Table of Content

15 July 2007, Volume 23 Issue 3

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How Do children Pass False Belief Task:Beliefs or Rules?

LI Xiao-dong, ZHOU Shuang-zhu

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  1-5. 

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This study is designed to explore the validity of false belief task.False belief task and true belief task were adopted, know-questions and think-questions were used as indicators, 4 to 6 year-old children were used as subjects.The following results were obtained: (1) there were three response patterns on know-questions, which were correct, neglect inference and "yes" bias; (2) there were also three ways to pass FB task, which were belief-based, rule-based and others (guessing or other unknown strategies); (3) there was no significant difference between the passing rate of know-question and think-question.

Developmental Features of Understandings about the Stability of Traits among Chinese Children aged from 3 to 9

GAO Wen, YANG Li-zhu

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  6-12. 

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Eight short corrected stories were used to test 281 Chinese children which were 3-9 years old from kinder-gartens and elementary schools for their understandings about the stability of traits, not only positive or negative traits but also stability across time or situations.Results suggested that more young more optimistic among children aged from 3 to 9, the fourth year of young life maybe the key time for children's understandings about the stability of traits; clarified that in young children's eyes positive traits were stable once got it while negative ones were easier to change; found out that types of trait and contexts could moderate the effects to those understandings.These characteristics were probably related to children's theory of mind and perceptions on influential factors to development of traits, also beliefs on stability of traits from the whole culture.

Model of Executive Functioning As Predictor of Children’s Mathematical Ability

WEN Ping, ZHANG Li, LI Hong, LIULI Xiang-jun, ZHANG Xue-yi

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  13-18. 

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This research examined the relationship between executive functions and mathematical ability in first grade students (n=64).Measures involved Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST), Stroop task, and Counting span, The results showed mathemat ical ability was significantly correlated with all measures of executive funct ioning.Regression analyses revealed that each executive function measure predicted unique variance in mathematics ability.Furthermore, path analysis showed inhibition not only influenced mathematical ability directly, also influenced mathematical ability through shifting and updating.It is proposed that the difference of mathemat ical ability between children is the difference of inhibition, which results in difference of switching and updating for dealing with a particular task.

The Influence of Children’s Learning Ability and Knowledge on their Development of Problem-Solving

ZHAO Xiao-mei, CHEN Ying-he

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  19-25. 

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By using problem-solving paradigm, the influence of learning ability and the knowledge on the analogical problem solving and strategy using of 90 children in primary 4 was explored.The result indicated that learning ability but knowledge had a proudly influence on the quality of the analogical problem solving, neither learning ability nor knowledge influenced the speed of the analogical problem solving.Children of different learning ability had a signif icant difference on the distribut ion and the strategy using.It was also found that there is a significant difference on the strategy between the children of the varying knowledge.

The Temporal-Spatial Strategy of Children on Sampling Traits for Figure Recognition

CAO Xiao-hua, WU Yan, WENG Xu-chu

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  26-31. 

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An eye movements study on the temporal-spatial strategy for irregular geometric figure recognition was conducted.Participants were 24 students of grade 6 and 24 students of grade 3 from a primary school.The stimuli were 20 irregular geometric figures.It was found that, The students of grade 6 always were good at spatial strategy of adding the number of fixations, and then adjusting the duration on each fixation in the sampling; but the students of grade 3 were good at using temporal strategy of adding duration on each fixation, and then adding the number of fixations on sampling.With the task difficulty increasing, the students might use the strategy of regularizing duration of fixation and adding the number of fixations.The interaction between grade and display style had a significant effect on the spatial strategy in the figure recognition.

The Role of Working Memory in the Verification of Simple Monomial Addition

LIAN Si-qing, ZHANG Hong-shan, LIN Chong-de

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  32-36,43. 

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Students were chosen from the second-year in the mathematics department of a university as subjects, and were required to finish the verification of simple monomial addition equations under four conditions which were control, concurrent articulatory suppression, concurrent hand tapping, and concurrent random interval decision.Experiment results showed that three kinds of secondary tasks had significant disruption effect on the verification reaction time, but these secondary tasks had different disruption pattern on error rates of true and false equations.Theses results suggested that phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketch pad, and component of response selection be involved in the verification of simple monomial addition equations, and there be different attention demanding between the verification of true equations and that of false equations.

