Depth of processing and recall of threat material in fearful and nonfearful individuals

Although many studies have examined the nature of memory distortions in anxious individuals, few have considered biases in specific memory processes, such as encoding or retrieval. To investigate whether the presentation of threat material facilitates encoding biases, spider fearful (n=63), blood fearful (n=73), and nonfearful (n=75) participants encoded spider related, blood related, and neutral words as a function of three levels of processing (i.e., structural, semantic, and self referent). Participants subsequently completed either a free recall or a recognition task. All participants demonstrated a partial depth of processing effect, such that they recalled more words encoded in the self referent condition than in the other two conditions, but groups did not differ in their recall of stimuli as a function of word type. Relative to participants in the other groups, spider fearful participants had fewer spider related intrusions in the recall condition, and they made fewer errors in responding to structural and semantic encoding questions when spider related words were presented. These results contribute to an increasingly large body of literature suggesting that anxious individuals are not characterized by a memory bias toward threat, and they raise the possibility that individuals with spider fears process threat-relevant information differently than individuals with blood fears.     

Immediate and final recall of pictures and words with written or oral tests

Immediate and delayed recall of pictures and words was examined as a function of semantic or nonsemantic orienting tasks and the type of test (written or oral). As expected, semantic tasks generally led to greater final recall than nonsemantic tasks, with semantic tasks even producing positive recency on the delayed test. The evidence for a picture-word difference was largely restricted to the final recall of items involved in negative decisions; for such items the advantage of semantic tasks was apparent only for pictures. This suggests that "congruity" may be an important factor in picture-word differences, with such differences more apparent for the weaker items from negative judgments. Type of test did not seem to be a major factor in determining level of recall, suggesting that reinspecting the recall protocol during a written immediate test does not contribute substantially to final recall performance.     

Influence of denial (situation redefinition) and projection on anxiety associated with threat to self-esteem.

Subjects in a threat condition were informed that they had failed an important test while subjects in a nonthreat condition were not told that they had failed. To manipulate the use and timing of coping strategies for dealing with threat, subjects were told to (a) redefine the nature and importance of the test before receiving feedback, (b) redefine the nature and importance of the test after feedback, or (c) estimate the performance of their friends on the test (i.e., project) after receiving feedback. Repeated measures of subjective anxiety and pulse rate indicated that (a) the threat manipulation was effective in increasing stress, (b) redefinition occurring before the onset of threat was effective in eliminating stress, and (c) redefinition occuring after the onset of threat was ineffective in reducing stress. Projection reduced the report of subjective anxiety. The results revealed factors that influence coping strategy effectiveness and resolved conflicts in previous findings.     

Achievement motivation in relation to achievement-related recall,performance, and urine flow,a marker associated with release of vasopressin

Administration of the pituitary hormone, arginine vasopressin (AVP), enhances memory in animals and humans. Since AVP is the antidiuretic hormone, its release can be inferred from reductions in urine flow. Forty-six male adults recalled the contents of a complex story and then either were exposed to achievement arousal or were not. Significantly more of the subjects in the aroused than the nonaroused condition showed a decrease in urine flow, and the greater the decrease in urine flow among the achievement-aroused subjects, the better the recall of achievement-related story content 24 hours later. Subjects high inn Achievement, in the achievement-oriented condition, showed lower urine output at the outset of the second day and greater improvement in learning to unscramble words. Since lower urine output was also related to improvement in unscrambling words, achievement arousal may have released AVP which in turn may have facilitated achievement-related retention and performance.I am greatly indebted to Sean Connelly for assistance in carrying out this research and to Dr. Franklin Epstein of the Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, for helping me to understand how the kidney functions in producing urine.     

The costs of selecting power bases or messages associated with the opposite sex

A study was conducted to examine the interpersonal costs of using power bases associated with the opposite sex. The study also tested two hypotheses regarding influence differences associated with two statistical interactions: (1) the sex of the source by the sex-type of the message, and (2) the sex of the subject by the sex-type of the message. Subjects (N=387) viewed a videotype containing one of six speakers (three males, three females) delivering one of two speeches (about gun control or child care centers) and using one of two power bases (helplessness or expertise). The results indicated that speakers using power bases associated with the opposite sex were liked less and regarded as less competent and qualified than their counterparts. The results also indicated that female speakers aroused more belief in the child care message and male speakers aroused more belief in the gun control message than did the other speaker-message combinations. No significant effects were associated with the interaction between subjects' sex and message. Among other findings, female subjects generally rated the messages and the speakers more positively than did male subjects.     

