Many important variables in behavioral development are presumed to be unrelated because of repeated failures to obtain substantial correlations. In this article, we explore the possibility that such null findings have often been due to failures to aggregate. The principle of aggregation states that the sum of a set of multiple measurements is a more stable and representative estimator than any single measurement. This greater representation occurs because there is inevitably some error associated with measurement. By combining numerous exemplars, such errors of measurement are averaged out, leaving a clearer view of underlying relationships. We illustrate the usefulness of this principle in 12 major areas of developmental research in which the issue of negligible correlations figures prominently: (a) the validity of judges ' ratings, (b) the cross-situational consistency of moral character and personality, (c) the longitudinal stability of personality, (d) the coherence of stages of cognitive development, (e) metacognition, (f) the attitude—behavior relationship, (g) the personality—behavior relationship, (h) the role-taking/altruism relationship, (i) the moral-judgment/altruism relationship,

Teacher education finds itself in a critical stage. The pressure towards more school-based programs which is visible in many countries is a sign that not only teachers, but also parents and politicians, are often dissatisfied with the traditional approaches in teacher education

At personal goal-setting websites, people join others in committing to a challenging goal, such as losing ten pounds or writing a novel in a month. Despite the popularity of these online communities, we know little about whether or how they improve goal performance. Based on theories of goal-setting and group attachment, we examine the influence of two social factors in an online “songwriting challenge ” community: early feedback evoking a shared social identity, and one-on-one collaborations with other members. Combining five years of longitudinal behavioral data with member surveys, we find that users who engage in these social features perform better on their goals than those who are non-social. Furthermore, these early social experiences are associated with strong community-centric behaviors in the long term, including donating money and providing feedback to others.

Previous research studies show that those universities wishing to successfully engage in online learning will have to adopt and implement tactics that have the capacity to overcome existing social and cultural constraints. An inclusive, consultative framework needs to be established, and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) has been recognized as a key concern that should be addressed here. The moves towards nontraditional forms of course delivery for students require a well prepared CPD programme designed to enable academics to acquire pedagogical skills within a technology enhanced arena. Successful programmes of CPD are those that acknowledge staff wants interests, hopes and varying amounts of availability. For induction into online teaching, an effective model could be one that adopts accessible and suitably blended approaches which acknowledge different learning styles and sound pedagogical theories and practices. To succeed beyond this stage–and taking into account the pace of change, the lack of development time and indeed the general lack of staff developers–there is a need for an even greater range of on-going scalable, just-in-time and formal/informal CPD opportunities. The conclusion drawn is that if the concerns of academic staff are acknowledged and their needs appreciated then online learning initiatives–most importantly backed up by appropriate range of scalable CPD opportunities–have a far greater chance of successfully gaining widespread support.

This paper addresses fundamental research problems concerning the implementation of nonverbal communication channels in so-called conversational interfaces: As a solution to these problems a new methodology is introduced that makes possible the generation, systematic variation and experimental evaluation of nonverbally interacting interface agents in different task contexts. A taxonomy of research designs is presented and first applications of the new methodology are summarized and discussed. 1

This article focuses on the effects of exposure to pornography on teenagers, particularly males, concentrating on sexually aggressive outcomes and on the characteristics of the individual as crucial in determining whether pornography consumption may or may not lead to sexually aggressive outcomes. The term ‘‘pornography’ ’ refers to sexually explicit media that primarily is intended to arouse the viewer sexually. Pornography may be distinguished from sexual material that is ‘‘embedded’ ’ or interwoven with primarily nonsexual content [1], although the line to be drawn between the two may be fuzzy. Also inviting occasional ambiguity is the distinction between pornography and obscenity. Although pornography is a descriptive term, obscenity is a legal definition that describes what a court may have determined is particularly unredeeming pornographic material that has crossed the bounds of social propriety and so may allow for criminal prosecution. 1 This article focuses primarily on the findings of the research that Malamuth and his associates have conducted, although other relevant research also is described. Because of ethical constraints about exposing children to pornography * Corresponding author.

Self-perception theory posits that people sometimes infer their own attributes by observing their freely chosen actions. We hypothesized that in addition, people sometimes infer their own attributes by observing the freely chosen actions of others with whom they feel a sense of merged identity—almost as if they had observed themselves performing the acts. Before observing an actor’s behavior, participants were led to feel a sense of merged identity with the actor through perspective-taking instructions (Study 1) or through feedback indicating that their brainwave patterns overlapped substantially with those of the actor (Studies 2-4). As predicted, observers incorporated attributes relevant to an actor’s behavior into their own self-concepts, but only when they were led to feel a sense of merged identity with the actor and only when the actor’s behavior seemed freely chosen. These changes in relevant self-perceptions led observers to change their own behaviors accordingly. Implications of these vicarious self-perception processes for conformity, perspective-taking, and the long-term development of the self-concept are discussed.

Geo-visualizations for interactive spatial

Twentieth-century theoretical developments in four categories are reviewed: theories of individual differences in offending, theories of variation in offending through the lifecycle, theories of diversity of crime rates among social entities, and theories of differences among social situations in criminal outcomes. The essay notes temporal changes and shows integrative trends and cross-fertilization. It concludes that criminological theorists have made large strides, particularly in the past two decades, and as a result are now able to broadly outline the causes of crime-relevant phenomena. However, much work remains, particularly in more effectively articulating theories for precise explanations and predictions. Favorable trends suggesting continued improvement are identified.

We wish to thank all members of ROA’s competence group. This group, which includes members from both of ROA’s research departments as well as some external experts, has the mission to investigate the concept of competence both in theoretical and empirical ways. Its main goal is to advance the usefulness of the competence questions in ROA’s large-scale school-leaver surveys for the Netherlands. This paper has benefited a great deal from the ideas and comments from the members of ROA’s competence group: Jim Allen, Lex