Does private education make nicer people? The influence of school type on social–emotional development

In a longitudinal sample from Britain, we tested if attending private, fee-charging schools rather than non-selective state schools benefitted children’s social–emotional development. State (N = 2,413) and private school children (N = 269) showed no differences in well-being across adolescence, but private school children reported fewer behaviour problems and greater peer victimisation over time than state schoolers. These results were independent of schools’ selection criteria, including family background, and prior academic and cognitive performance. At age 21, private and state school students differed marginally in social–emotional behaviours, such as self-control, volunteering, sexual conduct, and substance use. After considering schools’ selection criteria, only risk taking and age at having the first alcoholic drink differed between private and state school children, with the privately educated ones being less risk averse and drinking at younger ages than those attending state school. Our results suggest that private education adds little positive value to children’s social–emotional development

Early life experiences: meaningful differences within and between families

Previous research has focused on differences in early life experiences that occur between families and their impact on children's development. However, less is known about the variations in early life experiences that occur within families. Here, 53 British mothers (mean age = 34.46 years; SD = 4.35) of newborn infants (mean age = 1.68 months, SD = 0.96) used a smartphone application (app) to repeatedly rate their wellbeing and support and to report their baby's and their own dietary and sleeping patterns (4 app alerts per week for 3 weeks; 12 assessments in total). We found that the app was a practicable tool for observing early life experiences, and that early life experiences differed on average to a greater extent within, rather than between families (59% versus 41% of the total variance). We also found preliminary evidence for meaningful associations among contemporaneous within-family variations in early life experiences

The developmental interplay between the p-factor of psychopathology and the g-factor of intelligence from age 7 through 16 years

Intelligence and mental health are the core pillars of individual adaptation, growth, and opportunity. Here, we charted across childhood and adolescence the developmental interplay between the p-factor of psychopathology, which captures the experience of symptoms across the spectrum of psychiatric disorders, and the g-factor of general intelligence that describes the ability to think, reason, and learn.Our preregistered analyses included 7,433 twin pairs from the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS), who were born 1994 to 1996 in England and Wales. At the ages 7, 9, 12, and 16 years, the twins completed two to four intelligence tests, and multi-informant measures (i.e., self-, parent- and teacher-rated) of psychopathology were collected.Independent of their cross-sectional correlations, p- and g-factors were linked by consistent, bidirectional, and negative cross-lagged paths across childhood and adolescence (from -.07 to -.13 with 95% CIs from -.03 to -.15). The cross-lagged paths from intelligence to psychopathology were largely due to genetic influences, but the paths from psychopathology to intelligence were driven by environmental factors, and increasingly so with age.Our findings suggest that intelligence and psychopathology are developmentally intertwined due to fluctuating etiological processes. Understanding the interplay of g- and p-factors is key for improving children's developmental outcomes

Investment Trait, Activity Engagement, and Age: Independent Effects on Cognitive Ability

In cognitive aging research, the “engagement hypothesis” suggests that the participation in cognitively demanding activities helps maintain better cognitive performance in later life. In differential psychology, the “investment” theory proclaims that age differences in cognition are influenced by personality traits that determine when, where, and how people invest their ability. Although both models follow similar theoretical rationales, they differ in their emphasis of behavior (i.e., activity engagement) versus predisposition (i.e., investment trait). The current study compared a cognitive activity engagement scale (i.e., frequency of participation) with an investment trait scale (i.e., need for cognition) and tested their relationship with age differences in cognition in 200 British adults. Age was negatively associated with fluid and positively with crystallized ability but had no relationship with need for cognition and activity engagement. Need for cognition was positively related to activity engagement and cognitive performance; activity engagement, however, was not associated with cognitive ability. Thus, age differences in cognitive ability were largely independent of engagement and investment

NARRATIVES OF STRENGTH, PERSEVERANCE AND RESILIENCE IN TRADITIONAL MARRIAGES (FOCUS ON SINDHI WOMEN)

