Sex Bias in Counseling: A Reply and Critique

The social importance of the gender-bias issue in counseling implores that our beliefs about the issue be predicated on evidence rather than on ideological considerations.     

A Positive Perspective on Attentional Bias: Positive Affectivity and Attentional Bias to Positive Information

In recent years there has been growing interest in determining the attentional basis of positive affectivity. Investigators have sought to evaluate the hypothesis that elevated positive affectivity is characterized by an attentional bias that favours the processing of positive information over neutral information. Unfortunately, in the studies carried out to date, the assessment procedures used by researchers to assess such attentional selectivity have either been methodologically limited or methodologically flawed. Hence, the validity of the hypothesis has remained indeterminate. To overcome the problems associated with attentional assessment procedures used in previous studies, and so shed light on the attentional basis of positive affectivity, we employed an appropriate variant of the attentional probe task. Our findings show that participants high in positive affectivity displayed greater relative attention to positive information compared to neutral information, than was the case for their low positive affectivity counterparts. Thus, the present results support the hypothesis that an attentional bias to positive information, relative to neutral information, is characteristic of elevated positive affectivity.     

Threat-Related Attentional Bias in Anxious Youth: A Review

The research literature suggests that children and adolescents suffering from anxiety disorders experience cognitive distortions that magnify their perceived level of threat in the environment. Of these distortions, an attentional bias toward threat-related information has received the most theoretical and empirical consideration. A large volume of research suggests that anxiety-disordered youth selectively allocate their attention toward threat-related information. The present review critically examines this research and highlights several issues relevant to the study of threat-related attentional bias in youth, including the influences of temperament, trait anxiety, and state anxiety on threat-related attentional bias. It furthermore identifies the need for developmental and methodological considerations and recommends directions for research.     

sprees and runs: opportunity construction and criminal episodes

Criminal decision-making researchers generally focus either on offenders' criteria for identifying promising targets or on how offenders' lifestyles condition crime's appeal. Obviously, significant events bridge offenders' routines and discrete criminal choices. However, researchers often neglect the immediate experiences and events that enact lifestyles in particular choices. Drawing on 110 accounts of criminal events by street thieves, this article examines criminal choice. The findings indicate that offenders assess opportunity in light of recent decisions and events. Like all agents, they reference a general outlook and lessons taken from recent choices; looking backward as well as forward, they frame their options within a line of relevant events. When offenders confront potentially criminal situations or promising targets, perceptual outcomes of recent crimes operate alongside a temporary sense of commitment to criminal trajectories of action to inspire a serendipitous optimism. This complex decision-making can happen in an instant and is imperceptible without asking offenders to reflect on the sequential events that precede crime.     

Good Women and Bad Men: A Bias in Feminist Research

The variety of feminist thought has produced many fruitful discussions and debates. Liberal, radical, postmodern, psychoanalytic, and other feminists have criticized each others' work and underlying presuppositions. The aim of this paper is to point out a prejudice which has not yet received sufficient attention, although it lies at the base of a fair amount of feminist research: the bias that whereas men are bad and aggressive, women are good and peaceful. Although as an explicit view this contention has been debated, its distortive influence on feminist research has so far remained undiscussed. In what follows I present examples of the effect of this bias on feminist research (sections 1 and 2). Then I suggest why the bias has not yet been discussed (section 3). Finally I argue that feminist research should be as critically received and treated as any other (section 4).     

Bias and Bias Remediation in Creative Problem-Solving: Managing Biases through Forecasting

Although scholars have identified many variables that contribute to creative problem-solving, less attention has been given to variables that might lead to failure in creative problem-solving. One set of variables that might lead to poor performance in creative problem-solving efforts may be found in various decision biases. In this study, the impact of simple and complex decision biases on the production of original, high-quality, and elegant solutions to a creative problem-solving task was examined in a sample of 227 undergraduates attending a large southwestern university. In addition, the value of forecasting instruction as a technique for reducing these decision biases was examined. It was found that both simple and complex decisions biases resulted in problem solutions of lower originality, quality, and elegance. Training in viable forecasting strategies resulted in the production of higher quality problem solutions. The implications of these findings for improving creative problem-solving performance are discussed.     

Fixed-interval matching-to-sample: intermatching time and intermatching error runs

Four pigeons were trained on a matching-to-sample task in which reinforcers followed either the first matching response (fixed interval) or the fifth matching response (tandem fixed-interval fixed-ratio) that occurred 80 seconds or longer after the last reinforcement. Relative frequency distributions of the matching-to-sample responses that concluded intermatching times and runs of mismatches (intermatching error runs) were computed for the final matching responses directly followed by grain access and also for the three matching responses immediately preceding the final match. Comparison of these two distributions showed that the fixed-interval schedule arranged for the preferential reinforcement of matches concluding relatively extended intermatching times and runs of mismatches. Differences in matching accuracy and rate during the fixed interval, compared to the tandem fixed-interval fixed-ratio, suggested that reinforcers following matches concluding various intermatching times and runs of mismatches influenced the rate and accuracy of the last few matches before grain access, but did not control rate and accuracy throughout the entire fixed-interval period.     

Individual differences and segment interactions in throwing

Arm segment velocities of 12 athletes throwing three differently weighted balls were analyzed by three-mode principal component analysis. Individual differences were characterized in terms of the combined influences of the phases of the throwing motion and the arm segment velocity relationships established in those phases. Using three individual differences components, three velocity measures components and four time phase components, 75% of the variance was described. The arm segment velocity relationships were described by two main components identified as directional velocity and proximal versus distal velocity. The time periods components distinguished between relationships among the arm segment velocities that occur in the windup versus those of the release phase. Three individual differences components are identified and appeared to be related to a general throwing style, the influence of skill level on technique, and the differential effect of the varying ball weights, respectively. Each athlete's throws are weighted combinations of these three components. The timing of segment involvement is investigated and the results indicate sequential patterns from proximal to distal as the throw unfolds. However, the results also suggest that different principles may apply to different throwers and that the summation of speed principle should not be applied universally to explain segment motion and interaction.     

