Conséquences et corrélats associés au soutien de l’autonomie dans divers domaines de vie

Self-determination theory (0160 and 0170) suggests that autonomy-supportive environments, where one's perspective is considered, feelings are recognized, meaningful informations are given, and opportunities for choice are provided, promote optimal functioning. Many studies show that autonomy support leads to positive affective, cognitive, and behavioral consequences. However, this body of research is little known because studies are scattered throughout various research fields and no review of the overall positive impact of autonomy support in various life domains is available. This literature review presents studies on this interpersonal style in five life domains.     

Origine de l’effet longueur de mots en mémoire à court terme verbale chez l’enfant

The current study investigated the determinants of the word length effect in five-, seven-, and nine-year-old children building on Henry (Q J Exp Psychol 43A (1991a) 35-52) previous work. Henry postulated that the word length effect observed in children was caused by verbal output and not rehearsal. Children were given an immediate serial recall task where full verbal recall is required and an immediate probed recall task where only one of the items has to be recall (the item indicated by the experimenter). In the probed recall task, the spatial probe previously used by Henry and criticized by Gathercole and Hitch (Gathercole, S.E., Hitch, G.J., 1993. Developmental Changes in Short-Term Memory: a Revised Working Memory Perspective. In: Collins A. F., Gathercole S. E., Conway M. A., Morris P. E. (Eds.), Theories of Memory. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hove, pp. 189-209) was changed for a pure verbal probe. Our results indicated that 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old children were sensitive to words length when full verbal recall was required. On the contrary, word length effects were not found in five-, seven-, and nine-year-old children when recall was restricted to just one item. These results lend further support to Henry's hypothesis suggesting that the word length effect operates at recall time, through output delay.     

La connaissance du gain d’autrui : une incitation au risque ?

This research aims at suggesting a causal model of risk-taking, following the announcement of another player's gains in a gamble with elementary characteristics. Risk-taking was measured by investment ratio, the amount the participant decided to bet divided by his current total assets. According to Langer's definition [J Perso Soc Psychol 32 (1975) 311-328], the illusion of control was measured by the level of personal success. The results show that the knowledge of another's gain increased risk-taking and the expectancy of personal success. These results validated the causal-model wherein the effect of the knowledge of another's gain on risk-taking was mediated by the expectancy of personal success. The discussion relates mainly to the need for taking into account the fact that gamblers are not isolated decision-makers, but takes account of some social parameters which guide their choices and actions.     

Capacité de mémoire de travail et traitement du pronom chez l’enfant

The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and reading comprehension in children by testing the processing of pronouns. Two groups of nine- to ten-year-old children classified as high span and low span were administered a pronoun processing task. In this task, the computation of the antecedent referent for pronouns was varied by manipulating the distance between the pronoun and its antecedent and the availability of a gender cue. The results showed that compared to high-span children, low-span children experienced more difficulties in computing a pronoun's referent. High-span children spent longer reading sentences containing anaphoric pronouns when pronouns could not be resolved on the basis of the gender alone, suggesting that the pronouns were resolved as they were read. Low-span children tended to delay resolution until it was required by the task. In the question-answering times, low-span children were more adversely affected by distance than high-span children. Altogether these findings support the view that working memory capacity constrains resolution of anaphoric pronouns in children.