Table of Content

15 May 2011, Volume 27 Issue 3

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3 to 5-Year-Old Preschoolers’ Length Transitive Inference under the Visual-Divided-Tasks

MO Xiu-feng, LI Hong, ZHANG Zhong-ming

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  225-232. 

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When it comes to investigating preschoolers' transitive inference,there seems to be a dilemma.Children should be free from the load of working memory,and they should not compare directly but deduce transitively.In present study,the visual-divided-tasks were created to investigate 3 to 5-year-old preschoolers' length transitive inference.2 (interval length)×2 (layout)×4 (age) mixed design was adopted.240 preschoolers aged 3 to 5 participated in the study sorted in four groups every 6 months.The results indicate the conclusions as following:(1) preschoolers' ability of transitive inference develops quickly during the age of 3 to 4.It's developmental speed peaks after the age of 4 when preschoolers can make transitive inference in different task; (2) transitive inferences of preschoolers are influenced significantly by the kind of tasks; (3) there is a significant correlation between total accuracy and the frequencies of logic transitivity justifications.It was concluded that:(1) children as young as 4-year-old can make transitive inference with educational value to some extent; (2) there are 4 discriminative sequences during the development of transitive cognition,denoted as the embryonic level,transitional level,stable level,and the higher level,which mainly in turn occurred in preschoolers aged 36-42 months,43-48 months,49-54 months and 55-60 months.

Preschooler’s Emotion Understanding Development and Its Relation with Parental Meta-Emotion Philosophy

LIANG Zong-bao, ZHANG Guang-zhen, CHEN Hui-chang, ZHANG Ping

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  233-240. 

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Children's emotion understanding is a core component of social cognition,and it is very important to their social interaction with peers and later social adjustment.Parental socialization of emotion has obtained more and more attention during the past two decades.Parental meta-emotion philosophy refers to parents' feelings and approaches to their own and their children's emotions,which reflects parental beliefs and goals of emotion socialization.Parental beliefs and goals have important effect on children's emotion understanding.The current study explored the developmental trend of preschoolers' emotion understanding,and then examined the relation between parental meta-emotion philosophy and preschoolers' emotion understanding.Three hundred and forty-one children aged 3-5 and their parents participated in the study.Children's emotion understanding was assessed by research assistants on Denham's puppet play task.Fathers and mothers reported their own meta-emotion philosophy on Parental Meta-Emotion Philosophy Scale (PMEPQ) respectively.Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Multiple Regression linear (MRL) analyses indicated:(1) Girls' emotion recognition was explicitly better than boys; (2) Preschoolers' emotion understanding showed significant developmental trend,and elder preschoolers' emotion understanding competence was significantly better than younger; (3) Maternal emotion-noninvolvement was positively associated with preschoolers' emotion recognition; maternal emotion-dysfunction was negatively associated with preschoolers' emotion recognition; (4) Paternal emotion-dysfunction was positively associated with preschoolers' emotion recognition and emotion situationunderstanding.

Individual Differences in Reflective-Impulsive Cognitive Style： Children’s Problem Solving and Metacognition

CHEN Ying-he, HAO Jia-jia

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  241-246. 

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The present study examined the performance of children identified as reflective or impulsive on the three jigsaw-puzzle tasks with different complexity; explored the individual differences of problem solving and metacognition in reflective- impulsive cognitive style.The results revealed:1) Interactive effect between cognitive style and task complexity was significant.The reflective children spent more time for ongoing and offline metacognitive monitoring in simple task,for ongoing metacognitive monitoring in moderate task.2) There was no significant difference on the results of problem solving between the two group children.3) The impulsive children used more steps to solve the problems,and tended to complete the puzzle according the main structure,while the reflective children prefer inferring according the picture clues.

Study of the Consistency and Its Influence Factors between Laboratory Observation and Maternal-Report on Infant Temperament

YU Heng, ZHANG Ming-hao, CHEN Xin-yin, DENG Hui-hua, LU Zu-hong

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  247-254. 

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The consistency in infant positive and negative emotions between laboratory observation and maternal-report method was investigated in 203 6-month old infants.Positive and negative emotions coded were observed in three different scenes (positive,negative and neutral).The positive and negative emotions observed in positive context were significantly correlated with maternal-reported positive emotion.Maternal depression can predict the difference in negative emotion between the two methods.The gender of children can moderate the parenting stress and the consistency in positive emotion between the two methods.

The Characteristics of Implicit Theory of Intelligence of Children in Higher Grader of Primary School and the Effects of Praise On it

XING Shu-fen, YU Guo-liang, LIN Chong-de

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  255-259. 

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With 101 children of 5^th-grade students as subjects,the experimental study explored the characteristics of the development of implicit theory of intelligence and the influences of praise on it.The results were:(a) All children in three different conditions endorsed an incremental theory of intelligence,indicating children in higher grader of primary school in our country emphasized the plasticity of intelligence; children in the control condition rated effort more important than ability,indicating children in higher grader of primary school considered effort more important for our achievement; (b) The degree to which the groups endorsed an entity theory of intelligence showed significant differences among the children in the three conditions,children that praised for ability more inclined to consider intelligence as an fixed、uncontrollable trait.

