The Cultural Adaptation of the Youth Quality of Life Instrument-Research Version for Latino Children and Adolescents

We reviewed the Spanish translation of the Youth Quality of Life Instrument-Research Version (YQOL-R) and culturally adapted the measure with Puerto Rican and Mexican American children and adolescents. The YQOL-R is a self-reported measure that includes four domains: Sense of Self, Social Relationships, Environment, and General Quality of Life. A total of 10 focus groups were conducted with children aged 9 to 11, adolescents aged 12 to 17, their parents, and mental health providers. Five focus groups were conducted in San Diego, California and five in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Eligible participants were recruited from children’s outpatient psychiatry clinics. We followed an iterative and recursive process in reviewing changes and modifications to the instrument using a bilingual committee and a Multi National Bilingual Committee. Greater semantic, content, and technical equivalence of the Spanish and English versions for the YQOL-R was achieved for the two largest U.S. Latino subgroups: Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans. The cultural adaptation process revealed several important issues regarding the measurement of quality of life in different age groups. Additional items for school, relationships (both family and friends) and spare time suggested the need for a future children’s version of the instrument. For the adolescents, additional items were suggested in the areas of sexuality, intergenerational conflict and acculturative stress.     

文化智力研究评述与展望

文化智力是指人们与来自不同文化的其他人打交道时,采取有效措施以适应新文化的能力。文化智力的结构与测量,与其他相关构念的关系,以及不同的开发方法成了现有研究的重点;另外,也有实证研究表明,文化智力对一些结果变量有显著影响,例如认知结果、情感结果以及行为结果。本文对文化智力的相关研究进行了较为全面的总结,并指出了今后的研究趋势与方向     

THE INTERTWINED ROLES OF GENES AND CULTURE IN HUMAN EVOLUTION

This essay critiques dual-inheritance theory as presented in Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd's book Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (2005). The theory states that culture became prominent in human evolution because it allowed relatively rapid adaptation to changing environments by means of imitation. Imitating the behavior of other members of one's community produces adaptive behaviors more readily than either genetic evolution or individual learning. Imitation follows a number of patterns: imitating high-status individuals, imitating the most common forms of behavior, imitating behaviors perceived to be the most effective solutions to various problems relevant to survival. This process combined with occasional innovations in behavior lead to a process of cultural evolution involving populations of cultural variants. Different local human populations were associated with different local populations of cultural variants, and both the human and the cultural populations evolved over time. Human evolution cannot be understood without taking into account these parallel processes of genetic and cultural evolution. Not by Genes Alone traces the implication of dual-inheritance theory for understanding human evolution and refers to various bodies of evidence relevant to the theory.     

Phonetic recalibration only occurs in speech mode

Upon hearing an ambiguous speech sound dubbed onto lipread speech, listeners adjust their phonetic categories in accordance with the lipread information (recalibration) that tells what the phoneme should be. Here we used sine wave speech (SWS) to show that this tuning effect occurs if the SWS sounds are perceived as speech, but not if the sounds are perceived as non-speech. In contrast, selective speech adaptation occurred irrespective of whether listeners were in speech or non-speech mode. These results provide new evidence for the distinction between a speech and non-speech processing mode, and they demonstrate that different mechanisms underlie recalibration and selective speech adaptation.     

Three dimensions of coping and a look at their evolutionary origin

Serious problems persist concerning the conceptualization and measurement of the coping construct. This study examines the properties and factor structure of the COPE questionnaire, one of the most widely used instruments to measure coping, in a sample of 471 patients. A series of exploratory factor procedures are applied at the item- and scale-level, and the resulting solutions are tested both by their congruence with previously published structures and by confirmatory techniques. Our finding of three robust, generalizable, and parsimonious second-order dimensions—Engagement, Disengagement, and Help-Seeking—challenges the original structure. The results are discussed from an evolutionary perspective, on the assumption that the recognition of coping as the activation of vestigial defenses may make a substantial contribution to clarifying its functions and organization.     

初一学生人格特征、学习适应性与学习成绩关系的研究

以《中学生个性测验量表》和《学习适应性测验量表》为研究工具,以320名初一学生为被试,探讨初一学生个性因素、学习适应性与学习成绩的关系。结果发现,初一学生的个性特征、学习适应性与学习成绩都存在一定的相关关系;初一学生的个性因素中自控及情绪性因素和智力性因素对其学习成绩具有更好的预测作用,学习适应性因素中学习期望和家庭环境对其学习成绩具有较好的预测作用;研究同时认为,个性特征与学习适应性对初一学生学习成绩的影响可能是非常有限的。     

The Coming-Out Process and Its Adaptational and Health-Related Associations Among Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Youths: Stipulation and Exploration of a Model

A model is proposed and explored that links the coming-out process to the psychological functioning (i.e., self-esteem and distress) and sexual behaviors of gay, lesbian, and bisexual youths recruited from gay-focused community-based and college organizations in New York City. The coming-out process is multidimensional, consisting, as defined here, of involvement in gay/lesbian activities, attitudes toward homosexuality, comfort with homosexuality, self-disclosure of sexual identity to others, and sexual identity. The coming-out dimensions were related to self-esteem, distress, and unprotected sexual behaviors. In addition, the relations between the coming-out dimensions and unprotected sexual behaviors were explained by psychological functioning. In particular, limited involvement in gay/lesbian activities was associated with more unprotected sex. Negative attitudes toward homosexuality were related directly to more unprotected sex, and they were related indirectly to more unprotected sex by means of increasing emotional distress. These and other findings have implications for designing preventive interventions to increase the youths' psychological functioning and reduce their unprotected sexual behaviors.     

