Evaluative Judgments Research Articles

Clarifying the Terminology of Validity and the Investigative Stages of Validation

AbstractDespite agreement about the central importance of validity for educational and psychological testing, consensus regarding the definition of validity remains elusive. Differences in the definition of validity are examined and reveals that a potential cause of disagreement stems from differences in word use and meanings given to key terms commonly employed when discussing validity. A proposal for the meaning and use of specific terms is offered and a framework that divides issues associated with validity is presented. Specifically, the framework divides what Messick termed “an integrated evaluative judgment” into three components: Instrument Validity, Verification of Interpretation and Decision, and Utility of Actions.

Expressions of Criticality in Expert and Student Writing: A Corpus Contrastive Analysis of Literature Reviews

Literature review in academic writing plays an integral role in demonstrating writers’ knowledge about a field of study as well as in informing the writers of influential researchers and research groups in the field. More importantly, writers are expected to critically analyze previous studies related to their topic. Despite its importance to the academic text, student writers find it challenging to establish a critical stance and to provide evaluative judgment when reviewing the literature. This paper presents a contrastive analysis of student and expert writers’ expressions of criticality in literature review sections of 8 applied linguistics master theses from UiTM (a Malaysian public university) and 62 literature reviews of research journal articles from a similar field (i.e., Language and Communication, English for Academic Purposes and Applied Linguistics). Corpus techniques are used to identify the most common expressions of criticality used by these two groups of writers. The corpus was analyzed using detailed consistency analysis and concordance software from WordSmith Tools (Scott, 2012). Findings revealed that student writers prefer to use hedges and boosters to express criticality and the evaluations they make tend to sound more reporting rather than analyzing and synthesizing the resources critically. Results from this study are beneficial for constructing pedagogical instructions and guidelines for student writers in their critical analysis of the literature review.

How to Assess the Learning of Executives Enrolled in Your Managerial Communication Course

In this article, I provide you, the instructor of a graduate level communication course, with an example of a take-home comprehensive final exam, which for me has proved to be practicable, and enjoyable for students. I started using this assessment in fall 2013 because students enrolled in our Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) program at Prairie View A&M University are seasoned executives, and would find routine lower-level multiple choice questions boring and mundane (See Bloom’s [1956] Taxonomy: knowledge, comprehension, application vs. analysis, synthesis and evaluation). Therefore, the 20 questions featured in my take-home final exam, shown in the body of this article, are in-depth, higher-level cognitive questions, designed to assess learning at the synthesis and evaluative judgment levels concerning managerial communication literature. There are 26 items in the reference section, including classic books on management, which are the required readings from the course syllabus, to supplement the two course textbooks: Bell and Martin (2019a) “Managerial communication for organizational development; Bell and Martin (2019b) “Managerial communication for professional development.” Serious executives appreciate reading communication chapters from great books, for example, Barnard (1938); Hall (1971); Katz and Kahn (1966); Simon (1976); Drucker (1973); Mintzberg (1973); Peters and Waterman, (1982); Phillips (1985); Schein (1992); Bennis and Nanus (1985); Brown (1973); Daft, Bettenhausen, and Tyler (1993); Ulrich and Lake (1990); Zuboff (1988); and Deal and Kennedy (1999). Over the years, this type of exam has resulted in a rich learning environment for my students. By-the-way, students learn how to answer the 20 questions throughout an 8-week term, by means of various reading assignments and the Socratic approach.

Емпірична ідентифікація рівня компетентності респондентів у масових опитуваннях

Paper dwells upon the methodological problems of empirical identification of respondents’ competence in mass surveys as a factor of reliability of empirical sociological knowledge in public space. In modern conditions of public life digitalisation, comprehensive access to various information sources is seen as an information management skill and an element of media literacy, primarily the sensitivity to distorted media content. This competence forms the respondents’ factual knowledge about the survey subject. The subjects of public opinion are the respondents of national representative surveys. The discursive aspect of the empirical sociological knowledge reliability determines the relevance of considering the social context of public opinion formation. The focus is on the differences between public opinion and mass sentiment. Public opinion is based primarily on knowledge of social reality, while the mass attitude is mainly a situational emotional attitude to such a reality. The author analyses the influence of the subjects of the media space on the level of respondents’ competence, in particular, the effect of replacing respondents’ own opinion with the reproduction of the narrative of the relevant media content. As a result, a wrong worldview is formed with an inadequate assessment by respondents of the activities of individual political figures and events in national history. The existing imbalance between the articulation of interest in socio-political issues and the patterns of political activity is recognized. The importance of methodological procedures for identifying the level of respondents’ competence, factual knowledge of the subject of the survey is emphasized. Evaluation judgments should be based on the respondent’s awareness of the nature of the questions asked, which is checked using special filters. At the same time, the pollster-sociologist is responsible for both the tools, the correspondence of the survey subject to the level of respondents’ competence, and the meaningful interpretation of the published data. This requirement is getting more essential in mass surveys on sensitive socio-political issues.

