Affiliative behaviour of approach- and avoidance-motivated subjects in fear and anxiety situations

This study examined the effects of fear- and anxiety-inducing situations on affiliative behaviour of approach-oriented and avoidance-oriented Ss. Two samples of high school and university students were utilized to examine the following hypotheses: a) In fear situations, affiliative behaviour will increase in both approach- and avoidance-oriented subjects; b) in anxiety situations, affiliative behaviour will increase in approach-oriented subjects and decrease in avoidance-oriented ones. The results confirmed the hypotheses for a verbal criterion of affiliative behaviour, and partially for a behaviour criterion.     

The Influence of Self-Monitoring on Inflation of Grade-Point Averages for Research and Selection Purposes1

The present study investigated the tendency to inflate self-reports of GPAs on application forms and research surveys. The major purpose of the research was to examine the consistency of inflation behavior across situations and determine whether self-monitoring moderates this consistency. Two hundred and twenty-six graduating seniors reported their GPAs on application forms used at a university's placement office and 1 month later reported their GPAs on a research survey in a classroom setting. Respondents’ self-monitoring and attitude toward inflation were also measured on the survey. Results indicated that inflation was more prevalent on the research survey than on application forms and low GPA respondents exhibited greater inflation than did high GPA respondents. Furthermore, inflation across situations was more consistent and could be better predicted by inflation attitudes for low self-monitors than for high self-monitors. Implications for impression management and self-reports in employment contexts are discussed.     

Exploring Directional Consistency in Offending: The Case of Residential Burglary in The Hague

Many aspects of human behaviour are remarkably stable across times, places and situations. Repetition and predictability also characterises our geographical behaviour. Prior research has confirmed that criminal behaviour is no exception. Offenders tend to recidivate, and recidivists tend to be behaviourally consistent in many aspects, including geographical ones. The present study assesses directional consistency in offending. It reviews the literature on directional consistency. It proposes an improved measure of directional consistency, and empirically uses this measure to explore directional consistency amongst a set of 268 burglars in The Hague. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Survey of Achievement Responsibility (SOAR): reliability and validity data on an academic attribution scale

The Survey of Achievement Responsibility (SOAR) was designed to assess students' causal attributions of success and failure in school-related situations. Unlike other measures of locus of control and attributions, the SOAR simultaneously distinguishes among three broad subject areas--math/science, language arts/social studies, and physical education--and between two possible outcomes--success and failure. Data on the psychometric characteristics of the SOAR came from two samples from each of two large school districts, one suburban and one metropolitan. A five-stage study of the psychometric qualities of this new instrument revealed: (a) Content validity is high--judges independently classified items into the attribution categories intended by the authors; (b) internal consistency reliabilities are in a range adequate for group research purposes and are comparable to the reliabilities of other measures of attributions; (c) test-retest reliabilities showed attribution profiles to be stable over a 2-month interval; (d) correlations between the SOAR scales and students' self-reports of ability in various subject areas showed differential relationships in theoretically predicted directions; and (e) correlations between the SOAR scales and achievement tests were statistically significant, though low in magnitude, consistent with reports on other instruments. Finally, use of the SOAR in a spectrum of studies has demonstrated its research utility and indicated directions for further instrument development and research.     

Control and responsiveness in Japanese and German mother-child interactions

The present study aims to examine culturally invariant and culture-specific patterns of mother-child interaction, and, more specifically, to explore the stability and change of such interactions in structurally different situations. Starting from a control theoretical framework (primary and secondary control), we expected that differences in stress induced by differently structured achievement demands would affect mother-child interactions in Japan and Germany differently. For Japanese as compared to German mothers, less primary control and more responsiveness was expected as a result of the cultural value of social orientation. The sample consisted of 20 mother-child dyads (5-year-old girls) in each culture. The experimental procedure confronted each mother-child dyad with three different situations varying with respect to induced stress (from no stress to high stress). The mother-child interactions were videotaped and analysed in regard to control behaviour and responsiveness. Cultural differences with respect to control behaviour were observed in the expected direction only for high-stress situations. Also, Japanese mothers were more responsive in all three situations. Mother's responsiveness was related to child's secondary control in both cultures. Furthermore, Japanese children showed more secondary control than German children.     

