Does feedback matter for job search self-regulation? It depends on feedback quality

Job search represents a dynamic process through which job seekers must consistently engage in effective self-regulation. Although scholars have increasingly begun to theorize and conceptualize the job search in this manner, little is known about what fosters effective self-regulation week-to-week. In light of this theoretical gap, we integrate self-regulation theory with the feedback literature to examine how feedback quality influences affective, cognitive, and behavioral regulatory processes in job search. Furthermore, we examine feedback self-efficacy (i.e., how efficacious a job seeker feels with respect to processing and implementing feedback received during the job search) as a stable, person-level moderator of these within-person relationships. In a sample of job seekers surveyed once a week for seven weeks, results indicate that receiving high-quality feedback has a direct influence on positive and negative affective reactions tied to the job search, influencing subsequent positive (i.e., metacognitive strategies) and negative (i.e., affective rumination) cognitive processes. Metacognitive strategies, in turn, impact both the number of résumés sent and hours spent job seeking each week. Moreover, lower feedback self-efficacy amplifies the relationship between feedback quality and negative affective reactions. Our results highlight the importance of high-quality feedback in helping job seekers effectively regulate week-to-week.     

Forest before trees? It depends where you look

Because it may be deduced from the more elementary principles of visual processing, global precedence (Navon, 1977) is not a primary perceptual principle. Subjects were presented with a large letter made out of small ones and asked to make an identification response on the basis of either the large or small letter. When fixation was controlled to provide adequate stimulation from the small letter, there was no difference in reaction time (RT) between the large and small targets. Also, there was no difference in interference due to response incompatibility of the unattended letter based on target size. However, when the stimulus was presented peripherally, unpredictably to the right or left of fixation, RT was faster to the large target and interference was substantially greater for the small target. Functions for the development of associative strength and associative interference are presented. Global precedence is dependent on factors tending to degrade small stimuli more than large ones.     

Does self-consciousness increase or decrease priming effects? It depends

Self-consciousness has been shown to both increase and decrease the magnitude of prime-to-behavior effects. In this paper, we decouple the facets of self-consciousness into internal state awareness and self-reflectiveness and show that self-consciousness can be associated with multiple influences on automatic behavior. Specifically, we conducted an experiment demonstrating that increased internal state awareness decreased the magnitude of the prime-to-behavior effect, whereas increased self-reflectiveness amplified the effect. These effects operated independently of self-monitoring and suggest a multiple process approach to understanding prime-to-behavior effects.     

Can you forgive? It depends on how happy you are

This paper examined how individual group status and happiness influence forgiveness. In Study 1, happiness was treated as a trait difference: highly happy people, compared with very unhappy people, were found to be more willing to forgive murderers. More important, an interaction effect between happiness and group status on forgiveness was found, that is, highly happy people tended to be more forgiving when either ingroup or outgroup members were killed; unhappy people, however, tended to be less forgiving about murder when ingroup rather than outgroup members were killed. In Study 2, happiness was treated as an emotional state difference: happiness, rather than sadness, was found to bring greater forgiveness. Moreover, consistent with the interaction effect displayed in Study 1, happy participants tended to forgive more when ingroup or outgroup members were hurt; sad participants tended to forgive less when ingroup members rather than outgroup members were hurt. Implications for connections between happiness, group membership, and forgiveness are discussed.     

Will They Do It Again? Predicting Sex-Offense Recidivism

This article reviews the empirical research on the prediction of reoffending among sexual offenders. The major predictors of sexual-offense recidivism are factors related to sexual deviance (e.g., deviant sexual preferences, previous sex crimes) and, to a lesser extent, criminal lifestyle (e.g., antisocial personality disorder, total number of prior offenses). The factors that predict general recidivism among sex offenders are the same as the factors that predict general recidivism among nonsexual criminals (e.g., juvenile delinquency, prior violent offenses). Given that there are special predictors of sexual recidivism, evaluators should consider separately the risk for sexual and nonsexual recidivism.     