Development of the Feedback Quality Instrument: a guide for health professional educators in fostering learner-centred discussions

BackgroundFace-to-face feedback plays an important role in health professionals’ workplace learning. The literature describes guiding principles regarding effective feedback but it is not clear how to enact these. We aimed to create a Feedback Quality Instrument (FQI), underpinned by a social constructivist perspective, to assist educators in collaborating with learners to support learner-centred feedback interactions. In earlier research, we developed a set of observable educator behaviours designed to promote beneficial learner outcomes, supported by published research and expert consensus. This research focused on analysing and refining this provisional instrument, to create the FQI ready-to-use.MethodsWe collected videos of authentic face-to-face feedback discussions, involving educators (senior clinicians) and learners (clinicians or students), during routine clinical practice across a major metropolitan hospital network. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the video data were used to refine the provisional instrument. Raters administered the provisional instrument to systematically analyse educators’ feedback practice seen in the videos. This enabled usability testing and resulted in ratings data for psychometric analysis involving multifaceted Rasch model analysis and exploratory factor analysis. Parallel qualitative research of the video transcripts focused on two under-researched areas, psychological safety and evaluative judgement, to provide practical insights for item refinement. The provisional instrument was revised, using an iterative process, incorporating findings from usability testing, psychometric testing and parallel qualitative research and foundational research.ResultsThirty-six videos involved diverse health professionals across medicine, nursing and physiotherapy. Administering the provisional instrument generated 174 data sets. Following refinements, the FQI contained 25 items, clustered into five domains characterising core concepts underpinning quality feedback: set the scene, analyse performance, plan improvements, foster learner agency, and foster psychological safety.ConclusionsThe FQI describes practical, empirically-informed ways for educators to foster quality, learner-centred feedback discussions. The explicit descriptions offer guidance for educators and provide a foundation for the systematic analysis of the influence of specific educator behaviours on learner outcomes.

Paralinguistic Features Communicated through Voice can Affect Appraisals of Confidence and Evaluative Judgments

This article unpacks the basic mechanisms by which paralinguistic features communicated through the voice can affect evaluative judgments and persuasion. Special emphasis is placed on exploring the rapidly emerging literature on vocal features linked to appraisals of confidence (e.g., vocal pitch, intonation, speech rate, loudness, etc.), and their subsequent impact on information processing and meta-cognitive processes of attitude change. The main goal of this review is to advance understanding of the different psychological processes by which paralinguistic markers of confidence can affect attitude change, specifying the conditions under which they are more likely to operate. In sum, we highlight the importance of considering basic mechanisms of attitude change to predict when and why appraisals of paralinguistic markers of confidence can lead to more or less persuasion.

Ukrainian

The article deals with analysis of relationship between the prevalence of emancipative values and demographic modernization in the field of reproductive behavior and fertility using the data of the latest wave of World Values Survey (2017-2020). The study is aimed to compare the commitment of respondents from different countries to emancipative values (according to the index “Welzel emancipative values”), to assess the impact this complex “value factor” has on the number of respondents’ children, on their attitudes to childbirth, on the age of motherhood. Also focus of this study includes analysis of factors that affect index value, in particular individual socio-demographic characteristics of respondents. Within this study an attempt is made for the first time to model the relationship between the commitment to emancipative values and number of children controlling for the impact of both the individual socio-demographic characteristics of the respondent and the stage of demographic transition in his / her country. Other components of the research with results that potentially can contribute to the existing literature are related to studying: relationship between the prevalence of emancipative values and the attitude to the evaluative judgment on the mandatory birth of children; impact of the emancipative values’ spread on motherhood age; impact of respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics on their commitment to emancipative values (based on the Ukrainian data). Censored Poisson regression is used to model the relationship between the emancipative values index and the number of respondent’s children. Regression model (linear regression estimated by OLS) is estimated to determine the dependence of value orientations’ (according to Welzel values) on the age of respondents from Ukraine, controlling for the influence of such variables as sex, education level and type of settlement. Evaluation of the impact average value of Welzel index has on attitudes towards childbirth, as well as its effect on the mean age of mother at the first child birth is carried out at the national level based on WVS data using correlation-regression analysis. There is a statistically significant inverse relationship between index of emancipative values and number of children. The effect of this value factor is bigger in magnitude compared to the effects of such factors as age, gender, type of settlement, education level of the respondent (all abovementioned effects are statistically significant). There is a strong statistically significant relationship between the prevalence of emancipative values and the increase in the proportion of those who do not perceive the childbirth as a social duty. Also obtained results reveal that the spread of emancipative values has statistically significant positive effect on the mother’s age at the first birth (i.e. with the higher level of emancipative values the mother’s age at the first birth is increasing). Conducted analysis showed the statistically significant age effect in the differentiation of the Welzel index among Ukrainian respondents, as well as the effect of their settlement place and educational level on propensity to emancipative values.

TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATION OF CRITICAL THINKING DEVELOPMENT IN THE PROCESS OF TEACHING ENGLISH IN HIGHER SCHOOL

The article attempts to reveal the essence of the concept«critical thinking» and to consider the development of this kindof thinking in higher school students at foreign languageclasses. It is noted that the ability to acquire skills independentlyand use them in practical activities, and not only the amount ofacquired knowledge, has an essential role to play in the adaptationof a graduate to the realities of modern society. Therefore, thecritical thinking technology applying, as well as the traditionalforms of activity in higher education in the process of foreignlanguage teaching, is seen as a clear necessity. The articlenotes that the main purpose of critical thinking development ofstudents who do not have the developed skills to think criticallyis to extend the mental competence to solve social, scientific andpractical problems effectively. Students of higher educationalestablishments have a range of considerable knowledge andsufficient social experience. They are able to transform theexisting knowledge and skills into competencies, provided thatthey are highly motivated and there are active cognitive activities.Thus, the task of teaching critical thinking skills is to developthe cognitive activity of students based on logical, research andcritical thinking. On the basis of the analysis of the practicalexperience of a foreign language course teaching in a higherschool, the development opportunities are revealed andstrategies of the critical thinking development of students inforeign language classes are considered (annotation, preview,contextualization, self-questioning, reflexion, evaluative judgment,comparison and contrasting). Certain methods, promoting criticalthinking at different stages of learning have been proposedin the paper (Basket of ideas, concepts; Cluster; Margin notes;Сinquain making; Training brainstorming; Essay writing). It hasbeen concluded that the critical thinking technology applied atforeign language classes at higher schools significantly increasesthe time of language practice for each student, helps to facilitatetheir learning acquisition, addresses a wide range of educationaland developmental tasks. The teacher becomes an organizerof students' independent educational, communicative andcreative activities and has the opportunity to improve the learningprocess, develop students' communicative skills and developtheir personality comprehensively.

Critical Thinking of Students: Essence, Structure, Conditions of Development

The article analyzes and defines the essence of the concept of «critical thinking», presents the structure of critical thinking. The purpose of the article is to reveal the essence of the concept of «critical thinking», to determine its structure and to characterize the conditions of its effective development on the basis of the conducted analysis of the scientific literature. The following methods were used in the study: analysis and interpretation of domestic and foreign philosophical, normative, psychological, pedagogical and methodological literature; analysis and generalization of advanced domestic, foreign and personal pedagogical experience on the research problem. The results. On the basis of the considered position of the theory of critical thinking development according to S. Terno and regularities on which this technique is based, the procedures which belong to the operating block of critical thinking are defined. The essence of the concept of «students’ critical thinking» is interpreted as a system of judgments that is used to analyze things and events with the formulation of sound conclusions and allows students to make sound judgments and interpretations, as well as correctly apply conclusions to situations and problems. The peculiarities of the development of students’ critical thinking include the following: the consistent pattern of dynamics, according to which the number of all subsequent changes depends on the number of changes at the previous stage; the regularity of personality development in the educational process; the regularity of educational process management; the stimulation regularity; the regularity of unity of sensory, logical and practice in the educational process; the regularity of unity of external (pedagogical) and internal (cognitive) activities; the regularity of the educational process conditionality. It is proved that the structure of students' critical thinking consists of three components: motivational, activity, reflexive-evaluative. The author developed a model for the development of students’ critical thinking, the tasks of which are: mastering by students the knowledge of logical, problem, creative thinking; teaching students the basic logical concepts (reflection – denial – criticism – criticism – self-criticism – argumentation – proof – refutation – evaluation – self-evaluation – evaluative judgment); forming the students’ ability to build critical reasoning; teaching students to identify logical errors of critical assessment of the phenomenon, behavior. Conclusions. The results of the study showed that an effective means of managing the process of forming students' critical thinking is the use of techniques and methods for solving problems, and that different forms and methods of teaching are used depending on the content of teaching, teaching aids, the students’ individual characteristics of the study level, and the level of teachers’ readiness to the development of critical thinking of students.

