当代民众信仰状况与社会安定意识相关研究

信仰是个人深层的、稳定的行为导向体系,是人的精神世界的核心。本研究根据信仰的内容,将信仰划分为物质信仰、精神信仰、伦理信仰、国家社会信仰和宗教神灵信仰。从天津市选取不同职业、不同年龄段的被试745名,对他们的信仰状况与社会安定意识状况进行调查研究,结果表明：民众的社会安定意识与其物质、宗教神灵信仰有非常显著的负相关,与其精神、国家社会信仰有非常显著的正相关。多元回归分析结果表明：影响社会安定意识的因素为保障制度不健全、对挫折的不良反应、社会治安状况差、官员腐败、分配不公、责任外归因。     

信仰现状的心理学研究

信仰在满足个体精神需要、维护社会秩序、促进社会安定及完善道德规范体系等方面起着极其重要的作用。本文试图从心理学角度以“中国民众精神信仰与社会安定意识”的实证性研究为依据,揭示我国工人、农民、知识分子、个体户和大学生五个群体的信仰现状,并分析信仰弱化的根源及其教育对策。     

The Stability of Parenting: A Longitudinal Analysis of Inner-City African-American Mothers

We examined the stability of authoritative parenting behaviors in a sample of 124 low-income, inner-city, African-American families. Parental monitoring and warmth were assessed longitudinally across four years. Test-retest correlation coefficients indicated the relative stability of both parental monitoring and warmth over the four-year assessment period was high, particularly for girls. In contrast, analyses of variance did not provide evidence for absolute stability as both parental monitoring and warmth declined across assessments, regardless of gender of child. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that the historical context of monitoring is important to consider as earlier parental monitoring behaviors accounted for unique variance in later parental monitoring behaviors, beyond that accounted for by the most recent assessment. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Implicit partner affect, relationship satisfaction, and the prediction of romantic breakup

The current research investigated the role of spontaneous partner feelings (implicit partner affect) in the dynamics of relationship satisfaction, commitment, and romantic dissolution. Participants completed a variant of the name-letter task as a measure of implicit partner affect, and self-report measures of relationship satisfaction and commitment. Approximately 4 months later, participants were contacted to assess their current relationship status. Overall, participants showed a biased preference for their partner’s initials (after adjusting for proper baselines), indicating the presence of positive implicit partner affect. Participants with more positive implicit partner affect were more satisfied with, but not more committed to, their relationship. Additionally, implicit partner affect exerted a significant indirect effect on relationship stability. These effects were independent of relationship length, age, and gender. Implications for the role of automatic affective processes in relationship processes and the utility of indirect measures for shedding light on relationship dynamics are discussed.     

Impact of artificial fissioning and social networks on levels of aggression and affiliation in primates

Levels of aggression may be affected by stability of social relationships or by population density. A number of studies of nonhuman primates have indicated that spatial density influences agonistic activity levels less than does social density. Artificial fissioning of a captive troop of rhesus macaques was undertaken and the resultant differences in patterns of aggression and affiliation were examined. If population density has a major effect on levels of aggression, then fissioning will result in a decrease in aggression; if social stability has a major effect on levels of aggression, then fissioning is likely to be accompanied by an increase in aggression. An increase in rates of both aggressive and affiliative behavior resulted from artificial troop fissioning. These findings concur with other studies that have concluded that social stability is a more important determinant of primate aggression than is population density. Nonhuman primates use affiliative mechanisms to adjust their behavior when population density increases such that potentially adverse consequences of crowding are avoided.     

Potential dropouts in a longitudinal study: Prevalence,stability, and associated characteristics

This study quantifies the prevalence and associated characteristics of subjects in a longitudinal study who are difficult to schedule and thus may become potential study dropouts. Although subject attrition over three years remained extremely low, many families were difficult to schedule for their assessments and this remained rather constant over time. Intercorrelations between the measures of scheduling difficulty were high, indicating good internal validity of the constructs. Stability of these measures from year to year was low, making it difficult to predict which families required more staff effort or were at risk for dropping out of the study in any one year. Race appeared to be associated with several measures of scheduling difficulty, while psychiatric characteristics of the sample were less so.     

Confidence regions for INDSCAL using the jackknife and bootstrap techniques

Bootstrap and jackknife techniques are used to estimate ellipsoidal confidence regions of group stimulus points derived from INDSCAL. The validity of these estimates is assessed through Monte Carlo analysis. Asymptotic estimates of confidence regions based on a MULTISCALE solution are also evaluated. Our findings suggest that the bootstrap and jackknife techniques may be used to provide statements regarding the accuracy of the relative locations of points in space. Our findings also suggest that MULTISCALE asymptotic estimates of confidence regions based on small samples provide an optimistic view of the actual statistical reliability of the solution. The authors wish to thank Geert DeSoete, Richard A. Harshman, William Heiser, Jon Kettenring, Joseph B. Kruskal, Jacqueline Meulman, James O. Ramsay, John W. Tukey, Paul A. Tukey, and Mike Wish. Sharon L. Weinberg is a consultant at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974.     

Predicting the Stability of Conduct Problems in Children with and Without Callous-Unemotional Traits

We tested predictors of persistence in conduct problems for children with and without callous-unemotional (CU) traits. Participants were 79 children of an original 98 children recruited from a community-wide screening to oversample children with conduct problems and to ensure equal numbers of children high and low on CU traits. The sample was reassessed at four yearly intervals and the 79 children (81%) were those with data at all four assessments. Children within each conduct problem group were divided into those with more and less stable patterns of conduct problems based on structured interviews with parent and child. Stability in conduct problems for children without CU traits was more strongly related to level of impulsivity and socioeconomic status, whereas children high on CU traits showed more stable conduct problems if they experienced higher rates of life stressors.     

Measuring sport fantasy proneness and deflated reality in sport and performance: Development and validation of two context-specific instruments

Fantasy-prone personalities and generalized states of pessimism and hopelessness have been linked to various behavioural, cognitive, and health related outcomes in the general population. Nevertheless, to date, knowledge of sport-specific fantasy proneness and athletes’ perception of deflated reality in sport is scarce, possibly due to a lack of appropriate psychometric instruments to examine these two important context-specific constructs. In this research, we developed the Sport Fantasy Proneness Scale (SFPS) and the Deflated Reality in Sport Scale (DRSS), first assessing the content validity of items for the instruments following a rigorous process. Through two cross-sectional samples (Study 1: Sample 1 N = 255, Sample 2 N = 260) and one longitudinal sample (Study 2: Sample 3 N = 118) of competitive athletes in the UK, we then examined factorial, convergent, discriminant, and concurrent validity and measurement invariance (Study 1), as well as internal consistency, and test-retest reliability (Study 2) of the two new scales. Results revealed robust construct validity and reliability of scores on the two instruments and suggested very good invariance when implementing the new scales to athletes from different sports and competitive levels and good invariance for cross-gender comparisons. The new scales fill a gap in the sport psychology literature and provide researchers and practitioners with robust psychometric instruments to examine new research questions and tackle issues relevant to athletes’ sport-specific fantasy proneness and perceptions of deflated reality.