Noncognitive predictors of intelligence and academic achievement: An important role of confidence

Recent evidence about the relationship between cognitive tests and psychological noncognitive variables is reviewed. Noncognitive measures can be ordered with respect to their predictive validity. Many are poor predictors of intelligence and achievement. Measures of rationality, self-assessment of intelligence, Openness to Experience and self-concept correlate up to .35 with cognitive performance. Some domain-specific self-beliefs (self-efficacy and anxiety) have correlations with appropriate achievement tests that can reach .45. The best predictors of any kind of cognitive performance are measures of confidence (frequently reported correlations of .45 and above) that can capture a major part of predictive validity of the three self-beliefs. The role of self-beliefs has attracted much interest in education but their role in predicting performance on tests of fluid intelligence is likely to be low. However, self-beliefs and confidence in particular may prove to be the most potent noncognitive influences on the development of acculturated knowledge that is captured by measures of crystallized intelligence.     

Spatial configurations: Erikson reexamined

In a 1951 study, Erik Erikson reported differences in preadolescents' play constructions. He claimed that his findings reflected differences between males and females in their experience and perception of space. The present study replicated but also expanded the original design. In order to control for possible sex bias of materials, a constructed scene using only blocks was added to Erikson's original design. The results failed to replicate Erikson's findings. In fact, in the construction of scenes from blocks, more females than males built erected structures; this was true across all ages. These findings are in direct contrast to Erikson's results, and they lead to the conclusion that the materials provided, not innate anatomical sex differences, account for the resulting spatial configurations.The research reported here was part of the first author's dissertation. The authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of Holy Innocents Episcopal School and Georgia State University.     

An analysis of role stress among hospital nurses

Using a sample of 566 nurses from four urban hospitals, this study focused on role stress,conceptualized in terms of role conflict, uncertainty about acceptance of one's behavior by supervisors and peers, and role ambiguity. Results indicated that individual attributes, including education, locus of control, and professional commitment, predicted role stress, as did work content variables and leadership sensitivity. Interaction effects on individual performance were discovered between role-stress variables and education, feedback from others, and leadership sensitivity. This study did not contribute to understanding nursing turnover.     

An investigation of the relations between stress and prospective memory

ABSTRACT

Prospective memory (PM), or remembering to perform intentions in the future, has important implications for one’s daily functioning and quality of life. Another common human experience is stress. Despite the significance and ubiquity of both PM and stress, our understanding of the relations between them is limited. The aim of the current study was to further delineate the relations between acute stress, chronic stress, non-focal event-based PM, and time-based PM. The results of the study revealed that acute stress induction after PM intention formation did not contribute to differences in non-focal event-based PM performance or time-based PM performance. However, self-reported chronic stress was significantly correlated with enhanced monitoring and time-based PM. In the present study, participants may have had optimal levels of enduring stress that contributed to enhanced monitoring behaviour (i.e. the prospective component of PM) and the ability to complete time-based intentions.     

An investigation of adult attachment and coping with exam-related stress

Students differ in how they cope with and manage stress associated with university life. This study investigates associations between adult attachment and coping strategies for exam-related stress. Fifty-seven students at a university in the north of England completed online questionnaires to assess attachment anxiety and avoidance, helpful and unhelpful coping strategies, and positive and negative affect. We found that students who were more avoidant in their attachment relationships were less likely to report using helpful problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies to cope with their exams. We also found that students who were more anxious in their attachment relationships reported using more dysfunctional coping strategies. We discuss the implications of the findings for university pastoral care and academic support systems.     

Pregnancy decision making: predictors of early stress and adjustment

Pregnancy decision making was examined among pregnant and non-pregnant women seeking pregnancy testing. The majority of women had decided upon and were certain of a decision to either abort or carry a possible pregnancy before learning the pregnancy-test results. Adjustment to pregnancy decision making was examined longitudinally among the women who tested positive for pregnancy. Pregnant participants were interviewed about their decisions to carry or abort their pregnancies at three times–immediately prior to pregnancy testing, a day after receiving positive test results, and 4 weeks later. Nearly all maintained their original decision over the course of the study. Adjustment was related primarily to which outcome was chosen and, to a lesser degree, to whether a woman was initially decided or not upon the outcome. The time surrounding pregnancy testing was stressful for women who decided to abort their pregnancies. However, negative feelings at the time of pregnancy testing among those who later aborted their pregnancies subsided by the end of the study and did not differ from those who carried their pregnancies.     

Neighborhood predictors of hopelessness among adolescent suicide attempters: preliminary investigation

The role of neighborhood factors in predicting hopelessness among adolescent suicide attempters was examined in this study. Forty-eight adolescents who attempted suicide were administered measures of hopelessness and depression. Family socioeconomic status (SES) was calculated based on family demographics and characteristics of neighborhood context were examined using a geocoding software package. Adolescents who lived in neighborhoods with weak social networks reported higher levels of hopelessness, even after controlling for SES and depression. These preliminary findings suggest that environmental context may play a role in the emotional status of adolescents who attempt suicide.     

