Table of Content

15 March 2010, Volume 26 Issue 2

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Effects of Verbal Second Interference on Spatial and Object Working Memory

LUO Liang, LIN Chong-de

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  113-120. 

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In three experiments of 44 participants,we intended to examine effects of verbal second interference task on the retention of objects and spatial locations w ith different verbal demand in working memory.We adopted the method of a delayed match-to-sample task in which subjects are presented with astimulus(S1)that contains object or spatial information that has to the retained for a delayed comparison with a second stimulus(S2).W hen verbal second interference task was inserted into S1-S2 interval,we want to investigate which kind of working memory perform ance(object working memory or spatial working memory)demonstrated greater sensitivity to this interference task.The main results are as follows:the verbal encoding mechanism always played an important role in the maintenance of object information in working memory,whether memory stimuli is unfamiliar objects,or nameable objects when test stimuli is graphic form or forms of words;however,in experiment using nameable spatial locations as memory stimuli,whether the verbal encoding mechanism was selected,depended on the experimental conditions.

Young Children’s Understanding of the Role of Intention and Action in Pretense

MENG Hong-xia, LIU Xi-ping

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  121-127. 

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This research investigated 3-to 5-year-old's understanding of the role of intention and action in pretense.There are two main perspectives on how children understand pretense.One view is that children understand the mental aspects of pretending.The alternative view is that children just understand the action aspects of pretending.This research used video approach to test these two interp retations.In the experiment,the experim enter presented children with 3 types of videotaped scenarios:with intention-with action、with intention-noaction、nointention-with action,and asked the children to answer whether the protagonists were pretending.The results of this study suggest that in certain facilitating conditions (intention information salient)children can understand the mental aspects of pretending,and the familiarity of the pretend animal maybe affect children's understanding of the pretending.

The Effect of Behavior Evaluation on Mastery Motivation in 3-Year-Old Children

LIU Shuang, ZHANG Xiang-kui

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  128-132. 

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To examine the general characteristics of mastery motivation and the effect of behavioreva luation on it, 71 children were tested in situational expermients.The results are as follows:for 3-year-old ch ildren:(1)mastery motivation for newfangled toy was strong;(2)various visual and auditory feedback could motivate their more exploration and manipulation;(3)they showed more pleasure when evalluated positivelly on their exploration;(4)the emotional experience from success and failure was significantly differen;t(5)positive evaluation could increase their interest when succeed ing,and decrease their negative emotion when failing;(6)most of the children(94142%)wanted to try challenge and persist long tmie for completion,while individual differences existed.

Researches into Cognitive Development of Expression in Children Aged 3 to 5 Years

GAO Xue-mei, ZHENG Chi-jun

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  137-143. 

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By means of three tasks which include nomination-copying,selection-construction and free drawing,the current study is intended to examine cognition of four basic emotions which include happiness,sadness,anger and surprise in children aged 3 to 5 years.The results are as follows:(1) children name correctly happ iness,sadness,and anger earlier than surprise,their cognition on 4 basic emotions increases by age in general, though the developmental tendencies vary;the cognition on happiness is best of allwhile the age between 3 and 4 is the rapid development period for cognition on sadness and surprise;(2)Children can select the most representative emotional label according to different emotions and show no preference for mouth generally;(3)the main effect of tasks is significant, and they perform best in copying while worst in free drawing;(4)the previous hints or problem space lmiiting more possibly activate and enrich the acquired emotion symbol.

The Roles of Various Character Decoding Skills in Children’s Reading Acquisition

HU Tian-ting, TAO Sha, XU Qin-mei, BI Hong-yan

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  144-152. 

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Learning how to decode the print is the p rimary task for children after entering into elementary school. Decoding is about converting w ritten symbols into sound and meaning.Researchers often tested decoding skills by word reading accuracy,grapheme-phoneme corresponding rules(GPC rules)using and word reading fluency.In alphabetic languages such as English,decoding was repeatedly revealed as playing an important role in reading for early graders.However,the importance might decrease as children entered into higher grades.In Chinese,there are a large number of semantic-phonetic compound characters,which contain a semantic component that gives a clue to meaning and a phonetic component that may give a clue to pronunciation.In contrast to English,there are no direct and transparent corresponding rules like GPC for Chinese character reading.Chinese character decoding skills also can be examined with respect to character reading accuracy,Chinese character orthography-phonology and orthography-semantic connection rules and character reading fluency.The p resent study aimed to examine the roles of various Chinese character decoding skills in Chinese reading comprehension among native Chinese-speaking children in grade 2 and grade 4.One hundred and two 2^nd graders(45 boys,57 girls,meanage=8.33 years;SD=0.33)and 106 4^th graders(50 boys,56 girls,meanage=10143 years;SD=0.35)completed Chinese language comprehension test,Chinese reading comprehension test,Chinese character reading accuracy test,Chinese character reading fluency test,phonetic decoding and semantic radical decoding test.Results showed that after controlling for the effects of Chinese language comprehension,Chinese character decoding skills significantly accounted for considerable amount of variance of Chinese reading comprehension at both 2^nd grade and 4^th grade.Among the four character decoding skills,after controlling for the effects of language comprehension and other Chinese character decoding skills,character reading accuracy significantly accounted for unique variance of Chinese reading comprehension in both 2^nd grade and 4^th grade;character reading fluency accounted for unique variance of Chinese reading comp rehension in the 2^nd grade,but not in the 4^th grade;phonetic decoding and semantic decoding didn't account for unique variance in either grades significantly.These results were discussed with respect to the educational implications of Chinese reading instruction in elementary grades.

