Explaining neurocognitive aging: is one factor enough?

As an introduction to the special issue on neurocognitive factors underlying age effects, we discuss a number of recent developments in the literature on aging. The classic distinction between generalized and process-specific cognitive changes with old age has reappeared in the distinctions between the frontal lobe hypothesis and more differentiated views of neurocognitive aging. We argue that neurological decay in the frontal cortex has important implications for cognitive control, but that the frontal lobe hypothesis does not capture the plethora of changes that characterize aging and incorrectly suggests a unitary effect.     

新课程背景下上海市中小学教师职业角色认同的研究

本研究是在了解新课程背景所倡导的教师角色的基础上,对教师职业角色认同状况的调查和分析。结果发现：教师在职业角色认同上可以分两个组：“高认同组”和“一般认同组”。在调查的十个教师职业角色中,“教师是文化的传播者”;“教师是学生学习能力的培养者”;“教师是学生人生的引路人”处于角色认同排序的前三位,“教师是专家”、“教师是教育家”、“教师是社区型的开放的教师”处于排序的后三位,其余“教师是教育教学的研究者”;“教师是学生的心理顾问”;“教师是课程的建设者和开发者”和“教师是学者”居中。教师所处的学校类型、教师性别和是否担任行政职务,在职业角色认同上有非常显著和显著的差异。小学教师的职业角色认同要高于初中教师,初中教师又高于高中教师。女教师的职业角色认同要高于男教师。学校行政领导的职业角色认同要高于普通教师。     

Parental Alcoholism and Co-Occurring Antisocial Behavior: Prospective Relationships to Externalizing Behavior Problems in their Young Sons

The hypothesis that parental alcoholism and co-occurring antisocial behavior would be indirectly linked to child externalizing behavior problems through child lack of control, current levels of parent depression, family conflict, and parent–child conflict was tested using manifest variable regression analysis. Participants were a community sample of 125 families with an alcoholic father and 83 ecologically matched but nonsubstance abusing families involved in the first 2 waves of an ongoing longitudinal study (with 3 years between each wave). All families had a biological son who was 3–5 years old at study onset. Results revealed that child lack of control mediated the relation between paternal alcoholism and the son's subsequent externalizing behavior problems. Family conflict was a significant mediator of maternal and paternal lifetime antisocial behavior effects and father–son conflict mediated paternal lifetime antisocial behavior effects. Study implications are discussed within the context of parental socialization of antisocial behavior.     

Comprehension of reversible relative clauses in specifically language impaired and normally developing Greek children

This paper aims to investigate the syntactic comprehension of reversible relative clauses in a group of eight Greek children with specific language impairment (SLI) and two control groups of normally developing children matched on chronological and language age, respectively. An experiment using an acting out procedure was undertaken. Group analysis revealed that SLI children's performance is qualitatively different than that of both control groups. Interpreting the data, processes involved in syntactic comprehension are taken into consideration. It is claimed that processing demands impede SLI children's performance due to a deficit in their competence grammar.     

Trust, Dependency, and Control in the Contemporary Organization

Trust is an essential element in productive and effective intraorganizational communication and interaction. The present study examined several consequences of trust in terms of influence strategies used and the frequency with which people interact with each other. The study also examined the extent to which the technology of work affects management's dependency on their employees. It was found that distrust of subordinates by managers (n = 275) was associated with the use of strong tactics of influence, little dependency on employees, and the use of personal-related characteristics to explain distrust. It was also found that distrust of managers by subordinates (n = 267) was associated with the use of strong methods of influence, less interaction, less attempts to influence, and the use of personal-related characteristics to explain lack of trust. These findings have clear implications for understanding the relation among worker trust, dependency, and social influence. The data suggest that both employees and employers could benefit from considering the importance of a trusting relationship in the workplace.     

