Age and overt verbalization in delay-maintenance behavior in children

The influence of overt self-verbalization on the maintenance of self-imposed delay of gratification was investigated in a task in which the child's possession of accumulating candy rewards was made contingent upon the child stopping further accumulation. Preschool girls who verbalized about the goodness of waiting and preschool girls who uttered an irrelevant verbalization waited longer before terminating their delay than did preschool girls who verbalized about the delayed reward or were silent. Second- and third-grade girls who verbalized about the goodness of waiting or who were silent waited longer than girls of the same age who verbalized about the delayed reward.     

Increasing Positive Affect in College Students

Previous research has shown that self-focused writing interventions produce increases in positive affect. This paper examines whether writing about someone else will produce similar increases in positive affect in college students. In Experiment 1, participants wrote about their ideal future, the ideal future of a loved one, or their daily activities. In Experiment 2, participants wrote about three good things or three neutral things that happened either to themselves or to others. In both experiments, participants who wrote about positive outcomes reported increases in positive affect greater than the control group regardless of whether they wrote about themselves or wrote about others. In Experiment1, the increase in positive affect was greater for those who wrote about themselves than those who wrote about others. No such difference was found in Experiment 2. Negative affect change scores did not differ across the groups in either experiment. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Incidental cue learning in rats

Continuity theories of discrimination learning appear to say that animals learn equally about all cues impinging upon their receptors; noncontinuity theories that they learn about only one cue at a time. Experiment I showed that neither of these positions is correct: rats trained to attend to one cue learned less about a subsequently introduced incidental cue than rats given no such pretraining; but attention to one cue did not totally prevent learning about the other. A second experiment established that if rats are trained with one cue, and a second cue is then also made relevant, the amount learned about this second cue varies directly with (a) the abruptness with which it is introduced, and (b) the difficulty of the original discrimination.     

Judgments about collision in younger and older drivers

To travel safely, drivers must detect imminent collisions. Older drivers have more accidents per miles driven than younger drivers, potentially reflecting age differences in judgments about collision. Prior studies measured age differences in judgments about when a collision would occur (time to contact). Older adults made greater underestimations, but this would lower their risk for accidents. Judgments about when a collision would occur must be preceded by judgments about whether a collision would occur (Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (2001) Minneapolis). Results of the present study indicated that judgments about potential collision were less accurate for older drivers compared with younger drivers. This would increase their risk for accidents. Age differences in driver performance may be associated more with age differences in judgments about whether a collision would occur than with age differences in judgments about when a collision would occur. Age differences in judgments about potential collision suggest a new avenue to pursue in an account of differential accident rates in older and younger drivers.     

Gender differences in social consequences of perceived overweight in the United States and Australia

This study investigated attitudes about body weight and appearance in a group of young adults. Undergraduate psychology students at the Flinders University of South Australia and at the University of Vermont were asked about their weight and dieting, consciousness about their body, the degree to which their weight had interfered with social activities, their perceptions about the causes of obseity, and their stereotypes about fat and thin men and women. Although 20% of the sample was overweight, 50% of subjects perceived themselves to be overweight to some degree. As expected, weight was a much greater issue for women, who felt more overweight, dieted more, expressed more body consciousness, and reported that weight had interfered more with social activities than did men. Also as expected, Vermont students reported greater frequency of dieting, more concern about weight, and more body consciousness than did students in Australia. Finally, men and women in both cultures stereotyped obese targets significantly more negatively than they did nonobese targets. The results indicate excessive and maladaptive concerns with weight in general, and among women and U.S. students in particular.     

The nature of negative thoughts in depression

We investigated the nature and content of the negative thoughts that accompany depression by examining thoughts about oneself and others during three cognitive tasks: imaging, recall, and inference. Mildly depressed and nondepressed subjects were asked to image, recall, and make inferences about a variety of events while thinking about themselves or another person. The events were sad or happy and either social or nonsocial in nature. The results suggest that the negativity in thought that accompanies depression is restricted to thoughts about oneself and does not extend to thoughts about others. The relation between negative thoughts and the depressive's view of self is discussed. It is proposed that depressives have a negative self-schema that makes the affective nature of their behavior particularly salient.     

