The S-S construct of expectancy versus the S-R construct of fear: which motivates the acquisition of avoidance behavior?

The authors provided a differential test between stimulus-stimulus (S-S) and stimulus-response (S-R) theory predictions in regard to the roles that the constructs of expectancy and of fear play in maintaining classically conditioned fear responding within the context of a human conditioned-avoidance paradigm. After the participants had developed sustained avoidance responding, their shock electrodes and avoidance response apparatus were removed to enhance the cognitive expectancy that the conditioned stimulus (CS) would not be followed by the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). This manipulation of expectancy was successful in 96% of the participants. The study was conducted over a 2-day period and involved 1 experimental group and 3 control groups. During the test trials, the authors used autonomic and self-report indices of fear to assess the presence or absence of fear to the CS. The data disconfirmed the prediction of the S-S theory that fear to the CS would be extinguished. The authors discuss the implications of this finding for S-S theories and for approaches in cognitive behavior therapy.     

Creativity versus conscientiousness: which is a better predictor of student performance?

This paper examines the extent to which the incremental validity of creative thinking (over and above personality) in the prediction of academic performance may be a function of assessment methods. British university students (N = 307) completed the Alternate Uses Test and Big Five personality inventory at the beginning of the first academic year. Students' academic performance was assessed throughout a 4‐year period via written exams, continuous assessment (tutored seminars) and a supervised dissertation in the final year. Creative thinking was more related to final dissertation marks than to exam and continuous assessment performance (which were associated with Conscientiousness, rather than creative thinking). A follow‐up questionnaire on preferences for different assessment methods revealed that creative thinking was positively related to preference for viva voce (oral) exams, group projects and final dissertation, but negatively associated with preferences for multiple‐choice and essay‐type exams, as well as continuous assessment. Implications are discussed with regard to educational settings, in particular assessment methods. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“Other” behavior and the DRO: The roles of extinction and reinforcement

Jessel et al. (2015) provided some evidence to suggest that “other” behavior is strengthened in the differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO). The present study is a systematic replication of the Jessel et al. procedures. The effects of DRO and extinction on target responding, target-other responding (a response with an established history of reinforcement), and nontarget-other responding emitted by children with intellectual and developmental disabilities and children with no known diagnoses were compared. Other behavior increased in at least one DRO condition for each participant, suggesting that other behavior increases when using DRO, at least initially. Under extinction, target responding and target-other responding decreased to low rates for three of the five participants; however, rates of nontarget-other responding were elevated compared to the DRO condition. These results suggest that increased rates of target-other responding and nontarget-other responding during the DRO condition may be a result of extinction-induced variability.     

Working mothers versus homemakers: Do dreams reflect the changing roles of women?

In order to examine potential psychological changes arising from women's new social roles, 15 working and 15 nonworking mothers were asked to report dreams collected within a period of three weeks. In addition, they were administered the Jackson Research Personality Form. Two dreams from each subject were analyzed with selected scales which previous studies had shown to be sensitive to sex differences. On the personality inventory, working mothers were found to have higher social recognition and achievement motives. On the dream content measures, discriminant analyses showed that the two groups could be statistically differentiated on the basis of several scales. In accordance with the notion of continuity between waking and dreaming, working mothers experienced more unpleasant emotions, more male characters, and less residential dreams settings than homemakers. The latter group, surprisingly, had more overt hostility in its dreams. These results suggest that as the trend toward carrying the dual role of wage earner and homemaker is expanding, the gender differences typically observed in dreams content may decrease. They also suggest that the analysis of dream content may prove useful to study the strategies of women adapting to role changes.     

Gender role identity and dating behavior: What is the relationship?

The influence of gender role identity on dating behaviors of college students was examined using the Bem Sex Role Inventory and a behavioral questionnaire constructed by the author. One hundred and ninety-seven students were classified as androgynous, undifferientated, feminine, or masculine based on their Bem Sex Role Inventory scores. A behavioral questionnaire was used to generate two self-report behavioral indexes: the masculine dating behavior and feminine dating behavior indexes. Results indicated that high-masculine individuals (androgynous and masculine individuals) scored higher on the masculine dating behavior index and that high-feminine individuals (androgynous and feminine individuals) scored higher on the feminine interactional index. The results of this study support the hypothesis that gender role identity influences self-reported dating behavior of college students.     

Do drives drive the train of thought?—Effects of hunger and sexual arousal on mind-wandering behavior

Physiological needs that are currently unfulfilled are known to affect human cognition and behavior. The present study investigates whether and how the temporary activation of two primary physiological needs, namely hunger and sexual arousal, influence both the frequency and the contents of mind-wandering episodes. To induce hunger, one group of participants fasted for a minimum of five hours whereas another group of participants was exposed to audio material with explicit sexual content to provoke sexual arousal. Both groups as well as an additional control group, which had not received hunger instructions and had not been exposed to arousing material of any kind beforehand, performed a reading task during which mind wandering was assessed using a standard experience-sampling method. Results showed that acute hunger but not elevated sexual arousal renders the occurrence of mind-wandering episodes more likely. Induction of both hunger and sexual arousal rendered the occurrence of need-related off-task thoughts more likely and changed time orientations of mind wandering. The present findings are well in line with the assumption that unfulfilled needs regularly achieve cognitive priority and extend the cognitive-priority idea to self-generated thoughts.     

Otherness and the problem of evil: How does that which is other become evil?

In seeking to answer the question “How does that which is other become evil?” the author provides a discussion of four entwined aspects of the issue at stake; (1) difficulty in achieving clarity on the grammar of evil; (2) genocide as a striking illustration of otherness becoming evil; (3) the challenge of postnationalism as a resource for dealing with otherness in the socio-political arena; and (4) the ethico-religious dimension as it relates to the wider problem of evil.     

