One-hundred-six 9th graders and 203 undergraduates wrote a story about baseball for 25 min and then completed a 39-item multiple-choice test of baseball topic knowledge. Students also answered 6 questions about their individual interest in baseball. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested that knowledge and interest tests measured different constructs. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed Grade X Interest and Gender X Interest interactions on thematic maturity. Differences favoring undergraduates at low levels of interest disappeared at higher levels of interest, and differences favoring male students at low levels of interest disappeared at higher levels of interest. Topic knowledge predicted thematic maturity and was a better predictor of the interestingness of students' written texts than was individual interest. Implications for the assignment of student writing topics are discussed.

Bloom (1956) pioneered the measurement of learning outcomes with a taxonomy of educational objectives, but educators often ignore affective learning objectives and focus on attaining cognitive objectives. This study examined student journals as a way to correct the overemphasis on cognitive objectives. Results suggested that course expectations and affective journal outcomes were important correlates of student evaluations of course outcomes even after controlling for the instructor, student gender, and student achievement. These findings have important implications for the use of student journals and for interventions aimed at increasing student evaluations of course outcomes.

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Mindfulness and self-compassion are increasingly coming into mainstream psychological research in the Western world as they correlate with and predict various aspects of mental health and positivity. However, little is known about their relationship to another construct that is also associated with well-being, that is, humor. The unique contribution of the present study is in exploring whether mindfulness and self-compas- sion would predict the use of adaptive and maladaptive humor styles and whether this prediction will be the same across cultures. 90 U.S. and 106 Russian college students responded to a survey consisting of three measures: Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS; Brown & Ryan, 2003), Self-Compassion Scale-Short Form (SCS-SF; Raes, Pommier, Neff, & Van Gucht, 2011), and Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, & Weir, 2003). Our findings suggest that mind- fulness and self-compassion can serve as predictors of humor styles, that is, more mind- ful and self-compassionate participants tended to use more adaptive humor styles and less maladaptive styles. However, the contribution of these two variables to the vari- ance in humor styles depended on the culture.

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In September 2011, I visited two universities in Finland as part of Magellan faculty exchange: Rovaniemi University of Applied Sciences in Pori (RAMK) and Satakunta University of Applied Sciences in Pori and Rauma (SAMK). It was such a wonderful and rewarding trip that I decided to share my experience with students to encourage them to study abroad. to encourage them to study abroad. Arkansas State University is a member of Magellan Exchange Program (http://www.magellanexchange.org/). The mission of this program is “to provide opportunities for students and faculty to have an affordable educational and cultural immersion experience.” I decided to apply for this exchange to foster my professional development and to establish new contacts for cross-cultural collaboration in my area of research.

This study addressed the traits and characteristics that Turkish students deem most important in a long-term romantic partner. We collected quantitative and qualitative data on characteristics desired in romantic partners from students attending Bahçeşehir Üniversitesi in Istanbul, Turkey. Like our previous cross-cultural studies conducted in Japan, Russia and the United States, results supported dependability and love as the most important traits. Overall, positive internal attributes were rated as highly important and we recommend the traits associated with the positive psychology movement be more fully considered in future studies on mate preferences.