进而推导出现代医学内涵及定义。     

SARS危机中以受众为中心的风险沟通分析

采用问卷调查的方法,通过探讨信任和社会心理支持两个主要因素的效应,分析“以受众为中心的风险沟通”方式在SARS危机中的表征。结果发现,SARS期间民众通过大众渠道、专门渠道和人际渠道获得信息,并以风险信息的“焦点渐进知觉模式”知觉信息;民众对政府和专家具备基本的信任;我国民众的社会心理支持体系可区分为情感型和权威型,两种类型对个体有不同的意义。通过整合上述特征,可形成有效的“以受众为中心的风险沟通”方式。     

母子性格匹配、对性格的喜欢程度与青少年期母子沟通

以成都市两所中学632对初一到高三青少年及其母亲为研究对象,分别要求他们报告自己的性格、对对方性格的喜欢程度,同时要求青少年报告母子沟通状况,以考察性格匹配、性格喜好程度与母子沟通的关系。结果显示：性格均外向,情绪均稳定,精神质程度均低的母子性格匹配类型比其他母子性格匹配类型有更好的沟通。这一结果部分支持了吻合度理论。进一步的分析发现,相对于性格匹配,性格喜好程度对母子沟通的预测力更强,而且性格喜好程度在母子性格匹配类型与母子沟通的关系中发挥了完全或部分中介作用     

受众卷入及其对广告传播效果的影响

卷入（involvement）概念在市场研究中得到了极为广泛的关注,特别是在广告心理领域更是备受重视。研究发现,卷入常常影响广告的传播效果,制约着广告自身特点、插播环境、受众主体特征等作用的发挥。同时,学者们围绕这一概念构建了卷入的四水平说、加工深度模型、精细加工可能性模型、FCB网格、Rossiter-Percy网格等诸多理论模型。文章对相关研究进行了较系统的考察,并提出了现有研究依然存在的一些问题,如生态效度偏低、研究方法单一、相关的自动加工研究不够等     

中晚期青少年的个人规划及其与亲子、朋友沟通的关系

采用未来取向问卷（中文版）、亲子沟通和朋友沟通问卷调查了1741名高中生和大学生,从探索和投入两个方面考察了中晚期青少年个人规划的基本特点以及亲子沟通、朋友沟通与个人规划的关系。研究发现：青少年对未来教育的探索和投入水平高于未来职业和婚姻/家庭;从青少年中期到晚期,个体对不同领域的探索与投入遵循不同的发展模式;女青少年对未来教育的投入更多,而男青少年对未来婚姻/家庭的探索和投入更多;城市青少年对未来教育的探索和投入更多,而农村青少年对未来婚姻/家庭的投入更多。亲子沟通对中晚期青少年成就领域的规划具有较大影响,且影响大于朋友沟通,而朋友沟通对青少年未来婚姻/家庭规划的影响更大     

Communication Rights in a Divided World

This article explores the implications of advances in communication technology for communication rights and the political, economic, and cultural challenges at global, national, and local levels. It argues that digital transformation cannot be left to market forces or to a benign vision of a world in which all governments are sufficiently liberal minded to permit dissent and peaceful revolution. Rather, digital transformation needs to be driven by the needs of peoples and communities who help construct communication and information ecosystems that are firmly rooted in principles of justice, freedom, equality, and mutual solidarity. To that extent, people and communities must be enabled to reach their own consensuses around their needs and what should be done, and they must be regularly and constructively consulted by those charged with implementing, regulating, and monitoring such ecosystems.     

Lessons learned from pedestrian-driver communication and yielding patterns

Understanding the hidden patterns of tacit communication between drivers and pedestrians is crucial for improving pedestrian safety. However, this type of communication is a result of the psychological processes of both pedestrians and drivers, which are very difficult to understand thoroughly. This study utilizes a naturalistic field study dataset and explores the hidden patterns from successful and failed communication events using a pattern recognition method known as Taxicab Correspondence Analysis (TCA). The successful communication scenarios indicate the combinations of variable attributes such as eye contact, facial expression, the assertion of crossing, and effective traffic control devices are strongly associated with successful scenarios. The patterns for failed scenarios are most likely to be on the roadway with a relatively higher speed limit (e.g., 35 mph) and a relatively lower speed limit (e.g., 15 mph) under different conditions. On roadways with a higher speed limit, the failed scenarios are highly associated with passive and undecisive pedestrians, pedestrians far away from the crosswalk, regardless of pedestrian-driver eye contact and facial expression of the pedestrians. Instead of waiting for pedestrians to making a crossing decision, overspeeding drivers are more likely to speed up and pass the crosswalk. On roadways with a lower speed limit, the failed scenarios are often associated with distracted pedestrians, vehicles having the right of way, and the absence of effective traffic control devices. These findings could help transportation agencies identify appropriate countermeasures to reduce pedestrian crashes. The findings on driver-pedestrian communication patterns could provide scopes for improvement in computer vision-based algorithms designed for autonomous vehicle industries.     

Multicultural personality and effectiveness in an intercultural training simulation: The role of stress and pro-active communication

Multicultural personality traits have been shown to predict intercultural outcomes in a range of settings. However, how these traits affect behaviour during intercultural interactions remains an understudied area. A study was conducted among participants in intercultural training sessions, to examine whether scores on the five dimensions of the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) could predict how they performed in the intercultural simulation game “Barnga.” Both a self-rating and other-rating of intercultural effectiveness were included. Furthermore, we examined whether perceived stress and pro-active communication played a mediating role. Results of Latent Growth Curve Modelling (LGCM) show that emotional stability has a positive effect on mean scores (intercept) of both self-rated and other-rated outcomes, mediated through perceived stress. Social Initiative has a positive effect on the rate of improvement (slope) in other-rated outcomes during the simulation, mediated through pro-active communication.