The Survey of Achievement Responsibility (SOAR): Reliability and Validity Data on an Academic Attribution Scale

The Survey of Achievement Responsibility (SOAR) was designed to assess students' causal attributions of success and failure in school-related situations. Unlike other measures of locus of control and attributions, the SOAR simultaneously distinguishes among three broad subject areas—math/science, language arts/ social studies, and physical education-and between two possible outcomes—success and failure. Data on the psychometric characteristics of the SOAR came from two samples from each of two large school districts, one suburban and one metropolitan. A five-stage study of the psychometric qualities of this new instrument revealed: (a) Content validity is high—judges independently classified items into the attribution categories intended by the authors; (b) internal consistency reliabilities are in a range adequate for group research purposes and are comparable to the reliabilities of other measures of attributions; (c) test-retest reliabilities showed attribution profiles to be stable over a 2-month interval; (d) correlations between the SOAR scales and students' self-reports of ability in various subject areas showed differential relationship in the theoretically predicted directions; and (e) correlations between the SOAR scales and achievement tests were statistically significant, though low in magnitude, consistent with reports on other instruments. Finally, use of the SOAR in a spectrum of studies has demonstrated its research utility and indicated directions for further instrument development and research.     

The role of construal processes in overconfident predictions about the self and others

Overconfident behavioral predictions and trait inferences may occur because people make inadequate allowance for the uncertainties of situational construal. In Studies 1-3, Ss estimated how much time or money they would spend in various hypothetical, incompletely specified situations. Ss then offered associated "confidence limits" under different "construal conditions". In Study 4, Ss made trait inferences about someone they believed had responded "deviantly"--again with situational details unspecified and construal conditions manipulated. In all 4 studies, Ss who made predictions or trait inferences without being able to assume the accuracy of their situational construals offered confidence limits no broader than those of Ss who made their responses contingent on such accuracy. Only in conditions where Ss were obliged to offer alternative construals did they appropriately broaden their confidence limits or weaken their trait inferences.     

The influence of success and failure experiences on perceptual whole-part preferences

Summary Changes in perceptual part-whole preferences as a function of experienced success and experienced failure were investigated. All Ss went through one testing session in which their perceptual preference was established. Forty-two Ss of the experimental group went through two additional testing sessions, one in which success and another in which failure experiences were induced. Parallel sets of a Two-Alternative Perception Test were used after each session to measure part or whole preferences. The Ss of the control group were administered the three sets of the perception test at intervals of one week, with situations kept constant. Results of a three-way analysis of variance (p<0.0001) supported the hypotheses of success situations favoring whole perceptions and of failure situations favoring part perceptions. Highly significant correlations (p<0.01) were found between the three testing sessions of the Ss in the control group, indicating stability of perceptual part-whole preferences over time, with situations held constant.This article was based, in parts, on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, New School for Social Research. The author would like to express her appreciation to Mary Henle, chairman of the dissertation committee.     

Interventional Use of the Parent–Child Interaction Assessment–II Enactments: Modifying an Abused Mother's Attributions to Her Son

I. It was hypothesized that male Ss will project more on situations pertaining to the lives of men than on situations pertaining to the lives of women and that female Ss will project more on situations pertaining to the lives of women than on situations pertaining to the lives of men.

II. It was further hypothesized that male Ss and female Ss will not differ with regard to the amount of projection elicited by male and female pictorial figures. Transcendence Indices were used as measures of the amount of projection. Ss were 30 male college students and their wives. Hypothesis I was confirmed for men only. Hypothesis II was confirmed for men and for women.     