Attentional bias to angry faces using the dot-probe task? It depends when you look for it

A number of studies using the dot-probe task now report the existence of an attentional bias to angry faces in participants who rate highly on scales of anxiety; however, no equivalent bias has been observed in non-anxious populations, despite evidence to the contrary from studies using other tasks. One reason for this discrepancy may be that researchers using the dot-probe task have rarely investigated any effects which might emerge earlier than 500 ms following presentation of the threat-related faces. Accordingly, in the current study we presented pairs of face stimuli with emotional and neutral expressions and probed the allocation of attention to these stimuli for presentation times of 100 and 500 ms. Results showed that at 100 ms there was an attentional bias towards the location of the relatively threatening stimulus (the angry face in angry/neutral pairs and the neutral face in neutral/happy pairs) and this pattern reversed by 500 ms. Comparisons of reaction time (RT) scores with an appropriate baseline suggested that the early bias toward threatening faces may actually arise through inhibition of the relatively least threatening member of a face pair rather than through facilitation of, or vigilance towards, the more threatening stimulus. However the mechanisms governing the observed biases are interpreted, these data provide evidence that probing for the location of spatial attention at 500 ms is not necessarily indicative of the initial allocation of attention between competing emotional facial stimuli.     

Will students pass a competitive exam that they failed in their dreams?

We tested whether dreams can anticipate a stressful exam and how failure/success in dreams affect next-day performance. We collected information on students’ dreams during the night preceding the medical school entrance exam. Demographic, academic, sleep and dream characteristics were compared to the students’ grades on the exam. Of the 719 respondents to the questionnaire (of 2324 total students), 60.4% dreamt of the exam during the night preceding it. Problems with the exam appeared in 78% of dreams and primarily involved being late and forgetting answers. Reporting a dream about the exam on the pre-exam night was associated with better performance on the exam (p = .01). The frequency of dreams concerning the exam during the first term predicted proportionally higher performance on the exam (R = 0.1, p = .01). These results suggest that the negative anticipation of a stressful event in dreams is common and that this episodic simulation provides a cognitive gain.     

Should goal-strivers think about “why” or “how” to strive? It depends on their skill level

The current studies attempted to increase individuals’ internalization of their own difficult or unpleasant goals, using either a low-level or a high-level writing intervention. Two writing studies showed that an appropriate match between level of goal-relevant skill (low versus high) and level of prompted goal-cognition (low versus high) enhances motivation. Those lower in initial skills were more likely to internalize their goals over time (Studies 1 and 2) and report greater goal expectancies (Study 2) if they wrote about the “how” of the goals, whereas those higher in initial skills were more likely to experience these positive outcomes by writing about the “why” of goals. This interaction pattern was found in both a short-term experimental study of health goals (Study 1) and in a 2 month longitudinal study of academic goals (Study 2). Results are discussed in the context of action identification theory and of self-regulation, which emphasize allocating attention to the right level of abstraction for optimal functioning.     

Are eyes special? It depends on how you look at it

Recent behavioral data have shown that central nonpredictive gaze direction triggers reflexive shifts of attention toward the gazed-at location (e.g., Friesen & Kingstone, 1998). Friesen and Kingstone suggested that this reflexive orienting effect is unique to biologically relevant stimuli. Three experiments were conducted to test this proposal by comparing the attentional orienting produced by nonpredictive gaze cues (biologically relevant) with the attentional orienting produced by nonpredictive arrow cues (biologically irrelevant). Both types of cues produced reflexive orienting in adults (Experiment 1) and preschoolers (Experiment 2), suggesting that gaze cues are not special. However, Experiment 3 showed that nonpredictive arrows produced reflexive orienting in both hemispheres of a split-brain patient. This contrasts with Kingstone, Friesen, and Gazzaniga's (2000) finding that nonpredictive gaze cues produce reflexive orienting only in the face-processing hemisphere of split-brain patients. Therefore, although nonpredictive eyes and arrows may produce similar behavioral effects, they are not subserved by the same brain systems. Together, these data provide important insight into the nature of the representations of directional stimuli involved in reflexive attentional orienting.     

Are goals or preconditions better explanations? It depends on the question

Recent research on causal inference suggests that common actions tend to be attributed to goals, whereas difficult actions, if obstructed, are attributed primarily to preconditions. The present studies examine the way that the framing of causal questions influences ratings of goals and preconditions for common actions. The studies test the view that ‘why’ questions favour goal explanations, by presenting causal questions framed as ‘why’ questions or ‘explain’ questions. Structured and free-response measures were used. They show that when the question is expressed as asking why an action occurs, goals are rated better than preconditions, regardless of the presence of obstacles, whereas if the question is framed as requesting an explanation of the action, preconditions are deemed better explanations than goals for obstructed actions. Goals remain better explanations when the action is unobstructed. These findings confirm the importance of the framing of causal questions for research on causal explanation, and suggest that the phrasing of causal questions influences the focus of explanations. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What's next? New evidence for prediction in human vision

Everyday visual experience involves making implicit predictions, as revealed by our surprise when something disturbs our expectations. Many theories of vision have been premised on the central role played by prediction. Yet, implicit prediction in human vision has been difficult to assess in the laboratory, and many results have not distinguished between the indisputably important role of memory and the future-oriented aspect of prediction. Now, a new and unexpected finding - that humans can resume an interrupted visual search much faster than they can start a new search - offers new hope, because the rapid resumption of a search seems to depend on participants forming an implicit prediction of what they will see after the interruption. These findings combined with results of recent neurophysiology studies provide a framework for studying implicit prediction in perception.     

