The interactive effects of locus of control and situational stress upon performance accuracy and time

The present paper sought to clarify the conceptual relationship between expectancy for personal control, stress, and behavioral reactions to stress. Expectancy for control was assessed as a personality characteristic of internal control; stress was experienced as strong environmental interruptions, disturbances, and unpredictable obstacles encountered during the performance of assigned tasks. Subjects were junior high school aged students who attempted to complete three academic type tasks during one of two levels of stress or a base line, no stress, condition. Analyses of the data included: (a) internal subjects were capable of sustaining task performance under high stress, but external students experienced performance decrements as stress increased; (b) time to complete the mathematics task reflected a facilitating effect of stress for internals but a debilitating effect for externals; (c) performance differences between internal and external students, in the absence of differences in reported anxiety, could be attributed to the stronger reward expectancies possessed by the internal individual. Interpretation of the data suggested an interactive relationship between type of stress (threat to ego vs. threat to instrumental performance) and expectancy for control in the influencing of behavior reactions to stress.     

Effects of hearing the past, present, or future during music performance

Three experiments were performed to explore the effects of mismatches between actions (key-presses) and the contents of auditory feedback (pitch events) during music performance. Pianists performed melodies from memory during altered auditory feedback that was synchronized with key-presses but matched the pitch of other sequence events. Feedback direction was manipulated by presenting pitches that matched events intended for the past (delays; Experiments 1 and 3) or the future (prelays; Experiments 2 and 3). Feedback distance was manipulated by varying the absolute separation between the current event and the location of the feedback pitch. All alterations disrupted the accuracy of performance (pitch errors) more so than timing. Serial-ordering errors indicated confusions among proximal and metrically similar events, consistent with the predictions of an incremental planning model (Palmer & Pfordresher, 2003). Patterns of serial-ordering errors suggested that performers compensate for the disruptive effects of altered feedback by changing event activations during planning.     

Effects of amount of helplessness training and internal-external locus of control on mood and performance.

Based on Wortman and Brehm's integration of reactance theory with Seligman's model of learned helplessness, an investigation was conducted to examine the effects of amount of helplessness training and internal--external locus of control on subsequent task performance and on self-ratings of mood. Subjects were divided into "internal" and "external" groups and were then given either high, low, or no helplessness training on a series of concept-formation problems. After completing a mood checklist, all subjects worked on an anagram task presented as a second experiment by a second experimenter. The results revealed that internals exhibited greater performance decrements and reported greater depression under high helplessness than did externals. In the low helplessness conditions, internals tended to perform better than control subjects, while externals tended to perform worse than control subjects; low helplessness subjects also reported the highest levels of hostility. The results are discussed within the context of Wortman and Brehm's integration of reactance and learned helplessness theories.     

Empathy present and future

The empathy concept has central significance for social and personality psychology and in many other domains, including neuroscience, clinical/abnormal psychology, and the health professions. However, the current diversity in conceptual and operational definitions, and the promiscuous use of the term “empathy,” threaten the ability of researchers to advance the field. The present article provides a quantitative review and conceptual analysis of empathy definitions and usages by examining 393 studies published between 2001 and 2013, and 96 studies published in 2017. We document the prevalence and diversity of definitions, as well as inconsistencies between conceptual definitions and measurements employed. We discuss ways to refine the conceptualization and operationalization of the empathy construct, including for many purposes, bypassing the term empathy in favor of lower-level construct labels that more precisely describe what is actually being measured. In many cases we see no added theoretical or empirical value in applying the term empathy.     

Effects of context expectation on prospective memory performance among older and younger adults

This experiment examined the impact of context expectation on prospective memory (PM) performance among older and younger adults. Participants responded to PM target words embedded in an ongoing lexical decision task (LDT). Older and younger adults performed similarly on the PM task. Regardless of age, PM was significantly better for participants in the correct context expectation condition and significantly worse in the incorrect context expectation condition relative to participants who held no expectations about the context in which targets would appear. Participants’ LDT response latencies were used to assess cost of the PM task to the ongoing task. Latencies were discernibly longer in the LDT block where the PM targets were expected compared to the block where they were not expected. The findings provide new information about how context can be used to support PM aging and suggest that contextual information can be equally beneficial for older and younger adults.     

Internal-external locus of control and performance on a vigilance task.

Previous studies have demonstrated there are large individual differences in subjects' ability to perform on vigilance or watch-keeping tasks. This study used Rotter's Internal-External (I-E) Locus of Control Scale to resolve some of the variance attributed to individual differences and tested the hypothesis that the internally controlled person is a better monitor on a vigilance task than an externally controlled person. There were 64 subjects who performed a visual watch-keeping task for a 1-hr. period. The results indicated that the external subjects made significantly more incorrect responses and missed significantly more signals during the entire task. The internal-external dimension was effective in differentiating performance on a vigilance task.     