Time warp: Authorship shapes the perceived timing of actions and events

It has been proposed that inferring personal authorship for an event gives rise to intentional binding, a perceptual illusion in which one’s action and inferred effect seem closer in time than they otherwise would (Haggard, Clark, & Kalogeras, 2002). Using a novel, naturalistic paradigm, we conducted two experiments to test this hypothesis and examine the relationship between binding and self-reported authorship. In both experiments, an important authorship indicator – consistency between one’s action and a subsequent event – was manipulated, and its effects on binding and self-reported authorship were measured. Results showed that action-event consistency enhanced both binding and self-reported authorship, supporting the hypothesis that binding arises from an inference of authorship. At the same time, evidence for a dissociation emerged, with consistency having a more robust effect on self-reports than on binding. Taken together, these results suggest that binding and self-reports reveal different aspects of the sense of authorship.     

Forcing your luck: Goal-striving behavior in chance situations

Previous research suggests that desired end-states (i.e., goals) initiate a set of motivational processes supporting goal-attainment. For example, motivational intensity (e.g., effort investment) increases as distance to the goal decreases. The present studies investigate whether this goal-gradient can also be observed in chance determined situations, situations in which there is a desired end-state (i.e., winning) but in which increased effort investment does not support goal-attainment. Three studies provide consistent evidence for the goal-gradient in chance determined situations. We show that participants (in the lab and in a TV game show) invest more effort into goal-directed behavior the closer they get to the end of the game. The moderation of expectancy and value was, however, modest. Interestingly, participants’ self-reports suggest that their dynamic changes in behavior were unintentional and perceived as non-instrumental. Findings are related to theories of goal pursuit and illusory control, and contrasted to the principle of resource conservation, according to which such behavior should not occur.     

Is it emotion or is it stress? Gender stereotypes and the perception of subjective experience

Two studies of college undergraduates (ns = 95 and 92, primarily non-Hispanic whites and Asian Americans) investigated gender stereotypes of stress and emotion, as well as variables that influence the perception of gender-related differences. Study 1 assessed how gender stereotypes differ from the self-reports of men and women. When asked to choose a label for the subjective experience of the average man and the average woman in a series of problematic hypothetical situations, participants generally tended to believe that the average female would feel ‘emotional,” but that the average male would feel “stressed.” By contrast, the label participants chose to describe their own subjective experience was not significantly affected by their gender. In addition, participants believed the average woman and man differed more in the intensity of their emotions than in the intensity of their stress, a belief contradicted by their own self-reports. Results of Study 2 indicated that gender-related differences in estimations of stress and emotion for the self were reduced or eliminated when specific information about experience-eliciting situations was provided. We would like to thank Matthew Dank for his help in preparing the stimulus materials.     

Emotion, physiology, and expression in old age

Emotion-specific autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity was studied in 20 elderly people (age 71-83 years, M = 77) who followed muscle-by-muscle instructions for constructing facial prototypes of emotional expressions and relived past emotional experiences. Results indicated that (a) patterns of emotion-specific ANS activity produced by these tasks closely resembled those found in other studies with younger Ss, (b) the magnitude of change in ANS measures was smaller in older than in younger Ss, (c) patterns of emotion-specific ANS activity showed generality across the 2 modes of elicitation, (d) emotion self-reports and spontaneous production of emotional facial expressions that occurred during relived emotional memories were comparable with those found in younger Ss, (e) elderly men and women did not differ in emotional physiology or facial expression, and (f) elderly women reported experiencing more intense emotions when reliving emotional memories than did elderly men.     

Can we trust self-reports of driving? Effects of impression management on driver behaviour questionnaire responses

Driver behaviour is often studied by using self-reports and questionnaires. Despite their obvious advantages, questionnaires are vulnerable to socially desirable response tendencies. In this study, the effects of socially desirable responding on self-reports of driving were studied by recording self-reports of driving in both public and private settings. In public settings, 47 applicants for a driving instructor training course completed the driver behaviour questionnaire (DBQ) and balanced inventory for socially desirable responding as a part of the entrance examination. In a private setting, 54 students of that training course completed the same questionnaires anonymously in the classroom. ANOVA results showed a difference between the two settings in six DBQ item scores, such that aberrant behaviours were reported less frequently in public than in private settings. The results indicated that bias caused by socially desirable responding is relatively small in DBQ responses.     

