Offline: The possible effects of Internet-related behavior on work values,expectations, & behavior among Ultra-Orthodox millennials

ABSTRACT

This work examines differences in the work-related values, expectations, and behaviors between millennials who are significant users of technology and social media, and those who are not. We delineate the development of millennial behavior using a unique group of millennials, those in the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish (known as “Haredi”) community in Israel. Due to religious and community norms, many Haredi millennials were shielded from digital technology, and particularly the Internet and the various technologies associated with it, such as text messaging and social media. Those who were raised and remained in Haredi communities did not encounter the Internet with any regularity as children. Many as adults are still unfamiliar with social media. Thus, this community presents a unique natural experiment, comparing Haredi millennials who are immersed in social media with those who are not.     

Children's preference for novelty in selective learning: Developmental stability or change?

Data relating novelty preference to age for normal children are inconsistent, although a current theory predicts a developmental shift from novelty to familiarity preference in selective learning (D. Zeaman, 1976, in T. J. Tighe & R. N. Leaton (Eds.), Habituation: Perspectives from child development, animal behavior, and neurophysiology (pp. 297–320), Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum). Support for this theory, however, has been derived primarily from studies of retardate learning. Normal children's novelty preference was examined within a modified Moss-Harlow (E. Moss & H. F. Harlow, 1947, Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 40, 333–342) design to compare Zeaman's model with that of S. L. Witryol and W. Wanich (1983, The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 143, 3–8). Each of 16 problems, consisting of three single-stimulus demonstration trials and one two-choice test, was administered to 180 children (mean CA 4, 5.5, and 7 years) in three reward conditions. Novelty was manipulated by varying stimulus familiarization in the demonstration trials. Experiment 1 showed strong preferences for novel over familiar (demonstrated) stimuli at each age. Experiment 2 revealed novelty preference across age levels, two levels of reward contrast, and two levels of task difficulty. It was reasoned that Moss-Harlow tasks designed for normal children typically present a much higher level of difficulty than that intended by researchers. Furthermore, developmental decreases in novelty preference by retardates may derive from (a) transfer of training from prior experiments and (b) specific, repetitive instructions which may have directed attention away from stimulus novelty.     

Children's affective,behavioral, and cognitive responses to social comparison

Relative outcomes in social commerce with peers are potent determinants of cognitions and behavior in young children. Although there has been considerable attention given to the behavioral consequences of social comparisons following the receipt of rewards, there has been less concern with cognitive or affective consequences. Additionally, little is known about the accrued effects of multiple social comparison experiences that may be consistent or inconsistent with one another. In the present study, young children received a constant level of reward but the amount they saw a peer receive was varied. There were two sequences of reward distribution, and in a given sequence children received either the same number of rewards as the peer (=), more (+), or fewer (?). In a 3 × 3 factorial design all possible combinations occurred. A negative inequality in reward distribution, no matter where it fell in a sequence, made children sad and inclined children to distribute fewer rewards to peers. When a sequence contained an initial experience of positive inequality, children decreased subsequent levels of self-reward. Experiencing a comparison that revealed a negative inequality in reward distribution also disrupted children's accuracy in appraising the overall distribution of rewards: even when an initial negative inequality was completely offset by an equivalent experience of positive inequality, children inaccurately concluded that they had received fewer rewards than their peers.     

Excuse inference modification in children and adults

The ability of first- and third-grade children and college adults to make excuse inferences about a speaker's use of an utterance and to modify those inferences appropriately upon receiving later information was examined in four experiments. Short stories containing an utterance by a speaker were read aloud. Utterances in the story were preceded by contextual information that suggested either that the speaker was truthful or making an excuse. Utterances were followed by information that confirmed or disconfirmed the excuse interpretation. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that even first and third graders can make excuse inferences, but these children rarely modify these interpretations upon receiving disconfirming information. In Experiments 2–4 possible reasons for the children's interpretive inflexibility were examined by varying the difficulty of relating the excuse interpretation and succeeding information. Results suggested processing difficulty, as well as an interpretive “set,” contributed to the children's inflexibility.     

