Toddler peer interaction in mixed-age groups

Toddler preference for different age playmates was investigated. Thirty toddlers, aged 16 to 23 months, were observed in family day care homes. Each subject had access to both same-age and older peers. Results indicate that toddlers preferred 2-year-olds compared to same-age peers. Toddlers watched preschoolers more often than same-age peers. Toddlers also used more imitation and language in their play with 2-year-olds compared to other age peers. Features of the caregiving environment were also assessed. Higher levels of arousal and motion were associated with more elaborate peer interaction. These findings support the notion that partner age and the caregiving environment can influence toddler social interaction.     

Acoustic interaction in animal groups: signaling in noisy and social contexts

It has long been known that individuals of many species vocally communicate with one another in noisy environments and in rich contexts of social interaction. It has recently become clear that researchers interested in understanding acoustic communication in animal groups must study vocal signaling in these noisy and socially complex settings. Furthermore, recent methodological advances have made it increasingly clear that the authors can tackle these more complex questions effectively. The articles in this Special Issue stem from a Symposium held at the June 2006 meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, and illustrate some of the taxonomic and methodological diversity in studies aimed at understanding how acoustic communication functions in social grouping. This introduction to the Special Issue provides a brief overview of the articles and key ideas in this field of inquiry, and suggests some future directions to take the field to help us understand how social pressures in animal groups may influence, and be influenced by, acoustic signals.     

Physical distance and sex in moderated groups: Neglected factors in small group interaction

An experiment examined the effects of sex of subjects, sex of moderator, and seating distance between members of a small group on moods, evaluations, attraction, and attitude expression. Groups of three subjects and a moderator discussed a socially relevant issue and then made several ratings. During the discussion, group members sat either very close to each other or "very far apart, q?he expectation that males would react unfavorably while females would react favorably to close seating was not obtained. Instead, sex of moderator interacted strongly with distance. Regardless of sex, groups were more positive close to a female moderator and far from a male moderator. Attitudes showed the same interaction. Interpretations were that (1) the ranking person helps define the spacing norms for a group, and (2) there are sex differences in “personal space.”     

Domain generality and domain specificity in aesthetic appreciation

Aesthetic appreciation is looked at with respect to domain generality and domain specificity. Within the classic cognitive paradigm, modality- and domain-specific receptive processes are explored. These are then complemented with central processing structures. These reveal domain-specific as well as domain-general processing. Extending the classic cognitive science approach, the role of emotion in aesthetic appreciation is also explored. While domain-specific models of aesthetic appreciation are clearly called for, there are also numerous domain-general subprocesses and structures.     

Studies of mood and humor appreciation

A total of 189 students in two studies rated jokes on funniness and several other scales after rating their own mood on the Nowlis-Green Mood Adjective Check List. Subjects in Experiment 1 gave a second and third set of mood ratings after their joke-funniness ratings. Three mood factors—surgency, elation, and vigor—reliably predicted joke appreciation in both studies. More tentative evidence linked humor appreciation to concentration, social affection, excitement, freedom, and (lack of) fatigue, but humor appeared independent of aggression, anxiety, tension, and inhibition. Relationships among joke-scale ratings were highly similar for subjects reporting relatively positive moods and those reporting more negative moods. Results were discussed with reference to several humor theories.The authors would like to thank Carol Pierce, Marguerite Ponder, and Ron Fox for their help with this research.     

Responsibility attribution by groups and individuals: The effects of the interaction episode

Studied the effects of formal and informal interaction styles on the extremity of responsibility attribution judgements by groups. The stimuli were eight scenarios describing typical ‘life dilemmas’, incorporating the manipulation of the following two variables in a 2 × 2 design: (a) the risky-cautious decision taken by the actor in response to the dilemma, and (b) the outcome of the decision (success-failure). Subjects (N = 130) provided judgements about the attributed responsibility of the actor, and their perception of the actor and the situation first as individuals, followed by (a) formal or (b) informal group discussion, leading to consensus judgements. Results showed that group attributions were significantly more extreme than individual attributions, but only following the informal group interaction. The actors' riskiness and success were also significantly related to the size of the extremity shift. The findings are discussed in terms of the importance of the social context and the specific interaction episode in attribution judgements, and the possible implications of the results for such real life decision-making groups as committees and interviewing panels are considered.     

Dimensions in appreciation of car interior design

We report two studies in which the interplay between stimulus properties and perceiver characteristics in the appreciation car interiors was investigated. In Experiment 1 three design components, complexity, curvature and innovativeness, which are all thought to affect design appreciation were combined in a fully factorial design. All dimensions were confirmed to affect ratings, and curvature and innovativeness particularly affected the attractiveness ratings. Curved and non‐innovative designs were generally preferred. Moreover, participants who were particularly interested in art were more sensitive to curvature and innovativeness. In Experiment 2 two dimensions of Experiment 1 were replicated using similar stimuli. Moreover, the specific effects of a design knowledge treatment were investigated. Results replicated the preference for curved and non‐innovative (rather classic) designs. The treatment had only small effects, which support a general rather than dimension‐specific effects of cognitive pre‐information. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The appreciation of antonymic contrasts in aphasia

To secure information on the ability of aphasic patients to comprehend antonymic relations, the kinds of confusions typically made, and the extent to which antonymic sensitivity depends upon mode of presentation and task demands, three linguistic and nonlinguistic tests were administered to aphasic patients, right hemisphere-damaged patients, and non-neurological controls. Although difficulty with antonymous relations was found among all the organic patients, the kinds of problems evidenced and the relative profile of difficulties differed across populations. Among the principal findings were the generally preserved sensitivity to antonymy found among anterior (particularly Broca's) aphasics; a surprising insensitivity to antonymy and a preference for synonyms, found among right hemisphere patients, particularly on the nonlinguistic tasks; a relative preservation of sensitivity to antonymy on nonlinguistic tasks, coupled with a loss of such sensitivity on linguistic tasks, found among posterior (particularly Wernicke's) aphasics; a proclivity toward stereotypical correct responses among the organic patients; and an absolutely worse performance by right hemisphere patients on tasks involving antonymic relations in pictures and abstract designs.     