Investigating the mechanisms fuelling reduced false recall of emotional material

Addictive behaviour has qualities that make it ideal for study using implicit techniques. Addictive behaviours are mediated in part by automatic responses to drug cues, and there is sometimes social pressure to distort self-reports. However, relationships between implicit attitudes and addictive behaviours have been inconsistent. Using a new implicit measure, the affect misattribution procedure (AMP), we found consistent evidence that drinking-related behaviours are systematically related to implicit attitudes. The procedure predicted a behavioural choice to drink beer and self-reported typical drinking tendencies, including hazardous drinking and alcohol-related problems. The AMP showed larger relationships with drinking behaviour than other implicit measures, and explained unique variance in drinking beyond those measures and beyond explicit measures. Though self-presentation distorted self-reports, it did not affect AMP scores. These studies highlight the importance of automatic affective responses in addictive behaviour and suggest a useful means for measuring those responses.     

Intrinsic enjoyment and boredom coping scales: Validation with personality,evoked potential and attention measures

This paper reports the validation of brief, self-report measures of intrinsic enjoyment and boredom coping. Intrinsic enjoyment is characterized by intense involvement, interest and absorbed concentration; boredom coping is designed to reflect the disposition to restructure one's perceptions and participation in potentially boring activities so as to decrease boredom. Both traits are hypothesized to reflect the capacity for good attentional control across a variety of situations. Reliability was established by test-retest correlation and by an inter-item consistency measurement. Construct validity was established by comparison with previously-validated personality tests, real-life measures (such as Random Activities Experiential Sampling, which involves repeated self-report measures in daily life), as well as with laboratory measures of attention (including the averaged visual evoked potential (EP) and the Continuous Performance Test). Intrinsic enjoyment is significantly correlated with an independent measure of intrinsic involvement (low wish to be elsewhere in one's daily life), the affective experience of potency, self-reports of concentrating well with ease, high ego development, an internal locus of control, lack of boredom susceptibility and certain EP indices of attentional change and ‘cortical’ augmenting. Boredom coping is associated with a higher percent of time actually spent alone, high continuous performance task measures of attentional capacity, and low MMPI and Research Diagnostic Criteria indices of psychopathology.     

A Test of the Adams-Creamer Decay Hypothesis for the Timing of Motor Responses

The Adams-Creamer hypothesis states that S uses the decay of proprioceptive feedback from an early portion of a movement to cue a timed response at some later time. This hypothesis was tested by creating passive left-arm movement in one group and withholding it from another, and having Ss make a right-hand response when exactly 2.0 sec. had elapsed since the end of the movement Ss with left-arm feedback had less absolute and algebraic error, and greater within-S consistency than did the no-movement control Ss and, when KR was withdrawn, Ss with left-arm movement regressed less than did Ss without the left-arm movement, which provided 2 lines of support for the decay hypothesis.     

Direct and indirect measures of spider fear predict unique variance in children's fear-related behaviour

This study investigated whether direct and indirect measures predict unique variance components of fearful behaviour in children. One hundred eighty-nine children aged between 9 and 12 performed a pictorial version of the emotional Stroop task (EST), filled out the Spider Anxiety and Disgust Screening for Children (SADS-C), the Spider Phobia Questionnaire for Children (SPQ-C), and took part in a Behavioural Assessment Test (BAT). The EST did not correlate with self-reports. Correlations of the self-reports and the BAT remained significant after partialling out EST performance. Likewise, the EST and the BAT still correlated significantly with each other when controlling for the self-reports. This indicates that both direct and indirect measures are useful for predicting unique variance components of fearful behaviour in children. Moreover, it may explain why some previous studies have not found a relationship between self-reported fear and EST performance.