Gender and age differences in spiritual development among early adolescents

ABSTRACT

The current study examined age and gender effects on spiritual development among early adolescents. A total sample of 416 Czech adolescents, age ranged from 11 to 15 years, was analysed for the study. Data was collected employing a non-experimental survey design by utilizing a self-administered questionnaire. A series of independent t-tests were performed to determine whether there were significant age and gender differences across the spirituality indicators: spiritual well-being, spiritual belief, and experiential spirituality. Results indicated that 11-year-old adolescents were more likely to demonstrate a higher level of spiritual well-being and spiritual belief compared with those 15-year-old; while 15-year-old adolescents were more likely to score high in experiential spirituality than their younger counterparts. Regarding gender, girls were more likely than boys to demonstrate a higher level of spirituality score. Practitioners in education and psychology should be mindful of the use of spirituality interventions applying the respective forms and practices according to age and gender to better promote positive youth development.     

Measuring moral reasoning using moral dilemmas: evaluating reliability,validity, and differential item functioning of the behavioural defining issues test (bDIT)

ABSTRACT

We evaluated the reliability, validity, and differential item functioning (DIF) of a shorter version of the Defining Issues Test-1 (DIT-1), the behavioural DIT (bDIT), measuring the development of moral reasoning. About 353 college students (81 males, 271 females, 1 not reported; age M = 18.64 years, SD = 1.20 years) who were taking introductory psychology classes at a public University in a suburb area in the Southern United States participated in the present study. First, we examined the reliability of the bDIT using Cronbach’s α and its concurrent validity with the original DIT-1 using disattenuated correlation. Second, we compared the test duration between the two measures. Third, we tested the DIF of each question between males and females. Findings reported that first, the bDIT showed acceptable reliability and good concurrent validity. Second, the test duration could be significantly shortened by employing the bDIT. Third, DIF results indicated that the bDIT items did not favour any gender. Practical implications of the present study based on the reported findings are discussed.     

Is the grass always greener on the other side? Social comparisons of subjective well-being

This study investigates subjective well-being (SWB) among residents of Munich (n?=?380) and Venice (n?=?545) with respect to their individual SWB and their judgments of SWB for residents of their own city and those living in the other city. Our results indicate that egocentrism rather than striving for self-enhancement guided people's judgments of SWB. For people with low individual SWB, a below-average effect was found, whereas for people with high individual SWB, a better-than-average effect emerged. Also in line with the egocentrism approach, judgments of individual SWB were positively related to the judgments of SWB for residents of their own city, but unrelated to SWB of those living in the other city. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Explanations for cultural differences in thinking: Easterners’ dialectical thinking and Westerners’ linear thinking

ABSTRACT

Since Easterners’ naïve dialectical thinking, which is contrasted with Westerners’ linear thinking, was introduced, many cross-cultural studies on human thinking have been conducted, and explanations for the cultural differences have been proposed. First, after examining the robustness of these cultural differences, two existing explanations are discussed in this paper. The first is based on the discinction between Westerners' analytic cognition and Easterners' holistic cogntion. This is related to the distinction between Westerners’ independent self and Easterners’ interdependent self. The second is based on the philosophical tradition of China’s Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which is contrasted with that of Ancient Greece. Second, we propose a new explanation based on the distinction between Westerners’ low-context culture and Easterners’ high-context culture (Beyond culture. Garden City, NJ: Anchor Books/Doubleday.). Finally, we show that this distinction can be based on socioecological approaches, and it is expected to explain the cultural differences between the Chinese and Japanese.     

不同年级学生自然阅读过程信息加工活动特点研究

探讨不同年级学生自然阅读过程的信息加工活动特点,包括两个实验。实验１结果表明,低年级学生自然阅读后再复述文章时需要重读原文的时间比高年级学生要多,据此初步推知,低年级学生自然阅读过程可能主要是单一的语言解码信息加工活动,高年级学生自然阅读过程可能同时进行了语言解码与组织连贯的信息加工活动,以后者为主。实验２比较不同年级的学生在自然阅读、理解任务阅读与记忆任务阅读三种情况下对文章信息保持的效果,结果     

交流 诠释 求同尊异——关于生命伦理学的跨文化研究

生命伦理学的跨文化研究,重在诠释不同文化传统伦理观念的历史轨迹,尊重道德的多元性,同时寻求共同点,以促进人类之间的合作和交流。不同伦理思想的交流中形成的某种共识和趋同,是社会共荣和医学发展的需要。否定伦理观念的多元和把伦理观念多元绝对化,都无益于人类健康事业的繁荣。     

Impacts of Home-Based Telework on Quality of Life for Employees and Their Partners. Quantitative and Qualitative Results From a European Survey

The study investigates the effects of home-based telework on quality of life (QoL). Four dimensions of QoL were analysed; overall satisfaction with life, sense of belonging, sense of becoming and sense of being. Through cross-national survey data (from 217 job holders and 112 partners) and by means of structural equation modeling, a positive association was found between home-based telework to a worker's sense of belonging (beta = 0.30, p < 0.001). On the other hand, a negative path was detected from the job holder's home-based telework to his or her partner's overall satisfaction with life (beta = –0.27, p < 0.05). After controlling for subdimensions of life quality, home-based work did not affect the job holder's overall life satisfaction. Moreover, the more concentration the job holder reported, the lower the sense of belonging was reported by his or her partner (beta = –0.28, p < 0.05). No simple explanation for the negative effects were found, but our interviews with the group of workers and their families leave us the impression that the problem of overworking and withdrawal was most relevant to the cases, in combination with negative spill-over effects and unclear boundary settings in the home.     

学习不良儿童的心理行为问题

学习不良儿童的心理行为问题已成为人们关注的一个焦点。从心理健康的角度考察,学习不良儿童心理行为问题主要表现在生活和社会适应、学习和违纪,以及焦虑、抑郁和自杀等方面;造成上述现象的主要原因要有自我概念较低、家庭因素的不良影响,以及社会认知方面存在的缺陷。可以通过干预和矫正学习不良儿童的心理行为问题,从而提高他们的心理健康水平。     

Why is support for Jamesian actual–ideal discrepancy model so elusive? A latent-variable approach

We investigate the Actual–Ideal Discrepancy (AID) model of self-esteem determination dating back to James (1890/1963). Although intuitively appealing, this model received weak support from rigorous empirical research. We propose a multiple-item latent difference approach to AID as applied to a range of self-concept domains and sub-domains in young adolescents from two different countries (UK: N = 402; Italy: N = 250). The effects of the AID remained elusive for most domains and sub-domains; indeed, the effects of the specific AIDs were generally trivial and only appearance-AID became significant in the combined sample. Also AIDs did not substantially explain the more general self-concepts beyond what was explained by the actual domains. Even if they had been significant, AID effects would have been, at best, trivially small and detectable only using appropriate latent-variable methodologies coupled with large sample sizes; thus undermining the psychological meaning of the AID model.