How probable is probably? It depends on whom you're talking about

Two studies tested whether people interpreted verbal chance terms in a self‐serving manner. Participants read statements describing the likelihood of events in their own future and in the future of a randomly chosen other. They interpreted the chance terms numerically. Chance terms were interpreted as denoting a higher probability when they were used to describe the likelihood of pleasant events in one's own future than when they were used to describe the likelihood of pleasant events in someone else's future (Study 1). Similarly, chance terms were interpreted as denoting a lower probability when they were used to describe the likelihood of unpleasant events in one's own future than when they were used to describe the likelihood of unpleasant events in someone else's future (Studies 1 and 2). These differences occurred primarily when the risk statements were threatening. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can eyewitnesses correct for external influences on their lineup identifications? The actual/counterfactual assessment paradigm

Real-world eyewitnesses are often asked whether their lineup responses were affected by various external influences, but it is unknown whether they can accurately answer these types of questions. The witness-report-of-influence mental-correction model is proposed to explain witnesses' reports of influence. Two experiments used a new paradigm (the actual/counterfactual paradigm) to examine eyewitnesses' abilities to report accurately on the influence of lineup manipulations. Eyewitnesses were administered either confirming feedback or no feedback (Experiment 1, n = 103), or a cautionary instruction or no cautionary instruction (Experiment 2, n = 114). Eyewitnesses then gave actual responses (retrospective confidence, view, and attention measures in Experiment 1; identification decision in Experiment 2) as well as counterfactual responses stating how they would have responded in the alternative condition. Results across both studies showed an asymmetric estimation of influence pattern: Eyewitnesses who received an influencing manipulation estimated significantly less of a change in their responses than eyewitnesses who did not receive an influencing manipulation. A 48-hr delay between actual and counterfactual responses did not moderate any effects. Results are explained by witnesses' implicit theories of influence.     

Increased gaze following for fearful faces. It depends on what you’re looking for!

An oculomotor visual search task was used to investigate how participants follow the gaze of a non-predictive and task irrelevant distractor gaze, and the way in which this gaze following is influenced by the emotional expression (fearful vs. happy) as well as participants' goal. Previous research has suggested that fearful emotions should result in stronger cueing effects than happy faces. Our results demonstrated that the degree to which the emotional expression influenced this gaze following varied as a function of the search target. When searching for a threatening target, participants were more likely to look in the direction of eye gaze on a fearful compared to a happy face. However, when searching for a pleasant target, this stronger cueing effect for fearful faces disappeared. Therefore, gaze following is influenced by contextual factors such as the emotional expression, as well as the participant's goal.     

Is job search related to employment quality? It all depends on the fit

In this longitudinal study on job search, fit perceptions, and employment quality, 113 graduates completed surveys prior to organizational entry and 4 months after entry. Job search behavior and career planning were positively related to pre-entry person-job (P-J) and person-organization (P-O) fit perceptions, and pre-entry P-J fit perceptions mediated the relationship between career planning and postentry P-J fit perceptions. P-J and P-O fit perceptions were positively related to job and organizational attitudes, and pre-entry P-J fit perceptions mediated the relationship between career planning and job attitudes. Further, the relationships between pre-entry fit perceptions and employment quality were mediated by postentry fit perceptions. These results indicate that P-J and P-O fit perceptions play an important role in linking job search to employment quality.     