Promoting Secondary School Students’ Interdisciplinary Academic Achievement by Using Interdisciplinary Concept Mapping

ZHANG Chun-jun, CHEN Ying-he

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  153-160. 

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In order to explore the role of interdiscip linary concept mapping in interdiscip linary know ledge integration,this study designed an intervention program of interdiscip linary concept mapping,chose secondary school students as the participants,and used the approach of comparing experimental and control groups to examine the effect of interdiscip linary concept mapping on interdiscip linary academic achievement.The results indicated that:(a)the intervention of interdiscip linary concept mapping significantly improved the learners'interdiscip linary academic achievement;(b)as for the learners with different levels of academic achievement,the intervention significantly improved interdiscip linary academic achievement of the low and medium achievers,but no significant effect was found on that of high achievers.Those suggested that interdiscip linary concept mapping,as an intellectual tool of adaptation,can effectively learners'interdiscip linary academic achievement,but its effect varies for different levels of achievers.

Planning and Attitude towards Future among Regular Senior High School Students and Secondary Vocational School Students in Urban and Rural Areas

YU Feng-jie, XU Fu-zhen, WANG Shu-qiong, ZHANG Ling-ling, ZHANG Wen-xin

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  161-168. 

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Orientation towards future events or outcomes is an important feature of individuals'thoughts and behaviors.To explore the adolescents'personal planning and attitude towards future,1995 Chinese adolescents from six regular senior high schools and six secondary vocational schools were employed to complete the Chinese Version of Future Orientation Questionnaire.The main findings were as follows:Regular senior high school students reported more commitment concerning future education and more optimism about future education and occupation than secondary vocational school students;moreover,regular senior high school students in urban areas reported more exp loration concerning future education and less commitment related to marriage/family than urban secondary vocational school students,while regular senior high school students in rural areas showed less exploration and commitment concerning future occupation than rural secondary vocational school students;rural adolescents reported higher levels of commitment concerning future occupation and marriage/family and they were also more optimistic about future education than urban adolescents did;females reported higher levels of commitment to future education than males,while males reported higher levels of exploration and commitment than females;furthermore,rural males showed more optimism concerning future marriage/family than rural females.

Intervention on Cognition-orientated Body Dissatisfaction in Adolescent Girls

PAN Chen-jing, CHEN Hong, JIANG Xia-xia, YANG Jiang-li, WANG Chun

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  169-175. 

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Based on the predictive models of female body dissatisfaction,the current study attempted to enhance body satisfaction and built healthy body viewpoint among adolescent girls,by means of a system of cognition-orientated intervention activities in regular training courses.The statistical result indicated that the intervention program could effectively prevent the further increase of junior girls'body dissatisfaction,while the difference between intervention group and controlled group of senior girls were not statistically significant.According to the survey and interviews conducted to girls in intervention group,researchers found that intervention program had a certain positive impact on both junior girls and senior girls.In addition,the results revealed that most parents reported their satisfaction to our intervention activities in the survey.These finding suggest that implementing the school-based intervention program has some certain feasibility and it's worth further expanding and promoting.

Constructing Internet Use Decisional Balance Questionnaire in University Students

LIU Qin-xue, SU Wen-liang, FANG Xiao-yi, LUO Zhe-hui

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  176-182. 

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The Internet Use Decisional Balance Questionnaire(IDBQ)was constructed based on our interview and other researches in this area.Data were collected from 1166 Chinese undergraduate students from 7 universities. The initial sample was splitrandomly into wtosamples in proportion about 2:3(N₁=441;N₂=725).An exploratory factor ana lysis(EFA)and a confirmatory factor analysis(CFA)were conducted on the two samples respectively.The results showed that IDBQ included two subscales:pros and cons.The pros subscale included 4 dmiensions:mood relaxing,know ledge acquiring,communication facilitating,and ach ievement obtaining;the cons subscale included 4 d miensions:relationship harming,schooling abandoning,vacuous&distress,and money wasting.IDBQ showed good reliability and valid ity and could serve as a measurement tool on university students. decision balance about internet use in China.

Constructing the Questionnaire of Teacher Career Maturity of Normal School Students

JIAO Run-kai, WANG Guo-xia, LIU Li-li

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  183-188. 

