Reactions to Patients' Self-or Chance-Blaming Attributions for Illnesses Having Varying Life-style Involvement

The effects of the perceived accuracy of attributions of self blame and chance blame were examined in the context of health care. Health practitioners ( N = 147) rated interviews in which patients made self-or chance-blaming attributions for diseases with high (heart attack, stroke), or low (cancer, arthritis) life-style involvement, or acidental injuries. Three discriminant analyses yielded p < .001. Self-blaming heart and stroke patients were rated as coping better and acting more appropriately and typically than chance blamers. Other self blamers were rated as more depressed, poorly adjusted, coping poorly, not accepting disability, needing counselling and information. Additionally, self-blaming accident victims were judged as more dependent, less likeable, and having poorer prognoses than chance blamers. Realistic self blame for life-style diseases did not lead to victimization, but other self-blaming patients were stigmatized and the adaptiveness of self blame as a coping strategy was unrecognized.     

The honeymoon effect in job performance: temporal increases in the predictive power of achievement motivation

Correlations between a job performance criterion and personality measures reflecting achievement motivation and an interpersonal orientation were examined at three points in time after completion of job training for a sample of airline reservations agents. Although correlations between the personality predictors and performance were small and nonsignificant for the 3-month period after beginning the job, by the end of 6 and 8 months a number of significant relationships had emerged. Implications for the utility of personality measures in selection and performance prediction are discussed.     

Preferences for Individual Video Games as a Function of Their Emotional Effects on Players

Video games vary in terms of the emotional states they elicit from players. These differences in emotional reactions, in turn, help account for differential preferences of individual games. The three independent dimensions of pleasure-displeasure, arousal-nonarousal, and dominance-submissiveness were used to assess emotional impacts of individual games. In addition, a preference measure was constructed to evaluate attraction toward, versus avoidance of, specific games. In Study One, a group of subjects provided data on emotional responses to 22 common arcade video games and a different group rated their preferences for the same games. The emotional impact of video games was highly unpleasant, moderately arousing, and moderately dominance-inducing; thus, the predominant emotional response to these games was aggression, anger, or hostility. I n Study Two, subjects visiting a video game arcade were recruited and assigned to play two games each and to report their reactions to each game immediately after playing the game. Results showed that greater feelings of pleasure, and separately of arousal, while playing video games resulted in higher preferences for the games and that greater dominance (significant only for males) also led to higher preferences. It may be beneficial, therefore, to experiment with more arousing and more dominance-inducing game designs which are not necessarily unpleasant or which definitely yield high pleasure.     

Observational learning of two visual discriminations by pigeons: a within-subjects design.

Pigeon's observational learning of successive visual discrimination was studied using within-subject comparisons of data from three experimental conditions. Two pairs of discriminative stimuli were used; each bird was exposed to two of the three experimental conditions, with different pairs of stimuli used in a given bird's two conditions. In one condition, observers were exposed to visual discriminative stimuli only. In a second condition, subjects were exposed to a randomly alternating sequence of two stimuli where the one that would subsequently be used as S+ was paired with the operation of the grain magazine. In a third experimental condition, subjects were exposed to the performance of a conspecific in the operant discrimination procedure. After exposures to conspecific performances, there was facilitation of discriminative learning, relative to that which followed exposures to stimulus and reinforcement sequences or exposures to stimulus sequences alone. Exposure to stimulus and food-delivery sequences enhanced performance relative to exposure to stimulus sequences alone. The differential effects of these three types of exposure were not attributable to order effects or to task difficulty; rather, they clearly were due to the type of exposure.     

The matching law applies to wagtails' foraging in the wild

Field data concerning the time budgets and foraging success of pied wagtails (Motacilla alba yarrelli, Gould) are reanalyzed. It is found that the data are well described by the generalized matching law, with a marked bias towards spending time on the territory. In this case matching is not the result of maximizing reward rate, but it remains possible that it results from an allocation of time that maximizes survival.     

The Social Relations Model: An integrative method for personality research

As outlined by Snyder and Ickes (1985), the study of personality can be undertaken using one of three research approaches dispositional, situational, and interactive We show how the Social Relations Model provides an integrative method to estimate simultaneously dispositional, situational, and interactive effects Reviewed are component approaches to the study of personality The Social Relations Model is shown to be a component model (a special case of generalizability theory) applied in a social interaction context In the model, dispositional, situational, and interactive effects are termed actor, partner, and relationship effects, respectively The Social Relations Model can be used to answer a number of important issues in personality research The model can be used to assess reliability, measure the validity of self-ratings, and validate self-report inventories The model requires special designs in winch each person interacts with multiple partners Empirical examples are presented in which social anxiety, sex role inventories, and self-disclosure are studied     

An interactional approach to the study of personality and emotion

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relation between personality and emotional feelings within ecologically valid settings Nineteen subjects rated their emotions in a wide variety of work, recreation, social, and alone situations sampled over a 30-day period They were also administered the Personality Research Form and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Although theoretically predictable relations were found between certain personality traits and specific emotions averaged across situations, it was not until we distinguished chosen from imposed situations that the most meaningful results were obtained Both temperament and nontemperament personality traits were found to be related to specific emotions Implications of the present findings for research on situation selection and the status of personality traits are discussed     

The relations between type A behavior, clinically relevant behavior, academic achievement, and IQ in children

The relation of Type A behavior to IQ, academic achievement, and several clinically relevant dimensions of behavior in children was assessed in 873 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders by means of the Matthews Youth Test for Health (MYTH), the Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT), the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITED), and the teachers' form of the Missouri Children's Behavior Checklist (MCBC-T). The MYTH and its competitiveness and impatience-aggression subscales were found to be differentially related to academic achievement and to account for a small but significant portion of the variance in achievement not accounted for by IQ. The subscales of the MYTH were found to be highly correlated with several clinically familiar dimensions of children's behavior. The significance of these findings for the construct validity of the MYTH is discussed.     

Self-report measurement of type A behavior: toward refinement and improved prediction

Self-report measures of Type A personality receive wide research usage despite mounting evidence that they are poor predictors of coronary heart disease. It was proposed that the limited prediction results in part from the failure to restrict measurement to only those Type A characteristics that are demonstrably related to excessive stress. The first study in this article reports a factor analysis of all items on the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS), the most popular Type A questionnaire, along with 25 stress symptoms. Self-ratings were obtained from both male and female college students. Only one stress-related factor emerged including 12 JAS items out of 44. These were relevant to (a) hard-driving and competitive, (b) time-urgent, and (c) hostile/irritated characteristics. Study 2 reports correlations of +.50 and +.43 between the stress-relevant JAS items and stress for new samples of female and male college students. Study 3 considers the broader personality correlates of scores on the stress-relevant Type A items and reports markedly different patterns for male and female college students. Predicted correlations were found on new samples between these personality correlates, considered as scales, and stress-relevant Type A scores and stress.