Evolution of Destructive Aggression

Aggression is defined as a mechanism of spacing by means of force or displays. It has evolved independently in different animal groups. The mechanisms underlying it are therefore not homologous throughout the animal kingdom. The phenomenon of aggression is so widespread, however, that strong selection pressures must be responsible for its development along analogous lines. Its most obvious functions are in competition for mates, natural resources, and territories, and in the preservation of group identity in many gregarious species. Aggression is often ritualized so that no damage is done to conspecifics. This ritualization may appear as modification of fighting into a tournament, or as the development of submissive postures which block further aggression in the opponent shortly after the onset of a potentially damaging fight. Animal aggression is preprogrammed by phylogenetic adaptation in well-defined ways, but can be modified by experience. The inborn programs involve motor patterns, innate releasing mechanisms, releasers, motivating mechanisms, and learning dispositions specific for the species. Aggression on this biological level can be observed in humans as intragroup aggression. Certain motor patterns and signals which lead to the release of aggression are universal. Some can even be found in deaf- and blind-born people, proving their innateness. A number of patterns of aggression in man are highly ritualized and - in a way analogous to that found in many animals - mechanisms of control have evolved inhibiting the killing of a conspecific. There are strong indications of the existence of motivating mechanisms within the brain, e.g., in the form of neuronal circuits, that show a degree of spontaneity. The type of destructive aggression which we call war, is a product of cultural evolution. War takes advantage of the given motivational structure of man, including his fear of strangers, which develops in every baby independently of experience and makes men inclined to form closed groups and causes them to be wary of or hostile to strangers. Based on these tendencies, man underwent a process of cultural subspeciation. Groups demarcated themselves from others by custom, erecting communication barriers. The development of languages demonstrates how fast and efficient this process is. Members of the same group, during this process, were defined as the “real man,” outsiders often were to be valued less -or even considered nonhuman. On the basis of this self-indoctrination, cultural codes of conduct developed, which allowed members of other groups to be killed when groups competed for resources. A cultural fiiter of norms was established which demanded killing under defined conditions, and was superimposed upon the biological filter of norms which inhibits the killing of a human being. This results in a conflict of norms, which is universally felt as guilt, since the biological filter of norms, though superimposed, is nonetheless working, particularly in the circumstance of a personal encounter. The more advanced the technique of armament, which allows fast and distant killing, the less the inhibitions are activated. Nonetheless, ritualizations occur on the cultural level. Warfare is sometimes ritualized and conventions are developed to prevent escalation into massacres, or the wholesale destruction of the subjugated enemy. To a great extent, this is certainly a result of our inborn moral code, If nothing like this were given to man our situation would be disastrous indeed. Whether cultural evolution will, in the future, be guided by moral maxims in accord with our human nature is a deeision men must make rationally. Although a ruthless ethnocentrism may bring advantage to a warring group, this may eventually prove fatal to mankind as a whole. In the escalating competition mankind runs the danger not only of exhausting its resources, but of destroying itself with its new weapons. If the outcome were not selfdestruction but domination by one group it would impoverish the diversity of human cultures, and thus seriously cut down man's spectrum of adaptability. War fulfills certain functions, similar to those found in animals. It is mainly a mechanism for preserving and extending one's territory, and a means of getting access to scarce resources. It is therefore dangerous to consider war merely as a pathological form of human behavior because this may distract our attention from the fact that, h order to overcome war, the functions of war have to be fulfilled by nonviolent means. Cultural evolution phenocopies biological evolution, due to similarities in the selection pressures shaping its course. This allows us to define the point of the evolutionary spiral we are at currently and to predict our future course.     

人际关系适应特征的情境评价方法研究

本研究运用情境评价法对人际关系适应特征进行了实验研究 ,结果表明 :1以 Schutz提出的人际关系六因素为评价标准 ,采用情境评价法比问卷形式能更有效地揭示人际适应特征 ;2在情境评价中 ,以合作为主的情境设置比以竞争为主的情境设置更利于反映出人际适应特征 ;3情境评价采用定向、组织、交流和问题解决等阶段的过程设计符合情境评价的实际进程 ,有助于分阶段展开被试的行为特征 ,提高情境评价的可控性和准确性。     

大学生学习适应量表的编制

对当代大学生学习适应问题进行了深入分析,在有关研究的基础上,探讨了当代大学生学习适应的主要因素,并编制一套适合当代大学生学习适应的测验。对四类院校918名大学生进行了施测,对调查数据进行了探索性因素分析和验证性因素分析。探索性因素分析结果表明,大学生学习适应的主要因素包括学习动机、教学模式、学习能力、学习态度、环境因素等5个方面;验证性因素分析结果表明,所提取的5个因素与构想模型拟合较好,测验具有较好的信、效度