28th International Congress of Psychology August 8 ... - U-netSURF

University, Beijing, China; 3 Georgia State University; Atlanta, GA, USA
Last year, several thousand Chinese girls were adopted by American families. This project
examines these children’s overall developmental status and emotional expressivity. By three years
of age, the adopted children’s mental and motor performance was in the normal range on the
Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Facial expressions of adopted Chinese girls were more
similar to European-American children than to nonadopted Chinese children from the PRC or
Chinese-American children. These findings indicate that adopted Chinese children do well in their
American families and that their emotional expressiveness is strongly influenced by their family’s
cultural environment.
1019.4 Personality and social adjustment among European American, Chinese American, and
Chinese children and adolescents, C. Huntsinger 1 , P.E. Jose 2 , 1 College of Lake County,
Grayslake, IL, USA; 2 Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
Cultural standards and socialization practices influence social adjustment and personality
formation in children. Two longitudinal studies compared second generation Chinese American
(CA) and European American (EA) children and adolescents in the United States. We found that
young children in the two groups were very similar in social adjustment. However CA adolescents
reported themselves to be less extraverted, more depressed, lower in job competence and romantic
appeal, and more stressed by minor life events than EA adolescents. Chinese American children
and adolescents consistently attained higher academic competence. Comparisons with Beijing
children also showed differences on several social adjustment measures.
1020 INVITED SYMPOSIUM
The contribution of psychology in relation to human rights abuses, reconciliation and
reconstruction
Convener and Chair: N. Sveaass, Norway
1020.1 Child soldiers, child protection, and post-conflict reconstruction for peace, M. Wessells,
Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA, USA
This paper analyzes how the massive rights abuses of children in war shatter social trust and
damage long-term social capital. Emphasizing the global problem of child soldiering, it identifies
how children become associated with armed groups, and examines connections between child
protection and peacebuilding. Presenting data from Sierra Leone, it analyzes how former youth
combatants can be reintegrated into their villages using psychosocial approaches to healing and
reconciliation combined with economic assistance. The paper discusses how local and Western
approaches may be integrated in supporting former child soldiers and building peace.
1020.2 Social meaning of political violence: Terrorism or freedom-fighter? C.J. Montiel 1 , A.A.
Shah 2 , 1 Ateneo de Manila University, Manila, Philippines; 2 International Islamic University,
Malaysia
This research studies the social meaning of political violence under different personal and
contextual conditions with a social cognition approach to the phenomenon of terrorism. We
predict that the social meaning of political violence depends upon informational priming and
varies in relation to context. Context is disaggregated into context of the perceived terrorist in
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