The pathological left-handedness syndrome

A clinical syndrome of pathological left-handedness (PLH) is proposed to identify the pattern of correlative changes in lateral development associated with early brain injury in some manifest left-handers. This syndrome is believed to be caused by a hemispheric lesion that is predominantly left-sided (or bilateral asymmetric), which onsets before Age 6, and which encroaches upon the critical speech zones of the frontotemporal/frontoparietal cortex. The pattern of changes may include any or all of the following features: shifts in manual dominance, trophic changes in the extremities, transfer of hemispheric speech, and/or intrahemispheric reorganization of visuospatial cognitive functions. Although some of these correlates of PLH have long been known, they have not been recognized as an interrelated pattern of traits that constitute a clinical syndrome. Identification of these individuals, all manifest left-handers, will be shown to have implications for diagnosis/remediation and for models of recovery of function.     

Intelligence and fertility in the United States: 1912-1982

Results are presented for the 1st analysis of the relationship between IQ and completed fertility using a large, representative sample of the US population. Correlations are predominantly negative for cohorts born between 1894 and 1964 but are significantly more positive for cohorts whose fertility was concentrated in the baby boom years. Previous studies reporting slightly positive correlations appear to have been biased in their restriction of samples to atypical cohorts. The National Opinion Research Center (NORC), a nonprofit research organization affiliated with the University of Chicago, conducted the General Social Survey (GSS) in the US each year from 1972 to 1982, except for 1979. A combination of block quota and full probability sampling was employed. Hour-long interviews were completed with 12,120 respondents who were English-speaking, noninstitutionalized adults (18 years or older) living within the continental US. Such questions as age, place of birth, income and occupation, were asked in each interview. Other questions about attitudes on various social, political, and moral issues were rotated in different years. The unique opportunity this data set affords is an overview of the relationship between intelligence and fertility for a nationally representative sample of Americans whose major reproductive years fell between 1912 and 1982. Data were consolidated from the 4 surveys in which the vocabulary test was given (1974, 1976, 1978, and 1982). Respondents were divided into 15 birth cohorts of 5-year intervals ranging from before 1894 to 1964. Correlations between vocabulary scores and number of siblings are markedly negative across all 15 cohorts. Vocabulary sibling correlations are more negative in every cohort than vocabulary offspring correlations. Previous reports of a neutral or slightly eugenic relationship appear to be due to the nature of the samples used, in part because the cohorts chosen were atypical, and in part because they did not include nonwhites. Childless respondents averaged slightly higher scores than did those with 1 or more children, indicating that the automatic exclusion of the childless from sibling-IQ studies has not spuriously inflated negative correlations.     

A note on real measurement structures of scale type (m,m + 1)

Real relational structures of scale type (1, 2) can be represented in the reals in such a way that the induced automorphism group is properly contained in the affine group and itself properly contains the group of translations. There are no real relational structures of scale type (m, m + 1), m ≥ 2.     

Parent-infant resemblance for general and specific cognitive abilities in the Colorado adoption project

Previous publications emanating from the Colorado Adoption Project have reported significant relationships between parental general cognitive ability (g) and infant Bayley MDI scores. The present study compared infant Bayley factor scores representing separable dimensions of infant cognition with parental general and specific cognitive abilities for 182 adoptive families and 164 nonadoptive families. Parent/offspring correlations between 12-month Bayley factors and parental cognitive abilities suggest only minimal relationships for both parental g and specific abilities. At 24 months, more parent/offspring resemblance was present; moreover, Bayley factors that were related to parental cognition tended to be related to parental g, not to specific abilities. The finding of significant parent/offspring relationships at 24 months between biological parents and their adopted-away infants, as well as between nonadoptive parents and their infants, suggests some genetic continuity from infancy to adulthood.