Which Attitudes for the Fitting Attitude Analysis of Value?

AbstractAccording to the fitting attitude (FA) analysis of value concepts, to conceive of an object as having a given value is to conceive of it as being such that a certain evaluative attitude taken towards it would be fitting. Among the challenges that this analysis has to face, two are especially pressing. The first is a psychological challenge: the FA analysis must call upon attitudes that shed light on our value concepts while not presupposing the mastery of these concepts. The second challenge is normative: the FA analysis must account for the fittingness of the relevant attitudes in terms of a kind of normativity intimately related to these attitudes, but again without presupposing the mastery of the relevant value concepts. In this paper, we show that real progress is possible if we pay close attention to the nature of the attitudes recruited by the analysis. More specifically, we claim that an FA analysis that appeals to emotions conceived as evaluative attitudes — as opposed to, for instance, evaluative judgements or evaluative perceptions — has the best prospects of meeting the two challenges and of putting the FA analysis on a strong footing.

Treatment Evaluation in Forensic Psychiatry. Which One Should Be Used: The Clinical Judgment or the Instrument-based Assessment of Change?

In forensic psychiatry, it is common practice to use an unstructured clinical judgment for treatment evaluation. From risk assessment studies, it is known that the unstructured clinical judgment is unreliable and the use of instruments is recommended. This paper aims to explore the clinical judgment of change compared to the calculated change using the Instrument for Forensic Treatment Evaluation (IFTE) in relation to changes in inpatient violence This study shows that the clinical judgment is much more positive about patient's behavioral changes than the calculated change. And that the calculated change is more in accordance with the change in the occurrence of inpatient violence, suggesting that the calculated change reflects reality closer than the unstructured clinical judgment. Therefore, it is advisable to use the IFTE as a base to make a structured professional judgment of the treatment evaluation of a forensic psychiatric patient.

Local Records Management Documentation as a Source for Studying Local Government Measures for Organization of Reception and Accommodation of Ukrainian Resettlers from Poland on the Territory of Donetsk Region in 1945-1946

The purpose of the article is to identify the informative potential of the records of local authorities to highlight the main stages of settlement and the difficulties encountered by migrants during the adaptation in the areas of Donetsk region. The methodology of the research is based on a combination of general scientific (synthetic, analytical, logical), special-historical (chronological, historical-comparative), source-based (critical analysis) methods. The scientific novelty of the work is that the author for the first time revealed the informative capabilities of records management documents at the local level in studying the mechanism of implementation of state tasks in the organization of reception and accommodation of Ukrainians from Zakerzon and Donetsk region in the postwar period by local authorities. Some of the documents analyzed by the author are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. Conclusions. Local record management documentation has significant information potential in studying the degree of implementation of measures to organize the accommodation, the course of the settlement of resettlers in the Donetsk region and the difficulties of the adaptation period. It contains a lot of detailed information, rich in facts, names and statistics, which can significantly supplement the source base of further research. The record management documents of the district authorities, whose representatives contacted the resettlers during the inspections of the condition of the resettlers' households, together with the statement of facts, contain evaluative judgments and elements of emotionality. The documents of the district authorities, whose representatives contacted the resettlers during the inspections of the condition of the resettlement farms, together with the statement of facts, contain evaluative judgments and elements of emotionality. In record management materials at the region level, party and Soviet officials often criticized district workers for underestimating the political significance of the issue of resettlement and adaptation of resettlers. The ideological attitudes of the ruling top of the Communist Party had a significant influence on the formation of their assessments. Most of the decisions of the Regional Committee of the CP(b)U were adopted jointly with the executive committee of the regional council of workers' deputies.

