Household clutter and crowding constrain associations between maternal sensitivity and child theory of mind

Social interactions between parents and children are important for developing theory of mind, but these may be disrupted by aspects of the proximal home environment. The current study observed maternal sensitivity and its associations with child theory of mind and the housing environment (index by clutter and crowding) in a sample of mothers and their 3.5-year-old twins (N = 250 children). Maternal sensitivity and housing environment were measured from experimenter report and child theory of mind was measured through behavioural tasks. Results show that the association between maternal sensitivity and child theory of mind was moderated by the housing environment, where the positive associations between maternal sensitivity and child theory of mind were only observed at lower levels of clutter and crowding in the housing environment. Additional contextual variables and processes are discussed.     

Meta-analytic findings reveal lower means but higher variances in visuospatial ability in dyslexia

Conflicting empirical and theoretical accounts suggest that dyslexia is associated with either average, enhanced, or impoverished high-level visuospatial processing relative to controls. Such heterogeneous results could be due to the presence of wider variability in dyslexic samples, which is unlikely to be identified at the single study level, due to lack of power. To address this, this study reports a meta-analysis of means and variances in high-level visuospatial ability in 909 non-dyslexic and 956 dyslexic individuals. The findings suggest that dyslexia is associated not only with a lower mean performance on visuospatial tasks but also with greater variability in performance. Through novel meta-analytic techniques, we demonstrate a negative effect size for mean differences (−.457), but a positive effect size for SD differences (+.118; SD ratio = 1.107). In doing so, this is the first study to demonstrate impoverished visuospatial processing of the majority of individuals with dyslexia in addition to greater variance in performance in this group. The findings advocate for further consideration of both the presence of, and reasons for, increased variance in perception, attention, and memory across neurodevelopmental disorders.     

General mental ability,conscientiousness, and the work–family interface: A test of mediating pathways

This study proposed a model in which employee general mental ability (GMA) and conscientiousness are linked to work–family conflict and enrichment through their relationship with occupational prestige and coping styles. We evaluated this model in a sample of 709 working adults from the National Survey of Midlife Development II in the United States. Results indicate that, through occupational prestige and subsequent psychological job demands and financial well-being, GMA was related to work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC). GMA was also related to work-to-family enrichment (WFE) but not family-to-work enrichment (FWE) through occupational prestige and autonomy. In contrast, conscientiousness did not influence work–family outcomes through occupational prestige. Additionally, GMA and conscientiousness were both related to WFE/FWE through problem coping, whereas conscientiousness was related to FWC through avoidance coping. Examining the relative effects of GMA and conscientiousness, we found that the indirect effects of GMA through occupational prestige were stronger than those of conscientiousness, whereas the indirect effects of conscientiousness through problem coping were stronger than those of GMA. We discuss our findings in terms of the mechanisms through which stable individual differences may exert influences on work–family outcomes.     

Acquisition and maintenance of trusting behavior

This study determined whether a two-person exchange situation contained natural contingencies for trusting behavior or whether external contingencies were necessary. Pairs of college students worked matching-to-sample problems for money. On each trial there was one problem and the subjects determined which of them would solve it. Trusting behavior was defined as an increase in the number of consecutive problems each subject allowed his partner to work during sessions that also ended with an equitable distribution. Simply, trust was a temporary deviation from equity. A subject could give the problem to the other person (cooperate), or not respond and let the other person take the problem (share). Other possibilities were for both subjects to try to take the problem (complete), or for neither subject to respond and thereby let the person who worked the last problem also work the next one (passive trust). When only four lever pulls were required to distribute a problem (no external contingencies to reach either equity or trust) subjects reached equity, but only minimal trust (strict alternation of single problems) developed in 18 sessions. When 30 or 60 lever pulls were required to distribute a problem (smaller response requirement for passive trust and therefore a contingency for trust), trusting behavior developed after a few sessions (fixed ratio 30) or after several trials of the first session (fixed ratio 60) and it ordinarily expanded gradually to 10 to 15 consecutive problems through passive trust. The aversiveness of the inequity involved in trusting appears to necessitate a contingency for acquisition. Once trust develops, however, this aversiveness is reduced as subjects learn the inequity is only temporary (e.g., once trust was acquired at fixed ratio 60 it was maintained at fixed ratio 4, which would not initially produce it), and the direction of the inequity appears to become of questionable importance (e.g., being behind was alternated over rather than within sessions and usually not in a systematic manner).     

