Social comparison influences on disciplinary panels: a brief qualitative study in Kenyan secondary schools

This study investigated the influences of social comparisons on group polarization in decision making among members of selected Kenyan secondary school disciplinary panels. Ten participants from 10 selected secondary school disciplinary panels were involved. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect qualitative data on the experiences of the participants regarding the influences of social comparisons on their decision-making behaviours during participation in their schools’ disciplinary hearing meetings. The results revealed that in the dynamic interactions among disciplinary panel members during disciplinary hearing meetings, the panel members engaged in social comparisons among themselves, leading to their shifts in decision-making behaviours in favour of consensus in group decisions or group polarization in decision making.     

Women Experiencing Psychological Abuse: Are They a Homogenous Group?

Dichotomizing women as “abused” versus “not abused” assumes that any psychological maltreatment results in similar outcomes. A national sample of women in conflictual relationships completed an online survey. Women with no incidence (N = 33), the lowest quartile (N = 86), and the top quartile (N = 81) of psychological maltreatment demonstrated significant differences in reactions to the maltreatment, mental health indicators, personality variables, perceived harm, problematic relationship schemas, and response styles. Women with no psychological abuse and women in the lowest quartile produced similar scores that were typically distinct from the top-quartile women. Effective treatment of women with lower amounts of psychological abuse might not require a unique intervention likely necessary for women experiencing much psychological abuse.     

大鱼小池效应研究回顾及展望

大鱼小池效应(Big Fish Little Pond Effect)是解释不同教育情境中学生自我概念水平的一个特定概念,Marsh将其定义为：能力同等的学生,在平均成绩较高的学校或班级里的学业自我概念较低,而在平均成绩较低的学校或班级则学业自我概念会较高。大鱼小池效应包括学生采用概括他人和特定他人的比较标准所分别产生的同化效应和对比效应,社会比较对学业自我概念形成具有特定影响。大鱼小池效应的未来研究可以从研究方法的改进、调节变量的控制和跨文化比较等方面拓展。     

Alternative agents for humanitarian intervention

The use of private security companies by national governments is met with widespread skepticism. Less understood is the role these companies can play in international humanitarian interventions in the service of international organizations. I argue here that despite valid concerns about the use of such private entities, we should nonetheless see them as legitimate participants in efforts to secure human rights protection around the globe. In order to assess their legitimacy, we need to ensure, among other things, that they can adhere to ethical standards when serving in humanitarian missions, that they can be held accountable when they fail to uphold the standard of justice enshrined in international law, and that their for-profit status does not have implications detrimental to humanitarian concerns.     

Implementing climate equity: the case of Europe

For over two decades, international environmental equity – the fair and just sharing of the burdens associated with environmental changes – has been the subject of much debate by philosophers, activists and diplomats concerned about climate change. It has been manifested in many international environmental agreements, notably the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. The question arises as to whether it is being put into practice in this context. Are the requirements of international environmental equity merely words and principles in international instruments, or are they having a practical effect on the policies of state governments? This article aims to start answering these questions. It examines whether the European Union (EU) and its member states are sharing the burdens of climate change. The article introduces equity in the context of the climate change agreements and looks at some normative and practical considerations. It suggests that Europe has been a leader on international equity in the climate change negotiations over the last decade, and it points to what European states and the EU have done to take on some of the burdens of climate change. Europe's actions are briefly assessed from practical and normative perspectives. Europe is doing more than any other part of the world to address climate change and to share the burdens associated with it. Nevertheless, Europe is not doing as much to address this problem as it can and should do. Both practical and normative imperatives demand more urgent action by Europe to implement climate equity.     