Effects of personality-situation locus of control congruence.

The effects of combining personality and situation differences in locus of control on cheating behavior were tested. Eighty college students (36 male and 44 female) were classified as having relatively high internal or external locus of control beliefs using Rotter's Internal-External Scale. In subsequent individually conducted sessions, subjects were given the opportunity to falsely report success (i.e., to cheat) when success was objectively impossible and when the outcome was described as due to either skill or chance. A significant (p less than .001) Personality X Situation locus of control interaction found cheating more prevalent in congruent personality-situation combinations (internal-skill and external-chance) than in incongruent combinations (internal-chance and external-skill). Additional significant effects involving task persistence and postoperformance effort ratings suggested accounting for the results in an achievement motivational framework. As the Personality X Situation Locus of control interaction accounted for a large proportion of the variance, the results were considered to be supportive of an interactionist position regarding behavior prediction.     

Effects of response-produced stimuli upon conditional discrimination performance

In zero-delay matching procedures the performance of three groups of pigeons was examined when exteroceptive stimuli, response-produced stimuli associated with the completion of either of two fixed ratios, or a compound of exteroceptive and response-produced stimuli were available as samples. Exteroceptive samples were found to control a higher level of matching accuracy than response-produced samples, while compound samples controlled a higher level of accuracy than did exteroceptive samples alone. When all subjects were placed on a transfer procedure, during which the previously used red and green samples were replaced by horizontal and vertical lines, the availability of sample-specific fixed-ratios facilitated acquisition of the task.     

Effects of stimulus control and deprivation upon discriminative responding

Discriminative responding in pigeons was studied under multiple variable-interval extinction schedules in which extinction was correlated with either a tone or a white keylight. The two procedures resulted in weak and strong stimulus control, respectively. In the first experiment, there was no interaction between schedule components when stimulus control was strong and reinforcement was omitted under the previously reinforced component. However, there was marked induction between components when stimulus control was weak and responding was extinguished under the previously reinforced component. In the second experiment, hours of food deprivation was varied under two levels of stimulus control. Deprivation mainly influenced response rates under the extinction stimulus, with greater absolute rate increases occurring the lower the existing level of stimulus control. Increases in responding during the extinction stimulus were four times as great from 24 to 72 hours of deprivation as from 24 to 48 hours under conditions of both high and low stimulus control.     

The influence of type A behaviour and locus of control upon job satisfaction and occupational health

Results from this study show that in a sample of 332 German managers a Type A personality and an External locus of control are associated with greater perceived levels of stress (particularly in terms of inter-personal relationships), lower job satisfaction and a poorer physical and mental health than that of managers with a type B personality and an Internal locus of control. The magnitude of main effect size is substantially larger than the interaction terms (Type A×Locus of Control). There is no evidence to support a significant effect of a Type A×Locus of Control interaction on either of the health outcome measures (physical and psychological health), but there is some evidence of an interaction with work satisfaction outcomes (job satisfaction and organizational satisfaction). Those with an External locus showed significantly lower levels of work satisfaction, especially when this characteristic was combined with a Type A personality. It appears that negative health consequences may outweigh the superficial attractiveness of the type A personality in a managerial position, particularly when this trait is coupled with a more external locus of control.     

Perceived past, present, and future control and adjustment to stressful life events

Perceived control is a central construct in psychology and is key to understanding individual differences in poststress outcomes (Frazier, Berman, & Steward, 2001). The goals of the current studies (using 4 samples of undergraduate students, total N = 1,421) were to examine the relations between different aspects of perceived control and poststress outcomes and to differentiate perceived control over specific events from related constructs (i.e., general control beliefs, coping strategies). To accomplish these goals, we first developed a new measure of perceived past, present, and future control over stressful life events. The data supported the content validity, factor structure, internal consistency and test-retest reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity of the new measure. Consistent with the temporal model of control (Frazier et al., 2001), these 3 forms of control had very different relations with adjustment. Present control was consistently related to lower distress levels in cross-sectional, longitudinal, and prospective analyses. Present control also predicted outcomes beyond the effects of general control beliefs and coping strategies. Past and future control had nonsignificant or positive relations with distress, although future control was associated with better outcomes (i.e., course grades) when the stressor was controllable. Thus, our measure can be used to assess the relations between perceived past, present, and future control and outcomes across a range of stressors. Because the relations between these 3 forms of control and outcomes differ markedly, measures that combine these aspects of control hinder the understanding of the important role of perceived control in adjustment to stress.