Self-generated attitude change: A person by situation analysis of attitude polarization and attenuation

The potential moderating effects of differences in the need for cognition on the attitude polarization process were explored. Based on putative schematabased differences in information processing, it was predicted that an increased opportunity for thought would result in (a) more attitude polarization for low need for cognition persons than for high need for cognition persons and (b) more attitude attenuation for high need for cognition persons than for low need for cognition persons. Participants completed the Need for Cognition scale and were given either little or ample time to think about issues toward which they previously held moderate attitudes. Attitudes were reassessed following thought about the issues. The results were consistent with the predicted moderating effects of individual differences in the need for cognition on thought-induced attitude polarization. Implications of and alternative explanations for the findings are discussed.     

The mortality of psychoanalysts

The mortality rate for male psychoanalysts was compared to that for the general white male population; for male physicians; and for male psychiatrists and neurologists. For psychoanalysts the rate was found to be significantly lower than for any of the other three groups. Several possible explanations for this low mortality rate are considered. Two major factors may be the careful screening of candidates for psychoanalytic training and their personal analysis. Possible methods of controlling for these factors are suggested.     

Beyond a stereotyped view of older adults' traditional family values

Structural equation models for predictors of traditional family values regarding relationships were examined in 2 samples: undergraduate students and adults ranging widely in age (23-86 years). Predictor variables included verbal ability, need for cognition, need for closure, intolerance for ambiguity, religiosity, and gender orientation. The models accounted for a substantial proportion of the variance in traditional family values (64% for students, 63% for adults). Findings provide little support for common stereotypes regarding age and gender differences in traditionalism. Instead, 3 individual-differences variables predicted traditional family values: need for closure, religiosity, and verbal ability. Outcomes argue for the need to identify multiple mechanisms by which personal characteristics such as need for closure and religiosity influence traditionalism in social belief systems and argue against reliance on status variables such as age and gender as explanatory variables for these beliefs.     

Sex difference trends in completed suicide

The recent suicide literature increasingly has contained statements suggesting that the differences in completed suicide between the sexes are lessening. A compilation of official suicide data for 1933-1980 verifies such a trend from the 1950s through 1971. However, increased differences (as measured by the ratio of male to female rates) were consistently observed from 1971 to 1980. These trends were found for data for the nation, for whites and nonwhites, for numbers of suicides, for crude rates, and for age-adjusted rates. Decreased sex differences were obtained for those 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, and for 65+ years of age, but increased sex differences were observed for those aged 15-24 and 25-34. Possible explanations for these findings are presented.     

阅读材料类型和难度对五年级儿童阅读策略的影响

以34名五年级儿童为被试,采用出声思维法考查了阅读材料类型和难度对儿童阅读策略使用情况的影响。结果发现,被试在记叙文阅读过程中使用的阅读策略种类数和总次数均多于说明文。阅读材料难度对于阅读策略种类数和使用次数没有影响。阅读材料类型和难度都对多个阅读策略的使用次数有影响,但是阅读材料类型和难度对于各阅读策略使用次数的影响并不一致。     

"Let me count the ways:" fostering reasons for living among low-income, suicidal, African American women

Protective factors for fostering reasons for living were examined among low-income, suicidal, African American women. Bivariate logistic regressions revealed that higher levels of optimism, spiritual well-being, and family social support predicted reasons for living. Multivariate logistic regressions indicated that spiritual well-being showed unique predictive value for reasons for living. Further, the multivariate model accurately predicted reasons for living 72% of the time. Partial support was found for a cumulative protective model hypothesizing a linear relationship between the number of protective factors endorsed and increased reasons for living. Implications for community-based preventive and recovery-oriented intervention efforts and future research are discussed.     

Lexical access of function versus content words

There has been a simmering debate as to whether evidence exists for differential processes of lexical access for function and content words. This has centered around the frequency effect (higher word frequency reducing access times for content words but not function words). Previous work has used the lexical decision paradigm, which has been shown to reflect more than lexical access times. We measured naming times for words in sentences read for meaning. Our findings confirm that lexical access for function words is indeed faster than for content words as predicted by neurolinguistic theory and electrophysiological evidence, but that this difference can be attributed to word predictability (Cloze value) and word familiarity (log frequency). We also show that differences in frequency effect for the two word types holds only for the lower frequency words and not at all for the higher frequency words. We discuss the implications of the results for neurolinguistic theory.     

Attitude Change Toward Animal Experimentation in an Academic Setting

Social values theory was used to examine how parents make decisions for their adolescent children. Social values theory states that decision making for others is based on the social value of an action, leading to a norm for how to decide for others, whereas self decisions are influenced by a number of additional factors. Consistent with a risk-aversion norm, in hypothetical health and safety scenarios parents made more risk-averse decisions for their adolescent children than for themselves. Further, the level of risk and inconvenience affected self decisions more than decisions for one's child. A second study showed that the norm was stronger for decisions for one's child than for oneself and more related to parents’ decisions for their child than for themselves. In sum, parents’ decisions for their children seem to be largely determined by a norm stating how they are supposed to decide, at least in the domain of health and safety. Implications for both the judgment and decision making and parenting literatures are discussed.     