The Effects of a Verbal and a Figural Creativity Training on Different Facets of Creative Potential

This study investigated the effects of different types of creativity interventions on different facets of creative potential, also including more school-related creativity demands. In a sample of 77 fourth-graders in the age between 9 and 12 years, we administered a verbal and a figural creativity training, realized in two school lessons over two consecutive days each. As outcome measures, creative potential in both the verbal and the figural domain by means of two well-established divergent thinking tasks was assessed. As additional measures of creative potential, a story completion task and a picture painting task were administered to examine training effects on more school-related types of creative behavior. The verbal training was found to increase both verbal and figural divergent thinking ability, but not creative potential in the story completion and the picture painting task. The figural training yielded significant training effects only regarding the picture painting task. Findings suggest a specific training effect of the figural creativity training, and moreover indicate that the verbal creativity training, rather than stimulating “verbal” creative abilities per se, was more strongly concerned with domain-general creativity processes including ideational fluency, flexibility, and originality that are characteristics of divergent thinking tasks across different domains.     

港口门机事故驾驶员与非事故驾驶员身心素质比较

采用ＹＧ人格测验量表、团体智力筛选测验量表、复杂划消测验、双手调节器及深度知觉仪对港口门机事故驾驶员和非事故驾驶员所进行的研究表明：两组门机驾驶员在１２项人格特征以及智力、选择反应能力上未显示出显著性差异;事故组门机驾驶员双手协调及注意分配能力和深度知觉能力明显低于非事故组门机驾驶员;技能水平与事故之间存在显著的正相关．     

青海大学生创造性思维及其相关因素研究

本文采用创造性思维问卷、推理能力测验问卷和Y—G量表对青海省四所高校的548名大学生的创造性思维及其相关因素进行研究。结果显示：(1)青海省大学生发散性思维三个特征的发展水平与青海省的经济发展和教育条件与水平密切关联。(2)创造性思维是逻辑和非逻辑思维有机结合。(3)学科性质不同、上大学起点不同对大学生创造性思维的发展有着重要影响。(4)推理能力与语词创造性的发展密切联系,但与图形创造性无显著性相关。(5)性格特征通过认知方式对创造性思维产生影响。     

批判性思维对中国人创新观念与行为的影响

批判性思维是指个体基于良好判断、使用恰当的评估标准对事物的价值进行评估和思考的过程。尽管心理学家对它的研究时间并不长,但对这个概念的探索却从启蒙运动时代的笛卡尔就开始了。笛卡尔认为人们的很多知识都是建构在错误的基础上的,所以为了追求真理,最好的方法就是对现有的观念和认知统统加以怀疑,怀疑后才会发现并解决问题,从而达到促进知识发展和寻找确定性的目标,这种怀疑和质疑正是批判性思维的本质。Ennis、Facione等从20世纪80年代中期开始用心理学的方法确定了西方人批判性思维的特征,并从批判性分析能力、思维开放性和运用批判性思维倾向性三个方面衡量批判性思维。本研究计划包括4个系列实验:研究1是确立中国人批判性思维的结构;研究2是探讨智力、批判性思维与大学生创造力的关系;研究3是探究批判性思维与知识型员工创新之间的关系;研究4是通过对批判性思维的干预提升中国人的创新能力。通过这一系列的研究,找到批判性思维影响创新的机制,以及智力到创新行为之间的作用路径,从而使我们更好地理解培养批判性思维的价值,为党的十八大提出的万众创新提供理论支持。     

THE MISSING FATHER FUNCTION IN PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY AND TECHNIQUE: THE ANALYST'S INTERNAL COUPLE AND MATURING INTIMACY

This paper argues that recovering the “missing” paternal function in analytic space is essential for the patient's achievement of mature object relations. Emerging from the helpless infant's contact with primary caregivers, mature intimacy rests on establishing healthy triadic functioning based on an infant‐with‐mother‐and‐father. Despite a maternocentric bias in contemporary clinical theory, the emergence of triangularity and the inclusion of the paternal third as a separating element is vital in the analytic dyad. Effective technique requires the analyst's balanced interplay between the paternal, investigative and the maternal, maximally receptive modes of functioning—the good enough analytic couple within the analyst—to serve as the separating element that procreatively fertilizes the capacity for intimacy with a differentiated other. A clinical example illustrates how treatment is limited when the paternal function is minimized within more collusive, unconsciously symbiotic dyads.