Relationship between positive mental health and appreciation in Korean individuals

Appreciation is a key component of subjective well‐being and may contribute to positive mental health. Few studies have examined relationships between specific aspects of appreciation and the 3 dimensions of positive mental health, and thus, the aim of this study was to identify associations between aspects of appreciation and positive mental health. Appreciation and positive mental health were measured in 266 Korean university students (50% females) using the Appreciation Inventory and the Mental Health Continuum‐Short Form. The results obtained showed that Have Focus significantly predicted Emotional Well‐being; Have Focus and Loss/Adversity significantly predicted Social Well‐being and Have Focus, Expression and Nature/Daily Life significantly predicted Psychological Well‐being. The implications of results that might enable positive mental health to be enhanced are discussed.     

Weight discrepancy and body appreciation among women in Poland and Britain

Previous studies have suggested that the process of transmigration has detrimental effects on the body image of migrants relative to women in the country of origin. In the present work, we examined the body image of Polish migrants in Britain (n = 153), Polish women in Poland (n = 153), and a comparison group of British White women (n = 110). Participants completed a measure of actual-ideal weight discrepancy and the Body Appreciation Scale (BAS). Contrary to hypotheses, our results showed that Polish women in Poland had significantly higher weight discrepancy than their counterparts in Britain. Further analyses showed that the BAS reduced to two dimensions among Polish participants, with Polish participants in Poland having significantly lower body appreciation than Polish migrants. We suggest that the sociocultural changes that have taken place in Eastern Europe may place women in that region at relatively high risk for developing negative body image.     

The role of individualism and the Five-Factor Model in the prediction of performance in a leaderless group discussion

Personality has seen a resurgence in the work performance literature. The Five-Factor Model (FFM) represents a set of personality factors that has received the most attention in recent years. Despite its popularity, the FFM may not be sufficiently comprehensive to account for relevant variation across performance dimensions or tasks. Accordingly, the present study also considers how individualism may predict additional variance in performance beyond the FFM. The study involved 152 undergraduate students who experienced a leaderless group discussion (LGD) exercise. Results showed that while the FFM accounted for variance in students' LGD performance, individualism (independence) accounted for additional, unique variance. Furthermore, analyses of the group compositions revealed curvilinear relationships between the relative amount of extraversion, conscientiousness, and individualism in relation to group-level performance.     

Organizational context and face-to-face interaction: Influences on the development of trust and collaborative behaviors in computer-mediated groups

Using adaptive structuration theory as a framework [DeSanctis, G., & Poole, M. S. (1994). Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use: Adaptive structuration theory. Organization Science, 5(2), 121–147], we examined the influence of organizational context (competitive versus cooperative) and introductory meeting communication medium (face-to-face versus electronic) on the development of trust and collaborative behaviors of dyads communicating electronically. Based on a sample of 208 senior business students operating in computer-mediated (CM) dyads while performing a strategic decision-making simulation, we found that context, introductory communication medium, and time interacted to influence trust and collaborative behaviors. The pattern of development of trust and collaborative behaviors differed for the same introductory communication medium in different context conditions. Further, the level of trust and collaboration for dyad members in the competitive/electronic introductory meeting condition lagged significantly behind those in the other conditions. The findings suggest that introductory face-to-face interaction plays a more important role in facilitating the development of trust and collaboration in a CM environment when the context is competitive.     

Language ability and sex affect humor appreciation.

Subjects (63 men and 63 women) completed a humor appreciation scale and 20 trials on a word-recognition task using a divided visual field. Factor analysis extracted eight factors from the humor scale most of which differentiated subjects on the basis of liking for various humorous contents including disparagement and non-sense humor. Subsequent analyses showed that greater liking for specific types of humor was associated with basic language abilities. The results also support sex differences in humor preferences and Freud's tripartite taxonomy of humor contents.     

Retaliatory equity as a factor in humor appreciation

Squelches depicting a protagonist who is provoked and who then retaliates against his provoker were manipulated to effect a variation in the degree of retaliation achieved: extreme underretaliation, underretaliation, fair retaliation, overretaliation, and extreme overretaliation. It was proposed that retaliatory equity, i.e., a situation in which the negative consequences inflicted upon the provoker by the retaliator are of a similar magnitude to the negative consequences initially inflicted upon the retaliator, constitutes an optimal condition for mirth, and that both types of retaliatory inequity, under- and overretaliation, impair humor appreciation in proportion to the magnitude of the resultant inequity. The findings fully supported these propositions.     

Motivational interviewing and addiction - A psychodynamic appreciation

This paper offers a psychodynamic understanding of the influential approach of motivational interviewing in the treatment of addiction. It suggests the need for critical understanding, and considers some overlaps as well as differences between motivational interviewing and a contemporary psychodynamic approach.