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Children's private speech has been widely studied among children, but it is clear that adults use private speech as well. In this study, illiterate adults' private speech during a ''school-like'' task was explored as a function of literacy level and task difficulty in a sample of 126 adults enrolled in a public literacy program. A main effect for literacy level was found-private speech was more internalized and less externalized among adults with higher literacy levels. Externalized private speech was more frequently observed among illiterate adults engaged in the most difficult task. Private speech served cognitive functions as indicated by the proportion of self-regulatory private speech and the proportion of private speech preceding actions being higher in the advanced literacy group and among illiterate adults doing the easier task. Internalized private speech, self-regulatory private speech, and private speech preceding action were each positively correlated with performance and negatively correlated with time to complete the task. The use of private speech in illiterate adults appears to be linked to the mastery of cultural experiences, such as literacy, similar to the selftalk of children.

Young children (5 to 6 years old) from an individualistic (the Netherlands) culture and a collectivistic (South of Spain: Andalusia) culture were videotaped during leisure time on their school playground. Based on the perspective of individualism-collectivism (IND-COL), cultural differences were expected with respect to observed conflict behaviors. Conflict episodes were analyzed with respect to conflict issues, strategies, and outcomes. In Andalusia, an unexpected high number of conflicts were observed, about three times higher than in the Netherlands. As expected, Andalusian children turned out to be more concerned with control of play and behavior and Dutch children more with control of objects and space. With respect to strategy use, Andalusian children used negotiation more often than Dutch children. The latter included more often nonverbal and directive ingredients in their strategies. Dutch children ended their conflicts by means of social or physical rupture much more often than Andalusian children. The latter preferred to continue the interaction, even if this required submission to others' wishes. Results are discussed from the perspective of IND-COL, with particular emphasis on four characteristics of studies of peer conflicts: definition of conflict, method of data collection, age of participants, and social setting of the participants.

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Background: Housing plays an important role in the aging process and health. The house and its nearby environment host most of the daily activities of older adults. Residential satisfaction (RS) has been relegated to physical issues such as accessibility. However, RS is also constituted by older adults’ perceptions about housing. This study analyzes the perceived home that develops RS in older adults. Methods: A random sample of 714 participants aged 50 to 84 (mean = 65; SD = 0.98) were used. Participants lived in ordinary housing in southern Spain. Scales measure perceptions of RS, meaning, functionality and belief of control over the home. Results: Analyses were performed using structural equation models to evaluate the dependence relationships between the different perceptions evaluated. We observe a direct influence of internal control on usability (β = 0.84) and perceived meanings (β = 0.49). However, external control shows a negative influence on the meaning of home (β = −0.14). Perceived usability (β = 0.68) and meaning (β = 0.32) positively influence RS. Conclusion: Perceptions of meaning, functionality and RS itself depend on internal housing-related control beliefs. Active older adults with higher internal control perceived their home fit better to the need of everyday life and improve RS.