Older is wiser? It depends who you ask… and how you ask

Interacting with older adults can trigger a number of stereotypes. Negative stereotypes tend to dominate, but a persistent positive perception of aging in the popular psyche is that age brings wisdom. Despite this common belief, previous research suggests that the relationship between age and wisdom is weak and inconsistent. We propose that this is due to opposing perceptions of aging – gains in life experience and socioemotional skills, counteracted by declines in cognitive skill – that also vary with characteristics of the perceiver and the context. We investigated these paradoxical perceptions of aging by asking younger (aged 20–40) and older (aged 60–80) adult judges to rate adult speakers (aged 30–89) on the basis of their responses to three narrative prompts. Several aspects of wisdom were judged, including those related to cognitive skills, and those related to socioemotional aspects of wisdom. We examined the impact on ratings of speaker and rater characteristics, as well as the interaction of these characteristics with the dimension being rated. Findings showed that the wisdom ratings were higher for speakers with better verbal fluency, and that the relationship between age and perceived wisdom was moderated by the speaker’s gender. Consistent with prior work, speaker age (relative to rater’s age) had a negative effect on cognitive aspects of wisdom, but a positive effect on socio-affective aspects of wisdom. Implications for understanding age-related stereotypes and conceptions of wisdom are discussed.     

How "regular" is sentence comprehension in Broca's aphasia? It depends on how you select the patients

Grodzinsky, Pi?ango, Zurif, and Drai (1999) argue that a statistical analysis of pooled sentence comprehension data from published studies of Broca's aphasic patients supports the dominance of a differential pattern of performance on active and passive voice structures. They argue that these results counter a previous study in which individual patient data from published studies were analyzed. However, Grodzinsky et al. have not carried out a true test of their hypothesis, but have biased the outcome by selecting samples for analysis that support their claims.     

What teacher factors influence their attributions for children's difficulties in learning?

Background Identifying the factors that influence teacher beliefs about teaching children with learning difficulties is important for the success of inclusive education. This study explores the relationship between teachers' role, self‐efficacy, attitudes towards disabled people, teaching experience and training, on teachers' attributions for children's difficulties in learning. Method One hundred and eighteen primary school teachers (44 general mainstream, 33 mainstream learning support, and 41 special education teachers) completed the short form of the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale, the Interaction with Disabled Persons Scale (IDP), and a revised version of the Teacher Attribution Scale. Results Regression analysis found that teachers' role influenced stability and controllability attributions. However, for stability attributions the effect was not sustained when examined in the context of the other factors of teaching efficacy, experience, training, and attitudes towards disability. What emerged as important instead was strong feelings of sympathy towards disabled people which predicted stable attributions about learning difficulties. Experience of teaching children with additional support needs and teaching efficacy positively predicted external locus of causality attributions. Surprisingly, training was not found to have an impact on attributions. A mixed MANOVA found that mainstream teachers' controllability attributions were influenced by whether or not the child had identified learning support needs. Conclusions Teacher efficacy, experience of teaching students with support needs, attitudes towards disabled people, and teachers' role all impact on teacher attributions, but no relationship with training was found. Implications for teacher training and development, and for student achievement and student self‐perception are discussed.     

Will we be working together again? The impact of future interdependence on group members' task motivation

The extent to which group members contribute effort efficiently, i.e. to the extent that their efforts add to the group product, or equally to their fellow worker is investigated as a function of group members' expectations about future interdependence. An experimental set‐up was employed in which (1) participants were able to determine what would be an efficient and what would be an equal amount of effort to exert, and (2) in which efficiency and equality required different levels of effort: Participants worked on a physical motor‐production task and expected to work with a partner twice (continued interdependence) or only on the first task (no continued interdependence). Before working on the first task, they received information about their relative task ability (high versus low) and information about their partner's effort expenditure (high versus low). It is argued and demonstrated that group members expecting continued interdependence are likely to equal their fellow worker's effort expenditure, whereas group members expecting no continued interdependence are likely to exert effort efficiently. The results are discussed from various theoretical perspectives. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parent Involvement in Early Intervention for Disadvantaged Children: Does It Matter?

This study investigated the association between parent involvement in early intervention and children's later school competence. Parents (N = 704) of children participating in the Chicago Longitudinal Study were interviewed retrospectively about their school involvement in preschool and kindergarten. Parents reported on the activities in which they participated and their frequency of program participation. Results indicated that even after controlling for family background, the number of activities in which parents participated in preschool and kindergarten was significantly associated with higher reading achievement, with lower rates of grade retention at age 14 (eighth grade), and with fewer years in special education. The frequency of parent involvement was only marginally associated with reading achievement but was associated with lower rates of grade retention and fewer years in special education. A confirmatory analysis indicated that teacher ratings of parent involvement in first and second grade were significantly associated with higher reading achievement in eighth grade, lower grade retention rates, and lower rates of special education placement through eighth grade. Findings support the benefits of parent involvement in early childhood programs.