Among the many reasons for choosing an academic major are stereotypes that students hold of particular occupations and the degree to which they believe that their personalities match those stereotypes. We examined relevant personality characteristics (i.e., achievement motivation, conformity, conscientiousness, creativity and extroversion) of 899…

This book contains a compilation of papers presented at the International Psychological Applications Conference and Trends (InPACT) 2020, organized by the World Institute for Advanced Research and Science (W.I.A.R.S.), that this year had to be transformed into a fully Virtual Conference as a result of the Coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic. Modern…

This study aimed to find out second language learners' perceptions on the use of blogs in their learning process. Participants were 20 secondary school students from a suburban school in Kelantan, Malaysia. The students read articles, discussed in their respective groups and posted their comments in their group blogs in two kinds of learning…

This article concerns how noncognitive constructs--personality and motivation--can be assessed and developed to increase students' readiness for college. We propose a general framework to account for personality and motivational differences between students. We review numerous studies showing that personality and motivational factors are related…

The purposes of this study were to conceptualize moral identity as moral ideal self, to develop a measure of this construct, to test for age and gender differences, to examine links between moral ideal self and adolescent outcomes, and to assess purpose and social responsibility as mediators of the relations between moral ideal self and outcomes.…

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the effects of frequency of peer victimization experiences on psychological and academic adjustment during early adolescence, with a focus on testing psychological adjustment as a mediator, as well as differences based on gender and type of victimization. The sample in this short-term longitudinal…

Background: Critical thinking is one of the very highest orders of cognitive abilities and a key competency in higher education. Asking questions is an important component of rich learning experiences, structurally embedded in the operations of critical thinking. Our clear sense is that critical thinking and, within that, critical questioning, is…

The current study examined interactions among genetic influences and children's early environments on the development of externalizing behaviors from 18 months to 6 years of age. Participants included 233 families linked through adoption (birth parents and adoptive families). Genetic influences were assessed by birth parent temperamental…

A successful transition from kindergarten to 1st grade requires a positive combination of multiple dimensions of child competence. Using latent class analysis, we simultaneously examined the academic skills, work attitude, and social/behavioral competence of a large sample of Dutch kindergarten children to identify profiles of kindergarten…

Aggressive behaviour in school-aged children presents a significant challenge for society. If not managed, it can result in adverse academic, social, emotional, and behavioural outcomes for the child. In addition, it can create stress for families and become a significant burden for the community as these children reach adolescence and adulthood,…

The authors empirically examine the effectiveness of an intervention program designed to facilitate interest in cyber science among high school students (N = 60). Pretest-posttest and mediation designs were used to model self-report data that were collected at pre-camp, during a cyber-related task at mid-camp, and at post-camp. An analysis of…

Recent research suggests that emotional dysfunction in psychiatric disorders can be reflected in autonomic abnormalities. The present study examines sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic nervous system activity in individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) before, during, and following a social stressor task. Data were obtained…

For valid decision making, it is essential to both the person being measured and the person or organization that is having the person measured that the observed scores adequately represent the underlying trait. This study deals with person-fit analysis of polytomous item scores to detect unusual patterns of sum scores on subsets of items. This…

Interests, personality, and values figure prominently in work motivation, yet little research has examined the combined influence of these factors on vocational behavior. The present study therefore examined relationships among these variables in a sample of 282 medical students (169 women, 113 men) who responded to the Strong Interest Inventory,…

Counselors who assess persons with multiple sclerosis (MS) using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2; T. N. Butcher, W. G. Dahlstrom, J. R. Graham, A. Tellegen, & B. Kaemmer, 1989) may find scale elevations on Scales 1, 2, 3, and 8. These elevations may be due, at least in part, to specific questions on the MMPI-2 that…