Combat readiness: Perceived influences on willingness to deploy

This study investigated the association between combat readiness and soldiers’ willingness to deploy in operations. Participants were 465 members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) (males, 84%). The solders self-reported their perceived combat readiness (PCR) and willingness to deploy (WD) in peace-keeping operations. The correlational analysis results PCR and WD were related with the inclusion of the dimensions support to the family, confidence in self, the team, leaders and training, high morale and esprit de corps. Horizontal and vertical cohesion positively influenced WD, and not unit discipline.     

The effects of perceptual pretraining on concept identification and preference

The effects of perceptual pretraining on preferences and concept identification performance in five- and eight-year-old Ss were investigated. The results indicated that perceptual pretraining facilitated performance on a concept identification task with a non-preferred relevant cue for the five-year-olds, but not for the eight-year-olds. However, perceptual pretraining did not affect preference in either age group and Ss were as consistent in their preference responding before and after perceptual pretraining as was a control group that had not received perceptual pretraining. Preferences were highly consistent in both age groups over a one week period. Perceptual pretraining was interpreted to increase the usability of the less preferred dimensions for the younger Ss, and to leave the affective preference response unaltered in both groups.     

Element pretraining influences the content of appetitive serial compound conditioning in rats

Four experiments with rat subjects in a Pavlovian appetitive conditioning procedure examined the effects of prior pairings of S2 with the unconditioned stimulus (US) on the nature of the associations formed in S1----S2----US serial compound conditioning. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that prior training of S2 prevented the acquisition of stimulus-stimulus (S-S) associations between S1 and stimulus features of S2, but enhanced the acquisition of stimulus-response (S-R) associations between S1 and the emotional conditioned response (CR) evoked by S2. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that the effects of S2 pretraining were not due to S2 training itself, but rather to its endowing S2 with the ability to evoke a strong CR during the early stages of serial compound conditioning. In Experiment 3, suppression of the CR to a pretrained S2 during serial compound conditioning permitted the establishment of S-S associations. In Experiment 4, the induction of a CR in the presence of an untrained S2 during serial compound conditioning prevented the acquisition of S-S associations. Implications of these data for our understanding of compound conditioning are discussed.     

The effects of type and amount of pretraining on transfer in concept formation

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of 2 types of directed attention pretraining, a form of stimulus predifferentiation, on immediate- and delayed-transfer tasks in concept identification. In both experiments, the participants received either the "seeing-and-discriminating" or "seeing" technique of pretraining, except for those assigned to the control group. The participants received different amounts of pretraining. In the first experiment, participants were required to learn new concepts from the same category for the delayed-transfer task, whereas in the second experiment, the delayed-transfer task involved concepts from a different category. Among the major findings in both experiments are that the pretraining methods resulted in positive transfer on all transfer tasks. In general, the seeing-and-discriminating method yielded a more positive transfer than the seeing technique. Maximal positive transfer effects were found with a small number of trials. The implications of the findings for understanding the effectiveness of various training methods used for problem solving are discussed.     

Assessing readiness for change in adolescents with eating disorders

The Readiness and Motivation Interview (RMI) is a semistructured interview measure of readiness and motivation to change that can be used for all eating disorder diagnoses. The RMI has demonstrated excellent psychometric properties and has both clinical and predictive utility in adult samples. This study examined the psychometric properties of the RMI in a younger population, namely, 12- to 18-year-old girls with eating disorders. Study participants (N = 65) completed the RMI and measures of convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity. Adolescents with eating disorders were able to conceptualize and articulate their readiness for change and to report the extent to which change efforts were for themselves versus for others. RMI readiness profiles across eating disorder symptom domains in adolescents were comparable to those in adults, with higher reported readiness to change binge eating than to change dietary restriction or compensatory strategies. Differences in internal consistency between adult and adolescent samples are discussed. Interviewing adolescents early in treatment about readiness may assist clinicians in forming an alliance with this difficult-to-engage population, while also providing valuable information for treatment planning.     

Beyond change management: a multilevel investigation of contextual and personal influences on employees' commitment to change

The extent to which attitudes toward organizational changes may be affected by contextual (other changes going on) and personal (self-efficacy) factors was investigated with a multilevel design involving 25 different changes. Even after aspects of the change itself were controlled, the interaction between the context and the individual difference explained significant variance in attitudes toward those specific changes. The positive relationship between self-efficacy and commitment to the change was stronger as the amount of simultaneous and overlapping change in the surroundings increased. The implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Modeling influence of change readiness on knowledge acquisition process: A case study

Change readiness (CR) has important impact on the success of knowledge acquisition (KA). So it is necessary for managers to know how KA is shaped by CR elements. Review of the extant literature shows a paucity in this regard specially regarding intra-organizational rather than inter-organizational level. Therefore, to bridge this gap, this study aims to present a fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) model in which interactions among CR elements for KA are identified. To do so, first, elements for measuring CR for KA were extracted from the relevant literature. Then, the identified elements were screened through distributing the first designed questionnaire among the select sample of survey organization. Then, the second questionnaire was used to measure the select elements and find the relation between them, using FCM and Mental Modeler Software. To improve CR for KA, some scenarios are suggested by the managers and the impact of each scenario on the whole CR elements is identified using sensitive analysis of the FCM model. After comparing the scenarios, it is concluded improving more elements in one scenario does not necessarily result in better impact on the whole CR for KA. This is due to the interaction among the elements which sometimes could be negative. The proposed model might help managers of the survey organization evaluate their CR improvement plans for KA before taking any actions. In addition, this study can give an idea to other organizations and industries to apply this approach according to their own relevant criteria. This study is among the first in its kind which presents a model using FCM method in which the interactions among the CR elements influencing KA are considered.     

