Evaluating progress in training: character or competence?

Jung was mercurial in his attitudes to method and technique, leaving us a problematic legacy when it comes to evaluating the progress of trainees. Some would say that those of us involved with the assessment of candidates during their training continue to rely too heavily on intuition and subjective assessments. However good our admissions' procedures and the structures in place to review progress, the emotional and financial demands for trainees of embarking on an analytic training, the tendency for analytic institutes to remain opaque and slow to link up with the external world and the cliques within our profession make more objective assessments of progress and readiness to qualify at best haphazard and at worst inadequate. Some trainees have an immediate talent for analytic work; others develop their gifts more slowly; some never find this capacity. Working from a definition of analytic talent, the paper begins to map out a Jungian framework for assessing progress, emphasizing the significance of both character and competence and the developing relationship between them.     

Public decisions or private decisions? When the specific case guides public decisions

Educators' differential decisions towards identified single students as compared with unidentified students, or a group of identified students, were examined by presenting educators with educational scenarios describing actual dilemmas from the three different perspectives. The first two studies indicate that willingness to change the existing policy and to [bend the rule] is greater when a dilemma is presented from the specific identified student's perspective than when presented as a general dilemma. The results of the third study suggest that in their decisions regarding an identified individual student, educators allow more changes in school regulations and give less weight to the school needs as compared with their decisions regarding an unidentified student or a group of students. Implications for policy making are discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dads or cads? Women’s strategic decisions in the mating game

We report the findings of two studies (N = 142; N = 28) investigating women’s preference for men in short- and long-term mating scenarios and perceptions of honesty of dating adverts written by men high or low in Machiavellianism. Overall, men low on Machiavellianism (viz., dads), were preferred as long-term mates; and men high on Machiavellianism (viz., cads) as short-term mates. Fertile women preferred cads for a short-term relationship and dads as a long-term partner. Higher ratings were given to all adverts when females were fertile, suggesting generally higher levels of desire for a partner when the possibility of conception is highest. In contrast to previous work suggesting traits like Machiavellianism may facilitate a deceptive or exploitative mating strategy in men, the present results suggest (1) women are attuned to differences in men’s personality as a function of fertility and (2) affirms that women prefer cads for short-term mating and dads for long-term mating.     

Prejudiced or not? Hidden sectarianism among students in Northern Ireland

The authors developed a new measure of implicit prejudices of students in Northern Ireland, which they derived from a study by G. Haddock, M. Zanna, and V. M. Esses (1993). Using two student surveys, the authors modified and tested the new implicit prejudice measure, which was based on a "Budget Survey." The present study's results indicate that the measure is valid and useful in the student context. Investigators can easily adapt the measure to groups other than students in Northern Ireland, and it may hence be useful for the future investigation of hidden prejudice in a society that experiences low-level ethnopolitical conflict.     

Trainee nondisclosure in supervision: What are they not telling you?

Aims: The purposes of this study were to examine: (1) the content of and reasons for trainee nondisclosure in supervision, and (2) the influence of trainee anxiety and perception of the supervisory working alliance on amount of nondisclosure and willingness to disclose. Method: As the focus of the study was a single supervision session, qualitative and quantitative data were collected from 204 trainees about their most recent supervision session. Results: Within the single supervision session on which they reported, 84.3% of trainees withheld information from their supervisors. Trainees reported an average of 2.68 nondisclosures occurring in the session, with the most common nondisclosure involving a negative supervision experience. Trainee perception of a better supervisory working alliance was related to less nondisclosure and greater overall willingness to disclose in supervision. Higher trainee anxiety was related to greater nondisclosure and lower overall willingness to disclose in supervision. Implications: The implications of the findings for the practice of supervision are discussed and areas for further research are suggested.     

Mind-body identity: Cross-categorial or not?

Conclusion I have tried to accomplish two tasks in this paper. The first, and more important, is to free my defense of the mind-body identity theory against the property objection from reliance on there being categories. The second is to argue that if there are categories, Rosenbaum's objections pose no threat to principle (II), or its more plausible relative, (IV). I believe I have finished both tasks. This significantly strengthens my reasons for accepting some form of the identity theory. Of course, deciding whether it is reasonable enough to accept is a much more difficult task. But if what I have argued elsewhere is correct, that task is also completed. We should, at least at present, accept what I call the neutral or nonreductive identity theory.     

Luminance-increment detection: capacity-limited or not?

Three experiments investigated whether spatial cuing influences luminance-increment detection accuracy. Ss saw multiple-target displays and responded yes or no to 4 locations, including cued position. To test whether cuing effects are due to the load on visual short-term memory from the number of locations, Experiments 1 and 2 presented displays with 4 or 8 relevant locations. Experiment 1 used peripheral cues; Experiment 2 used central cues. Significant cuing effects were less marked with 4- than 8-location displays. Cuing effects were largest with multiple targets, but a small reliable effect remained even with single targets. Experiment 3 replicated the single-target effect with predominantly multiple- and single-target displays. A capacity-limited selection account is developed for these findings and their implications are discussed for separate central and peripheral cuing mechanisms and the locus of spatial cuing effects.     

What is aggressive? some contextual factors in judging international behavior

This research delineates several factors that may affect how likely observers are to judge some international actions as aggressive. Subjects rated scenarios in which a country intercedes in the affairs of another country experiencing internal or external difficulties. Judged to be more aggressive, as hypothesized, were actions in which it was “they” rather than “we” who were responsible, actions capable of causing injury or death, and actions carried out for a country's own self-interest. There were also unpredicted subtleties of judging international behavior. The results are considered from the perspective of recent contextualist theorizing.     

