Failing time after time: time perspective,procrastination, and cognitive reappraisal in goal failure

This research novelly explores how Future Time Perspective (FTP) plays a role in reflecting on goal failure and striving for future goals. Participants (N = 139) completed questionnaires assessing recent goal failure, procrastination, emotion regulation and FTP, then coded as either High or Low in FTP. Results support hypotheses that despite goal failure, those high in FTP procrastinated less, planned more and used more cognitive reappraisal strategies. Further, procrastination and cognitive reappraisal significantly predicted FTP scores. Thus, goal failure may be an essential part of learning how to achieve high self‐regulation goals. However, it may discourage some from trying again, particularly those low in FTP. Findings suggest the FTP may offer a strategy to aid attainment of important high self‐regulated, long‐term goals.     

Methods of time sampling: A reappraisal of momentary time sampling and partial interval recording

We compared the accuracy of momentary time sampling (MTS) and partial interval recording (PIR) in estimating both absolute behavioral levels and relative change. A computer randomly generated runs of pseudobehavior varying in duration and rate and simulated MTS and PIR of each run. Results indicated that when estimating absolute behavioral levels, duration rather than rate should be used as the dependent measure, and MTS is more accurate than PIR. In contrast, PIR is the more sensitive method for detecting relative changes in behavioral levels, although, at high rates, PIR tends to underestimate the degree of change.     

Behavioral estimates of interhemispheric transmission time and the signal detection method: A reappraisal

On the basis of a review of the literature, Bashore (1981) concluded that only simple reaction time experiments with manual responses yielded consistent behavioral estimates of interhemispheric transmission time. A closer look at the data, however, revealed that these experiments were the only ones in which large numbers of observations were invariably obtained from many subjects. To investigate whether the methodological flaw was the origin of Bashore’s conclusion, two experiments were run in which subjects had to react to lateralized light flashes. The first experiment dealt with manual reactions, the second with verbal reactions. Each experiment included a condition without catch trials (i.e., simple reaction time) and two conditions with catch trials. Catch trials were trials in which no stimulus was given and in which the response was to be withheld. Both experiments returned consistent estimates of interhemispheric transmission time in the range of 2–3 msec. No differences were found between the simple reaction time condition and the signal detection conditions with catch trials. Data were analyzed according to the variable criterion theory. This showed that the effect of catch trials, as well as the effect of interhemispheric transmission, was situated at the height of the detection criterion, and not in the rate of the information transmission.     

Treating bed time resistance with the bed time pass: a systematic replication and component analysis with 3-year-olds

Bedtime resistance, a common pediatric problem, that was displayed by 4 unrelated 3-year-old children was treated with the bedtime pass (i.e., provision of a small notecard exchangeable for one trip out of the bedroom after bedtime) plus extinction. Bedtime resistance was eliminated for all participants. Further, treatment did not produce extinction bursts, as is common when using extinction procedures alone. Component analysis with 1 participant suggested that use of both components of the intervention produced the best outcomes. Findings extend the literature on the treatment of pediatric bedtime resistance as well as the application of behavior analysis to clinical psychology and pediatric care.     

It's Complicated: Corporate Sustainability and the Uneasiness of Life Cycle Assessment

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a technique and field of expertise aimed at modeling the complete ‘cradle-to-grave’ life of goods and services, as well as their multiple impacts on environmental and human well-being. Although not new, in recent years LCA has become a central tool in corporate and government initiatives to improve overall product sustainability. These initiatives show how corporate supply chains have become increasingly important sites and objects of knowledge production. But the production process is not straightforward. LCA practitioners must navigate complicated relationships with corporations that serve as both clients and sources of vital information. The challenges of generating knowledge deemed both credible and useful are compounded by the complexity, diversity and contingency of product life cycles, as well as by ongoing debates about exactly how product sustainability should be modeled and assessed. While some of these challenges are unique to LCA, others reflect tensions common to many fields that assess corporate conduct in order to improve it.     

Positive and negative symptoms of schizotypy and the Five-factor model: a domain and facet level analysis

In this study, we investigated the Five-factor model in the concurrent prediction of positive symptom schizotypy as measured by the Magical Ideation (Eckblad & Chapman, 1983) and Perceptual Aberration (Chapman, Chapman, & Raulin, 1978) scales and negative symptom schizotypy as measured by the Physical Anhedonia (Chapman, Chapman, & Raulin, 1976) and Revised Social Anhedonia (Eckblad, Chapman, Chapman, & Mishlove, 1982; Mishlove & Chapman, 1985) scales. Previous studies suggest that these measures reflect the core symptoms found in schizotypal and schizoid personality disorder (Bailey, West, Widiger, & Freiman, 1993). Negative symptoms were significantly predicted by Neuroticism (+), Extraversion (-), Openness (-), and Agreeableness (-) domains of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992). Additionally, positive symptoms were significantly predicted by Neuroticism (+), Openness (+), and Agreeableness (-). In addition, we examined the validity of lower order traits in de- scribing these symptoms of character pathology. These findings lend further support for the use of domain and facet scales of the NEO-PI-R in the identification of personality pathology.     

