John A. Keats

Comparative Research on the Social Determinants of Adolescent Drinking

Previous research concerned with social influence and with adolescent behaviors has suggested the utility of distinctions between modeling and normative influence, parental and peer influence, instrumentality and internalization, internalization through own norms versus preferences, and among cultural contexts. Most studies investigate the effects of variables derived from only one or a few of these distinctions. In this study, interviews conducted in Australia, France, Norway, and the United States provide data to examine the utility of these distinctions for the prediction of alcohol use by adolescents. As predicted, internalization rather than instrumentality is the reason for effective social influence in all four countries, and internalized effects occur by means of preferences rather than own norms. Both peer modeling and peer norms have significant, internalized effects on adolescent drinking in allfour countries, and parental modeling has significant, internalized effects on adolescent drinking in Australia and France, but not in Norway and the United States. Contrary to predictions, parental norms are related to adolescent drinking in Australia and the United States, but not in France and Norway. Reasons for these findings and their implications for studies of social influence and adolescent behavior are discussed.

The Effect of Language on Concept Acquisition in Bilingual Children

The aim was to determine whether logical concepts acquired in one language could be transferred to another language. Subjects included 35 children bilingual in Polish and English, 31 children bilingual in German and English, and a control group of 34 Australian children, none of whom was able to conserve weight. After pretesting in one language, they were trained in the acquisition of the concept of weight using the other, then posttested in the previous language. One month later, delayed posttests were given in both languages. Results showed that the concept was acquired in either language, and there was some generalization to other concepts. Results gave some support to the Piagetian standpoint that a concept may be considered independently from the language by which it is acquired. Interference between languages was indicated in the German group in that the earlier they had learned English, the poorer was their final performance in both languages.

Parents, Friends, Siblings, and Adults: Unfolding Referent Other Importance Data for Adolescents

Abstract Few studies have yet examined the importance of referent others. One reason for avoiding this topic may be ignorance of appropriate methods for analyzing data. This paper reports two comparative studies of referent others for adolescents. (One study compared four Western countries, the other a Western country with the major ethnic groups in Malaysia.) Data were analyzed by means of the unfolding method. Adolescents were found to rank parents first in importance, followed by friends, adults, and then siblings. Parents were perceived as less similar to friends than they were to siblings or adults. Rankings of referent others varied more by question content than by nationality. Techniques and advantages of the unfolding method are spelled out.

Intelligence And Ordered Task Complexity

Abstract Eysenck (1979) hypothesized that scores on Ravens Progressive Matrices show an increasing correlation with performance on tasks of increasing complexity. To test this hypothesis the reaction times (RTs) of 44 subjects were obtained for four tasks representing four levels of task complexity. Correlations of RTs for the four levels revealed a “simplex” structure indicative of increasing task complexity. Correlations of IQ scores and RT for the increasing levels of complexity were found to be statistically significant but showed no increasing correlational trend. Distinguishing between the level of task complexity and the level of within-task-difficulty could account for the lack of support for the hypothesis.

Concept Acquisition in Malaysian Bilingual Children

Following earlier work with Polish- and German-speaking children in Australia, a group of five-year-old Malaysian children bilingual in English and Malay and English and Chinese were pretested in both languages. They were then trained in one language on the conservation of weight, posttested on their other language, and again from one to two months later in both languages. Immediate improvements were obtained after training, but other untrained control groups also showed improvement on the delayed posttest. These results are considered together with the previous results. It is concluded that language plays a minor part in the acquisition of cognitive concepts and that young children will perform at a slightly higher level on these tasks if tested in their native language.

Justifications of the Scoring Procedures for Dichotomous and Other Polytomous Items

Attempts to justify methods for scoring objective test items such as by using 0 or 1 for dichotomous items re neither common nor convincing. A study of the possible bases for justifying scoring practices is being carried out as part of the International Test Commission project on Ideal Psychometric Standards. An ordinal basis for such a justification is proposed, and it will be shown that the usual method for scoring dichotomous items meets the ordinal requirement, whereas the usual method for scoring other polytomous items does not. The implications of these results will be discussed and illustrated with data from several countries.

The Use of Ordinal Test Theory in Cross-cultural Research in Behavioural Science

This paper introduces the problems of cross-cultural research and shows how ordinal test theory can contribute to the solution of some of these problems. The concept of tied-ranks scores is introduced and the use of these scores for dichotomous and polytomous items is explained, as is the use of this theory for the examination of conjoint ordering. Conjoint ordering can then be used to determine the existence of an underlying variable, and to establish whether or not the same underlying variable can be defined for each of the cultures to be compared. Given the satisfaction of these conditions, cross-cultural comparisons can be made. Other considerations germane to the problem of cross-cultural comparisons are also considered.

Quantitative methods in cross‐cultural psychology

One of the aims of cross-cultural psychology is to test for statistical interactions between cultures as qualitative independent variables and behavioural responses as dependent variables. These interactions may take the form of ordinal interactions or interactions related to scale transformations. Ordinal interactions which, if significant, correspond to cultural effects can be examined using ordinal methods including multidimensional unfolding. Scaling interactions are important in testing for main effects and for functional relationships between variables but they might conceal interaction effects involving culture as a factor. Examples from the authors research in Australia and South-East Asia are presented to illustrate methods which can be used to detect statistical interactions involving culture.

An apparatus for the study of logical thinking in concept learning

Abstract An apparatus is described which allows the study of formal thought through concept learning tasks. The apparatus has two circuits: one has the logical structure of conjunctive/disjunctive concept learning rules; the other has the structure of biconditional/exclusive disjunctive rules. Eight push buttons representing four binary valued stimuli, are arranged in pairs. Only one button from each pair may be activated by the subject at any one time consequently combinations of up to four buttons may be operational at once. The subject is asked to learn the rule for predicting the onset of the two lights on the control panel. The subject may generate any combinations of buttons he wishes to test, which has the advantage of allowing subjects to manipulate variables individually and maximizes subject involvement in the task.