Sex differences in throwing: monkeys having a fling

Fast and accurate throwing was undoubtedly important to ancestral hominids, and was subject to sexual-selection pressures that generated a male advantage in throwing accuracy that persists in modern humans. The balance of evidence, including that from a recent comparative study of throwing in humans and capuchin monkeys, suggests that high-performance throwing involves unique adaptations in the domains of spatial targeting, precision timing, and multi-joint motor control.     

Pioneer profiles: A few minutes with Sid Bijou

This article is an interview with Sidney W. Bijou. His education, work, accomplishments, and honors in the field of behavior analysis are reviewed and described in his own words. Some of his accomplishments include applying operant methodology to normal children and children with retardation, extending operant methodology with children from the laboratory to the natural environment, carrying the banner of behavior analysis to many foreign countries, teaching and advising many students of behavior analysis who have become well known as behavior analysts, and researching, developing, and commercializing such well-known products as the Edmark reading program, the Portage parent training program, and the Wide Range Achievement Test.     

Comparing switch costs: alternating runs and explicit cuing

The task-switching literature routinely conflates different operational definitions of switch cost, its predominant behavioral measure. This article is an attempt to draw attention to differences between the two most common definitions, alternating-runs switch cost (ARS) and explicit-cuing switch cost (ECS). ARS appears to include both the costs of switching tasks and the switch-independent costs specific to the first trial of a run, with the implication that it should generally be larger than ECS, but worse is that the alternating-runs procedure does not allow these costs to be separated. New data are presented to make these issues concrete, existing data are surveyed for evidence that ARS is larger than ECS, and implications of conflating these measures are examined for existing theoretical constructs.     

Hindsight Bias: A Primer for Motivational Researchers

Thirty‐five years since the publication of Fischhoff’s (1975) seminal article, we continue to be fascinated by the hindsight bias. Like a well‐developed character in a novel, the bias has something for everyone. Its basic tenet – that things seem less surprising in hindsight than they should – is instantly recognizable as a common human flaw. It is robust, often difficult to reduce, and appeals to researchers with a wide range of interests including history, business, law, medicine, and of course, psychology. This interest stems from the belief that failure to be surprised by an event prevents us from learning from it, and will likely cause us to judge others unfairly for not having been able to foresee it. But just how bad is it? Although guided by a cold cognitive mechanism that ‘creeps up’ on us, hindsight bias is complex, seemingly strengthened, and yet also reduced by self‐serving motives. In this article, I introduce the reader to the basic designs used to study the bias, key cognitive and motivational mechanisms, the major controversies, and some unstudied questions that I hope will guide future research.     

Perceived Control and the Optimistic Bias: A Meta-Analytic Review

People consistently believe that negative events are less likely to happen to them than to others. Research suggests a relationship between this optimistic bias and perceived control such that the greater control people perceive over future events, the greater their optimistic bias. We conducted a meta-analysis of 27 independent samples to quantify the size of this relationship and examine what variables moderated the relationship. Greater perceived control was significantly related to greater optimistic bias, but this relationship was moderated by participant nationality, student status, risk status, and the type of optimistic bias measure used. We discuss the findings in the context of primary versus secondary control.     

Effect of stride length on overarm throwing delivery: A linear momentum response

Changing stride length during overhand throwing delivery is thought to alter total body and throwing arm linear momentums, thereby altering the proportion of throwing arm momentum relative to the total body. Using a randomized cross-over design, nineteen pitchers (15 collegiate and 4 high school) were assigned to pitch two simulated 80-pitch games at ±25% of their desired stride length. An 8-camera motion capture system (240 Hz) integrated with two force plates (960 Hz) and radar gun tracked each throw. Segmental linear momentums in each plane of motion were summed yielding throwing arm and total body momentums, from which compensation ratio’s (relative contribution between the two) were derived. Pairwise comparisons at hallmark events and phases identified significantly different linear momentum profiles, in particular, anteriorly directed total body, throwing arm, and momentum compensation ratios (P ⩽ .05) as a result of manipulating stride length. Pitchers with shorter strides generated lower forward (anterior) momentum before stride foot contact, whereas greater upward and lateral momentum (toward third base) were evident during the acceleration phase. The evidence suggests insufficient total body momentum in the intended throwing direction may potentially influence performance (velocity and accuracy) and perhaps precipitate throwing arm injuries.     

A comparison between novices and experts of the velocity-accuracy trade-off in overarm throwing

Expert team-handball players do not show the typical trade-off between speed and accuracy in overarm throwing. Van den Tillaar and Ettema (2003a) attributed this result to the uniqueness of the training experience of this group. The purpose of this study was to test their hypothesis by comparing experts with novices on overarm throwing by manipulating the goal of the task using different instructions. No trade-off between speed and accuracy was found for novices (n = 13; M age = 22.7 yr., SD = 2.2) or experts (n = 9; Mage = 24 yr., SD = 2.2): accuracy did not change by instruction. Furthermore, the linear velocities of the ball and endpoints of body segments and their timing were affected by instruction in a similar fashion in both groups. This finding indicates that training experience is not related to speed-accuracy tradeoff in overarm throwing.