Demand characteristics and self-report measures of imaginary audience sensitivity: implications for interpreting age differences in adolescent egocentrism.

Self-consciousness during early adolescence has been explained as an outcome of adolescent egocentrism, in which adolescents create an imaginary audience (IA) of attentive, critical peers. The possibility that such self-consciousness might result from contact with peers who are more attentive and critical than those encountered during childhood or adulthood has not been considered. Study 1 tested whether young adults, who are not theoretically susceptible to IA, could be made to receive high scores on IA and self-consciousness measures by having them complete a procedure in 1 of 3 laboratory conditions-a critical audience, a noncritical audience, or no audience. However, participants in the critical-audience condition received significantly lower IA and self-consciousness scores than participants in the no-audience condition did. Study 2 tested whether the directions given to Study 1 participants might have been responsible for the unexpected findings. Results indicated that participants instructed to give mature-sounding responses received lower IA/self-consciousness scores than did those asked to report their honest opinions. Together, the results of Studies 1 and 2 indicated that survey measures of IA are subject to demand characteristics and highlighted the need to interpret with caution age differences in IA as traditionally assessed.     

Local dominance in health risk perception

Local comparisons with a few people displace the influence of general comparisons with many people during self-evaluation of performance and ability. The current research examined whether this local dominance effect obtains in the domain of health risk perception, an outcome of critical importance given its direct relation to preventative health behaviours. Participants received manipulated feedback indicating that their risk of diabetes (Study 1) or a serious car accident (Study 2) ranked above average or below average relative to numerous peers. Additionally, some participants were told that their risk ranked highest or lowest relative to a few peers. Participants evaluated their risk as significantly higher when they only knew that it ranked above average than below average. However, this effect was eliminated among participants who received additional local comparison information. These findings highlight the potential biasing influence of local comparison on everyday health judgment and behaviour.     

The processing of affectively valenced stimuli: The role of surprise

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that the surprise mechanism activates a threat detection system that prioritises the processing of threat-related stimuli. In Experiment 1, participants responded to a dot that appeared during the presentation of two words. In the critical trial, one of the two words was either pleasant or unpleasant. In Experiment 2, depending on the condition, the participants had to decide whether at least one of two simultaneously presented pictures depicted either a pleasant or an unpleasant stimulus. In the critical trial, both a pleasant and an unpleasant picture appeared. In both experiments, the stimuli in the critical trial were presented either during routine behaviour or in the context of a surprising event. The results showed that during routine behaviour unpleasant stimuli received more attentive resources than pleasant stimuli only if the affective valence of the stimuli was action-relevant (Experiment 2). In contrast, in the context of surprise, unpleasant words engaged more attentive resources than pleasant words although they were action-irrelevant (Experiment 1). In addition, in the context of surprise, the decision time increase was more pronounced in the pleasant than in the unpleasant experimental group. This finding was interpreted as evidence that the threat detection system of the surprise mechanism initially searches for a threat-related stimulus.     

Gender and Age Group Differences in Mass Media and Interpersonal Influences on Body Dissatisfaction Among Chinese Adolescents

Despite evidence that middle adolescent girls (ages 14–17) experience more body dissatisfaction than early adolescent girls (ages 10–13) or boys at these ages, researchers have rarely considered whether such differences are observed regarding factors related to body dissatisfaction, particularly within non-Western samples. To address this issue, gender and age group differences in media and interpersonal influences on body dissatisfaction were assessed among early and middle adolescents living in Chongqing, China. In Study 1, 595 boys and 648 girls completed self report measures of demographics, public self-consciousness and appearance-based social pressure, comparisons, and conversations. Compared to boys, girls reported more appearance pressure from mass media and close interpersonal networks (friends, family), appearance comparisons with peers, and appearance conversations with friends; these effects were qualified by interactions with age group, indicating media and interpersonal factors were more prominent in the lives of middle adolescent girls than other groups. Effects were observed independent of body mass index (BMI) and public self-consciousness. In Study 2, 738 girls and 661 boys completed the same measures and a body dissatisfaction scale. By and large, gender and age differences were replicated. Middle adolescent girls also reported more body dissatisfaction than peers did. Perceived appearance pressure from mass media and interpersonal ties were both implicated in mediation analyses to explain this gender × age group effect.     