20世纪全球卫生发展的回顾与展望

20世纪人类的健康状况发生了革命性的转变,同时也面临着前所未有的挑战。疾病谱的改变及人口寿命的延长以及医疗费用的上涨仍然是困扰各国决策者的难题,卫生发展与改革任重道远。完善健康保障体系最理想的选择方案是政府为居民“购买”基本卫生服务,由国家财政和居民共同承担保险基金,普及初级卫生保健,鼓励多种形式办医,WHO确定的卫生工作目标是各成员国卫生系统改革与发展的指导方针。     

Theorizing Gerontology: The Case of Old Age, Professional Power, and Social Policy in the United Kingdom

This article examines the interrelationship between old age, professional power, and social policy. In particular, dominant theoretical models in social gerontology are reviewed and an alternative framework for understanding social gerontological issues—Foucauldian gerontology—is advanced. Foucauldian narratives are employed to delineate the historical relationship between professional social work and recent social policy for older people in the United Kingdom. In addition, a Foucauldian framework employed to examine identity formation, professional practices, and policy narratives enriches and widens the disciplinary subject matter of theorizing aging studies. The structure of this article is in three parts: review of theories of aging with an introduction of Foucault's potential contribution to gerontological analysis, the historical overview of the instigation of professional intervention in modernity and the changing roles and responsibilities in relation to older people utilizing Foucault's (1977) genealogical method, and the exploration and application of Foucault's key notion of governmentality (1977; Rose & Miller, 1992) in the analysis of social policy for older people.     

Assessment of impulsivity and the development of self-control in students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

We examined a combined approach of manipulating reinforcer dimensions and delay fading to promote the development of self‐control with 3 students diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. First, we administered a brief computer‐based assessment to determine the relative influence of reinforcer rate (R), reinforcer quality (Q), reinforcer immediacy (I), and effort (E) on the students' choices between concurrently presented math problems. During each session, one of these dimensions was placed in direct competition with another dimension (e.g., RvI involving math problem alternatives associated with high‐rate delayed reinforcement vs. low‐rate immediate reinforcement), with all possible pairs of dimensions presented across the six assessment conditions (RvQ, RvI, RvE, QvI, QvE, IvE). The assessment revealed that the choices of all 3 students were most influenced by immediacy of reinforcement, reflecting impulsivity. We then implemented a self‐control training procedure in which reinforcer immediacy competed with another influential dimension (RvI or QvI), and the delay associated with the higher rate or quality reinforcer alternative was progressively increased. The students allocated the majority of their time to the math problem alternatives yielding more frequent (high‐rate) or preferred (high‐quality) reinforcement despite delays of up to 24 hr. Subsequent readministration of portions of the assessment showed that self‐control transferred across untrained dimensions of reinforcement.     

学优儿童学习适应性、学习习惯和应试技能及其关系

采用《儿童学习适应性调查表（I）、（II）》和《学习习惯与应试技能自我测查表》对231名学优儿童的学习适应性及其相关因素进行调查。结果表明：（1）学优儿童和学习不良儿童的学习适应性、学习习惯和应试技能存在显著性差异;（2）城市学优儿童的学习生活、学习习惯、学习方法、阅读习惯和技能明显优于农村学优儿童;（3）学优女生在学习适应性明显好于男生,但女生有独立性差、情绪障碍等症状,而学优男生则在学习习惯方面不如女生。在学习习惯与应试技能方面则不存在显著的性别差异;（4）除了对学校的态度因子外,学优儿童学习适应性与其学习习惯和学习方法、阅读习惯和技能、准备与应试等有显著性相关。     

承诺续扩现象及其心理机制

承诺续扩是指决策者在面对失败的结果时,仍然决定向先前的行动持续投入资源的现象。目前,自我申辩理论、前景理论和决策困境理论是承诺续扩解释机制中较有影响的三种理论。以往的相关实证研究所发现的影响承诺续扩的因素可以归为计划因素、心理因素、个体差异因素以及情境因素等四类。今后的研究有必要关注各解释机制的整合、相关变量之间关系体系的构建和因果路径的确定以及承诺续扩对决策者心理与行为可能造成的影响等问题