The Effects of Demographic Variables and Stereotype Threat on Black/White Differences in Cognitive Ability Test Performance

The present study examined whether a set of demographic variables and stereotype threat could explain African-American/White mean differences in cognitive ability test performance. African Americans and Whites were found to significantly differ in stereotype threat and educational attainment of participants' fathers (i.e., father education). In moderate support of our study hypothesis, stereotype threat and father education partially mediated race differences in cognitive ability test scores. Implications for study findings are discussed, and limitations of the study are noted.     

成人短时记忆发展的实验研究

以数字、图形和颜色为实验材料,测量了青年和老年被试在记忆广度和斯腾伯格任务中的成绩。结果表明随着年龄的增大,三种材料的记忆广度都有显著的下降,记忆的搜索速度也减慢;发现在老年期不同材料的记忆广度与搜索速度也存在反比例关系。作者认为这一结果对短时记忆容量发展研究具有重要意义并进行了进一步的讨论。     

A Study of Selected Demographic Variables and Recidivism with Adult Male Probationers

This article represents a study of variables associated with the recidivism rates of public offenders. The relationship of age, education, and prior offenses to recidivism rates is explored.     

Adult Age Differences in Memory for Verbs and Nouns

Younger and older adults were asked to remember noun pairs (e.g., head – cap), verb pairs (e.g., bounce – throw), and verb-noun pairs (e.g., break – stick). For half of the pairs, participants used imagined objects and performed an action or series of related actions for each pair. For the other half of the pairs, participants read but did not perform the pairs. Free recall and cued recall tests revealed that age differences in memory for both performed and nonperformed items were larger for verbs than for nouns. The recall advantage of nouns over verbs was larger for older than for younger adults. Verbs are hypothesized to be more difficult for older adults to remember because they are more and less specific than nouns and because it is more difficult to integrate verbs with other words than to integrate nouns with other words.     

Patterns and Predictors of Adult Age Differences in Mental Imagery

Adult age differences in, and predictors of, component imagery processes were examined across a broad elderly adult age range (65-86 years). Relative to younger adults, older adults were slower and less accurate on tasks of image generation, maintenance, scanning, and rotation. Ability to maintain mental images in particular was compromised by older age. Manipulations of stimulus complexity produced inconsistent differential age effects across tasks. Processing speed and sensorimotor functioning were prominent predictors of performance and age-related variance in all imagery components, with smaller contributions from working memory and executive function. These findings suggest that age-related decrements in individual imagery processes depend primarily on how quickly information can be processed and on the neurophysiological integrity of the ageing brain.     

Job Satisfaction Differences Between Military and Ex-Military Personnel: The Role of Demographic and Organizational Variables

This study examines differences in job satisfaction between military and ex-military personnel and examines the contribution of demographic, dispositional, and organizational variables to those differences. Analysis of data from 571 current New Zealand Army personnel and 171 ex-Army personnel found that Army personnel rated significantly lower than the latter on overall job satisfaction and on 7 of 15 job satisfaction facets. For both groups, high leader support, low job conflict and pressure, and high challenge, autonomy, and job importance were related to high levels of job satisfaction. For Army personnel, low levels of negative affect (a propensity to have a negative outlook on life in general), shorter tenure, and low centralization and formalization also contributed to higher levels of job satisfaction. For ex-Army personnel, income contributed to higher levels of job satisfaction. There were a number of significant differences, however, between Army and ex-Army groups on job satisfaction predictors. These results suggest that differences in job satisfaction between the two groups may be due to (a) different variables that contribute to job satisfaction for each group and (b) different demographic and organizational variables between the groups. Despite a number of limitations, the findings highlight potential future directions for the investigation of interventions in the work environment to provide enhanced psychological rewards for military personnel.     

Adult Age and Gender Differences in Eyewitness Recall in Field Settings1

Six-hundred-fifty-one citizens were stopped in public places and tested for prompted recall of physical characteristics of a young woman to whom they had spoken for approximately 15 s, 2 min earlier. Recall differed as a function of the two targets used on five of eight characteristics, but no significant differences were found for either target as a function of the gender or age group of the witnesses. Young adults (18-29 years of age) in general were superior to middle-aged adults (30-44), who in turn were superior to older adults (45-65). Women were significantly more accurate than men in accuracy of recall for weight, and for characteristics judged to be more important than less important for person memory. Male and female witnesses were equally confident in their recall performance. Young and middle-aged groups were significantly more confident in recall than the oldest group. Significant correlations were found between confidence and accuracy of recall for men and for women, and for each age group. Women made significantly longer duration estimates of the encounters with the targets than did men. Men overestimated the duration by a 2:1 ratio, and women overestimated by a 3:1 ratio. No significant correlations were found between accuracy of duration estimates and confidence in reports. The results were interpreted in terms of their forensic importance.     