Resilience is the ability and knowledge of a person on what he/she can do when he/ she falls and learns how to get up. The aim of this paper is to understand the experiences and perceptions of diaspora Sindhi Hindu women in arranged marriages and how they dealt with the many challenges they faced in their martial homes whether in India or in Malaysia. Strength based theory (Saleeby, 2013) and Agency Favouring framework (Williams, 2000) are used to demonstrate their strengths and agency. The data is obtained from the written narratives of 5 women who married Sindhi men. Writing Is a powerful weapon for reminiscing and describing lived experiences of life in arranged marriages. The writing had to be analyzed for the themes that emerged after the initial codes were generated

Seeing red? The Effect of Colour on Intelligence Test Performance

A series of recent studies reported that seeing red was associated with poor intelligence test performance in university students. Here we test for the first time the effect of colour on intelligence test scores in an adult sample and across a large battery of ability tests. Overall 200 British adults completed Raven’s matrices without colour manipulation (i.e. baseline assessment); afterwards, they then either viewed red or green before completing six additional ability tests (i.e. word fluency, logical reasoning, vocabulary, syllogisms, verbal reasoning, and knowledge) and rating their self-perceived performance for each measure. We found no evidence for an association between colour and intelligence test scores or self-perceived performance, before and after adjusting for intelligence at baseline. The discrepancy with previous findings is likely to be due to testing adult rather than student samples, which in turn has implications for the recruitment and selection of study samples in future intelligence research

Seeing red? The Effect of Colour on Intelligence Test Performance

A series of recent studies reported that seeing red was associated with poor intelligence test performance in university students. Here we test for the first time the effect of colour on intelligence test scores in an adult sample and across a large battery of ability tests. Overall 200 British adults completed Raven’s matrices without colour manipulation (i.e. baseline assessment); afterwards, they then either viewed red or green before completing six additional ability tests (i.e. word fluency, logical reasoning, vocabulary, syllogisms, verbal reasoning, and knowledge) and rating their self-perceived performance for each measure. We found no evidence for an association between colour and intelligence test scores or self-perceived performance, before and after adjusting for intelligence at baseline. The discrepancy with previous findings is likely to be due to testing adult rather than student samples, which in turn has implications for the recruitment and selection of study samples in future intelligence research

Personality and intelligence: examining the associations of investment-related personality traits with general and specific intelligence

This article does not exactly replicate the final version published in the journal "European Journal of Psychological Assessment". It is not a copy of the original published article and is not suitable for citationIn this study, we examine the associations of the scales of the California Psychological Inventory (CPI; a measure of personality traits) with intelligence measured by four cognitive ability tests, completed by a sample of 4876 working adults. We framed our analyses of the correlations around the investment perspective on the personality-intelligence relationship that proposes traits are associated with investment in intellectual activity, which develops cognitive abilities over time. In particular, we report associations between investment-related scales (Intellectual Efficiency, Flexibility, Achievement via Independence, Psychological-mindedness, and Tolerance) and a higher-order personality factor (Originality) of the CPI with intelligence measured at broad and narrow levels of abstraction. We found positive associations between investment-related scales, and Originality with observed ability test scores and factor g extracted from test scores. We found positive associations of traits with unique variance in verbal ability measures, but negative with measures of quantitative and visuo-spatial abilities. Our study extends the literature on investment theories of intelligence-personality relations, is the first study to examine the associations of multiple scales of the CPI with intelligence measures, and adds much needed data to the literature from a working adult sample

Learning approaches: Associations with Typical Intellectual Engagement, intelligence and the Big Five

Learning approaches, i.e. students’ learning strategies and motives, predict academic performance but it is not clear how much variance they share with intelligence and personality. Here, the relationship of the Big Five personality traits, intelligence, and Typical Intellectual Engagement (TIE) with deep, achieving and surface learning was explored in a sample of 579 British undergraduate students. A structural equation model showed that (a) intelligence was negligibly associated with learning approaches; (b) TIE was strongly related to all three types of learning approaches; (c) deep learning shared the greatest amount of variance with TIE, while (d) achieving learning was best explained by Extraversion, Openness to Experience, and Conscientiousness. Only 25% of the variance in surface learning was accounted for by intelligence and personality. Thus, personality traits and learning approaches share much variance but not enough to dismiss either construct as redundant