A multilevel examination of teachers’ occupational commitment: the roles of job resources and disruptive student behavior

Social Psychology of Education - The aim of the current study was to extend knowledge of occupational commitment by examining predictors at the teacher- and school-level. Several job resources...     

Combining the judgments of experts: How many and which ones?

R. M. Hogarth (1978, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 21, 40–46) presents an analytical model which, under certain conditions, may be useful for estimating both the number of experts to include in a staticized group and which experts. This paper reports a study of an important real-world judgment task used to evaluate (1) the extent to which the specified conditions hold and (2) the effect of violations of the conditions on the ability of the model to approximate the actual empirical validities that result from forming such groups. The results indicate that, although the specified conditions hold only moderately well, the model suggested by Hogarth provides a remarkably good approximation to the actual empirical validities of the staticized groups.     

Measuring direct and indirect aggression: behavior of is there a response bias?

Critics of self-report methods suggest that participants are likely to underreport their own negative behaviors given concerns about social desirability. The current study examined the problem of self-report bias by comparing individuals' estimates of their own and others' aggressive behavior. Undergraduate students (95 women, 50 men) completed the Richardson Conflict Response Questionnaire with regard to either their own behavior or that of another person of the same sex. As expected, participants reported significantly less aggression for themselves than for others. However, self and other ratings showed the same pattern of sex differences. These results suggest that, although individuals may underreport their own aggressive behaviors, this tendency may not affect relationships among variables.     

Commentary: What is the Meaning and Utility of the Psychopathy Concept?

The concept and measurement of psychopathy in young people is discussed with respect to five key issues: (1) the respective merits of self-reports and ratings by others; (2) whether callous/unemotional (CU) features may be more appropriately tapped by physiological measures; (3) the possible utility of genetic studies; (4) the distinctiveness of CU from other risk factors for antisocial behavior; and (5) the homogeneity of CU as a construct.     

Prioritizing—The task strategy of the powerful?

Previous research has shown that power increases focus on the main goal when distractor information is present. As a result, high-power people have been described as goal-focused. In real life, one typically wants to pursue multiple goals at the same time. There is a lack of research on how power affects how people deal with situations in which multiple important goals are present. To address this question, 158 participants were primed with high or low power or assigned to a control condition, and were asked to perform a dual-goal task with three difficulty levels. We hypothesized and found that high-power primed people prioritize when confronted with a multiple-goal situation. More specifically, when task demands were relatively low, power had no effect; participants generally pursued multiple goals in parallel. However, when task demands were high, the participants in the high-power condition focused on a single goal whereas participants in the low-power condition continued using a dual-task strategy. This study extends existing power theories and research in the domain of goal pursuit.     

Zeading and reazing: which is faster? The position of the diverging letter in a pseudoword determines reading time

We present evidence that (a) at least some components of the reading process are serial and (b) pseudoword reading is affected by lexical knowledge, even in a transparent orthographic system like Italian. Pseudowords deriving from five-letter words by changing either the first or the fourth letter were presented for reading aloud. Results showed an effect of the position of the diverging letter: Early diverging pseudowords were read more slowly than late diverging pseudowords. The dual-route cascaded (DRC) model (Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon, & Ziegler, 2001) successfully simulated the behavioural data.     

Hume and the Problem of Paternalism: When is Humanity Sufficient?

Hume states that if a group of powerless, rational creatures lived amongst human beings, then humans would be required to treat this species with humanity but not with justice. Michael Ridge has argued that this implies humans would be required to engage in a morally dubious form of paternalism toward this imagined species. I argue that a proper understanding of why this imagined species is excluded from the scope of justice shows Hume has a plausible moral reason for requiring paternalism in this instance. The reason the imagined species is excluded is that they are incapable of feeling what I term “the pain of dependence,” or unease arising from complete dependence upon those who are more powerful. Those capable of the pain of dependence will have reason to resent exclusion from the scope of justice (and the accompanying susceptibility to paternalism). However, I contend that Hume did not think that the imagined species was capable of feeling the pain of dependence. This means that the imagined species would not consider themselves wronged when subject to paternalistic treatment, and, consequently, there is good reason to think the sort of paternalism that Hume's theory allows is not morally objectionable.     

Motor programming: does the choice of the limb which is to carry out the response imply a delay?

In many activities, the human being must quickly decide on the response to be produced following a change in the environment. In some of these situations, the limb that the individual chooses to carry out a response seems to be a significant element in performance. Thus, if the individual carries out the response with the limb closest to the target, the performance can improve because it will take less time to achieve the goal. However, it seems that in these situations, the human being does not take this decrease in movement time into consideration and that the response is carried out with the dominant hand. Why is this so? It may be because the reaction is faster when there doesn't have to be a choice as to which limb will carry out the response. The goal of this study was to check this possibility. In order to do so, the subjects performed a two choice reaction-time task. For this task, some subjects knew beforehand which hand they had to use to carry out the response while other subjects were unaware of this fact. The results of two experiments indicated that the choice of the limb which is to carry out the response requires no particular delay when the movement to be produced is externally guided.     

Who is most likely to seek and give support in the face of agentic and communal threat? The roles of extraversion and agreeableness

Agentic threat tends to elicit support seeking and hinder support provision. Communal threat tends to elicit support seeking and provision. We examined whether the associations between threats and support are moderated by Extraversion and Agreeableness. Three hundred fifty undergraduate students completed questionnaires twice daily across one week, reporting the worst stressor of the half-day, appraisals of agentic and communal threats, and efforts to seek and provide support. In response to agentic threat, those higher in Extraversion increased their support seeking and decreased their support provision to a greater extent than those lower in Extraversion. In response to communal threat, those higher in Agreeableness increased their support seeking and provision to a greater extent than those lower in Agreeableness.