Some determinants of changes in preference over time

Results of longitudinal studies suggest that the stability of preferences varies across individuals, although it is unclear what variables account for these differences. We extended this work by conducting periodic assessments of preference for leisure activities over 3 to 6 months with 10 adults with developmental disabilities. Although previous research has collectively shown that preferences identified via repeated assessment are highly variable, our results showed that preferences were relatively stable for the majority (80%) of participants. In an attempt to identify some environmental determinants of shifts in preference, we provided extended daily access to high-preference items (preference-weakening manipulation) and paired access to low-preference items with social and edible putative reinforcers during brief sessions (preference-strengthening manipulation). Preference assessments continued over the course of these manipulations with 2 participants. Results showed that changes in preference across time could be produced systematically and suggest that naturally occurring changes in establishing operations or conditioning histories contribute to temporal shifts in preference. Implications for preference assessments, reinforcer usage, and planned attempts to change preferences are discussed.     

Social and motivational predictors of continued youth sport participation

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to examine if youth soccer players' perceived relationships with parents and peers in soccer, and the moderating associations among these social relationship variables, predict soccer continuation over and above motivation-related variables.DesignThis study used a prospective design by assessing youth soccer athletes' social relationships and motivational outcomes during one season and tracking the athletes' soccer continuation behavior one year later.MethodsContinuation behavior of travel soccer athletes (N = 148), ages 10–14 years (M = 11.7, SD = 1.0), was assessed one year after completing a questionnaire containing soccer-contextualized measures of perceived parent relationship quality, perceived friendship quality, perceived peer acceptance, perceived competence, enjoyment, stress, and self-determined motivation.ResultsLogistic regression analyses showed that greater perceived competence, more positive friendship quality, and the combination of mother relationship quality and peer relationships predict soccer continuation on the same team.ConclusionsThe findings highlight the importance of close social relationships, and the combination of parent and peer relationships in particular, to sport continuation behavior.     

Dynandcs in cancer caregiver's health over time: Gender-specific patterns and determinants

Abstract

This study exandned patterns and determinants of three dimensions of caregiver's health of newly diagnosed colorectal cancer patients, i.e. physical, mental and social functioning (N= 148). Physical functioning declined within a 6-month period in female caregivers, while no change was observed in male caregivers. For mental and social functioning, an improvement was observed in male and female caregivers. Change in physical functioning was associated with gender, age, income and initial level. Change in mental functioning was predicted by initial status and positive as well as negative caregiver experiences. Change in social functioning was mainly predicted by initial level and change in patient's dependency. Physical and mental functioning showed the least favorable patterns in female caregivers. The study shows that caregiving may lead to positive health consequences, and underlines the importance of making a distinction between male and female caregivers and of studying caregiver outcomes by using multidimensional assessments.     

Types of union participators over time: Toward a person-centered and dynamic model of participation

Previous research on union participation has been disjointed, with no clear consensus on the definition and nature of participation. Additionally, few studies have examined how participation changes over time, with those that have finding mixed results regarding its stability. We propose that these mixed and inconsistent findings are due largely to past research focusing on overall levels of participation, ignoring differences in how individuals participate. To remedy this, we adopted a person-centered approach to identify different types of union participators. Using a large sample of union members, we conducted latent transition analysis and found six union participator classes: high participators, leadership participators, formal union promoters, informal union promoters, silent supporters, and non-participators. In addition, we examined how individuals changed membership across two time points (separated by 6 years), antecedents of class membership (role tenure and union commitment), and outcomes (freerider intentions and actual financial contributions to the union's political action fund). The six classes differed uniquely, in terms of the ways people participate, changes in how people participate over time, what predicted class membership, and how class membership impacts two outcomes. The current study demonstrates that person-centered approaches can both clarify previous conflicting findings within the participation literature and predict meaningful outcomes.     

Student athletes' perceptions of self

Several factors have been found to contribute to the development of the self in adolescents, including religion, race, competence, leadership, physical appearance, and gender. The purpose of this study was to describe the development of self-perception in adolescent athletes and make comparisons with respect to gender and class level. One hundred seventy-five high school athletes were administered Harter's (1988) Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents. The data were analyzed for both the overall sample and demographic subgroups. Males had a significantly higher mean score on athletic competence than did females. Males also viewed both athletic competence and social acceptance as significantly more important than did females. These findings are discussed in the context of relevant literature on adolescents' perceptions of self.     

Psychosocial stress enhances time-based prospective memory in healthy young men

Forgetting of intentions (such as to take one's medication) is the most frequent everyday memory failure. No study so far has looked into the possible consequences stress might exert on memory for intentions (i.e., prospective memory). Twenty healthy young male adults were exposed to a psychosocial stress test and a non-stress condition. After a delay of 15 min, a time- and an event-based prospective memory task were administered during the peak of cortisol concentrations. Results show that participants performed significantly better in the time-based memory task after stress in comparison to the non-stress condition. In contrast, there was no stress effect on event-based prospective memory. The results demonstrate that prospective memory might be enhanced when participants are exposed to stress prior to the memory task and that this effect is associated to stress-related glucocorticoid effects.     