The effect of instruction with relational and item-specific elaborative strategies on young children's organization and free recall

One hundred and sixty second-grade children were assigned on the basis of a free recall pretest to four instruction conditions and were given a series of lists of pictures for free recall. For three groups, the instructions were directed at encoding either (a) list organizational information, (b) item-specific semantic information, or (c) organizational and individual item information, while the fourth group constituted a “No-training” control with standard free recall instructions. The subjects received either related or unrelated lists during the training phase and related or unrelated lists during two post-tests, immediately following and 1 week after training. For both types of lists, instructions emphasizing list organization were more effective than those emphasizing item-specific elaboration. Subjects given individual item elaborative instructions showed levels of recall which were comparable to those of the control subjects. While the combined effect of organizational and individual item processing did not exceed the performance produced by organizational instructions alone, the degree of generalization was greater for subjects processing both kinds of information, especially when subjects received related lists during training.     

A meta‐analysis of the differential relations of traditional and cyber‐victimization with internalizing problems

This meta‐analysis examined the associations between cyber‐victimization and internalizing problems controlling for the occurrence of traditional victimization. Twenty independent samples with a total of 90,877 participants were included. Results confirmed the significant intercorrelation between traditional and cyber‐victimization (r = .43). They both have medium‐to‐large bivariate correlations with internalizing problems. Traditional victimization (sr = .22) and cyber‐victimization (sr = .12) were also uniquely related to internalizing problems. The difference in the relations between each type of victimization and internalizing problems was small (differential d = .06) and not statistically significant (p = .053). Moderation of these effect sizes by sample characteristics (e.g., age and proportion of girls) and study features (e.g., whether a definition of bullying was provided to participants and the time frame used as reference) was investigated. Results are discussed within the extant literature on cyber‐aggression and cyber‐victimization and future directions are proposed.

     

Effects of differential reinforcement and task difficulty on preschoolers' compliance with teacher instructions

Preschool children in day schools were given instructions to complete certain tasks. Four tasks were given of two types and two levels of difficulty. In each condition compliance with at most one instruction (one task) was reinforced. In two similar experiments, with six children, general results were: compliance with easy tasks was maintained without reinforcement when any task compliance was reinforced; compliance for hard tasks remained high only when that specific task was reinforced. Thus, generalization of compliance with instructions varied with task difficulty. The setting and procedure for both studies were designed to reduce possible coercive features of laboratory studies of generalized performance. Results show generalized performance can occur under naturalistic conditions. The effect of effort, as a response characteristic affecting generalized performance, is discussed.     

Personality and occupational markers of ‘solid citizenship’ are associated with having fewer children

Investigating associations between personality and reproductive fitness may reveal the adaptive significance of human behavioural traits. What we dub ‘solid-citizenship’ personality characteristics such as self-control, diligence and responsibility may repay study from an evolutionary perspective as they protect against negative life-outcomes. We explored associations between reproductive fitness and personality questionnaire markers of solid citizenship in 4981 women from four Australian samples. We also examined relations between reproductive fitness and army discharge status, an applied measure of solid citizenship, in 15,283 Vietnam War-era military veterans. In two Australian samples there were significant negative associations between reproductive fitness and personality measures of solid citizenship. Similarly, in the US study honourably discharged servicemen on average fathered significantly fewer children than non-honourably discharged servicemen. Since personality is genetically influenced, our results suggest that genetic variants for solid citizenship may be decreasing in frequency in some populations, in line with other modern findings but in contrast to historical analyses. Causes for this change may include relatively more conscientious women using contraception to prioritise their careers over reproduction and the availability of systematic welfare provisioning.     