The assistant referees’ activity in refereeing elite football: Preoccupations when not judging offside

ObjectiveThe purpose of this research was to study the preoccupations assistant referees had to participate in decision making about duels during football games.DesignResearch adopted a phenomenological framework to investigate the assistant referees’ lived experiences in order to understand their activity when they judged duels in match.MethodThis study investigated six professional football matches. Researchers conducted a participatory observation of the refereeing team before each match. Twelve self-confrontation interviews with each assistant referee of each match were conducted in order to make him/her describing his/her unfolding lived experience during the match.ResultsIn case of players’ duels, the perception of contextual cues enabled the assistants to appraise the occurring of a decision process with the central referee. For the assistants, the occurring of a decision process with the central referee meant his priority to intervene in the adjudication of duels, while the absence of decision process with the central referee meant for the assistants the possibility to intervene. The assistants adjusted their way of judging duels to how the central referee judged the previous ones.ConclusionsThe participation of assistants in decision making about duels depends on their preoccupations concerning the central referee’s priority. The way assistants perceive the central referee’s contextual judgment shapes the way they adjudicate duels. A latent intention to coordinate with the central referee, in relation with their collaborative tasks, is embedded in their preoccupations. Our results are a platform to develop further research about the referees’ collective activity.     

Are primary-school-aged children experts in spatial associate learning?

In two experiments (Experiment 1: N = 180, Experiment 2: N = 150), we investigated the anecdotal observation that school age children are assumed to be experts in spatial associate learning. In the first experiment, second graders, sixth graders, and adults learned the associations between 32 pictures and either a position or a word. 16 pictures had each to be associated with one position in a 4-by-4 grid of squares (spatial condition); the other 16 pictures had each to be associated to one of 16 monosyllabic words (verbal condition). After a 3 min distractor interval the associated position or word had to be retrieved with the pictures as cues. In Experiment 2, the results were replicated in principle with modifications in the experimental details. Performance improvement as a function of age turned out to be substantially larger in the verbal condition compared to the spatial one. The results are traced back to the idea that spatial associate learning is a cognitive function maturating early during life span.     

Consultant choice across decision contexts: are abortion decisions different?

A survey conducted among college students in the midwestern US indicated that abortion decision-making consultation patterns differ substantially from those associated with other types of decisions. Surveyed were 169 predominantly White, middle-income students (68 males and 101 females) 18-20 years of age recruited from an introductory psychology class. Participants were presented with vignettes that pertained to four types of decisions: abortion (unplanned pregnancy), medical (cancer treatment type), future (career move), and interpersonal (crisis with a friend). For each decision, students were asked who they would consult (specific family members, significant others, friends, various professionals) and the order in which they would consult them. The mean number of consultants selected was 3.72 for abortion, 5.54 for medical, 4.90 for future-oriented, and 2.41 for interpersonal decisions. Significant others were selected most often for all decision scenarios; however, the highest frequency of consultation and lowest mean rank order for the significant other was on the abortion decision. The next most important consultant for abortion decisions was friends, then family members, and, finally, professionals. The only gender difference was a greater tendency for females to consult their mothers. For every category of consultant (except best friend), the pattern differed depending on the type of decision. These findings underscore the importance of considering context and multifaceted approaches in the design of programs aimed at enhancing adolescents' decision-making skills.     

Perceptions of social responsibilities in India and in the United States: moral imperatives or personal decisions?

Indian and American adults' and children's (N = 400) moral reasoning about hypothetical situations in which an agent failed to help someone experiencing either life-threatening, moderately serious, or minor need was compared. For 1/3 of Ss, the agent's relationship to the needy other was portrayed as that of parent; for another 1/3, as that of best friend; for the rest, as that of stranger. Indians tended to regard the failure to aid another in moral terms in all conditions. In contrast, Americans tended to view it in moral terms only in life-threatening cases or in cases of parents responding to the moderately serious needs of their children. The results imply that Indian culture forwards a broader and more stringent view of social responsibilities than does American culture. Discussion centers on theoretical implications of the various cultural, need, role, and developmental effects observed.     

Speed/accuracy decisions in task performance: Built-in trade-off or separate strategic concerns?

In four studies we show that participants’ regulatory focus influences speed/accuracy decisions in different tasks. According to regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997), promotion focus concerns with accomplishments and aspirations produce strategic eagerness whereas prevention focus concerns with safety and responsibilities produce strategic vigilance. Studies 1–3 show faster performance and less accuracy in simple drawing tasks for participants with a chronic or situationally induced promotion focus compared to participants with a prevention focus. These studies also show that as participants move closer to the goal of completing the task, speed increases and accuracy decreases for participants with a promotion focus, whereas speed decreases and accuracy increases for participants with a prevention focus. Study 4 basically replicates these results for situationally induced regulatory focus with a more complex proofreading task. The study found that a promotion focus led to faster proofreading compared to a prevention focus, whereas a prevention focus led to higher accuracy in finding more difficult errors than a promotion focus. Through speed and searching for easy errors, promotion focus participants maximized their proofreading performance. In all four studies, the speed effects were independent of the accuracy effects and vice versa. These results show that speed/accuracy (or quantity/quality) decisions are influenced by the strategic inclinations of participants varying in regulatory focus rather than by a built-in trade-off.     

Visual narrative comprehension: Universal or not?

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Visual narratives of sequential images – as found in comics, picture stories, and storyboards – are often thought to provide a fairly universal and...