Controlled languages are subsets of natural languages restricted by explicit rules governing lexicon, grammar and style. They are essentially used to reduce ambiguity and complexity in written procedural or descriptive technical documents, and so can be viewed as extending good authoring practice. Their main declared purpose is to achieve cost savings through the simplification and standardization of document production, and through improved document usability. Human-machine interaction and the translation of documents, in particular by machines, are additional related aims. Controlled natural languages may be either empirical or logic-based. Many empirical controlled languages have been successfully developed in industry starting from existing in-house drafting practice and text corpora, the emphasis being placed on improving human readability. Logic-based controlled languages, by contrast, have been devised to form strictly unambiguous natural language subsets: these may have poor human readability, but unlike the less rigorously formalized empirical controlled languages, they can be used as processable machine input for knowledge representation. Language control raises some formal linguistic issues, particularly the question of whether sweeping restrictions on expression for the sake of simplicity and concision may unintentionally impede communication.
(1980). Rewards, Motivation, and Self-Esteem. The Educational Forum: Vol. 44, No. 4, pp. 429-433.
No abstract is provided for this article.
Given the high costs of stress for both mental and physical health, understanding of how stress is incurred and how it is coped with has both theoretical and clinical significance. Self‐determination theory (SDT), a broad framework for understanding motivation and personality, speaks to many issues concerning stress‐related phenomena. Research based on SDT suggests that both less stress incursion and better coping with demanding events are associated with greater autonomous functioning, higher mindfulness, more interest‐taking in internal events, and lifestyles focused on pursuing intrinsic over extrinsic goals, among other factors. These topics are discussed within the growing body of empirical research stemming from SDT and linkages are drawn with the larger literature on stress and coping. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
No abstract is provided for this article.
Interest in intra‐individual variation in trait expression across situations, contexts, and relationships, and the meaning of this variation for personal functioning has grown significantly. In this article we review this literature with an emphasis on (a) appropriate methods for identifying variations in trait expression and (b) the substantive meaning and sources of this variation. Self‐determination theory suggests that people will express traits differently as a function of the degree of support for autonomy they experience in any given setting. Accordingly, autonomy support is shown to predict variations in Big Five trait expression and other stable individual differences such as attachment security and dependency. The discussion focuses on methodological issues in the study of variability and on why autonomy support may play a central role in explaining trait variability and its relation to well‐being.
Past studies in U.S. work organizations have supported a model derived from self-determination theory in which autonomy-supportive work climates predict satisfaction of the intrinsic needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness, which in turn predict task motivation and psychological adjustment on the job. To test this model cross-culturally, the authors studied employees of state-owned companies in Bulgaria, a country that has traditionally had a central-planning economy, a totalitarian political system, and collectivist values. A sample from a privately owned American corporation was used for comparison purposes. Results using structural equation modeling suggested that the model fit the data from each country, that the constructs were equivalent across countries, and that some paths of the structural model fit equivalently for the two countries but that county moderated the other paths.
No abstract is provided for this article.
Players' basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are among the most commonly used constructs used in research on what makes video games so engaging, and how they might support or undermine user wellbeing. However, existing measures of basic psychological needs in games have important limitations—they either do not measure need frustration, or measure it in a way that may not be appropriate for the video games domain, they struggle to capture feelings of relatedness in both single- and multiplayer contexts, and they often lack validity evidence for certain contexts (e.g., playtesting vs experience with games as a whole). In this paper, we report on the design and validation of a new measure, the Basic Needs in Games Scale (BANGS), whose 6 subscales cover satisfaction and frustration of each basic psychological need in gaming contexts. The scale was validated and evaluated over five studies with a total of 1246 unique participants. Results supported the theorized structure of the scale and provided evidence for discriminant, convergent and criterion validity. Results also show that the scale performs well over different contexts (including evaluating experiences in a single game session or across various sessions) and over time, supporting measurement invariance. Further improvements to the scale are warranted, as results indicated lower reliability in the autonomy frustration subscale, and a surprising non-significant correlation between relatedness satisfaction and frustration. Despite these minor limitations, BANGS is a reliable and theoretically sound tool for researchers to measure basic needs satisfaction and frustration with a degree of domain validity not previously available.
Self-projection, defined as the character and valence of one's situational, objective, or public self-awareness, was operationalized in the present study by subjects' ratings of how they were viewed by the other in an interactional context. It was expected that the nature of self-projection would be strongly influenced by trait measures of self-esteem and social anxiety, particularly given that interpersonal feedback was ambiguous. A measure of self-projection was developed on an independent sample and then assessed in 48 subjects in a controlled interaction paradigm. Self-projection, as expected, was found to be related to trait measures of social anxiety and self-esteem. In addition, specific dimensions of sew-projection were found to predict self-evaluations, emotions, aspects of performance, and memory for the other's speech, as well as subjects' perceptions of the other person in the interaction. A path model is presented depicting these general relations. Results are discussed in terms of the processes through which persons construe themselves as social objects.
Recent research in the United States suggests that individuals who strongly value extrinsic goals (e.g., fame, wealth, image) relative to intrinsic goals (e.g., personal growth, relatedness, community) experience less well-being. This study examines such goals in university samples from two cultures—the United States and Russia. Participants (N = 299) rated the importance, expectancies, and current attainment of 15 life goals, including 4 target intrinsic and 4 target extrinsic goals. Results confirmed the relevance of the intrinsic-extrinsic distinction for both samples and that stronger importance and expectancies regarding extrinsic goals were negatively related to well-being, although these effects were weaker for Russian women. Furthermore, for both men and women, perceived attainment of intrinsic goals was associated with greater well-being, whereas this was not the case for perceived attainment of extrinsic goals.
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This study examined whether maltreated children were more likely than nonmaltreated children to develop poor-quality representations of caregivers and whether these representations predicted children's rejection by peers. A narrative task assessing representations of mothers and fathers was administered to 76 maltreated and 45 nonmaltreated boys and girls (8-12 years old). Maltreated children's representations were more negative/constricted and less positive/coherent than those of nonmaltreated children. Maladaptive representations were associated with emotion dysregulation, aggression, and peer rejection, whereas positive/coherent representations were related to prosocial behavior and peer preference. Representations mediated maltreatment's effects on peer rejection in part by undermining emotion regulation. Findings suggest that representations of caregivers serve an important regulatory function in the peer relationships of at-risk children.