The role of physical appearance in managerial decisions

This study was designed to examine stereotypical beliefs about the physical appearance of employees and the effects of these beliefs on decision-making. Current stereotypes about obese and very thin people were assessed, and the effect of beliefs about obese and very thin people on subjects' evaluations of employee performance was measured. The findings indicated that subjects used information about employees' weight and body build differently, depending on whether they were responding to questions about discipline, the likelihood of recurrence of behavior, or their desire to work with certain employees. Overall, the results suggest that subjects exclude nondiagnostic aspects of employees (e.g., weight and body build) in some types of work decisions.     

The Epistemic Value of Emotions in Politics

In this paper, I consider emotional reactions in response to political facts, and I investigate how they may provide relevant knowledge about those facts. I assess the value of such knowledge, both from an epistemic and a political perspective. Concerning the epistemic part, I argue that, although emotions are not in themselves sufficient to ground evaluative knowledge about political facts, they can do so within a network of further coherent epistemic attitudes about those facts. With regards to the political part, I argue that the contribution of emotions to evaluative knowledge about political facts, is indeed politically valuable. To develop my argument, I show first that an evaluative kind of knowledge is relevant for reaching a sophisticated level of political cognition, and second that emotions contribute distinctively to this kind of knowledge. I conclude that, when emotional experiences towards political events are coupled with an adequate factual knowledge about those events, they can ground a distinctive evaluative knowledge about those events, and such knowledge is relevant both from an epistemic and a political perspective.     

Factors influencing juror verdict in a case involving repressed memories of abuse

Mental health professionals acting as expert witnesses are expected to testify about the prevalence of sexual abuse, and also about the veracity of memory. In cases involving adult survivors of sexual abuse, this testimony is typically about repressed and false memory syndromes. Many professionals have noted concerns about the lack of definitive data to support either syndrome. This study examined the following variables: juror knowledge and experience with repressed and false memory syndromes, juror attitudes about sexual abuse and memory recovery techniques, and gender of juror on verdict. Results include effects for repressed memory knowledge/experience and gender. Gender differences were found regarding attitudes about abuse and memory. Concluding comments include practical and research implications of the study results.     

Factors influencing juror verdict in a case involving repressed memories of abuse

Mental health professionals acting as expert witnesses are expected to testify about the prevalence of sexual abuse, and also about the veracity of memory. In cases involving adult survivors of sexual abuse, this testimony is typically about repressed and false memory syndromes. Many professionals have noted concerns about the lack of definitive data to support either syndrome. This study examined the following variables: juror knowledge and experience with repressed and false memory syndromes, juror attitudes about sexual abuse and memory recovery techniques, and gender of juror on verdict. Results include effects for repressed memory knowledge/experience and gender. Gender differences were found regarding attitudes about abuse and memory. Concluding comments include practical and research implications of the study results.     

Lack of sex differences in knowledge of, attitudes about, and behaviors related to substance use in adolescents in a sample of high school students in the Northeastern USA

As part of an ongoing investigation, data were collected on behaviors and attitudes about substance abuse and general knowledge about substances for high school students (N = 1,103) during the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 academic years. In preliminary analyses no meaningful sex differences were found for type or frequency of use, attitudes about substance use, or knowledge about substances. Lack of meaningful sex differences were evident even when comparisons by sex group were made within this ethnic minority population as well as within school Grades 10, 11, and 12. It is suggested that being a boy or a girl may have little to do with the American middle-class adolescents' choice to use substances. Findings should be understood to suggest possible cohort effects.     

Adult age differences in autobiographical reasoning in narratives

Two studies examined age differences in autobiographical reasoning within narratives about personal experiences. In Study 1 (n=63), people completed brief interviews about turning points and crises in their lives. Older participants were more likely to narrate crises in ways that connected the experience to the speaker's sense of self, that is, to show autobiographical reasoning. This increase was primarily evident in young adulthood and midlife. In Study 2 (n=115), adults provided written narratives about heterogeneous autobiographical experiences. Age was associated with linear increases in the likelihood of autobiographical reasoning. The results are discussed in terms of narrative approaches to self-development across the life span.     

