The Effects of Thematic Importance on Story Recall among Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Comparison Children

This study examined the recall of televised stories for younger (4-6 years) and older (7-9 years) children with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) under two different viewing conditions (toys present/toys absent). Each child watched two Rugrats television programs, once with toys present and once with toys absent. Immediately after viewing a program, the child completed a free recall of the observed story. Comparison children's recall increased more than ADHD children's as importance level increased, and comparison children recalled more information overall than children with ADHD. When toys were present, children with ADHD retold less coherent stories than comparison children, as indexed by smaller correlations between the story units recalled and the order of these units in the story. In summary, children with ADHD demonstrated multiple difficulties in story comprehension. These findings add to our understanding of the differences in higher-order cognitive processing abilities between children with ADHD and comparison children, and suggest important areas of focus in designing more effective academic interventions for children with ADHD.     

Religion and mental health among Nepal earthquake survivors in temporary tent villages

The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between mental health and the perceived importance of religion and the frequency of prayer among 200 children ages 10–18 years who lived in temporary camps for earthquake survivors in Nepal. The participants were examined using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) 6–18 and were asked about the importance of religion in their lives. In contrast to expectation that high perceived importance of religion and prayer frequency have positive impacts on mental health after earthquakes, the results indicated significantly higher levels of withdrawal/depression. The group that prayed less frequently after the earthquakes had significantly higher scores for somatic symptoms, withdrawal/depression, anxiety/depression, social immaturity, internalising problems, and total CBCL scores. However, the clinical risk group (T score of 65 or higher in the CBCL total score), no significant difference according to the importance of religion showed and frequency of daily prayer.     

元认知视野中的气候变化风险研究

气候变化已经成为全球面临的最紧迫问题之一。近期研究发现,个体对于气候变化风险的元认知和其亲环境行为之间关系密切。对元认知知识、元认知来源、元认知确定性及元认知重要性四个维度相关研究的分析表明,公众元认知知识与实际知识的偏离、以分析系统为主导的风险认知来源、对气候变化后果确定性的低估以及对气候变化重要性的忽视都会抑制环境友好行为的发生,并指出了气候变化风险元认知研究的未来趋势。     

Importance of Human Needs During Retrospective Peacetime and the Persian Gulf War: Mideastern Employees

This study examined the importance of needs during the retrospective peacetime in 1990 and the Persian Gulf War in 1991 using a sample of 378 employees in the Middle East. Results of factor analyses identified three levels of needs during peacetime and wartime. Factor structures of needs did change from peacetime to wartime and were different. The patterns of needs identified in this study were different from needs theories developed in the U.S. Results were discussed in light of cultural differences, available resources in the environment, and the Persian Gulf War.     

EM and beyond

The basic theme of the EM algorithm, to repeatedly use complete-data methods to solve incomplete data problems, is also a theme of several more recent statistical techniques. These techniques—multiple imputation, data augmentation, stochastic relaxation, and sampling importance resampling—combine simulation techniques with complete-data methods to attack problems that are difficult or impossible for EM.A preliminary version of this article was the Keynote Address at the 1987 European Meeting of the Psychometric Society June 24–26, 1987 in Enschede, The Netherlands. The author wishes to thank the editor and reviewers for helpful comments.     

教师工作投入:结构与影响因素的研究

为研究区分教师工作态度的一个重要变量——工作投入,采用自编教师工作投入量表对432名小学教师进行了测查。研究结果表明:教师工作投入由工作重要性、工作乐趣和工作专注等三个因素构成;性别、教龄和从教原因对教师的工作投入有显著影响;女教师的工作投入高于男教师;随教龄增长,教师工作投入水平呈“波浪型”上升趋势;把“教师”作为理想职业的教师在工作投入上显著高于其他原因从教的教师,别无选择才当教师的人工作投入水平最低。     

Identity and Engagement among Political Independents in America

Political behavior among independents has been documented for decades, yet we are left with limited insight into their political engagement. What, if anything, motivates independents to engage in politics? In this study, I apply psychological theories of attitude importance to explain high variation in political‐engagement levels among independents. Using two recent datasets, I find engagement levels are comparable across independents and partisans, yet predictors of their engagement differ substantially. Ideological strength predicts engagement for partisans—but not for independents. Instead, my data show that independents' engagement is best predicted by the importance they place on their independent identity. These data provide evidence that independence is a meaningful political identity and that identity importance is a key to explaining what motivates the independent voter to engage with politics.     

The relative importance of psychopathy-related traits in predicting impersonal sex and hostile masculinity

This paper reports the relative contributions of several facets of subclinical psychopathy (i.e., callous affect, erratic lifestyle, interpersonal manipulation), subclinical narcissism (i.e., entitlement, exploitation), and trait aggression (i.e., anger) to the prediction of four enduring attitudes towards women and sexual assault (i.e., hostility towards women, negative attitudes regarding women, sexual dominance, impersonal sex) and a behavioral indicator of an impersonal sexual behavior (i.e., number of one-night stands). Survey data were collected from 470 single men living in the Detroit Metropolitan area. The importance of personality traits varied as a function of the outcome with anger most predictive of hostility toward women; erratic lifestyle most predictive of impersonal sexual attitudes and behavior, and entitlement most predictive of sexual dominance and negative attitudes toward women. These outcome-specific findings are interpreted and directions for future research are discussed.     

Words in larger font are perceived as more important: explaining the belief that font size affects memory

ABSTRACT

Words presented in larger font size are considered more memorable and rated with higher judgments of learning (JOLs). One explanation for this phenomenon is that people believe that font size affects memory. However, it is not clear why people hold this belief. One alternative is that font size represents importance, with larger fonts implying more relevant information. More important information is judged as more memorable and is, in fact, better remembered. In Experiments 1 and 2 we presented words in small (18 points) and extra-large font (250 points) and found higher JOLs and higher judgments of importance with extra-large fonts. A mediation analysis showed that importance accounted for 21–23% of the effect of font size on JOLs. In Experiment 3, we tested whether processing fluency was higher with the extra-large font. In a lexical decision task, participants were slower at detecting words and non-words with extra-large than small font, which is the opposite of what the processing fluency hypothesis predicts. This result shows that the font-size effect persists even in conditions in which perceived fluency should be lower. In sum, this research explained the belief that font size affects memory because words in larger fonts are considered more important.     

A longitudinal investigation of the mediating role of self-esteem and body importance in the relationship between stress and body dissatisfaction in adolescent females and males

Body dissatisfaction is particularly prevalent during adolescence and has recently been linked to stress in females and males. However, prospective studies are needed to better understand the relationship between stress and body dissatisfaction. The present study investigates the direction of this association and the mediating role of self-esteem and body image importance. A sample of 298 adolescent females and males in Grades 7 to 10 (ages 12 to 17 years) were surveyed at two time points over a one-year period. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that stress significantly predicted body dissatisfaction one year later. Furthermore, a multiple mediation analysis controlling for gender revealed a significant indirect effect in both cross-sectional and longitudinal models, indicating that stress predicts reductions in self-esteem and increases in body importance, which in turn predict body dissatisfaction. These findings suggest that stress, self-esteem, and body importance should be included in programmes aimed at improving body dissatisfaction.