Psychosocial determinants of road traffic offences in a sample of Spanish male prison inmates

ObjectiveThere is very little information available about the characteristics of drivers convicted for traffic offences. The objective of this study was to perform a comparative analysis of the psychosocial characteristics of Spanish prison inmates convicted of road traffic offences (CRTOs), drivers serving a prison sentence for other types of offence (DCOOs), and drivers with no criminal record (DNCRs), in order to identify the psychosocial predictors associated with RTOs.MethodsThe study sample comprised 434 male participants divided into three groups: CRTO (n = 240); DCOO (n = 85); and DNCR (n = 105). Instruments included an interview on sociodemographic data, driving behaviour, and past offences, as well as a set of tests to evaluate personality traits (ZKPQ-50CC), driving-related aspects (MDSI-S and DAS), and alcohol dependence (AUDIT).ResultsA logistic regression analysis showed the following to be reliable predictors of RTOs: low education level (p < .05); having been involved in several road traffic accidents (p < .001); having received several fines (p < .001); a high score on the MDSI-S Risky subscale (p < .05); a low score on the MDSI-S Careful subscale (p < .05); AUDIT scores > 8 (p < .05), and repeatedly driving whilst under the influence of alcohol (p < .05).ConclusionsThe results obtained have significant practical implications for designing and implementing traffic offenders programmes.     

Changes over time among homeless young people in drug dependency, mental illness and their co-morbidity

A cross-national survey was conducted among 358 recently homeless young people in Melbourne and Los Angeles. Drug dependence and mental illness were assessed at baseline, 6 and 12 months. At each time point, participants were classified as no condition, drug dependent, having a mental illness or dual condition. Low levels of drug dependence or mental illness or both were reported at each data point. Most young people were classified as neither drug dependent nor having mental illness at baseline and remained so for the 12-month period and few remained drug dependent, or had continuing mental illness or both. Half to two-thirds of young people classified as having one or both conditions were subsequently reclassified as "no condition". There was no evidence of a consistent pathway from either drug dependence or mental illness to co-morbidity. Most young people reported an absence of mental illness and/or drug dependence at each time point. Improvement from one or both conditions at each transition suggests it may be more effective to provide interventions to address drug dependence and mental health problems to young people early in their experience of homelessness.     

The effects of sports participation on young adolescents' emotional well-being

This study examined the relationship between children's sports participation and emotional well-being including self-reported emotional and behavioral problems and multidimensional aspects of self-concept. Data were collected from 203 young adolescents using a multitrait-multimethod assessment methodology. Information was obtained using a sports questionnaire concerning participation in and perceptions of sporting activities. Emotional well-being was assessed by the Youth Self-Report (Achenbach, 1991) and the Self-Perception Profile for Children (Harter, 1985). The study found that increased levels of sports participation had a positive relationship with aspects of emotional and behavioral well-being, particularly self-concepts. Results also showed that children with increased perceptions of sport-related competencies reported significantly fewer emotional and behavioral problems than did children who were, by external standards (e.g., teacher rating, number of sporting achievements), actually competent at sport. The study also found particular areas of sports participation to be positively associated with self-concept. Evidence suggests a similar beneficial association with some aspects of behavior problems. Practical implications of the findings are discussed along with recommendations for future research.     

Contextual determinants of mothers' interventions in young children's peer interactions

In this study, the role of context in mothers' interventions in their preschool children's peer relationship problems was investigated. Event theme (aggression, peer rebuff, or initiating play), the child's role in the event (actor or target), the child's age and sex, and the mother's emotional reaction were examined as predictors of the extent to which mothers (N = 71) said they would discuss peer relationships, encourage peer interaction, and use power assertion in response to a series of videotaped vignettes depicting common peer relationship problems. Mothers suggested using more discussion in aggressive situations and more encouragement in initiating play situations. Mothers said they would use more power assertion when the child was the actor (i.e., provocateur), rather than the target, in an aggressive situation. Findings are discussed in terms of (a) the importance of considering context in understanding how mothers intervene in their children's peer relationships and (b) the need to examine moderators of cross-contextual consistency in mothers' interventions.     

Some determinants of looking time under different instructional sets

Four groups of Ss were asked to look at sets of figures whose members differed in degree of complexity and asymmetry. Ss instructed to look as long as the figures were pleasing did so for a significantly shorter time than did Ss who were instructed to look as long as they cared to, as long as the figures were interesting, or until they could recognize the figures in a large group of similar figures. Results indicated that looking time was affected by both the complexity and the asymmetry/symmetry dimensions and led to the conclusion that looking time is primarily a measure of exploratory behavior.     