Reinvestment: Examining convergent,discriminant, and criterion validity using psychometric and behavioral measures

Given scarce external validity available to date concerning the reinvestment construct, the aim of this four-study research project was to further explore the validity of the Movement-Specific Reinvestment Scale and the Decision-Specific Reinvestment Scale, using psychometric and behavioral measures. Study 1 showed that deliberative participants had a higher reinvestment tendency than intuitive participants. Study 2 showed that reinvestment was linked to self-consciousness, rumination, perfectionism, and had satisfactory test–retest reliability. Moreover, it provided some potential insights on the development of reinvestment due to parental criticisms. Study 3 indicated that high decision reinvestors performed worse than their low decision reinvestor counterparts in a visual search task under pressure. Study 4 showed that older participants had a lower reinvestment score, and that reinvestment was associated with higher motor imagery ability, challenging the idea that reinvestment can only be seen as detrimental to performance.     

Autonomy and defensiveness: experimentally increasing adaptive responses to health-risk information via priming and self-affirmation

Health information is often ineffective in motivating health-behaviour change. One way to improve information effectiveness might be to highlight autonomy, which is associated with less defensiveness and more adaptive psychological functioning. Three studies assessed whether experimentally elevating autonomy led to adaptive responses to risk information about alcohol consumption. In Study 1 (N?=?104), participants completed either an autonomy prime or a neutral prime task and read either risk information about the dangers of alcohol consumption or neutral information. Among high-risk participants in the autonomy prime condition, those who read risk information reported greater autonomous motivation towards moderate alcohol consumption than did those in the neutral information condition. Study 2 (N?=?157) compared two types of autonomy prime tasks with a neutral condition. For high-risk participants who read risk information, the autonomy prime tasks elicited greater autonomous motivation, more positive attitudes and greater intentions to drink in moderation than did the neutral prime task. Study 3 (N?=?130) found that for high-risk participants who read risk information, autonomy prime participants reported less subsequent alcohol consumption than did neutral prime participants. The results are discussed in terms of the benefits of autonomy for adaptive responses to risk information.     

The effect of vicarious reinforcement on attentive behavior in the classroom

The effect of social reinforcement delivered to target subjects on the attentive behavior of adjacent peers was examined in a classroom setting. In a combined reversal and multiple baseline design, two pairs of mentally retarded children were sequentially exposed to three reinforcement phases. After baseline rates of attentive behavior were obtained, praise was delivered to the target subject in each subject pair for attentive behavior. After a reversal phase, praise was delivered contingently to target subjects for inattentive behavior. In a final phase, contingent praise for attentive behavior was reinstated for the target subjects. Throughout the study, nontarget subjects received no direct reinforcers. The results indicated a vicarious reinforcement effect. Reinforcing attentive behavior of target subjects increased this behavior in adjacent peers. However, reinforcing inattentive behavior of target subjects also increased the attentive behavior of adjacent peers. The effects obtained through vicarious reinforcement were considered to reflect the discriminative stimulus properties of reinforcement, which may serve as a cue for the performance of nonreinforced peers.     

Self-Consciousness,Self-presentation,and Performance Under Pressure: Who Chokes,and When?

Choking under pressure by persons low and high in self-consciousness was examined as a function of two sources of performance pressure: audience and performance feedback. Subjects competed with an alleged opponent on a psychomotor task while alone, before a supportive (same team) audience, or a nonsupportive (opposing team) audience. Before the critical trial, subjects learned that their team was either somewhat ahead of or somewhat behind the opposing team. Self-consciousness, audience, and feedback interacted to affect performance during the critical trial. When disappointing the audience was likely, subjects low in self-consciousness choked. Subjects high in self-consciousness tended to choke when they were told that their team had fallen behind. It is suggested that persons who are low and high in self-consciousness experience different types of performance pressure due to disparate self-presentational motives.     

The moderating effect of private self-consciousness on the stability of vocational interests

This study investigated the potential moderating effect of private self-consciousness on the stability of vocational interest inventory scores and profiles. We hypothesized that participants higher in private self-consciousness would have more stable interest scores and profiles on the Self-Directed Search (SDS; Holland, Fritzsche, & Powell, 1994) across a 12-week time interval than would participants lower in private self-consciousness. Results revealed that private self-consciousness did moderate the stability of SDS Enterprising interest scores. Contrary to our hypothesis, private self-consciousness did not moderate the stability of the other five SDS interest scores or SDS interest profile stability.     