Relevance and Alliance: Cornerstones in Training Counselors of Men

The need for alliance between women and men is fundamental for fully understanding as well as for effectively countering the negative consequences of gender roles and related strains for both sexes. This article discusses training counselors of men in relation to two questions: Is sexism as relevant an issue for men as it seems to be for women? and What are appropriate goals for training sessions of counselors of men?     

英语词汇记忆中关键字母法效应的条件研究——基于初一学生的干预研究

通过干预范式和中介刺激法, 随机选取112名初中一年级学生为被试, 采用一系列自编的材料和工具, 考察了关键字母法效应的三个条件:识别关键字母、提取同分异构词和提取同分异构词释义。结果表明:(1)如果要求准确的回忆, 从短期和长期看, 识别关键字母和提取同分异构词都是关键字母法效应的必要条件, 提取同分异构词释义是关键字母法效应的充分条件。(2)如果只要求大致的回忆, 从长期看, 识别关键字母是关键字母法效应的必要条件, 提取同分异构词是关键字母法效应潜在的充分条件, 而提取同分异构词释义则是关键字母法效应的充分条件。     

Developmental trends in utilizing perceptual closure for grouping of shape: effects of spatial proximity and collinearity

In two experiments, visual search was used to study the grouping of shape on the basis of perceptual closure among participants 5-23 years of age. We first showed that young children, like adults, demonstrate an efficient search for a concave target among convex distractors for closed connected stimuli but an inefficient search for open stimuli. Reliable developmental differences, however, were observed in search for fragmented stimuli as a function of spatial proximity and collinearity between the closure-inducing fragments. When only closure was available, search for all the age groups was equally efficient for spatially close fragments and equally inefficient for spatially distant fragments. When closure and collinearity were available, search for spatially close fragments was equally efficient for all the age groups, but search for spatially distant fragments was inefficient for younger children and improved significantly between ages 5 and 10. These findings suggest that young children can utilize closure as efficiently as can adults for the grouping of shape for closed or nearly closed stimuli. When the closure-inducing fragments are spatially distant, only older children and adults, but not 5-year-olds, can utilize collinearity to enhance closure for the perceptual grouping of shape.     

Semantic priming from letter-searched primes occurs for low- but not high-frequency targets: automatic semantic access may not be a myth

Letter-search (LS) within a prime often eliminates semantic priming. In 2 lexical decision experiments, the authors found that priming from LS primes occurred for low-frequency (LF) but not high-frequency (HF) targets whether the target's word frequency was manipulated between or within participants and whether the prime-target pairs were associated symmetrically or forward asymmetrically. For the LF targets, LS priming was (a) equivalent for forward asymmetric and symmetric pairs and (b) equal to silent-read (SR) priming for forward asymmetric pairs but less than SR priming for symmetric pairs. The typical finding of greater SR priming for response times for LF than for HF targets occurred for symmetric priming but not for forward asymmetric priming, which showed the interaction for errors. The authors consider their findings' implications for various accounts of how LS affects priming and explain the findings within J. H. Neely and D. E. Keefe's (1989) 3-process model as follows: (a) LS eliminates expectancy and semantic matching but does not reduce semantic activation and (b) expectancy contributes to SR priming for HF targets but not for LF targets, whereas the opposite is so for semantic matching.     

The influence of a hand preference for acquiring objects on the development of a hand preference for unimanual manipulation from 6 to 14 months

Development of hand preferences for unimanual manipulation of objects was explored in 90 infants (57 males) tested monthly from 6 to 14 months. From a larger sample of 380 infants, 30 infants with a consistent left hand preference for acquiring objects were matched for sex and development of locomotion skills with 30 infants with a consistent right hand preference for acquisition and 30 with no preference. Although frequency of unimanual manipulations increased during 6–14 month period, infants with a hand preference for acquisition did more object manipulations than those without a preference for acquisition. Multilevel modeling of unimanual manipulation trajectories for the three hand-preference groups revealed that hand preferences for unimanual manipulation become more distinctive with age, and the preference is predicted by the hand preference for object acquisition. Infants with a right and left hand preference for object acquisition develop a right and left (respectively) hand preference for unimanual manipulation. However, the majority of infants at each month do not exhibit hand preferences for unimanual manipulation that are unlikely to occur by chance, even by 14 months. The results are consistent with a cascading theory of handedness development in which early preferences (i.e., for acquisition) are transferred to later developing preferences (i.e., for unimanual manipulation).     

A test of inclusion which allows for errors of measurement

A test which allows for errors of measurement is derived for the hypothesis that all the members of a population who possess a certain skill are a sub-set of the members who possess another skill. Formulae are given for one particular case when two questions are used for each skill, and for when three questions are used for each skill. An illustrative example is given for the two-question case. The authors are indebted to M. L. Turner for his assistance in the initial stages of development of the test.     