Prediction outcome probabilities as determinants of choice reaction time

In a two-stimulus two-response choice reaction time (RT) task in which Ss made stimulus predictions, the probability of a correct prediction was manipulated between Ss. The magnitude of the difference in RT to correctly and incorrectly predicted stimuli (i.e., the prediction outcome effect) was an increasing function of the probability of a correct prediction This finding was primarily due to a reliable decrease in RT to correctly predicted stimuli as the probability of a correct prediction increased, since RT to incorrectly predicted stimuli was not affected by prediction outcome probability. These results were interpreted as partially supporting a continuous expectancy notion which involves facilitory and inhibitory mechanisms winch are differentially influenced by the probability of a correct prediction.     

Integrating unseen events over time

Events often share elements that guide us to integrate knowledge from these events. Integration allows us to make inferences that affect reactions to new events. Integrating events and making inferences are thought to depend on consciousness. We show that even unconsciously experienced events, that share elements, are integrated and influence reactions to new events. An unconscious event consisted of the subliminal presentation of two unrelated words. Half of subliminal word pairs shared one word ('winter red', 'red computer'). Overlapping word pairs were presented between 6s and 78 s apart. The test for integration required participants to judge the semantic distance between suprathreshold words ('winter computer'). Evidence of integration was provided by faster reactions to suprathreshold words that were indirectly related versus unrelated. This effect was independent of the time interval between overlapping word pairs. We conclude that consciousness is no requirement for the integration of discontiguous events.     

Individuation of visual objects over time

How does an observer decide that a particular object viewed at one time is actually the same object as one viewed at a different time? We explored this question using an experimental task in which an observer views two objects as they simultaneously approach an occluder, disappear behind the occluder, and re-emerge from behind the occluder, having switched paths. In this situation the observer either sees both objects continue straight behind the occluder (called "streaming") or sees them collide with each other and switch directions ("bouncing"). This task has been studied in the literature on motion perception, where interest has centered on manipulating spatiotemporal aspects of the motion paths (e.g. velocity, acceleration). Here we instead focus on featural properties (size, luminance, and shape) of the objects. We studied the way degrees and types of featural dissimilarity between the two objects influence the percept of bouncing vs. streaming. When there is no featural difference, the preference for straight motion paths dominates, and streaming is usually seen. But when featural differences increase, the preponderance of bounce responses increases. That is, subjects prefer the motion trajectory in which each continuously existing individual object trajectory contains minimal featural change. Under this model, the data reveal in detail exactly what magnitudes of each type of featural change subjects implicitly regard as reasonably consistent with a continuously existing object. This suggests a simple mathematical definition of "individual object:" an object is a path through feature-trajectory space that minimizes feature change, or, more succinctly, an object is a geodesic in Mahalanobis feature space.     

Comparability of IQ scores over time

This study investigates the comparability of IQ scores. Three cohorts (1933/36, 1997/98, 2006) of Estonian students (N = 2173) are compared using the Estonian National Intelligence Test. After 72 years the secular rise of the IQ test scores is.79 SD. The mean .16 SD increase in the last 8 years suggests a rapid increase of the Flynn Effect (FE) in Estonia. The measurement is not strictly invariant, which means that the IQ scores of different cohorts are not directly comparable. Less than perfect comparability of test scores is caused by at least two factors: time between measurements and societal/educational changes between cohorts. As was to be expected, the meaning of subtests and the meaning of the g score have changed over time.     

Contextual determinants of anger and other negative expressions in young infants

Two experiments examined how different frustration contexts affect the instrumental and emotional responses of 4- to 5-month-old infants. Three different frustrating contexts were investigated: loss of stimulation (extinction), reduction in contingent stimulation (partial reinforcement), and loss of stimulus control (noncontingency). In both experiments, changes in arm activity and facial expressions of anger and sadness coded according to the Maximally Discriminative Facial Movement Coding System (MAX) were the measures of frustration. Both experiments showed that (a) arm responses increased when the contingent stimulus was lost or reduced but decreased when control of the stimulus was lost under noncontingency, (b) MAX-coded anger, but not MAX-coded sad or blends of anger and sad, was associated with frustration, and (c) the pattern of anger and arm responses varied with the frustration context. When contingent stimulation was lost or reduced, both anger and arm responses increased, but when expected control was lost under noncontingency, arm responses decreased while anger increased.     

Some physical determinants of viewing time under three instructional sets

One-hundred fifty human Ss viewed 32 patterns under neutral (N), pleasingness (P), or interestingness (l) instructional sets. An analysis of variance indicated that patterns with larger areas were viewed longer than patterns with smaller areas under all conditions; however, this effect was more pronounced under the P and I conditions than under the N condition. Patterns containing 9-sided shapes were viewed longer than those containing 3-sided shapes under the N and I conditions, while the reverse was true for the P condition.