Adolescent’s perceptions of differential parenting: Links with attachment style and adolescent adjustment

The study examines whether adolescent twins’ attachment style mediates the association between their perceptions of differential parental treatment and their reported adjustment. Data from a survey of 174 adolescent twins are used to assess the links between twins’ reports of differential parental affection and differential parental control, their attachment style, and their reported personal self‐esteem, social self‐esteem, and anxiety. Twins’ reports of having been disfavored in comparison with their co‐twin were associated with attachment insecurity, anxiety, and lower personal self‐esteem. Attachment was found to mediate the association between the twins’ reports of differential parental affection and their reported anxiety and personal self‐esteem. The strongest evidence for mediation was found for twins’ reports of differential maternal affection in predicting adolescent twins’ anxiety.     

Developmental constraints associated with children's use of the keyword method of foreign language vocabulary learning

Second- and sixth-grade (ages 7 and 11 years, respectively) subjects were instructed to learn simple Spanish vocabulary nouns using the keyword method. To remember a foreign word translation the keyword method user must: (1) associate the foreign word to an English word (the keyword) that sounds like part of the foreign word; and (2) remember an image of the keyword and translation referents interacting. Second-grade keyword users who were provided with interactive pictures remembered more vocabulary items than those who generated their own imagery links when given separate pictures of the keyword and translation referents. Second graders who generated their own linking images when given only the keywords and translation words recalled fewer items than both picture groups, and were not significantly different from control subjects. Sixth graders in the three imagery-link variations performed at comparable levels and better than control subjects. The results are in complete accord with previous speculations about the development of imagery strategies in children.     

The physiology of women’s power motive: Implicit power motivation is positively associated with estradiol levels in women

This study examined the relationship between implicit power motivation (n Power) and salivary estradiol in women. Forty participants completed the Picture Story Exercise, a measure of n Power, and salivary estradiol levels from two saliva samples were determined with radioimmunoassay. We found that n Power was positively associated with estradiol levels. The positive correlation between n Power and estradiol was stronger in single women and women not taking oral contraceptives than in the overall sample of women. These findings replicate those of Stanton and Schultheiss (2007), giving further credence to the argument that women’s dominance striving is positively associated with their endogenous estradiol levels and that both social and biological factors influence the nature of that association.     

Visual aspects of centrally elicited attack behavior in the cat: “Patterned reflexes” associated with selection of and approach to a rat

It has been previously suggested that the electrical brain stimulation which elicits quiet-biting attack in the cat actively affects the way the central nervous system processes visual and tactile information concerned with the reflexes involved in the terminal aspects of attack. In order to examine the effects of brain stimulation on a nonterminal aspect of attack – the stimulated cat's selection of and approach to a rat – cats were implanted with attack-eliciting electrodes in both the lateral hypothalamus and the midbrain ventral tegmental area. These cats were then tested in an 8-ft-long cage, one end of which was divided into three, 2-ft-long parallel compartments, whose openings faced the end of the cage from which the cat commenced its approach. An anesthetized rat was placed at the back of one compartment, a bowl of food at the back of another compartment, and the third compartment contained no object. It was found in the first experiment that the attack elicited by nearly all electrodes was selectively directed at the rat. However, the success of the cat in finding the compartment containing the rat varied dramatically for different electrodes in the same cat. Further, these differences were stable and did not change as the cat gained experience with the task. The results suggested that the stimulation of different brain sites in the same cat differentially affected the visual neural mechanisms involved in guiding a cat to a rat. Previous studies have also suggested that the effects of brain stimulation which elicits quiet-biting attack are largely lateralized to the side of the brain stimulated. In order to determine if the effects of stimulation on the neural mechanisms mediating the visually guided approach of a cat to a rat were also lateralized, attempts were made in a second experiment to disrupt the visual input to one side of the brain by unilaterally transecting the optic tract. It was found that this manipulation interfered with the visually guided selective approach to a rat, if the cat was stimulated through hypothalamic or mid-brain electrodes ipsilateral to the optic tract transection, but not if the hypothalamic or midbrain stimulation was on the contralateral (visually intact) side of the brain. However, any final interpretation of the results was confounded by the finding in all of these cats of a complex syndrome of neglect of all contralateral sensory information.