Evidence for serial coercion: a time course analysis using the visual-world paradigm

Metonymic verbs like start or enjoy often occur with artifact-denoting complements (e.g., The artist started the picture) although semantically they require event-denoting complements (e.g., The artist started painting the picture). In case of artifact-denoting objects, the complement is assumed to be type shifted (or coerced) into an event to conform to the verb's semantic restrictions. Psycholinguistic research has provided evidence for this kind of enriched composition: readers experience processing difficulty when faced with metonymic constructions compared to non-metonymic controls. However, slower reading times for metonymic constructions could also be due to competition between multiple interpretations that are being entertained in parallel whenever a metonymic verb is encountered. Using the visual-world paradigm, we devised an experiment which enabled us to determine the time course of metonymic interpretation in relation to non-metonymic controls. The experiment provided evidence in favor of a non-competitive, serial coercion process.     

Inhibition and blindness to response-compatible stimuli: a reappraisal

Recent studies show that the preparation of an action can interfere with the concurrent detection and identification of objects that share features with this action, a phenomenon termed blindness to response-compatible stimuli. In order to account for the blindness effect, an integration mechanism for response features similar to the one suggested for object features has been proposed. In the present article, we propose an alternative explanation, namely an action-effect inhibition mechanism. This mechanism was demonstrated in two versions of a dual-task experiment using a primary stop-signal task. The results showed that when the primary response was withheld (signal-inhibit trials), this resulted in lower identification rates for compatible secondary task stimuli. On the other hand, we did not find any evidence for a blindness effect when the primary response was executed (no-signal trials). Additionally we found that identification rates depended on the time course of the inhibition process as estimated from our data. Consequently, the blindness effect seems to result from the requirement to inhibit the response, perhaps even if only temporary.     

Sympathetic nervous system and pain: a clinical reappraisal

The target article discusses various aspects of the relationship between the sympathetic system and pain. To this end, the patients under study are divided into three groups. In the first group, called "reflex sympathetic dystrophy" (RSD), the syndrome can be characterized by a triad of autonomic, motor, and sensory symptoms, which occur in a distally generalized distribution. The pain is typically felt deeply and diffusely, has an orthostatic component, and is suppressed by the ischemia test. Under those circumstances, the pain is likely to respond to sympatholytic interventions. In a second group, called "sympathetically maintained pain" (SMP) syndrome, the principal symptoms are spontaneous pain, which is felt superficially and has no orthostatic component, and allodynia. These symptoms, typically confined to the zone of a lesioned nerve, may also be relieved by sympathetic blocks. Since the characteristics of the pain differ between RSD and SMP, the underlying kind of sympathetic-sensory coupling may also vary between these cases. A very small third group of patients exhibits symptoms of both RSD and SMP. The dependence or independence of pain on sympathetic function reported in most published studies seems to be questionable because the degree of technical success of the block remains uncertain. Therefore, pain should not be reported as sympathetic function independent until the criteria for a complete sympathetic block have been established and satisfied.     

Compulsive buying and the Five Factor Model of personality: A facet analysis

In recent years, the broad dimensions of the Five-Factor Model have been an object of an increasing interest in the compulsive buying field. Nevertheless, the absence of studies that analyse the FFM facets in compulsive buyers is surprising. This study, employing the NEO-PI-R, intends to assess whether there are differences in both facets and broad traits, in three groups with low (n = 792), moderate (n = 456), and high (n = 117) compulsive buying propensities. The results confirm that the high propensity group presents the highest significant levels in neuroticism and the lowest in conscientiousness and agreeableness. Whereas all neuroticism and conscientiousness’ facets establish significant differences among the groups (the largest correspond to anxiety and impulsivity, and dutifulness and self-discipline, respectively), only some significant differences for agreeableness are established (namely, straightforwardness, altruism, trust, and modesty). Finally, even though there are no differences between groups in extraversion and openness factors, extraversion’s excitement-seeking, positive emotions and assertiveness facets, and openness’ aesthetics and ideas facets do establish significant differences. Generally speaking, these findings advocate the need to analyse facets, in addition to the broad factors, in the effort to advance our understanding about the elements that make up the personality structure of the compulsive buyer.     

Self-monitoring: appraisal and reappraisal

Theory and research on self-monitoring have accumulated into a sizable literature on the impact of variation in the extent to which people cultivate public appearances in diverse domains of social functioning. Yet self-monitoring and its measure, the Self-Monitoring Scale, are surrounded by controversy generated by conflicting answers to the critical question, Is self-monitoring a unitary phenomenon? A primary source of answers to this question has been largely neglected--the Self-Monitoring Scale's relations with external criteria. We propose a quantitative method to examine the self-monitoring literature and thereby address major issues of the controversy. Application of this method reveals that, with important exceptions, a wide range of external criteria tap a dimension directly measured by the Self-Monitoring Scale. We discuss what this appraisal reveals about with self-monitoring is and is not.     

Implicit learning of a repeated segment in continuous tracking: a reappraisal

Several prior studies (e.g., Shea, Wulf, Whitacre, & Park, 2001; Wulf & Schmidt, 1997) have apparently demonstrated implicit learning of a repeated segment in continuous-tracking tasks. In two conceptual replications of these studies, we failed to reproduce the original findings. However, these findings were reproduced in a third experiment, in which we used the same repeated segment as that used in the Wulf et al. studies. Analyses of the velocity and the acceleration of the target suggests that this repeated segment could be easier to track than the random segments serving as control, accounting for the results of Wulf and collaborators. Overall these experiments suggest that learning a repeated segment in continuous-tracking tasks may be much more difficult than learning from a repeated sequence in conventional serial reaction time tasks. A possible explanation for this difference is outlined.