Attributions for Memory Performance in Adulthood: Age Differences and Mediation Effects

We examined age differences in attributions to internal (controllable and uncontrollable), external (uncontrollable), and unstable factors for performance on a free recall memory task in 149 young, middle-aged, and older adults. Attributions varied by age and by level of memory performance. Middle-aged and older adults rated internal, uncontrollable factors (ability and genes) as more influential for high performance than for low performance, and they were less likely than young adults to attribute low performance to these factors. Within age groups, only the older adults rated memory ability as more influential than strategy use, even though they were as likely as the other age groups to use a categorization strategy. Attributions to both internal controllable (strategy use) and uncontrollable (ability) factors as well as to health were associated with better memory performance. These attributions partially mediated the relationship between age and memory performance. Thus, attributions may provide some insight into sources of age differences in memory performance.     

Age Differences in Conservatism: Evidence on the Mediating Effects of Personality and Cognitive Style

ABSTRACT The present study investigates the commonly found age–conservatism relationship by combining insights from studies on the development of personality and motivated social cognition with findings on the relationships between these factors and conservative beliefs. Based on data collected in Belgium ( N =2,373) and Poland ( N =939), we found the expected linear effect of age on indicators of social-cultural conservatism in Belgium and Poland and the absence of such effects for indicators of economic-hierarchical conservatism. We further demonstrated that these effects of age on indicators of cultural conservatism in both countries were (in part) mediated through the personality factor Openness to Experience and the motivated cognition variable Need for Closure. The consistency of these findings in two countries with a very dissimilar sociopolitical history attests to the importance of the developmental perspective for the study of the relationship between age and conservatism.     

Age and Gender Differences in the Sources of Self-Evaluation Valued by Adult Athletes

Researchers have demonstrated that competency judgments can vary depending on the source of self-evaluation used. This study investigated age and gender differences in 459 adult tennis players' importance ratings for ten different competence information sources. As predicted, younger adults were more likely than older adults to value temporal comparisons, both past-to-present (i.e., personal improvement) and present-to-future (i.e., comparisons with future selves). Younger adults were more likely to value feedback from family for self-evaluation. Older adults were slightly more likely to rate comparisons with agemates as important. Women more than men valued feedback from tennis others, effort, and liking for the sport. The findings are consistent with theoretical models and point to new areas of investigation.     

Repeated assessment of the Tower of Hanoi test: reliability and age effects

The purpose of this research was to analyze the effects of repeating an executive function test. Three versions of the Tower of Hanoi (TOH) test were repeated three times each, with test-retest intervals of 2 months. Two groups of children participated in the research (7.7 and 11.6 years, n = 22 and n = 28). Repeating the assessment improved the performance and decreased the total performance time in both of the groups. The older participants improved their performance faster than the younger ones. The reliability of all the scores, besides the error scores, seemed to be satisfactory after the first few assessments. The stability of the scores was maintained through all the assessments. The planning time did not explain the variations of the achieved score. The reasons for the initially low reliabilities are discussed, and modifications for the test administration and scoring are suggested.     

Adult Age Differences in Conscious and Unconscious Influences on Memory for Novel Associations

Forty-eight younger and 48 older adults generated sentences under self-paced conditions for semantically unrelated word pairs. Then they completed word + word stem pairs under inclusion and exclusion instructions for items that appeared in the same or different context relative to study. Performance on the inclusion and exclusion tasks was transformed into estimates of conscious and unconscious influences on memory by a series of equations as specified by Jacoby's (1991) Process Dissociation Procedure (PDP). Three notable findings were obtained. First, younger and older adults displayed a context effect when conscious, but not unconscious, influences on memory were considered. Second, age invariance in the strength of unconscious influences on memory was observed when data analysis was performed on the entire subject sample. In contrast, the estimated strength of unconscious contributions to memory was stronger for younger than older adults when data analysis was restricted to participants who made errors on the exclusion task. Third, conscious influences on memory were stronger for younger than older adults regardless of which method of data analysis was used. Taken together, these findings shed light on previous research which has examined the complex relationship between age, test awareness, and the implicit retention of novel verbal associations. They also highlight some of the methodological issues regarding the use of the PDP to measure age-related differences in the strength of unconscious memory processes.     

Tower of Hanoi: evidence for the cost of goal retrieval.

Past research on the Tower of Hanoi problem has provided clear evidence for the importance of goal-subgoal structures in problem solving. However, the nature of the traditional Tower of Hanoi problem makes it impossible to determine whether there is any special cost associated with storing or retrieving goals. A variation of the Tower of Hanoi problem is described that allows one to determine separately if there is an effect of how long a goal has to be retained on storage time or how long ago it was formed on retrieval time. This paradigm provides evidence for an effect of retention interval on retrieval time and not on storage time. An ACT-R (Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational) simulation of these data is described, which treats goal memory as no different from other memories.     