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From doma in-spec ific perspective,based on open2ended questionnaire,this research was intended to construct the questionnaire of teacher career maturity of normal school students,and it conta ined attitude questionnaire and capability questionnaire.2056 undergraduates were tested previously,and 5512 undergraduates were tested formally,the results showed that the atitude questionnaire included four dimensions:internal orientation,decisiveness,independence and external orientation;and the the questionnaire of teacher career maturity of normal school studen ts had acceptable reliability and validity.In addition,the research also found that general careermaturity couldn't predict teacher careerm aturity of normal school students,normal school students. teacher career maturity was higher than the non-normal students.,normal school students't eacher careerm aturity was growing as the grades increased.

Measurement of Teacher Achievement Goal and its Relationship with Schools’Goal Structures

ZHANG Min

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  189-196. 

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The first step was to put forward the theoretical structure of the teacher achievement goal which was formed on the basis of Elliot's evaluation standard of goal achievement and his framework about ability efficiency. The research collected samples from over a dozen of primary school and middle school teachers in and out of Zhejiang Province.The analysis was carried out on 523 valid questionnaires.The results of exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory analysis indicated that the structure of the teachers'achievement goal orientation include 6 factors,they are absolute-avoidance,individual-avoidance,reference-avoidance,individual-approach,reference-approach,abso lute-approach.Additionally,the relationship of teachers'personal goals and schools'goal structures were discussed.This research collected samp les from more than a dozen of other schools,and the analysis was based in 625 valid questionnaires.The result indicated that mastery goal structure had positive effect on absolute-approach goal,individual-approach goal,but negative effect on absolute-avoidance goal;performance goals structure had positive effect on absolute-approach goal,reference-approach goal,individual-avoidance goal and reference-avoidance goal.

The Development of the Questionnaire of Marital Attachment for Older Adults

ZHAI Xiao-yan, LI Chun-hua, Wei Hong, WANG Da-hua

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  197-204. 

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To develop a questionnairem easuring the marital attachment style for older people,items from 18 existent and widely used questionna ires were colected together as the item source.A fter the in itial screening by pilot study, 85 items were identified as the primary items of the questionna ire.And then 434 older people aged from 60 to 88 years old completed this 85-item measurement. Among the participants,222 were male and 212 were female.With item analysis and exploratory factor analysis,18 items were identified as good representative of the questionna ire. Factory analysis ind icated that the final 18-item scale comprised three sub-scales,namely security,anxiety and avoidance.The reliab ility and validity were examined respectively and showed that the questionnaire had satisfactory psychometric features.The distribution of attachment style among older adults was explored tentatively with the sample.With discrim inative analysis,all the participants could be categorized into three types of attachment styles,i.e.secure attachment with the highest ratio,anxious at achment and refusal attachment with the lowest ratio.

An Exploration of Individual Difference Theories of Working Memory

CAI Dan, LI Qi-wei, DENG Ci-ping

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  205-209. 

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Amounts of research on working memory began focusing on the individual difference.Firstly,episodic buffer was introduced into the multi-component model of working memory.Secondly,the dual-task paradigm approved the view that executive control(attention)is the core of individual difference in working memory. Working memory capacity was recommended as another method for measuring the individual difference of working memory.The controversy of the relationship between working memory and g-factor is never calm down.The reviews suggested that the domain-general and domain-specific,as well as the neuroscience method might be the future trend in the field of individual difference in working memory.

The Curse of Knowledge in False-belief Tasks

ZHANG Jing-jing, HU Qing-fen

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  210-214. 

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Young children have problems in false-belief tasks.This is at least partially the result of the curse of know ledge.The curse of know ledge is a tendency to be biased by one's own know ledge when attempting to app reciate a more naive or uninformed perspective.This article introduced the curse of know ledge account from six aspects:(1)the concept of the curse of know ledge;(2)parallels in children's and adults' limitations in mental-state reasoning;(3)the curse of know ledge in false-belief tasks;(4)reduce the curse of know ledge;(5) problems in current research;(6)some ideas for future research.

Genetic Factors in Temperament:Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Research

ZHANG Ming-hao, CHEN Xin-yin, LU Zu-hong

Psychological Development and Education. 2010, 26(2):  215-224. 

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Temperament represents the typical pattern of individual behavioral and emotional reactions to stimuli, which is the basis for the development of human personality characteristics.Alarge number of research findings have indicated that genetic factors play an important role in exp laining individual differences in temperament. Relations between serotonin transporter genes and dopam ine D4 receptor genes,such as single nucleotide polymorphisms and anxiety-related and novelty seeking traits were first examined in adults over 10 years ago. Since then,numerous candidate genes have been tested for their association with personality traits.However,most of the existing studies in this area have focused on adult personality traits;there are few studies about genes and temperament in children.Because child temperament and adult personality traits may share certain biological processes,genes that related to adult personality traits may have similar effects on child temperament.In this paper,candidate genes that contributed to child temperament are discussed based on the research involving both adult personality traits and child characteristics.