Perception of correlation reexamined

Almost all studies of adult notions of correlation between dichotomous variables show that people do not incorporate two conditional probabilities as they should according to normative definitions. However, these studies disagree considerably about what correlational notions people do have. This paper identifies three factors that contribute to the variability in research results. The first two factors were mentioned in the literature, and the evidence concerning them is summarized: (1) the way data are presented and (2) the instructions subjects receive. A third factor is suggested and studied; the type of variables between which correlation is judged may affect subjects’ notion of correlation, Specifically, asymmetric, present/absent variables (e.g., symptom: present, absent) may strengthen the incorrect notion of correlation as the tendency of two events to coexist (e.g., presence of symptom and presence of disease) disregarding the complementary events. In three experiments, subjects were asked to choose among five interpretations of the sentence “A strong [or no] relationship exists between [two variables],” The above prediction was confirmed.     

Absorption and hypnotizability: context effects reexamined

Two independent studies failed to find evidence consistent with Council, Kirsch, and Hafner (1986), who argued that the repeatedly observed correlations between Tellegen's (1981) Absorption Scale (TAS) and hypnosis measures were artifacts of testing context, and de Groot, Gwynn, and Spanos (1988), who claimed evidence for a Gender x Context moderator effect. In the present studies, Ss completed the TAS and other personality questionnaires on 2 occasions: during an independent survey and later immediately prior to an assessment of hypnotizability. In Experiment 1 (N = 475), the effect of context on the relation between questionnaire scores and hypnotizability was weak and variable; in Experiment 2 (N = 434), these weak effects were reversed. The results reaffirm the construct validity of absorption as both a major dimension of personality and as a predictor of hypnotic responsiveness.     

An empirical investigation of Garnets and Pleck's Sex Role Strain Analysis

This study is an empirical investigation of Garnets and Pleck's conceptual analysis — the Sex Role Strain Analysis — which sought to explain the contradictory findings in regard to the relationship between sex role identity and self-esteem. Garnets and Pleck (Sex Role Identity, Androgyny, and Sex Role Transcendence: A Sex Role Strain Analysis, Psychology of Women, 1979, 3(3), 270–283) argued that, while much of previous research assumed that sex role identity has a direct effect on self-esteem, the relationship between the two is actually moderated by the same-sex ideal and sex role salience. This paper adapted the model by considering the effect of sex role salience at the individual and at the cultural levels. More specifically, the revised model was tested within two societies (India and Australia) that differ markedly in the level of sex role salience at the cultural level. The results revealed that sex role salience at the cultural level is an important moderating variable. In the Indian sample, for example, the relationship between sex role ientity and self-esteem is moderated by individual's perception of the sam-sex ideal. In societies (e.g., Australia) that emphasize individuality, however, the relationship between sex role identity and self-esteem is probably moderated by other variables such as individuals' perception of the image that they desire for themselves. The implications of these findings for sex role identity research are discussed.     

Information-processing predictors of emotional response to stress

Information-processing biases of attention toward and interpretation of threat were measured in 29 undergraduates during a period of low academic stress. During a later period of high academic stress, participants were interviewed about their emotional response: anxious and depressive symptoms, and positive and negative affect. Anxiety symptoms at follow-up were predicted by attention to masked threat stimuli, while negative affect at follow-up was predicted by interpretation of ambiguous items as threatening. Results suggest that although attentional processes appears to play a role in the development of anxiety symptoms, the experience of negative affect during stress may be regulated by more interpretive processes.     

The role of stimulus comparison in perceptual learning: An investigation with the domestic chick

In two experiments an imprinting procedure was used to familiarize chicks with two stimuli, A and B, that subsequently served as the discriminanda in a simultaneous discrimination. On the first day of each experiment, subjects either received presentations of A and B that were intermixed within a session (mixed exposure) or presentations of A in one session and of B in another (separate exposure). For half of the subjects in each of the exposure conditions, A and B differed in both colour and form; for the remainder A and B differed in form alone. On the second day of the experiments, the chicks were placed into a cool test apparatus and given training in which approaching A was rewarded by the delivery of a stream of warm air, but approaching B was not. Acquisition of this discrimination was more rapid when A and B differed in two respects than when they differed in form alone. When A and B differed in both colour and form, the heat-reinforced discrimination was acquired more rapidly after separate exposure than after mixed exposure; but when A and B differed in form alone, discrimination learning was more rapid following mixed exposure than separate exposure. The latter finding, that the opportunity to compare stimuli differing in only one dimension facilitates subsequent discrimination learning, is consistent with earlier suggestions (Gibson, 1969) regarding the conditions that promote perceptual learning.     