Participant recruitment methods and statistical reasoning performance

Optimal Bayesian reasoning performance has reportedly been elusive, and a variety of explanations have been suggested for this situation. In a series of experiments, it is demonstrated that these difficulties with replication can be accounted for by differences in participant-sampling methodologies. Specifically, the best performances are obtained with students from top-tier, national universities who were paid for their participation. Performance drops significantly as these conditions are altered regarding inducements (e.g., using unpaid participants) or participant source (e.g., using participants from a second-tier, regional university). Honours-programme undergraduates do better than regular undergraduates within the same university, paid participation creates superior performance, and top-tier university students do better than students from lower ranked universities. Pictorial representations (supplementing problem text) usually have a slight facilitative effect across these participant manipulations. These results indicate that studies should take account of these methodological details and focus more on relative levels of performance rather than absolute performance.     

Social-comparative feedback affects motor skill learning

This study examined motivational effects of feedback on motor learning. Specifically, we investigated the influence of social-comparative feedback on the learning of a balance task (stabilometer). In addition to veridical feedback (error scores reflecting deviation from the target horizontal platform position) about their own performance after each trial, two groups received false normative information about the “average” score of others on that trial. Average performance scores indicated that the participant's performance was either above (better group) or below (worse group) the average, respectively. A control group received veridical feedback about trial performance without normative feedback. Learning as a function of social-comparative feedback was determined in a retention test without feedback, performed on a third day following two days of practice. Normative feedback affected the learning of the balance task: The better group demonstrated more effective balance performance than both the worse and control groups on the retention test. Furthermore, high-frequency/low-amplitude balance adjustments, indicative of more automatic control of movement, were greater in the better than in the worse group. The control group exhibited more limited learning and less automaticity than both the better and the worse groups. The findings indicate that positive normative feedback had a facilitatory effect on motor learning.     

The role of numerosity in processing nonsymbolic proportions

The difficulty in processing fractions seems to be related to the interference between the whole-number value of the numerator and the denominator and the real value of the fraction. Here we assess whether the reported problems with symbolic fractions extend to the nonsymbolic domain, by presenting fractions as arrays of black and white dots representing the two operands. Participants were asked to compare a target array with a reference array in two separate tasks using the same stimuli: a numerosity task comparing just the number of white dots in the two arrays; and a proportion task comparing the proportion of black and white dots. The proportion task yielded lower accuracy and slower response, confirming that even with nonsymbolic stimuli accessing proportional information is relatively difficult. However, using a congruity manipulation in which the greater numerosity of white dots could co-occur with a lower proportion of them, and vice versa, it was found that both task-irrelevant dimensions would interfere with the task-relevant dimension suggesting that both numerosity and proportion information was automatically accessed. The results indicate that the magnitude of fractions can be automatically and holistically processed in the nonsymbolic domain.     

Internal number magnitude representation is not holistic,either

Over the last years, evidence has accumulated that the magnitude of two-digit numbers is not only represented as one holistic entity, but also decomposed for tens and units. Recently, Zhang and Wang (2005) suggested such separate processing may be due to the presence of external representations of numbers, whereas holistic processing became more likely when one of the to-be-compared numbers was already internalised. The latter conclusion essentially rested on unit-based null effects. However, Nuerk and Willmes (2005) argued that unfavourable stimulus selection may provoke such null effects and misleading conclusions. Therefore, we tested the conclusion of Zhang and Wang for internal standards with a modified stimulus set. We observed reliable unit-based effects in all conditions contradicting the holistic model. Thus, decomposed representations of tens and units can also be demonstrated for internal standards. We conclude that decomposed magnitude processing of multidigit numbers does not rely on external representations. Rather, even when two-digit numbers are internalised, the magnitudes of tens and units seem to be (also) represented separately.     

汉族、基诺族及布朗族7～9岁儿童心理旋转能力的比较研究

该研究探讨了我国7～9岁汉族、基诺族、布朗族儿童的“心理旋转”能力,了解不同民族的文化背景、年龄及性别差异是否对“心理旋转”产生影响。结果表明：汉族儿童的结果与基诺族及布朗族儿童结果存在明显差异,7～9岁儿童的心理旋转能力随着年龄增长而发展。未见男女性别上存在“心理旋转”能力上的差异。