Combination of drive and incentive

This experiment was designed to investigate the combination of drive and incentive as determinants of performance. Nine groups of rats were trained to press a bar under three levels of food deprivation (12, 24 and 36 hr.) and three incentive conditions (1,2 and 3 pellets). Response strength was estimated by counting the number of responses with a latency of 1 sec. or less during five 20 trial sessions. The results indicated that response strength increased with hours of deprivation and with amount of food reward. Significant interactions between sessions and drive, and sessions and incentive provided additional support for the multiplicative combination of H (habit) and D (drive) and H and K (incentive). The lack of significant interaction between D and K was interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that D and K combine additively rather than multiplicatively.     

When grandparents drive their grandchildren

Driving their grandchildren has become one of the common tasks grandparents perform as part of the support they provide for working parents. The current research made use of qualitative and quantitative methodologies in two complementary studies conducted on grandparents who drive their grandchildren, the first using personal interviews and the second self-report questionnaires. The goal of the qualitative study was to capture grandparents’ subjective experience (n = 27), whereas the quantitative study sought to provide more specific data on the factors affecting grandparents’ experience behind the wheel and attitudes to child restraints by examining the contribution of driving styles and parental influence (n = 330). The findings of the qualitative study indicate that having grandchildren in the car is a unique situation which affects grandparents’ emotions and driving behavior. Less careful drivers were found to adapt a more careful driving style when driving their grandchildren than when driving without them. In the quantitative study, risky and anxious drivers felt more tension when driving their grandchildren. Furthermore, parental intervention was found to heighten tension among grandparents. Finally, heightened tension and less angry and more careful grandparents’ driving styles were associated with more positive attitudes to child restraints. Possible explanations of the findings are discussed.     

To drive or not to drive: Neuropsychological assessment for driver's license among stroke patients

Seventy-two stroke patients, 43 with right hemisphere (RHD) and 29 with left hemisphere damage (LHD), and 7 coronary infarct controls with no evidence of cerebral damage, were neuropsychologically tested as part of an assessment program for driver's license. Mean age in the group was 53 years. Stroke patients were tested on average 4 months post injury. The groups did not differ on major demographic variables except that RHD patients were more often hemiplegic than LHD patients. The test battery was factor analyzed into 4 valid principal components: (I) visual perception , (II) spatial attention , (III) visuospatial processing , and (IV) language/praxis. The presence of hemianopia (factor I) excludes driving. In addition, measures of neglect and reduced speed of mental processing from factor II, III and IV, were found to be the most discriminating variables when classifying patients for driving. Even though neglect was more frequently observed among RHD than LHD patients, the two hemisphere groups did not differ significantly in number of patients denied driving, 58% RHD compared to 41% LHD patients. The need for comprehensive neuropsychological assessment is underlined.     

Not only assholes drive Mercedes. Besides disagreeable men,also conscientious people drive high-status cars

In a representative sample of Finnish car owners (N = 1892) we connected the Five-Factor Model personality dimensions to driving a high-status car. Regardless of whether income was included in the logistic model, disagreeable men and conscientious people in general were particularly likely to drive high-status cars. The results regarding agreeableness are consistent with prior work that has argued for the role of narcissism in status consumption. Regarding conscientiousness, the results can be interpreted from the perspective of self-congruity theory, according to which consumers purchase brands that best reflect their actual or ideal personalities. An important implication is that the association between driving a high-status car and unethical driving behaviour may not, as is commonly argued, be due to the corruptive effects of wealth. Rather, certain personality traits, such as low agreeableness, may be associated with both unethical driving behaviour and with driving a high-status car.     

Self-presentation and drive in social facilitation

Social facilitation refers to cases in which the presence of others increases the probability of certain responses on the part of an independently operating individual. Drive theory attributes these effects to an unconscious facilitation of dominant responses, as defined by Hull-Spence learning theory. Self-presentation explanations posit changes in motivation and cognitive strategies that result from an increased concern with favorable private and public images. The present paper reviews evidence and presents an experiment indicating both points of view are valid, but that neither perspective by itself can account for all relevant data.     

Social projection of transient drive states

The authors hypothesized that people's predictions of how other people feel in emotionally arousing situations are often based on people's predictions of how they themselves would feel in those situations. Indeed, most participants in Study 1 reported predicting hungry hikers' feelings by mentally trading places with them, imagining what their own feelings would be in the hikers' situation. Because people's predictions of their own feelings tend to be biased in the direction of their current drive states, we hypothesized that mentally trading places would lead to social projection of transient drive states. In Study 2, participants' predictions of whether thirst or hunger would be more bothersome to hikers lost without food or water were biased in the direction of participants' own exercise-induced thirst. Furthermore, participants' predictions of how they would feel in the hikers' situation statistically mediated the effect of exercise on their predictions of the hikers' feelings.