The role of subjective frequency in language switching: An ERP investigation using masked priming

Two experiments examined the nature of language-switching effects in a priming paradigm with event-related brain potential (ERP) recordings. primes and targets were always unrelated words but could be either from the same or different languages (Experiment 1) or from the same or a different frequency range (Experiment 2). Effects of switching language across prime and target differed as a function of the direction of the switch and prime duration in Experiment 1. Effects tended to be stronger with 100-ms prime durations than with 50-ms durations, and the expected pattern of greater negativity in the switch condition appeared earlier when primes were in L1 and targets in L2 than vice versa. Experiment 2 examined whether these language-switching effects could be due to differences in the subjective frequency of words in a bilingual’s two languages, by testing a frequency-switching manipulation within the L1. Effects of frequency switching were evident in the ERP waveforms, but the pattern did not resemble the language-switching effects, therefore suggesting that different mechanisms are at play.     

The allure of connectionism reexamined

There is currently a debate over whether cognitive architecture is classical or connectionist in nature. One finds the following three comparisons between classical architecture and connectionist architecture made in the pro-connectionist literature in this debate: (1) connectionist architecture is neurally plausible and classical architecture is not; (2) connectionist architecture is far better suited to model pattern recognition capacities than is classical architecture; and (3) connectionist architecture is far better suited to model the acquisition of pattern recognition capacities by learning than is classical architecture. If true, (1)–(3) would yield a compelling case against the view that cognitive architecture is classical, and would offer some reason to think that cognitive architecture may be connectionist. We first present the case for (1)–(3) in the very words of connectionist enthusiasts. We then argue that the currently available evidence fails to support any of (1)–(3).     

Psychiatric history and stress: predictors of severity of unipolar depression.

Unipolar depression is frequently a recurrent or chronic disorder. In studies on predicting its course, outcomes are typically linked to either psychiatric features or stressful life events. In order to integrate the 2 approaches, 51 unipolar patients were assessed periodically over at least 1 year for symptoms, stressful events, and chronic stressors. It was hypothesized that adverse family history and early age of onset impair role functioning and coping capabilities, thereby contributing to stressful circumstances that predict severity of depressive reactions. Results of causal modeling analyses supported a model in which background factors were associated with severity of depressive outcomes as mediated by their effects on stress variables. Such a model implicates the self-perpetuating nature of clinical depression, both for the individual and across generations.     

Family and work predictors of parenting role stress among two‐earner families of children with disabilities

Family resources (i.e. household income and spouse support), parenting challenges (i.e. number of children, difficulty finding reliable child care, and child characteristics), work rewards (i.e. work interest) and work demands (i.e. hours and work overload) were tested as predictors of parenting role stress among mothers and fathers in two‐earner families of five‐year old children with disabilities. The two‐level hierarchical model was adapted to assess mothers and fathers as nested within married couples. Both common and unique predictors of maternal and paternal parenting role stress were found. Having fewer children in the family predicted less stress for both parents. Household income and an interaction between child behaviour problems and work interest were significant predictors of maternal parenting role stress. In contrast, greater difficulty in finding reliable child care predicted higher levels of parenting role stress for fathers but not mothers. The policy and research implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychosocial predictors of acculturative stress in Mexican immigrants

Psychosocial predictors of acculturative stress were examined in a sample of adult Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles. Bivariate and multivariate analyses revealed that family dysfunction, geographical separation from family, nonpositive expectations for the future, and low income levels were significantly related to elevated levels of acculturative stress. The findings suggest that family closeness, hopefulness for the future, and financial resources may provide a buffer against acculturative stressors experienced by migrating individuals. The findings highlight the importance of using culturally relevant clinical methods when assessing and treating immigrants and acculturating individuals.     

Adaptive patterns of stress responsivity: a preliminary investigation

The adaptive calibration model (ACM) is an evolutionary-developmental theory of individual differences in stress responsivity. In this article, we tested some key predictions of the ACM in a middle childhood sample (N = 256). Measures of autonomic nervous system activity across the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches validated the 4-pattern taxonomy of the ACM via finite mixture modeling. Moreover, the 4 patterns of responsivity showed the predicted associations with family stress levels but no association with measures of ecological stress. Our hypotheses concerning sex differences in responsivity were only partly confirmed. This preliminary study provides initial support for the key predictions of the ACM and highlights some of the methodological challenges that will need to be considered in future research on this topic.     

Transitioning from recruit to officer: An investigation of how stress appraisal and coping influence work engagement

This study investigated stress, coping, and work engagement among Portuguese police officers while undergoing academy training and then 1 year later, when on duty. It was hypothesized that stress appraisal and coping preferences predicted engagement. Additionally, in order to test a full cross‐lagged prediction model, it was hypothesized that stress, coping, and engagement in recruits predicted these variables later when working as police officers. Structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses. Results suggest that coping and stress appraisals do not seem to be strong predictors of work engagement among recruits and police officers on duty. With the exception of self‐blame, that seems to be a strong predictor of work engagement among police officers on duty. These results highlight the need to investigate other potential variables such as working conditions that may better explain work engagement. Considering the positive influence of engagement on health, wellbeing, and performance of police recruits and officers future applied and theoretical implications are discussed.