Typology in procrastination

The relationships of two kinds of behavioral delay, academic and daily life, to concern about delay and personality correlates of delay, were investigated in 138 Israeli university students. Absence of a significant relationship between delay and concern about delay provided an opportunity for assessing a delay × concern typology. Among nonprocrastinators, concerned students were found to be better adjusted (repressor response style, optimistic orientation, and low anxiety) than unconcerned. The opposite was found for procrastinators. Findings were discussed in relation to the differing functions of affective concern about behavioral delay in different behavioral contexts.     

The role of animacy in spatial transformations

We present evidence that different mental spatial transformations are used to reason about three different types of items representing a spectrum of animacy: human bodies, nonhuman animals, and inanimate objects. Participants made two different judgments about rotated figures: handedness judgments (“Is this the left or right side?”) and matching judgments (“Are these figures the same?”). Perspective-taking strategies were most prevalent when participants made handedness judgments about human bodies and animals. In contrast, participants generally did not imagine changes in perspective to perform matching judgments. Such results suggest that high-level information about semantic categories, including information about a thing’s animacy, can influence how spatial representations are transformed when performing online problem solving. Supplemental materials for this article may be downloaded from http://mc.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Content of maternal open-ended questions and statements in reminiscing with their 4-year-olds: links with independence and interdependence orientation in European contexts

Mother's open-ended questions and elaborative statements during reminiscing were analysed for their content (child agency, co-agency, non-social, and social context) in three cultural contexts. Participants were 115 mothers and their 4-year-old children: 35 dyads from Berlin, Germany, 42 from Stockholm, Sweden, and 38 from Tallinn, Estonia. Across samples the most prominent content was talk about non-social context followed by co-agency and child agency. Tallinn mothers asked the children to talk about themselves, and Berlin mothers asked the children to talk about themselves together with other people, more frequently than they talked about these contents themselves. The content was related to the cultural orientations of mothers assessed through questionnaires: the Berlin mothers whose independence/ interdependence ratio was higher talked less about other people and asked the children fewer questions about other people; the Stockholm mothers with a higher independence/interdependence ratio talked more about child agency. In Tallinn both correlations existed on a trend level. The results are discussed in the light of common conversational practices and mothers' orientation to independence and interdependence in these cultural contexts.     

Relations between personality,knowledge, and behavior in professional service encounters

We report two studies that tested hypotheses about relations between personality, knowledge about service encounters, and performance in service encounters. A novel method for measuring knowledge was used. In one study, we measured undergraduates' personality, knowledge, and skill in handling service encounters in jobs performed by human factors professionals. The other study reanalyzed data reported by Motowidlo, Crook, Kell, and Naemi about volunteers' personality, knowledge about volunteer service encounters, and job performance. Both studies found that knowledge about service encounters is correlated with effectiveness in service encounters, even when effects of personality are controlled. Conscientiousness was correlated with this knowledge. We discuss implications of personality in the development of knowledge about effective behavior in social situations at work.     

Sensitive questions in surveys

Psychologists have worried about the distortions introduced into standardized personality measures by social desirability bias. Survey researchers have had similar concerns about the accuracy of survey reports about such topics as illicit drug use, abortion, and sexual behavior. The article reviews the research done by survey methodologists on reporting errors in surveys on sensitive topics, noting parallels and differences from the psychological literature on social desirability. The findings from the survey studies suggest that misreporting about sensitive topics is quite common and that it is largely situational. The extent of misreporting depends on whether the respondent has anything embarrassing to report and on design features of the survey. The survey evidence also indicates that misreporting on sensitive topics is a more or less motivated process in which respondents edit the information they report to avoid embarrassing themselves in the presence of an interviewer or to avoid repercussions from third parties.     

Differences in Beliefs About Psychological Services in the Relationship Between Sociorace and One's Social Network

The roles of previous psychological service use and social network variables in beliefs about psychological services were examined with 184 college students. Having friends and family members who used psychological services, being female, and having used psychological services positively related with beliefs about psychological services. Socioracial differences in the effects of previous use of psychological services and social network variables on students’ beliefs about psychological services were found. Suggestions for ways counselors can provide support to students are discussed.