Loving and angry? Happy and sad? Understanding and reporting of mixed emotions in mother–child relationships by 6‐ to 12‐year‐olds

The Evaluative Space Model of emotions allows for the coactivation of positive‐appetitive and negative‐avoidant systems, but few studies have examined mixed emotions in child development. Existing research suggests children's understanding of opposite valence emotion combinations emerges by approximately 11 years of age. However, it is not yet clear whether various opposite valence combinations are understood at different ages, nor whether children can understand them in others before they have experienced such mixed emotions themselves. Semi‐structured interviews with 97 children investigated whether they regarded six combinations of opposite valence mixed emotions as possible, could provide reasons for them, and report their own experience of each in the context of mother–child relationships. Both understanding that such combinations are possible and ability to provide reasons for them increased after age 6 and up to age 11, but were still incomplete in 12‐year‐olds. Understanding of different opposite valence combinations developed at different rates. At each age, fewer children who showed understanding of these combinations in others reported having had a similar experience themselves. The findings suggest a need to systematically examine a range of mixed emotions in order to develop a comprehensive theory of the development of mixed emotion understanding. They also suggest extending research into adolescence.     

The effects of self‐explaining when learning with text or diagrams

Self‐explaining is an effective metacognitive strategy that can help learners develop deeper understanding of the material they study. This experiment explored if the format of material (i.e., text or diagrams) influences the self‐explanation effect. Twenty subjects were presented with information about the human circulatory system and prompted to self‐explain; 10 received this information in text and 10 in diagrams. Results showed that students given diagrams performed significantly better on post‐tests than students given text. Diagrams students also generated significantly more self‐explanations that text students. Furthermore, the benefits of self‐explaining were much greater in the diagrams condition. To discover why diagrams can promote the self‐explanation effect, results are interpreted with reference to the multiple differences in the semantic, cognitive and affective properties of the texts and diagrams studied.     

The heterogeneity of attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms and conduct problems: Cognitive inhibition,emotion regulation,emotionality, and disorganized attachment

This study examined the contributions of several important domains of functioning to attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and conduct problems. Specifically, we investigated whether cognitive inhibition, emotion regulation, emotionality, and disorganized attachment made independent and specific contributions to these externalizing behaviour problems from a multiple pathways perspective. The study included laboratory measures of cognitive inhibition and disorganized attachment in 184 typically developing children (M age = 6 years, 10 months, SD = 1.7). Parental ratings provided measures of emotion regulation, emotionality, and externalizing behaviour problems. Results revealed that cognitive inhibition, regulation of positive emotion, and positive emotionality were independently and specifically related to ADHD symptoms. Disorganized attachment and negative emotionality formed independent and specific relations to conduct problems. Our findings support the multiple pathways perspective on ADHD, with poor regulation of positive emotion and high positive emotionality making distinct contributions to ADHD symptoms. More specifically, our results support the proposal of a temperamentally based pathway to ADHD symptoms. The findings also indicate that disorganized attachment and negative emotionality constitute pathways specific to conduct problems rather than to ADHD symptoms.     

Influential observations in principal factor analysis

We propose a method for detecting influential observations in iterative principal factor analysis. For this purpose we derive the influence functionsI(x; LL ^T ) andI(x; ) for the common variance matrixT =LL ^T and the unique variance matrix , respectively, in the common factor decomposition =LL ^T + . A numerical example is given for illustration.The authors are grateful to Tomoyuki Tarumi and Atsuhiro Hayashi for their kind permission to use their software Seto/B for drawing Figures 1 and 2 and to anonymous reviewers for comments on the paper.     

Fallacies

Fallacies are things people commit, and when they commit them they do something wrong. What kind of activities are people engaged in when they commit fallacies, and in what way are they doing something wrong? Many different things are called fallacies. The diversity of the use of the concept of a fallacy suggests that we are dealing with a family of cases not related by a common essence. However, we suggest a simple account of the nature of fallacies which encompasses them all, viz., the term “fallacy” is our most general term for criticizing any general procedure used for the fixation of beliefs that has an unacceptably high tendency to generate false or unfounded beliefs, relative to that method of fixing beliefs. Very different sorts of things called fallacies are examined in the light of this account, e.g., denying the antecedent, circular arguments, so-called informal fallacies, and propositions said to be fallacies. We do not provide a theory of fallacies. Still, on our account pretty much all of those things that have been called fallacies are fallacies, and they have been called fallacies for pretty much the same reasons.     

When celebrities talk,children listen: An experimental analysis of children's responses to TV ads with celebrity endorsement

Two studies tested the effects of TV ads with celebrity endorsement on the product preference and understanding of 8- to 14-year-old boys. Study 1 compared two ads for a model racer. One had celebrity endorsement (by a famous race driver) and footage of real automobile racing featuring the celebrity (live action); the second had neither feature. Study 2 employed one ad for a different brand of model racer edited to generate a 2 (endorser presence) by 2 (inclusion of live racetrack action) factorial design. A total of 415 boys were exposed to one of the experimental ads or a control ad, embedded in a new animated children's adventure program. Preference for the advertised brand of model racer (pre- and postviewing) and a number of cognitive variables were assessed. Exposure to endorsement led to increased preference for the toy and belief that the celebrity was expert about the toy. Live action led to exaggerated estimates of the physical properties of the toy and the belief that the ad was not staged. The 8- to 10-year-olds associated the glamour of the endorser with the toy and were more reliant on his advice than were 11- to 14-year-olds. However, the two age groups were not differentially affected by the ads. Contrary to the speculation of many researchers, understanding about advertising intent and techniques and cynicism about ads had almost no influence on product preference after viewing.     

孟子的心理学思想研究

该文较系统地论述了孟子的普通心理思想。主要问题是:心理学思想的基本观点,知虑心理思想,情欲心理思想,志意心理思想,智能心理思想,性习心理思想。