The Influencing Factors and Mechanism of Adolescents’ Gratitude

WANG Jian-ping, YU Cheng-fu, ZENG Yi-yin, YE Ting, ZHANG Wei

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  260-266. 

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To investigate the influencing factors and mechanism of adolescents' gratitude,1217 secondary students were tested with gratitude questionnaire,self-esteem scale,coping efficacy scale,parent-child relationship questionnaire,peer support questionnaire,peer rejection questionnaire,school connectedness scale,community safety questionnaire and community satisfaction questionnaire.The results indicated that:(1) Self-esteem,coping efficacy,parent-child relationship,peer support,school connectedness,community safety and community satisfaction were significantly positively associated with their gratitude,peer rejection was significantly negatively associated with their gratitude.(2) Self-esteem had partial mediation effects among parent-child relationship,school connectedness and adolescents' gratitude; coping efficacy had partial mediation effect among parent-child relationships,peer support,school connectedness and adolescent's gratitude.It is suggested that Individual factors (e.g.,elf-esteem,coping efficacy) relative to environmental factors (e.g.,parent-child relationship,peer support,school connectedness) are more proximal factors of adolescents'gratitude.

Current Status of Adolescents Parental Monitoring and its Effect on Their Social Adjustment

ZHANG Wen-juan, ZOU Hong, LI Xiao-wei

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  267-273. 

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2324 students participated in a study conducted to explore the current conditions of adolescents' parental monitoring and its effect on their social adjustment together with the moderate effect of Neuroticism.Parental Monitoring Questionnaires and Adolescents' Social Adjustment Assessment Questionnaires were used to measure the participants' current status of parental monitoring and their social adjustment.The results showed that:(1)Significant differences of parental monitoring were found between adolescents'of varied grades and different sexes.Parental knowledge about girls was significantly higher than parental knowledge about boys,there are significantly more negative feedbacks from boys than from girls; parental knowledge and autonomy granting of lower grades adolescents was significantly higher than that of higher grades adolescents.And negative feedback from participates of Grade 8 was significantly higher than those from Grade 10 and Grade 11.(2) The adolescents'parental monitoring could be categorized into 3 styles,namely democratic style,controlling style and Laissez-Faire style,the proportions of which were 38%,30% and 32% respectively.(3) The 3 styles differed significantly in all aspects of social adjustment.(4)Neuroticism served as a moderate variable in the relationship between parental monitoring and negative social adjustment.

The Construct of Graduates’ Employability and its Effect on Graduates’ Employment Results

QIAO Zhi-hong, WANG Shuang, XIE Bing-qing, WANG Zhen

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  274-281. 

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This study chose 1017 graduates from universities in order to investigate the construct of graduates' employability,and analyze its effect on graduates' employment results.The study verified the employability model (Fugate,Kinicki,& Ashforth,2004) by structural equation modeling,which includes adaptability,vocational identity,human capital and social capital.Furthermore,we found positive relationship between employability and several employment results.The results showed that vocational identity and human capital have significant effects on the number of job offer.University type and human capital has significant effects on graduates' starting salary.University type,human capital,vocational identity and adaptability have significant effect on graduates' job satisfaction.At last,graduates'adaptability has significant predictive effect on their work adjustment half-year later.

An Experimental Study on Enhancing Story-writing Quality of Pupils with Writing Difficulties through Planning Strategy Instruction

TIAN Lan, ZHANG Da-jun

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  282-288. 

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Using a pre-test and post-test experimental design,and through SRSD strategy instruction model,23 pupils with writing difficulties were taught strategies of planning.The results showed that before the training,differences on story length,six quality items and overall quality between experimental group and control group were not significant.But following instruction,compared to control group,students in experimental group got significantly higher scores on plot attractiveness,order clarity and overall quality.Effect size on experimental group's overall quality was up to 0.80.Therefore,story-writing quality of pupils with writing difficulties can be significantly enhanced through instruction of planning strategies.

Academic Self-efficacy and Burnout： Moderating Effects of Class Collective Efficacy among Junior High School Students

SHI Lei-shan, GAO Feng-Qiang, SHEN Yong-jiang

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  289-296. 

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In order to examine and investigate the effects of class collective efficacy and academic self-efficacy on student burnout at the individual and organizational levels,1125 students as subjects from 26 junior high schools were chosen randomly.After controlled the effect of gender and grade,Hierarchical Linear Model(HLM) results revealed that (1) the higher the positive conjoint capabilities of group,the higher personal learning accomplishment; negative conjoint capabilities of group positively predicts mental exhaustion and physical exhaustion; efficacy of higher status members positively predicts the lack of personal learning accomplishment,the alienated relationship between students and teachers,and physical exhaustion; and the high personal efficacy as a member of group,the lower mental exhaustion and the lack of personal learning accomplishment; (2) the positive and negative conjoint capabilities of group have been found to weaken the negative relationship of academic self- efficacy and the alienated relationship between students and teachers; the negative conjoint capabilities of group also weaken the negative relationship of academic self-efficacy and mental exhaustion; efficacy of higher status members promotes the negative relationship of academic self-efficacy and the lack of personal learning accomplishment; and personal efficacy as a member of group also promotes the negative relationship of academic self-efficacy and the alienated relationship between students and teachers.