Children use nonverbal cues from an adult to evaluate peers

What factors contribute to children’s tendency to view individuals as having different traits and abilities? The present research tested whether young children are influenced by adults’ nonverbal behaviors when making inferences about peers. In Study 1, participants (aged 5–6 years) viewed multiple videos of interactions between a “teacher” and two “students”; all individuals were unfamiliar to participants. In each clip, the students behaved similarly, but the teacher did not: She either smiled, nodded, touched, or shook her head at one student, and she looked at the other student with a neutral expression. In Study 1, children tended to infer that students who received more positive behaviors from the teacher were smarter, nicer, and stronger. Study 2 pitted differences in the teacher’s behavior against differences in the students’ performance. When asked who was smarter, children selected lower-performing students who received more positive nonverbal cues from the teacher rather than higher-performing students who received less positive cues. These findings indicate that an authority figure’s nonverbal behaviors can influence children’s inferences about others and shed light on one mechanism guiding young children’s evaluations of people in their social world.     

The Cloze procedure as a test of plagiarism: the influence of text readability

The authors investigated whether scores on the Cloze procedure as a test of plagiarism would be significantly affected by the readability of text. Undergraduates were asked to either paraphrase or plagiarize legal documents. Approximately half of the participants in the paraphrase condition received documents that were difficult to read, whereas the other half received versions that were easy to read. About 2 weeks later, participants completed Cloze tests that were based on their rewritten paraphrased or plagiarized versions of the documents. As predicted, Cloze scores from the plagiarize condition were significantly lower than those from the paraphrase condition. However, difficult-to-read documents, whether they had been paraphrased or plagiarized, yielded significantly lower Cloze scores than their easier-to-read counterparts. In spite of some methodological shortcomings, the results of this study suggest caution in the use of the Cloze procedure as a test of plagiarism.     

The impostor phenomenon: self-perceptions, reflected appraisals, and interpersonal strategies

Three studies tested theoretical assumptions regarding the impostor phenomenon. In Study 1, participants completed measures of impostorism, rated themselves, and indicated how they thought other people regarded them. Contrary to standard conceptualizations of impostorism, high impostors were characterized by a combination of low self-appraisals and low reflected appraisals. Study 2 was an experiment designed to determine whether the behaviors associated with the impostor phenomenon are interpersonal strategies. Participants were told that they were expected to perform either better or worse than they had previously predicted on an upcoming test, then expressed their reactions anonymously or publicly. High impostors expressed lower performance expectations than low impostors only when their responses were public. When expectations for performance were low, participants high in impostorism responded differently under public than private conditions. Study 3 examined the possibility that high scores on measures of impostorism may reflect two types of impostors--true impostors (who believe that others perceive them too positively) and strategic impostors (who only claim that they are not as good as other people think). The results did not support this distinction; however, evidence for the strategic nature of impostorism was again obtained. Although people may experience true feelings of impostorism, these studies suggest that the characteristics attributed to so-called impostors are partly interpersonal, self-presentational behaviors designed to minimize the implications of poor performance.     

Aggression, alcohol dependency, and self-consciousness among high school students of divorced and nondivorced parents.

134 high school students from a small high school in north central Kansas completed the MacAndrew Alcoholism Scale, Fenigstein, et al.'s Self-consciousness Scale, and Zaks' Aggression Scale. Analyses of variance showed significant differences between boys and girls but not among grades. On the aggression and alcohol measures boys scored higher than girls, but lower on public self-consciousness. Youth of divorced parents scored significantly higher than those of nondivorced parents on aggression, private self-consciousness, and general self-consciousness. Aggression scores were significantly and positively correlated with those on the alcohol and private self-consciousness scales. When students' alcoholism scores indicate problems with alcohol, their scores on aggression indicate greater aggression and their private self-consciousness scores indicate sensitivity toward events in their environment, then having concerns about inner self can inhibit the action required for change. MacAndrew scores correlated significantly and negatively with scores on social anxiety about self-consciousness. When MacAndrew scores indicated problems with alcohol, the students' scores on social anxiety about self-consciousness suggested confidence in social settings, being at ease interacting with people. The present study involved students from a single rural district so increased understanding will require more extensive research if strategies for prevention and intervention are to be developed and utilized.     