成人期智力的年龄特征：中美比较研究

西方成人期心理发展方面的追踪研究积累了有关成人智力年龄变化模式的重要资料。非西方国家这方面的资料却非常少,因而也就无从得知非西方国家成人智力年龄差异和增龄模式是与此相似还是相异。通过成人期智力发展的跨文化研究,可以了解不同文化背景下智力变化和代际差异的一般规律。本研究旨在探究社会变迁和文化背景会对成人的智力发展产生怎样的影响。     

Demographic Variables Associated with Fear of AIDS and Homophobia

During the fall of 1985, over 500 introductory psychology students participated in a survey which employed different questionnaires to measure Fear of AIDS, Knowledge of AIDS, Homophobia, and Behavior Change. Opinions about public policy regarding AIDS and homosexuals, and background information such as sex and religious preference were also obtained. The results indicated that males who knew the most about AIDS were less fearful of the disease than were males who knew the least. No such relationship was found for females. In addition, respondents reported that they have been changing their behavior in light of the AIDS epidemic. This included some behaviors which were related to AIDS and some which were not. Finally, political and religious conservatives were generally more homophobic and fearful of AIDS than were liberals. In addition, conservatives generally preferred protection of the public as an approach to controlling the AIDS epidemic while liberals generally preferred to educate the public.     

Age Differences in Performance on Two Versions of the Brown-Peterson Task

The reports regarding whether normal aging is associated with faster forgetting in the Brown-Peterson task have been conflicting. We hypothesized that, in light of documented age differences on other tasks involving secondary memory, older adults would show disproportionate forgetting on the Brown-Peterson task as retention interval lengthens. Previous negative results might be a function of the specific experimental procedure used. Experiment 1, using a commonly employed procedure, did not indicate an age-related increase in rate of forgetting. This procedure allowed for differences in rehearsal opportunity, task difficulty, and amount of information to be processed. Experiment 2 controlled for these factors and did reveal significant age differences in the forgetting function. This age difference occurred only at the point where recall became dependent upon secondary memory. There was, however, no evidence of an age-related increase in rate of forgetting from primary memory in either experiment. These findings have implications for theories of cognitive aging as well as for the use and interpretation of a commonly used version of the Brown-Peterson task.     

Spatial Memory and Response Strategies in Rats: Age, Sex and Rearing Differences in Performance

Rats reared in social isolation made more errors on a spatial memory task and made errors earlier in each trial than socially reared rats. The difference in performance only occurred when rats were isolated prior to 50 days of age, and it survived IOO days of subsequent social housing. IOO days of isolation after 50 days of age did not influence performance on the spatial memory task. Subsequent experiments suggest that spatial abilities may not differ between groups but that isolates are slower to learn to make a particular response and to locate a particular arm when spatial and response cues are irrelevant. In contrast to previous experiments, clear response strategies were seen in the present experiments. These were prevalent in the young (54-days-old) rats, were less common at 90 days and had completely disappeared by 180 days. Response strategies were more common in male rats and in socially reared rats.     

The computerized Tower of Hanoi: a new form of administration and suggestions for interpretation

A computerized version of the Tower of Hanoi with a new form of administration was administered to two different groups, 15 men and 22 women, who were university students reporting normal psychological histories, and 24 traumatically brain-injured patients (20 men and 4 women). Scores on this test for both groups can be interpreted as an index of ability to solve problems and of learning strategies. Men and women scored differently on the task, i.e., women used different strategies than men to solve problems.     

Cognitive Socialization Across Ethnocultural Contexts: Literacy and Cultural Differences in Intellectual Performance and Parent-Child Interaction

A comparative study of parent-child interaction and its relation to children's intellectual achievement is presented. The question of cultural continuities in cognitive development was examined. The cross-national design also illustrates some of the problems encountered when such relationships are studied across social contexts in general. The results suggest that although interaction characteristics are related to children's intellectual achievement, that relation is moderated by context factors that may operate differently in each culture. The findings are discussed in terms of how literacy mediates parents' teaching styles in ways that remain culturally ingrained. Research issues and recommendations for future research and policy are discussed.     

Exploring Individual Differences in the Experience of Anger in Sport Competition: The Importance of Cognitive,Emotional, and Motivational Variables

As anger is one of the most commonly experienced emotions in sport competition, this study aims to explore the individual differences in anger. A multisport sample of 269 athletes completed self-report measures of anger and several cognitive, motivational, and emotional variables. The results revealed significant differences in approach and avoidance motivation, anger rumination, thought suppression, antisocial behavior toward teammates and opponents, and self-control among athletes with different levels of anger. In addition, antisocial behavior toward opponents and teammates, anger rumination, challenge appraisals, and self-control predicted anger levels and significantly discriminated between athletes with low and high trait anger.