The Relationship Between the Maternal Rearing Manner and the Adolescent’s Cooperation

ZHAO Zhang-liu, WANG Shu-hua

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  37-43. 

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The paper explored the relationship between the maternal rearing and cooperative awareness, cooperative emotion, cooperative strategy, cooperative intention of the adolescence from six aspects: achievement, independence, protection, rejection, acceptance and punishment.The results showed: (1) the more the mother accepted their children, the more cooperative awareness the adolescents had; (2) the more the mother accepted their children, the more cooperative emotion the adolescents had in study Cooperation; (3) the more the mother accepted their children, the more the adolescents used positive strategy; the more the mother protected their children, the more the adolescents used negative strategy; (4) There had a negative correlation between punishment, independence and the other-interest intention of the adolescents in work cooperation.It showed negative correlation between acceptance and the self-interest intention of the adolescents in work and outside class cooperation.

School Well-being and Its’ Relationships with Self-perception of Competence and Personality in Adolescent

TIAN Li-li, LIU Wang

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  44-49. 

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232 middle school students were investigated about their school well-being,self-perception of competence and personality.The characteristics of school well-being and its'relationships with self-perception of competence and personality were explored.The results showed:(1)The female students reported higher school satisfaction than the males.There was a tendency that the adolescents experienced lower school well-being with the increase of grades.(2) Neun}ticism and extraversion mediated the causal relation between self-perception of competence and school well-being.Neun}ticism mediated the relation between self-perception of competence and negative affect.Extraversion mediated the relation between self-perception of social competence and positive affect in school.

Impacts of Sex,Gender Role and Gender Belief on Undergraduates’ Personality Traits

WANG Zhong-hui, ZHANG Jian-xin

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  50-55. 

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To examine the difference of undergraduates' personality traits in sex, gender role stereotype and gender belief stereotype, a sample of 552 undergraduates was tested by BSRI, NEO-PI-R, CAPI and gender belief stereotype scale.Result showed: (1) Neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, Ren Qing (relationship orientation) and harmonious of college students has difference on gender role stereotype.Neuroticism, agreeableness, face, flexity and defence of college students has difference on gender belief stereotype.Openness and defence of college students is affected by gender role stereotype and gender belief stereotype.(2) In gender role stereotype, College students of masculinity have higher extraversion.College students of femininity have higher agreeableness, harmonious, Ren Qing and neuroticism.College students of androgynous have higher agreeableness, extraversion and conscientiousness.College students of undifferentiated have lower harmonious, Ren Qing and conscientiousness.In gender belief stereotype, College students of tradition have higher face.College students of anti-tradition have higher agreeableness and lower face.College students of conflict have higher neuroticism, defence and lower agreeableness, flexity.College students of undifferentiated have higher agreeableness and lower neuroticism.

A Study on Suicidal Behavior and Its Related Factors among Undergraduates in Yun Nan Province

LI Hui, LIU Qian-qian, FANG Xiao-yi, LIN Xiu-yun

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  56-61. 

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SCL-90, the Ways of Coping-Revised Scale, the Social Support Revised Scale, Adolescent Self-rating Life Events Checklist and Self-designed Questionnaire on Suicidal Behavior including suicidal ideation and suicide attempts were used to study the suicidal behavior and its related factors among 3313 college undergraduates in Yunnan Province.The results showed: (1) 427 (13.2%) undergraduates had suicidal ideation, which female's number were significantly more than male in Chi-square test; And 154 (4.7%) undergraduates had suicide attempts, but there were no significant different between female and male; (2) Suicidal behavior had significant different in demographic variables, which female, singleton, liberal students, the students from city and incomplete family had significant high suicidal ideation score than corresponding students, and only the students from city and incomplete family had significant high suicidal attempt score than corresponding students; (3) Suicidal ideation and suicide attempts was positively related to emotion-focused coping, life events and mental healthy problems, but negatively related to problem-focused coping and social support; (4) In the SEM, Social Support could be moderate variable between mental health and suicidal behavior, and coping could be mediate variable between life events, social support, interaction of mental health and social support, interaction of life events and social support and suicidal behavior.