Subtyping and social consensus: the role of the audience in the maintenance of stereotypic beliefs

Two studies investigated the effect of stereotypes held by a prospective audience on participants' reactions to a stereotype‐disconfirming member. In Study 1, participants formed an impression of a positive disconfirming gay in order to communicate it to an audience known to hold a negative versus positive stereotype about gays. As predicted, participants subtyped the deviant more in the former than in the latter case. Moreover, participants' stereotype at the end of the study mirrored the audience's assumed stereotypes about gays. In Study 2, participants learned about a stereotype allegedly held by an ingroup or an outgroup audience about Belgians and then received information about a Belgian who disconfirmed the stereotype. As predicted, the deviant was seen as less typical when he violated the stereotype held by an ingroup than by an outgroup audience. Also, participants' stereotype about Belgians was more similar to the one held by the ingroup audience. A mediational analysis confirmed that participants subtyped the disconfirming member in order to embrace the stereotype advocated by the ingroup audience. Results are discussed in light of recent models of stereotype change. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of behavioral inhibition on interactions in mixed-sex dyads

The present studies assessed the effect of behavioral inhibition on interactions of college students in mixed-sex groups. In Study 1, 20 participants were arranged into two dyadic groups based on self-rated measures of approach/withdrawal behavior. These dyads (inhibited men/uninhibited women; inhibited women/uninhibited men) were videotaped during an unstructured 5-min. interaction in a laboratory. Time series analysis indicated greater behavioral covariation in the inhibited men/uninhibited women dyads and less behavioral covariation in the inhibited women/uninhibited men dyads. Additional analyses indicated a relationship between inhibition and comfort experienced during the interaction. Inhibited participants, particularly women, reported feeling uncomfortable while interacting with an uninhibited male partner. A second study corroborated the findings reported in Study 1 and also noted elevated heart rate in the inhibited women. This increased discomfort in women appeared to be related to heightened self-consciousness during the interaction.     

Attachment styles,shame, guilt,and collaborative problem-solving orientations

The present study explored relations among adult attachment styles, shame- and guilt-proneness, and several measures of relationship problem-solving attitudes and behaviors. Participants were 142 undergraduates (32 males, 110 females) who completed both categorical and continuous measures of adult attachment, as well as self-report measures of the other constructs under investigation. Most participants (93%) were currently involved in either exclusive or casual dating relationships at the time of the study. Controlling for respondents’dating status, results indicated that participants’attachment styles were significantly related to both shame-proneness and collaborative problem-solving, Preoccupied and fearful students were more shame-prone than were their secure and dismissive peers, and secure participants reported significantly higher collaboration scores relative to their fearful counterparts. As expected, shame and guilt scores were differentially related to collaborative problem-solving, and participants’attachment security significantly moderated observed shame-guilt correlations. Finally, respondents’guilt and shame scores partly mediated observed relations between adult attachment styles and collaborative problem-solving orientations.     

Effectiveness of peer-led dissonance-based eating disorder prevention groups: Results from two randomized pilot trials

ObjectiveThe present preliminary trials tested whether undergraduate peer leaders can effectively deliver a dissonance-based eating disorder prevention program, which could facilitate broad dissemination of this efficacious intervention.MethodIn Study 1, female undergraduates (N = 171) were randomized to peer-led groups, clinician-led groups, or an educational brochure control condition. In Study 2, which improved a design limitation of Study 1 by using completely parallel outcome measures across conditions, female undergraduates (N = 148) were randomized to either immediate peer-led groups or a waitlist control condition.ResultsIn Study 1, participants in peer- and clinician-led groups showed significantly greater pre–post reductions in risk factors and eating disorder symptoms than controls (M d = .64 and .98 respectively), though clinician- versus peer-led groups had higher attendance and competence ratings, and produced stronger effects at posttest (M d = .32) and at 1-year follow-up (M d = .26). In Study 2, participants in peer-led groups showed greater pre–post reductions in all outcomes than waitlist controls (M d = .75).ConclusionsResults provide novel evidence that dissonance-based eating disorder prevention groups led by undergraduate peers are feasible and produce greater reductions in eating disorder risk factors and symptoms than minimal-intervention control conditions, but indicate that effects are smaller for peer- versus clinician-led groups.     

The locus of maximum weighting within attentive fields: An empirical investigation

Fixation within a modified Poggendorff display was used to assess Pressey's hypothesized construct of attentive fields. In Experiment I the results for fixating near the bottom of the display supported the predictions based on Pressey's construct; however, results from fixating near the top of the display were more easily explained by a tilt effect noted by Zajac (1957).

Experiment II and III replicated the first experiment and obtained independent measures of the tilt effect. After the tilt effect was subtracted from the Poggendorff scores, the prediction based upon the attentive field construct was supported in the top fixation condition; however, only Experiment II provided support for the prediction in the bottom fixation condition.