Expert consensus on clinical detection of rheumatoid arthritis related autoantibodies

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common chronic and systemic autoimmune disease. Early diagnosis and standard treatment are the keys to control the disease and improve the prognosis. A variety of autoantibodies such as rheumatoid factor and anti-citrullinated peptide/protein antibodies can be detected in serum of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, which are important for early diagnosis and differential diagnosis of RA, judgment of disease severity and prognosis evaluation. The standardization of autoantibody detection related to rheumatoid arthritis is very important for its clinical application. Under the organization of the Committee of the Autoantibodies Detection of Rheumatology and Immunology Physicians Committee of Chinese Medical Doctor Association, expert consensus on clinical application of rheumatoid arthritis related autoantibodies detection were established by a joint group of Chinese multi-disciplinary experts. The consensus aims to standardize the detection of RA associated autoantibodies, and to provide a reference for clinicians and laboratory technicians to use and interpret rheumatoid arthritis-related autoantibodies in daily practice.

Are foreign-accented speakers that ‘incredible’? The impact of the speaker's indexical properties on sentence processing

This study investigated the impact of the speaker's identity generated by the voice on sentence processing. We examined the relation between ERP components associated with the processing of the voice (N100 and P200) from voice onset and those associated with sentence processing (N400 and late positivity) from critical word onset. We presented Dutch native speakers with sentences containing true (and known) information, unknown (but true) information or information violating world knowledge and had them perform a truth evaluation task. Sentences were spoken either in a native or a foreign accent. Truth evaluation judgments were not different for statements spoken by the native-accented and the foreign-accented speakers. Reduced N100 and P200 were observed in response to the foreign speaker's voice compared to the native speaker's. While statements containing unknown information or world knowledge violations generated a larger N400 than true statements in the native condition, they were not significantly different in the foreign condition, suggesting shallower processing of foreign-accented speech. The N100 was a significant predictor for the N400 in that the reduced N100 observed for the foreign speaker compared to the native speaker was related to a smaller N400 effect. These finding suggest that the impression of the speaker that listeners rapidly form from the voice affects semantic processing, which confirms that speaker's identity and language comprehension cannot be dissociated.

Students’ use of evaluative judgement in an online peer learning community

One goal of higher education is the development of students’ evaluative judgement, that is, the capacity to make judgements of the quality of work done by oneself and others. Supporting students to critique the work of peers provides opportunities for evaluative judgement, which we explored using an online platform, PeerWise, in a second year genetics course. PeerWise enables students to write, comment on, answer and rate multiple choice questions. Our study aimed to investigate students’ understanding of question quality by identifying the criteria they used to assess questions and how these were applied to make judgements. Students’ comments on questions, in which they provided an opinion with a reason, were analysed. This analysis was done in two stages; an initial qualitative analysis of comments from one cohort from which the criteria emerged, and validation and quantification of criteria usage in an independent cohort. We identified five criteria that were used to assess questions: knowledge, clarity and presentation, complexity, engagement and explanation. We then analysed how the criteria were used to show that students demonstrated evaluative judgement, not only by generating reasonable criteria, but also by making complex judgements about question quality invoking multiple criteria and constructive suggestions for improvement.

Learning to Copy Coherent Knowledge for Response Generation

Knowledge-driven dialog has shown remarkable performance to alleviate the problem of generating uninformative responses in the dialog system. However, incorporating knowledge coherently and accurately into response generation is still far from being solved. Previous works dropped into the paradigm of non-goal-oriented knowledge-driven dialog, they are prone to ignore the effect of dialog goal, which has potential impacts on knowledge exploitation and response generation. To address this problem, this paper proposes a Goal-Oriented Knowledge Copy network, GOKC. Specifically, a goal-oriented knowledge discernment mechanism is designed to help the model discern the knowledge facts that are highly correlated to the dialog goal and the dialog context. Besides, a context manager is devised to copy facts not only from the discerned knowledge but also from the dialog goal and the dialog context, which allows the model to accurately restate the facts in the generated response. The empirical studies are conducted on two benchmarks of goal-oriented knowledge-driven dialog generation. The results show that our model can significantly outperform several state-of-the-art models in terms of both automatic evaluation and human judgments.

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder but rarely because of the beer

Across three studies, the present research examined beliefs and real-world responses pertaining to whether bar patrons' self-rated attractiveness would be higher later in the night. Contrary to beliefs held by lay people (Study 1A) and researchers in relevant disciplines (Study 1B), the results of a field study (Study 2) revealed that patrons perceived themselves as more attractive at later times, regardless of the amount of alcohol consumed. Relationship status moderated this time-contingent finding, which only applied to patrons who were single. However, consistent with sexual strategies theory, this interplay was further moderated by the patrons' sex. Men rated themselves as more attractive later in the night irrespective of their relationship status, whereas this “pretty” pattern only held for single women. Taken together, the current work highlights the concept of time in forming consumers' evaluative judgments and adds to the literature on the closing time effect.