Should persuasion be affective or cognitive? The moderating effects of need for affect and need for cognition

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that need for affect and need for cognition influence receptivity to affect- and cognition-based persuasive messages. Experiment 1 found that an affective message elicited more positive attitudes among individuals high in need for affect and low in need for cognition, whereas a cognitive message elicited more positive attitudes among individuals low in need for affect and high in need for cognition. Experiment 2 found that individual differences in need for affect influenced receptivity to an affect-based (but not cognition-based) message, whereas individual differences in need for cognition influenced receptivity to a cognition-based (but not affect-based) message. Experiment 3 found that individual differences in need for affect were associated with increased recognition of information from an affect-based (but not cognition-based) message, whereas individual differences in need for cognition were associated with increased recognition of information from a cognition-based (but not affect-based) message. Overall, the studies point to the importance of individual differences in need for affect and need for cognition in understanding how individuals respond to different types of persuasive messages.     

Visual pattern memory requires foraging function in the central complex of Drosophila

The role of the foraging (for) gene, which encodes a cyclic guanosine-3',5'-monophosphate (cGMP)-dependent protein kinase (PKG), in food-search behavior in Drosophila has been intensively studied. However, its functions in other complex behaviors have not been well-characterized. Here, we show experimentally in Drosophila that the for gene is required in the operant visual learning paradigm. Visual pattern memory was normal in a natural variant rover (for(R)) but was impaired in another natural variant sitter (for(S)), which has a lower PKG level. Memory defects in for(S) flies could be rescued by either constitutive or adult-limited expression of for in the fan-shaped body. Interestingly, we showed that such rescue also occurred when for was expressed in the ellipsoid body. Additionally, expression of for in the fifth layer of the fan-shaped body restored sufficient memory for the pattern parameter "elevation" but not for "contour orientation," whereas expression of for in the ellipsoid body restored sufficient memory for both parameters. Our study defines a Drosophila model for further understanding the role of cGMP-PKG signaling in associative learning/memory and the neural circuit underlying this for-dependent visual pattern memory.     

Scoring reliability on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition (WAIS-III)

Nineteen psychologists and 19 graduate students scored two Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition patient protocols. Mean IQs and indexes were similar across groups, but the ranges for Verbal IQ (VIQ), Performance IQ (PIQ), and Full Scale IQ (FSIQ) on one protocol were 25, 22, and 11 points, respectively. For both protocols taken together, percentages of agreement with the "actual" IQs for psychologists were only 26.3 for VIQ, 36.8 for PIQ, and 42.1 for FSIQ. For students, percentages were 15.8 for VIQ, 23.7 for PIQ, and 31.6 for FSIQ. The percentages of FSIQs that fell within +/- 1 standard error of measurement of the actual IQs were 89.5 for psychologists and 76.3 for students. Scoring error also had a negative impact on index scores. Both groups were confident about their scoring accuracy.     

Maintaining readiness for mental rotation interferes with perceptual processes in children but with response selection in adults

Previous work revealed that mental rotation is not purely inserted into a same-different discrimination task. Instead, response time (RT) is slowed to upright stimuli in blocks containing rotated stimuli compared to RT to the same upright stimuli in pure upright blocks. This interference effect is a result of maintaining readiness for mental rotation. In two experiments we investigated previous evidence that these costs depend upon distinct sub-processes for children and for adults. In Experiment 1, the maintaining costs turned out to be independent of the visual quality of the stimulus for adults but not so for children. Experiment 2 revealed that the maintaining costs were greatly reduced for adults when they performed mental rotation as a go-no-go task, but not so for children. Taken together, both experiments provide evidence that whereas perceptual processes seem to be important for school-age children to maintain readiness for mental rotation, response selection is relevant for adults.     

Locus of Control as a Stress Moderator and Mediator in Children of Divorce

This paper examined the stress moderator and mediator effects of four dimensions of perceived control in children of divorce. The dimensions of locus of control included internal control for positive events, internal control for negative events, unknown control for positive events, and unknown control for negative events. The sample consisted of 222 children between the ages of 8 and 12 whose parents had divorced in the previous 2 years. Moderational analyses showed that unknown control for positive events interacted with negative events to predict total symptoms. Plots of the simple slopes indicated a stress buffering effect whereby the slope of negative events on symptoms was higher for high than for low levels of unknown control for positive events. Mediational analysis showed that the relations between negative events and symptoms were mediated by both unknown control for positive events and unknown control for negative events. In contrast, evidence was not found for either a stress mediational or a moderational model for perceived internal control for positive or negative events. These results suggest that unknown control beliefs may be a particularly important dimension of control for children of divorce.     

Evaluating a modified exercise self-efficacy scale for college-age women

This pilot study examined test-retest and internal consistency reliabilities of original and modified formats of the Exercise Self-efficacy Scale in college-age women. 30 completed original and modified versions of the scale. Data from both tests, administered 1 wk. apart, were analyzed using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) to assess test-retest reliability and Cronbach coefficient alpha for internal consistency. Scores for both versions correlated .96. Cronbach coefficients alpha for the original scale were .96 for Time 1 and .98 for Time 2. Cronbach coefficients alpha for the revised scale were .95 for Time 1 and .98 for Time 2. Test-retest reliability and internal consistency remained consistently high for both versions of the scales within this sample. Implications for use of this scale and recommendations for research are given.