Experimental Research on the Effect of Psychological Education to Middle School Students,Academic Self-efficacy in the Teaching of Mathematics

WANNG Cui-ping, ZHANG Da-jun

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  62-67. 

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To study the effect of psychological education to middle school students,academic self-efficacy in the teaching of mathematics,we constructed a mode to cultivate middle school students,sense of self-efficacy.The experimental design was pre-test and post-test in the research.We used the questionnaire of self-efficacy and mental health as the measure tools.Result showed there was obvious difference between pre-test and post-test of experimental-group;there was remarkable difference between the post-test of experimental-group and control-group,self-efficacy.The score of mental health of experimental-group was remarkably higher than that of control-group,but there is no obvious difference in mathematics achievement.The experimental research proved that the mode was an effective method to cultivate pupils' academic self-efficacy and mental health.

Children’s Understanding of Multiplicative Concepts in Different Cue’s Representations

YANG Xiao-ying, HE Xian-you

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  68-72. 

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Designing a special math test proved that different problems contexts make effect to using the multiplicative concepts.The result came from primary student (including Grade 4 and Grade 6) from a primary school in Guangdond province.It indicated: (1) all the children (including the Grade 4 who have never learned Commutativity) can use the commutative cue successfully, irrespective of the context of the problem.(2) There was evidence that the problem context affected children's ability to use distributivity.The Grade 6 can used distributivity with Isomorphism of measures more successfully than other contexts.The all children in lower mark use distributivity with Isomorphism of measures more successfully than other contexts.In all, children can use multiplicative concepts to solve problem more successfully in Isomorphism context.

The Relationship between High School Student’s Optimism and their Academic Achievement and its Mediating Effect

LIU Zhi-jun

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  73-78. 

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It analyzed the relationship of dispositional optimism and optimistic explanatory style, and the relationship of opt imism and student s academic achievement, and the mediating effect of positive coping strategy by questionnaire in high school students.Results showed that there were linking between the two kinds of optimism, different levels of opt imism played different effect on academic achievement; the mediating effect of positive coping strategy was not significant.It was concluded that optimism played important role on students' achievement, two kinds of optimism had different direct effect on achievement, and high level of optimism was helpful.

Effect of Causal Coherence on backward Construction of Situation Model of Space during Narrative Comprehension

LI Ying, MO Lei, WANG Rui-ming

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  79-88. 

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Moving window method was used to investigate the role of causal relationship in the process of spatial information during narrative comprehension.Subjects were undergraduate students from South China Normal University.According to the causal relationship between spatial information and outcome of the story, materials in experiments 1 and 2 were respectively divided into causal version in which spatial information was causally related to outcome and control version in which spatial information was unrelated to outcome.Paired-samples T test was used to compare reaction time of object probes in different conditions.The result showed that causal information had effect not only on the process of explicit spatial information but also on the construct ion of situation model about implicit spatial information.Materials in Experiment 3 were divided into related version and unrelated version, according to the spatial relat ionship between object and location word.The result further demonstrated that situation model about implicit spatial relationship was backwardly constructed in order to keep the whole story coherent causally.In Experiment 4, spatial relat ionship was made more complex to find that readers could not backwardly construct situation model even if it was useful to keep the story causally coherent.

Screen of Chinese Reading at-risk children

PENG Hong, LIANG Wei-lan, ZHANG Zhi-xiang, LI Hong, SHU Hua, TARDIF T., FLETCHER P.

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  89-92. 

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By testing 309 35～49 month children on vocabulary, morphological awareness, grammar, non-word repetition and picture naming tests, the present study examined the screening of Chinese reading at risk children and their cognitive character.The results showed that reading at risk children were significant poorer than normal children on all tasks; grammar and phonological deficit had the largest perception; the more deficits had, the poorer of score of at risk children.The finding of present study have theory and practical meaning for Chinese reading at risk children's early intervention.

Emotional Reactivity,Emotional Expressivity and Aggressive Behavior in Junior School Students

WANG Zhen-hong, GUO De-jun, MA Xin-di

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  93-97. 