ДИДАКТИЧНІ ОСОБЛИВОСТІ СТРУКТУРИ ТА ОРГАНІЗАЦІЇ УРОКУ ІНТЕГРОВАНОЇ НАВЧАЛЬНОЇ ДИСЦИПЛІНИ

The article examines the current scientific problem - conceptual changes in the system of general secondary education due to integration processes in the basic science of natural sciences. They consist in actualizing the creation in the educational environment of integrated courses of natural sciences, the formation of which is carried out on a new basis. Integration processes by academic disciplines with their specific objects of study, which include elements of different components of disciplines, considered comprehensively and qualitatively. The methodology of teaching natural sciences has accumulated a significant number of problems that need to be addressed. Among them are such as the problem of integration of an extensive system of scientific knowledge, updating of methods, tools and forms of organization of education. As a result of the integration processes in fundamental natural science, integrated natural science courses, the formation of which is carried out on a new basis, again become relevant and in demand in pedagogy. Integrative processes involve the creation of integrated disciplines, which include elements of individual natural components of the disciplines, considered comprehensively and qualitatively. In the context of the implementation of integrated disciplines in the educational process, the study of the lesson as the main form of organization of the educational process and its features becomes relevant. It is established that the results of research by M. Danilov and M. Skatkin on the terminology and content of the concept of "lesson", which is represented by a holistic and complex system that includes the acquisition of knowledge, development of mind and worldview, education of feelings and personal qualities, formation of competencies, evaluative judgments, etc. In addition, the article finds that the structural construction of the lesson resembles a schematic construction of scientific knowledge: initial facts → problem statement → hypothesis → construction of an abstract model → introduction of a system of concepts, laws, principles → theoretical derivation of consequences and their experimental verification. The main form of organization of educational classes of the modern education system continues to be a lesson, both for the usual academic discipline and for the integrated academic discipline. But in accordance with the goals and objectives of the integrated discipline, the lesson of the integrated discipline has its own specifics that determine its structure and content. The article shows the features that determine this specificity. The author points out that the systematic construction of the lesson of integrated academic discipline is based on the theory of problem-based learning M. Makhmutov. Based on this theory, the objectives of the lessons of the integrated course of natural orientation and teaching aids are formulated, which include the following: integrative task, interdisciplinary problem situation, research and experimental projects, complex practice-oriented tasks, educational experiment and more. The article considers these tools and gives practical examples of their implementation. Based on the results of the study, conclusions are made and directions for further research on this topic are proposed. Key words: integrated academic discipline, lesson, organization of educational process, natural science competence, integrated learning.

Saving versus deleting thoughts affects focal and lateral attitude change (Guardar vs. eliminar los pensamientos influye en los cambios actitudinales focales y laterals)

ABSTRACT Thought handling may affect the subsequent use of thoughts in evaluative judgements. Thus, a person’s attitudes are more influenced by thoughts about the attitude object when the person has saved (versus deleted) a representation of these thoughts. We examined if thought handling would affect not only focal attitude change but also lateral attitude change. Students (N = 200) listed positive thoughts about a focal object and later either saved or deleted a representation of their thoughts. Then their explicit and implicit attitudes towards the focal object, a lateral (= related) object and an unrelated object were assessed. Results showed that explicit focal attitudes were affected more by thoughts in the save conditions than in the delete conditions. These effects generalized to explicit lateral attitudes but not to explicit unrelated attitudes. Thought (handling) effects on implicit attitudes were generally weak. We discuss the results in terms of a self-validation approach and the lateral attitude change model.

Patterns of Non-governmental Organization (NGO) Participation in the Management of Major Infectious Diseases in China

The purpose of this article is to promote the participation of non-governmental organizations in the management of major infectious diseases in China. We intend to analyze and evaluate the management methods, functions, behaviors, and funding methods of NGOs involved in the prevention and control of infectious diseases in China through various levels of theory and empirical analysis: evaluation and formal judgment of various methods and backgrounds. Government agencies are involved in evaluating the effectiveness of major infectious disease prevention and control in China. It is worth paying full attention to social forces facing sudden public crises, especially non-governmental organizations. The strong momentum of the epidemic has encouraged all actors in society to cooperate and work efficiently and orderly in the prevention and control of infectious diseases.