“Did I just do that?”—Six-month-olds learn the contingency between their vocalizations and a visual reward in 5 minutes

It has been shown that infants can increase or modify a motorically available behavior such as sucking, kicking, arm waving, etc., in response to a positive visual reinforcement (e.g., DeCasper & Fifer, 1980; Millar, 1990; Rochat & Striano, 1999; Rovee-Collier, 1997; Watson & Ramey, 1972). We tested infants to determine if they would also change their vocal behavior in response to contingent feedback, which lacks the social, emotional, and auditory modeling typical of parent-child interaction. Here, we show that in a single five-minute session infants increase the rate of their vocalizations in order to control the appearance of colorful shapes on an iPad screen. This is the first experimental study to demonstrate that infants can rapidly learn to increase their vocalizations, when given positive reinforcement with no social element. This work sets the foundations for future studies into the causal relationship between the number of early vocalizations and the onset of words. In addition, there are potential clinical applications for reinforcing vocal practice in infant populations who are at risk for poor language skills.     

Are Children More Angered and Distressed by Man–Child than Woman–Child Arguments and by Interadult versus Adult–Child Disputes?

Six to 10‐year‐olds’ responses to witnessing videotapes of five contexts of verbal and physical arguments (man–woman, man–boy, man–girl, woman–boy, and woman–girl) were compared to examine the hypotheses that: (1) man–child disputes would be perceived more negatively and evoke more negative affect in children than woman–child conflict; and (2) man–woman conflict would be viewed more negatively and elicit greater negative emotions in children than adult–child arguments. Results lend support to the two predictions, and consistent with the emotional security hypothesis, reveal that (1) man–child conflict evoked more sadness and fear in children than woman–child disputes; (2) man–woman arguments evoked more intense feelings of sadness and fear than any of the adult–child disputes, and the adult in the conflicts was perceived as more sad and scared when arguing with the spouse than with the girl or boy; and (3) physical conflict evoked more negative affect than verbal disputes.     

A heuristic algorithm for the m-machine,n-job flow-shop sequencing problem

In a general flow-shop situation, where all the jobs must pass through all the machines in the same order, certain heuristic algorithms propose that the jobs with higher total process time should be given higher priority than the jobs with less total process time. Based on this premise, a simple algorithm is presented in this paper, which produces very good sequences in comparison with existing heuristics. The results of the proposed algorithm have been compared with the results from 15 other algorithms in an independent study by Park [13], who shows that the proposed algorithm performs especially well on large flow-shop problems in both the static and dynamic sequencing environments.     

Money Matters: Young Adults’ Perception of the Economic Consequences of their Parents’ Divorce

A qualitative study examined the perceptions of 22 Israeli young adults (ages 20–25) of childhood parental divorce. Respondents discussed their experiences, including economic consequences of the divorce. Results related to the practical aspect of economic decline, to economic issues as embodiment of parental conflicts, and to children’s emotional and practical roles connected to economic changes. Children’s understanding and coping with financial issues are related to three profiles of overall adjustment identified in this study—resilience, survival, and vulnerability. Resilient young adults interpreted as empowering their understanding and coping; the survivors recognized their efforts as meaningful but burdensome; and vulnerable participants felt that economic changes caused a heavy financial and emotional price. Limitations and implications are discussed.

Recollections of harsh discipline in childhood and depressive feelings in adulthood: The roles of culture and gender

The present study examined the roles of culture and gender in the association between recollections of harsh discipline experienced during childhood and levels of depressive feelings in early adulthood. A sample of Jewish (n = 250) and Arab (n = 115) university students reported regarding exposure to corporal punishment and emotional aggression from each parent during childhood, and about current depressive feelings. Consistent with predictions, both culture and gender moderated the links between corporal punishment (used by either mother or father) and depression. Arab males, for whom exposure to corporal punishment might be more culturally normative, showed a different pattern than both Arab females and Jewish respondents. Moreover, culture moderated the association between emotional aggression from fathers (but not mothers) and depression. The discussion focuses on the importance of examining the effects of gender (of child and parent) in conjunction with culture, and on the complex role of cultural normativeness.     

Everyday people: public identities in contemporary hip-hop culture

As scholars on culture have suggested elsewhere, cooption through consumption by the music culture industry has forced those who want to be part of the hip-hop subculture to go back underground. But to label all of these individuals in the underground merely ‘hip-hop’ would be as equally uninformative as labeling anyone who wears baggy blue jeans and can rhyme words together as being hip-hop. My year of field research in Chicago revealed that five major identities emerged: Professional Headz, Refugee Headz, Hip-Hop Fundamentalists, Black Headz and Tech Headz. These identities were characterized by the personal values that my participants indicated were most reaffirmed through hip-hop culture. This article contributes to the literature on hip-hop by providing an ethnographic study on how the Hip-Hop Nation defines itself, while examining some of the tensions that these identities provide within the Hip-Hop Nation. It also reinforces the view that subculture must still be experienced in the flesh and is not fully experienced by being able to engage in the culture industry of hip-hop through purchasing records, watching videos or buying hip-hop fashions. This article also provides a more complex qualitative understanding of what values constitute being hip-hop and which ones do not.     

Migration,Diaspora and Citizenship: A Qualitative Study of the Perceptions of Pakistani Nationals towards the Political Rights of Pakistani Dual Citizens

The dual citizenship has been the subject of intense political debate in Pakistan barring the elected representatives, in parliament, the provincial assemblies and the presidency, from holding dual nationality. The perceptions that holding a foreign citizenship challenges the undiluted loyalty to country further engender question mark over their political participation in country’s affairs. A qualitative study has been carried out in the city of Rawalpindi to explore the stance of Pakistani nationals on such exclusion of Pakistani dual citizens from mainstream politics of Pakistan asking should the individual’s association to the state be an exclusive one? In this paper, in‐depth interviews were conducted with a sample of 40 male and female respondents (22 Pakistani citizens, 18 Pakistani dual citizens) and 6 constitutional experts. The results indicate distrust among Pakistani citizens when considering dual citizens’ right of representation in general elections of Pakistan, stemming from a mistrust of their “split loyalties”.