Peer collaboration: conflict,cooperation, or both?

The present study sought to characterize the mechanism of cognitive change during peer interaction. Forty-eight focal subjects (8-year-old females) were paired with either their mother or their best friend for dyadic discussion of two socio-moral dilemmas. The focal subjects were pretested and posttested to assess any change in their socio-moral reasoning. The hypothesis tested was that subjects cooperatively co-construct solutions to dilemmas; therefore, the discussions regarding solutions they eventually accept, as opposed to those they reject, will be positively related to posttest performance. Contrary to expectations, it was discovered that only the discussion of rejected solutions has a significant relation to cognitive outcome. Close analysis revealed that the consequence of a rejected solution discussion often is the focal's proposal of a more acceptable solution, and this also has a strong relation to outcome. A new conceptualization of collaboration is proposed, one that focuses on the importance of dyadic consideration of multiple perspectives. The consequence of such consideration is both critical analysis of ideas (socio-cognitive conflict) and co-construction of new understanding (cooperation).     

Extracurricular associations and college enrollment

There is consistent evidence that student involvement in extracurricular activities (EAs) is associated with numerous academic benefits, yet understanding how peer associations within EAs might influence this link is not well understood. Using Add Health’s comprehensive data on EA participation across 80 schools in the United States, we develop a novel measure of peer associations within EA activities. We find that EA participation with high achieving peers has a nontrivial link to college enrollment, even after considering individual, peer, and school-level factors. This suggests that school policies aimed at encouraging student exposure to high achieving peers in EAs could have an important impact on a student’s later educational outcomes.     

Friends’ religiosity and first sex

Researchers have established that individual religiosity influences sexual behavior and that religious support can increase consistency between personal religiosity and behavior. Researchers are less certain, however, of the effect that religious friendship networks have on sexual behavior. In addition, the effects of network characteristics such as density and one’s position in a social network have not been established. This paper uses a network subsample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the effect of friends’ religiosity on the probability of first sex. We find that friends’ religiosity has an independent influence on adolescent sexual behavior that is similar in magnitude to personal religiosity. We also find evidence that friends’ religiosity has the strongest influence on the sexual behavior of adolescents who are embedded in dense social networks, in which teens’ friends are also friends with one another. These results support the hypothesis that group influences depend on the degree of embeddedness within the network and highlight the importance of studying religion as a property of groups as well as individuals.     

Perception of own death risk

Individuals’ perception of their own road-traffic and overall mortality risks are examined in this paper. Perceived risk is compared with the objective risk of the respondents’ peers, i.e. their own gender and age group, and the results suggest that individuals’ risk perception of their own risk is biased. For road-traffic risk we obtain similar results to what have been found previously in the literature, overassessment and underassessment among low- and high-risk groups, respectively. For overall risk we find that all risk groups underestimate their risk. The results also indicate that men's risk bias is larger than women’s.

Can young children benefit from collaborative problem solving? Tracing the effects of partner competence and feedback

This research was designed to ascertain the extent to which and the conditions under which 5- to 6-year-olds benefit from collaborative problem-solving. We were interested in the impact of (a) repeated collaborative sessions, with the problem difficulty tied to the current independent ability of the target children; (b) working with a more competent partner, an equally competent partner, or with no partner; and (c) immediate feedback from the materials. The data (obtained from a sample of 81 children) revealed that collaboration with a more competent partner was more beneficial than working alone or working with an equally competent partner, but only when feedback was not provided. With feedback, singletons improved more than those who worked with a partner, irrespective of the partner's relative competence. No benefits were found for repeated collaborative sessions; improvement occurred early and then levelled off. The results are set in the context of Piagetian and Vygotskian theory, and serve to illustrate that with regard to peer collaboration these theoretical positions are complementary rather than in opposition.     

Intermediate peer contexts and educational outcomes: Do the friends of students' friends matter?

Sociologists of education have long been interested in the effects of peer relations on educational outcomes. Recent theory and research on adolescence suggest that peers on the boundaries of students' friendship networks may play an important role in shaping behaviors and educational outcomes. In this study, we examine the importance of a key “intermediate peer context” for students' outcomes: the friends of a student's friends. Our findings indicate both friends' and friends' friends' characteristics independently predict students' college expectations and their risk of dropping out of high school (although only friends' characteristics predict GPA). Our models suggest the magnitude of students' friends-of-friends’ characteristics are at least as large their friends' characteristics. Together, the association between the peer context and students outcomes is considerably larger when accounting for both the characteristics of students' friends and the friends of their friends.     

家庭沟通模式对青少年品牌态度的影响研究

基于消费者社会化理论,本文探讨在家庭沟通模式、同龄群体沟通和媒体接触三个社会化因素同时作用的情况下,家庭沟通模式对青少年品牌态度的影响.根据沟通导向的维度水平的高低不同,将家庭沟通分为四个沟通类型:概念型、交互型、保护型和放任型.实证研究以中学生为调研对象,通过问卷调查,利用协方差和多元方差进行分析,数据结果表明:(1)中国家庭沟通模式呈现交互主导型沟通特征;(2)多元型家庭沟通的青少年在媒体接触上高于其它家庭沟通模式,多元型家庭沟通的青少年高于其它家庭沟通模式的同伴接触;(3)不同家庭沟通模式的青少年在对表达性消费一品牌象征属性的态度方面表现无差异.同龄群体沟通和媒体接触量则直接对之起作用.     

回避:苏珊·格拉斯佩尔的女权主义叙事策略

美国女作家苏珊.格拉斯佩尔(Susan Glaspell)的《同命人审案》(AJury of Her Peers)是女权主义的经典之作。体现在这篇小说中的苏珊.格拉斯佩尔的叙事策略有多种,最突出的并且最鲜明地体现女权主义特色的是:回避。回避是指作者在小说中有意回避对女性的痛苦经历的描写,但却通过有效的技巧,把这种痛苦的经历暗示出来。这些技巧包括“他视角”透视、场景暗示、“同命人”提示等。回避策略的特点在女权主义写作、女权主义阅读、女性审美等多个层面上都有体现。