Développement de la connaissance des lettres capitales. Étude transversale chez les enfants français de trois à six ans

The present study examined the knowledge of uppercase letters in 160 children aged from three to six. Three tasks were administrated: letter saying, letter naming, letter recognition. Children's responses were analyzed according to several variables: school level, gender, task, letter type, letter frequency, etc. Letter knowledge improved from three to six years, but with huge differences among children, namely the superiority of girls over boys. Letter by letter analyses showed that scores were highly consistent between tasks and school levels. They also revealed that letter knowledge was affected by letter type, letter frequency, alphabetic rank and the presence of letters in the child's first name. The findings are discussed for their contribution to the understanding of letter learning.     

Emilie du Châtelet on the Existence and Nature of God: An Examination of Her Arguments in Light of Their Sources

Many commentators have suggested that the metaphysical portions of Emilie du Châtelet's Institutions de physique are a mere retelling of Leibniz's views. I argue that a close reading of the text shows that du Châtelet's cosmological argument and discussion of God's nature contains both Lockean and Leibnizian elements. I discuss where she follows Locke in her arguments, what Leibnizian elements she brings in, and how this enables her to avoid some of the mistakes commonly attributed to Locke's formulation of the cosmological argument. I show that while du Châtelet accepts the causal principle ex nihilo nihil fit, she does not utilize Locke's stronger causal principle. I also discuss her use of the principle of sufficient reason in both improving the Lockean cosmological argument and in proving the attributes of God.     

Living in a multicultural world: Intergroup ideologies and the societal context of intergroup relations

In a relatively short time span, issues of ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity have become central topics of discussion in various nations. As a result, the role of broad ideologies that frame and structure relations between groups has received increasing attention by social psychologists. Of particular concern has been the role of these intergroup ideologies in promoting intergroup harmony and reducing prejudice. In this article, we appraise the evidence related to three main intergroup ideologies, assimilation, colourblindness, and multiculturalism. We argue that research in this area has paid insufficient attention to the social and political context. Intergroup ideologies have been studied and conceptualised as being located solely within individual minds. We suggest that the potentially vital aspect of these ideologies is that they are sometimes widely shared by members of a social group. Integrating sociological and political analyses, we discuss the fact that intergroup ideologies are institutionalised as policies and that, as such, they often vary across countries and across time. We present a series of studies to illustrate the theoretical implications of studying the shared nature of these intergroup ideologies, providing insights into the question of when and why national policies can shape individuals’ intergroup attitudes and beliefs and improve intergroup relations.     

Information Transmission in Young Children: When Social Information Is More Important Than Nonsocial Information

The authors’ aim was to use a highly novel open diffusion paradigm to investigate the transmission of social information (i.e., gossip) and general knowledge within 2 groups of 10- and 11-year-old children. Four children, 2 from each group, acted as a primed information source, selected on the basis of sex and dominance ranking (high or low) within the group. Each source received 1 piece of gossip and 1 piece of general knowledge from the experimenter during natural class interaction, and the information was allowed to diffuse naturally within the group. Results revealed that gossip was transmitted more frequently than knowledge, and that male sources were more likely to transmit gossip than female sources. The relationship between characteristics of the source, and characteristics of the gossip recipient, also appeared influential with the dominant male source transmitting gossip to exclusively to friends, and the nondominant male source transmitting to individuals of higher peer regard than themselves.     

The Effect of Differential Post-Weaning Environment on the Rigidity of an Animal's Behavior

Seventy-two first, second and third grade boys and girls were administered seriation problems involving different combinations of shape and color variation. Success rates and latency scores were influenced by shape variation, but not by color variation or grade level. The failure to obtain predicted interactions between the effects of grade level and stimulus variation was attributed to the clarity of the relevant stimulus dimension.     

A Primer on Psychological Theory

This paper addresses some of the principal constituent elements in the formation of theories in the science of psychology. To that end, means of theory construction, concomitant theory functions and types, and norms of acceptance are presented. Where appropriate, efforts were made to cite particular historic or contemporary theories of human behavior as cogent exemplars.     

Person perception from changing emotional expressions: primacy,recency, or averaging effect?

ABSTRACT

Dynamic changes in emotional expressions are a valuable source of information in social interactions. As the expressive behaviour of a person changes, the inferences drawn from the behaviour may also change. Here, we test the possibility that dynamic changes in emotional expressions affect person perception in terms of stable trait attributions. Across three experiments, we examined perceivers’ inferences about others’ personality traits from changing emotional expressions. Expressions changed from one emotion (“start emotion”) to another emotion (“end emotion”), allowing us to disentangle potential primacy, recency, and averaging effects. Drawing on three influential models of person perception, we examined perceptions of dominance and affiliation (Experiment 1a), competence and warmth (Experiment 1b), and dominance and trustworthiness (Experiment 2). A strong recency effect was consistently found across all trait judgments, that is, the end emotion of dynamic expressions had a strong impact on trait ratings. Evidence for a primacy effect was also observed (i.e. the information of start emotions was integrated), but less pronounced, and only for trait ratings relating to affiliation, warmth, and trustworthiness. Taken together, these findings suggest that, when making trait judgements about others, observers weigh the most recently displayed emotion in dynamic expressions more heavily than the preceding emotion.     

The Feasibility OF Collectives' Actions

Orthodox decision theory gives no advice to agents who hold two goods to be incommensurate in value because such agents will have incomplete preferences. According to standard treatments, rationality requires complete preferences, so such agents are irrational. Experience shows, however, that incomplete preferences are ubiquitous in ordinary life. In this paper, we aim to do two things: (1) show that there is a good case for revising decision theory so as to allow it to apply non-vacuously to agents with incomplete preferences, and (2) to identify one substantive criterion that any such non-standard decision theory must obey. Our criterion, Competitiveness, is a weaker version of a dominance principle. Despite its modesty, Competitiveness is incompatible with prospectism, a recently developed decision theory for agents with incomplete preferences. We spend the final part of the paper showing why Competitiveness should be retained, and prospectism rejected.     

Toward a Reconstruction of Medical Morality

At the center of medical morality is the healing relationship. It is defined by three phenomena: the fact of illness, the act of profession, and the act of medicine. The first puts the patient in a vulnerable and dependent position; it results in an unequal relationship. The second implies a promise to help. The third involves those actions that will lead to a medically competent healing decision. But it must also be good for the patient in the fullest possible sense. The physician cannot fully heal without giving the patient an understanding of alternatives such that he or she can freely arrive—together with the physician—at a decision in keeping with his or her personal morality and values. In today's pluralistic society, universal agreement on moral issues between physicians and patients is no longer possible. Nevertheless, a reconstruction of professional ethics based on a new appreciation of what makes for a true healing relationship between patient and physician is both possible and necessary.