Self-injury and readiness to recover: Preliminary examination of components of the stages of change model

The purpose of this study was to examine non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) recovery through the lens of the transtheoretical model of stages of change. To do this, a content analysis of online posts about NSSI from 73 participants (M_age = 19.4; SD_age = 5.49) with a history or NSSI was performed. Specifically, two rubrics were used. The first examined stages of change and the other positive and negative views toward NSSI recovery. Results indicated that a preponderance of posts was in the precontemplation (39.7%) and contemplation (52.1%) stages. Individuals in the contemplation stage mentioned significantly more disadvantages than advantages to change compared to those in the precontemplation stage. Overall, the current study provides preliminary evidence for the utility of stages of change when conceptualizing NSSI recovery. Implications for research and practice are addressed.     

Mood effects on eyewitness memory: Affective influences on susceptibility to misinformation

Does mood influence the accuracy of eyewitness recollections, and people’s susceptibility to misleading information in particular? Based on recent affect-cognition theories and research on eyewitness memory, three experiments predicted and found that positive affect promoted, and negative affect inhibited the incorporation of misleading information into eyewitness memories. This effect was obtained for both positive and negative events (Experiment 1), and for recorded as well as real-life incidents (Experiment 2). Participants had no meta-cognitive awareness of these mood effects, and affect-control instructions were ineffective in preventing them (Experiment 3). The cognitive mechanisms responsible for mood effects on eyewitness memories are discussed, and the implications of these findings for everyday memories, forensic practice and for current affect/cognition theorizing are considered.     

Differential engagement of self-reactive influences in cognitive motivation

The present research tested the hypothesis that self-reactive influences exert differential impact on motivation as a function of the level and direction of discrepancy between a comparative standard and attainments. Subjects pursued a challenging standard in a strenuous activity and received preselected feedback that their effort fell either markedly, moderately, or minimally short of the standard, or that it exceeded the standard. They then recorded their perceived self-efficacy, self-evaluation, and self-set goals, whereupon their motivational level was measured. In accord with prediction, perceived self-efficacy contributes to motivation across a wide range of discrepancy conditions. Self-evaluation operates as an influential motivator only when attainments fall markedly or moderately short of a comparative standard. Self-set goals contribute to motivation at all discrepancy levels except when attainments are markedly discrepant from the standard. The relevant self-influences operating in concert at particular discrepancy levels explain a substantial amount of the variance in motivaion.     

Personality change influences mortality in older men

Previous studies have indicated that high neuroticism is associated with early mortality. However, recent work suggests that people's level of neuroticism changes over long periods of time. We hypothesized that such changes in trait neuroticism affect mortality risk. Growth-curve parameters (levels and slopes) that quantified the trajectories of neuroticism change over 12 years were used to predict 18-year risk of mortality among 1,663 aging men. Proportional hazards models were used to estimate mortality risk from level and slope parameters, controlling for objective and subjective health, depression, and age. Although a parallel analysis of extraversion showed no significant effects, level and slope of neuroticism interacted in their effect on mortality. Men who had both a high average level of neuroticism and an increasing level of neuroticism over time had much lower survival than men without that combination. These findings suggest that it is not just the level of personality traits, but their direction of change, that is related to mortality.     

Retardation of autoshaping following pretraining with unpredictable food: Effects of changing the context between pretraining and testing

In Experiment 1, pigeons exposed to US ONLY pretraining were observed to be retarded in the acquisition of autoshaping relative to naive controls; however, gross changes in contextual stimuli between pretraining and testing alleviated the retardation effect. In Experiment 2, groups of pigeons exposed to CS ONLY, US ONLY, or random CS-US presentations (TRC) were tested for the acquisition of autoshaping. The US ONLY and TRC groups were retarded relative to naive controls. The context change manipulation eliminated the US ONLY retardation effect and attenuated, but did not eliminate, the TRC retardation effect. Context blocking accounts for the US ONLY effect and contributes to the TRC effect; however, context-independent retardation following TRC pretraining suggests the operation of the learned irrelevance cognition.     

Differential effects of personality on access to various long-term memory codes

Arousal, as indexed by personality measures, has been related to memory encoding, organization, and retrieval. In an attempt to investigate one of the component information-processing mechanisms underlying both encoding and retrieval, the effects of introversion-extraversion on performance in a simultaneous matching task was investigated. As predicted from earlier research, personality did not influence performance on a physical identity matching task but extraverts were faster than introverts in making taxonomic category matches (a semantic task). Somewhat unexpectedly, extraverts were also faster at making “homophone” identity matches. Arousal, then, appears to influence access to long-term memory codes of any type—a characteristic that may be reflected in tests of both encoding and retrieval.