Expertise, Evaluative Motivation, and the Structure of Citizens' Ideological Commitments

Political psychologists have typically argued that ideological commitments are structured in a bipolar fashion, where a positive evaluation of conservative objects implies a negative evaluation of liberal objects (and vice versa). Individual differences in conformity to this pattern are usually attributed to an ability-related variable, i.e., political expertise . Departing from this strict focus on ability, this study examines the hypotheses that an important motivational variable—the need to evaluate , or the desire to form opinions of objects as "good" or "bad"—would (1) predict deviations from ideological bipolarity, even controlling for expertise; and (2) moderate the relationship between expertise and deviations from bipolarity. Data from two national surveys provided evidence for these hypotheses and indicated that the results extended to deviations from bipolarity in evaluations of presidential candidates and political parties.     

Environments That Make Us Smart: Ecological Rationality

ABSTRACT— Traditional views of rationality posit general-purpose decision mechanisms based on logic or optimization. The study of ecological rationality focuses on uncovering the "adaptive toolbox" of domain-specific simple heuristics that real, computationally bounded minds employ, and explaining how these heuristics produce accurate decisions by exploiting the structures of information in the environments in which they are applied. Knowing when and how people use particular heuristics can facilitate the shaping of environments to engender better decisions.     

Processing focus structure and implicit prosody during reading: differential ERP effects

Several recent studies have shown that focus structural representations influence syntactic processing during reading, while other studies have shown that implicit prosody plays an important role in the understanding of written language. Up until now, the relationship between these two processes has been mostly disregarded. The present study disentangles the roles of focus structure and accent placement in reading by reporting event-related brain potential (ERP) data on the processing of contrastive ellipses. The results reveal a positive-going waveform (350-1300 ms) that correlates with focus structural processing and a negativity (450-650 ms) interpreted as the correlate of implicit prosodic processing. The results suggest that the assignment of focus as well as accent placement are obligatory processes during reading.     

责任心的多元内涵与结构及其理论整合

责任心研究, 在心理学不同领域有类似的对象、相近的内涵, 但又有不同的概念界定、研究方法和测量工具, 研究结果迥异。文章首先回顾了已有研究对责任心内涵和结构的探索, 试图从整体上把握责任心研究在各领域成果间的关联;其次, 对人格领域、道德领域和认知领域中与责任心相关的的理论进行了分析;最后, 基于对责任三角模型优势和局限的分析, 并结合先前理论的启示, 尝试提出了一个更具综合性的责任心三侧面理论模型, 并探讨了该模型在理论上可能具有的特征。     

英语文章阅读过程中的文章标记效应研究

该研究通过三个实验探讨高职生英语阅读的文章标记效应。实验一探讨文章标记对阅读英语长、短文章的影响,结果发现文章标记对英语长文章主题信息保持的促进作用大于对英语短文章主题信息的促进作用。实验二以EyelinkⅡ型眼动仪为工具,考察被试阅读有、无标记文章的主题句的眼动模式的差异,结果发现被试阅读这两类主题句的眼动模式存在显著差异。实验三考察对被试进行文章结构策略训练对文章标记效应的影响,结果发现训练促进了被试对无标记英语长文章主题信息的保持,研究结果支持策略转换假设。     

A General Factor of Personality in the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III, the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology, and the Personality Assessment Inventory

A General Factor of Personality (GFP) occupies the apex of the hierarchy in three prominent personality disorder inventories. On the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III, a GFP accounted for 41% of the variance in two second-order factors, 31% of the variance in five first-order factors, and 26% of the variance in all 24 scales. On the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology, a GFP accounted for 61% of the variance in six first-order factors and 36% of the variance in all 18 scales. In a cross-validation study of the Personality Assessment Inventory, a GFP accounted for 65% of the variance in two second-order factors, 47% of the variance in five first-order factors, and 27% of the variance in all 18 scales.     

How Are Traits Related to Problem Behavior in Preschoolers? Similarities and Contrasts Between Temperament and Personality

The lack of empirical research relating temperament models and personality hinders conceptual integration and holds back research linking childhood traits to problem behavior or maladjustment. This study evaluates, within a sample of 443 preschoolers, the relationships between children’s maladaptation and traits measured by three temperament models (Thomas and Chess, Buss and Plomin, and Rothbart), and a Five-Factor based personality model. Adequate reliabilities and expected factor structures are demonstrated for most scales. A joint principal component analysis combining 28 temperament and 18 personality scales indicates a six-factor model, distinguishing Sociability, Activity, Conscientiousness, Disagreeableness, Emotionality, and Sensitivity. Regression analyses reveal that although single temperament and personality scales explain from 23% to 37% of problem behavior variance, the six components explain from 41% to 49% and provide a clearer differentiation among CBCL-problem scales. This age-specific taxonomy refines and corroborates conclusions based on narrative reviews and furnishes a more balanced view of trait–maladjustment relationships.

Testing the latent factor structure and construct validity of the Ten-Item Personality Inventory

Recent efforts have aimed to develop relatively short measures of the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality, particularly for when time and/or space is limited. We evaluate the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), a non-proprietary FFM measure with two items per dimension. We use a latent variable methodology to examine the TIPI’s factor structure and convergent validity with the 50-item International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) FFM measure. We provide correlations between the scale scores and latent factors, and compare each measure’s pattern of correlations with measures of other individual difference constructs. Results were favorable in terms of the factor structure and convergent validity of the TIPI, particularly regarding the correlations between the respective latent factors of the TIPI and the IPIP–FFM measures.