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Self-rating questionnaire of middle school students' emotion and the state-trait anger expression inventory (Spielberger) administered to 833 students of junior school, and classified students as normal group, physical aggression group, and relationship aggression group by peer nominated.This study investigated the characteristics of emotional expressivity and emotional reactivity of junior school students, and also aggressive students.The result indicated that (1) the girls' reported higher feeling of fear, feeling of sadness, and anger expression than those of boys.The boys reported higher trait anger level than those of girls.Emotional expressivity and emotional reactivity of junior school students were not significant difference except negative emotion expressivity.The second grade girls reported higher negative emotion expressivity than those of one and third grade in junior school.(2) Students with physical aggression reported higher state anger, trait anger, and anger expression than normal students.Students with relationship aggression reported higher trait anger and anger expression than normal students also.So anger emotion system of students with aggressive behavior is deficient.

Relationship between Social Support and Problem Behaviors of the Left-home-kids in Junior Middle School

LIU Xia, FAN Xing-hua, SHEN Ji-liang

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  98-102. 

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Social support scale and the problem behaviors questionnaire were used to explore the relationship between social support and pn}blem behaviors of the left-home-kids in junior middle school.The results showed that:(1) On the support utilization,left-home-kids' scores were lower than that of comparison getup;on the illegal behavior and deregulation behavior,the result was diverse.(2) As for left-home-kids,Subjective support was the significantly negative predictor for the illegal behavior,deceptive behavior and deregulation behavior.Support utilization was the significantly negative predictor for health-risk behavior.(3) Compared with those who under the situation of lowerlevel social support,the left-home-kids who under the situation of higherlevel social support reported less health-risk behavior,illegal behavior,deceptive behavior and deregulation behavior.Whether the level of social support was lower or higher,left-home-boys reported rmre health-risk behavior than left-home-girls.

The effect of Curricular Intervention on Career Maturity of Undergraduates

XIE Yuan, LONG Li-rong

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  103-106. 

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Career maturity describes the degree to which individuals reach the career developmental goals.The purpose of thi s study is to evaluate the effects of a curricular intervention on career maturity of 120 undergraduates who took the "wcational guidance" course.The 25 hours-intervention lasted 6 weeks.Subjects of experimental group and control group were asked to fill in the questionnaire of Career Decision-making Self-efficacy(CDMSE) and Inventory of Vocational Development (VDI) in pre-and post-test.The results of covariance analysis showed that significant differences of CDMSE and VDIwere found between the experimental group and the control getup.Subjects of the experimental group were more confident to take an active part in career decision-making.

A Study on the Social Desirability Responding in the Junior Middle School Students’ Honesty Test

WU Yan, XU Jian-ping

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  107-111. 

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This study aimed to detect how would SDR work on the honesty test in different desirability conditions.It used MCSD and CSD to examine 246 junior middle school students, who were divided into high, medium, and low groups according to the level of the desirability motivation.Then, it used the direction words to set the high desirability condition, the medium, and the low, and investigated the different behaviors of the three-group subjects on an honesty test under three different conditions by using a 3×3 design of two-factor.The result showed that the lower desirability motivation subjects were always more honest than the higher ones, but the differences were not significant in all conditions.For the lower desirability motivation subjects, there were not significant differences among the three different conditions on the honesty test; but for the higher desirability motivation subjects, the differences were significant,which showed that the anterior group more liked to comply with their opinions inside, the posterior group more liked to comply with the value outside.

Interpersonal Trust-Distrust:Is It Unidimensional or Bidimensional?

LI Hong-ju, XU Yan, GUO Yong-yu

Psychological Development and Education. 2007, 23(3):  112-116. 

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This research chiefly investigates the subdomain of trust: is interpersonal trust-distrust unidimensional or bidimensional? The Chinese undergraduate trust-distrust questionnaire is emended.After exploratory factor analysis, parallel analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis, the data comes down to two factors: one is a trait factor; the other is a method factor.Therefore, the unidimensional view is received.Furthermore, after descriptive analysis and correlation analysis, conclusions are drawn that the trust status quo of Chinese undergraduates is relatively good; and their trust behavior correlates with gender and major.