The Role of Logographeme Characteristics and Orthographic Awareness in Low-Grade Children’s Writing Development

SHI Bing-jie, LI Hong, ZHANG Yu-ping, SHU Hua

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  297-303. 

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This study investigated the role of logographeme complexity and the number of logographeme in Chinese children's writing development,using data of a one-year-longitudinal study (n=262).It also explored how the orthographic awareness contributes to the development of children's wiring ability.Experiment 1 discovered that Chinese children's writing units evolved from strokes to logographeme.With strokes fixed,children would make mistakes by writing incorrect strokes and logographeme for complicated characters,and substituting one logographeme with another when writing simple characters.Experiment 2 showed that when logographeme complexity was controlled,the number of logographeme would significantly affect children's writing accuracy.Children are more inclined to make mistakes in writing complicated characters,with certain logographeme missed or substituted.Experiment 3 found that one can predict the kids'writing performance at the time and in the next year through their orthographic awareness in the first grade.This suggested the orthographic awareness plays an important role in children's writing development.

Testing the Mediation Effect of Emotional Labor among Teachers under the Framework of Emotion Regulation Model

WU Yu-ju, LIU Yi, LING Wen-quan, LU Hong

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  304-312. 

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To test the relationship among positive affection,negative affection,emotional labor,and burnout,survey is put into operation.Basing on Grandey's emotion regulation model,regression analysis over 828 primary and middle school teachers shows that positive and negative affection varies the correlation between emotional labor and burnout.Results further indicate that emotional labor does not only partially mediate the effect of "mean difference between negative affection and positive affection" on burnout dimensions,but also partially mediate the effect of "coefficient of variation difference between negative affection and positive affection" on depersonalization and accomplishment.In addition,as a function of gender,deep acting and surface acting act as moderated mediators,partially mediate the effect of "mean difference between negative affection and positive affection" on depersonalization.

The Influences of Stress on Mental Health of “Ant Tribe”： The Moderating Effect of Hope

HU Jin-feng, ZHENG Xue, SUN Na-na

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  313-318. 

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To investigate the dispositional hope of the "ant tribe" and explore the moderating role of hope in the relationship of stress and mental health of "ant tribe",340 members of "ant tribe" from Tangxia,Shangshe,Cencun and Chisha in Guangzhou were selected to fill the questionnaires of hope,stress and mental heath.The results indicated that:(1) The dispositional hope of "ant tribe" was a little higher than the moderate level.(2) Stress was negatively correlated with mental heath; Hope moderated the effects of stress on mental health,depression and self-affirmation.(3) The size of the moderating effects are different,detailedly the moderating role of hope between stress and depression is larger than that of stress and self-affirmation.

The Relation between the Modes of Second-Year High School Students’ Emotion Regulation and Their Parents’ Reactions

ZHOU Si-li, HOU Zhi-jin, SHAO Jin, ZHU Ma

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  319-328. 

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The study examined the relation between fathers and mothers' reactions to students' negative emotions (sadness,fear,and anger) and emotion regulation modes of second-year senior high school students (male and female) based on Self-Determination Theory.A questionnaire survey was conducted with a final sample size of 500 students.Structural Equation Model was used to compare two theoretical models.The results indicated that the emotion regulation modes of the targeted participants were more predictive to their parents' reaction modes,comparing to the predictiveness of parents' reaction modes to students' emotion regulation modes.This finding was more significant for female students than for males.The relation between students' emotion regulation modes and their parents' reaction modes were similar under all emotion conditions; fathers and mothers' reaction to students' emotion regulation modes were similar as well.However,difference existed between female and male students on the relation between their emotion regulation modes and their parents' reaction modes.Specifically,male students' suppressive and dysregulated emotion regulations predicted both fathers and mothers' controlling reactions,and their integrated emotion regulation modes predicted both fathers and mothers' supportive reactions.Regarding the female students,their suppressive and dysregulated emotion regulation modes could predict both father and mothers' controlling reactions,while their integrated emotion regulation mode could not predict parents' supportive reactions.

The Influence of Rumination to Negative and Positive Affection： Based on its Relationships with Loneliness and Emotional Intelligence

GUO Su-ran, WU Xin-chun, GUO You-qi, WANG Lin-lin, TANG Shun-yan

Psychological Development and Education. 2011, 27(3):  329-336. 

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Rumination could influence both positive and negative affection.In present study,we used ruminative response scale,UCLA scale developed by Russell and emotional intelligence scale to test the relations among rumination,loneliness and emotional intelligence.Data from 331 undergraduates showed that,for Chinese undergraduates,score of reflection dimension was higher than the scores of depressed related and brooding.The total score as well as three dimensions were positively related to loneliness.The depressed related dimension was negatively related to the level of emotional intelligence and the reflection dimension was positively related to emotional intelligence.Emotional intelligence moderated the effects of rumination,depressed related,and brooding on loneliness.