The effect of gender and time-of-day on time perception and mental workload

Two experiments are reported which investigated how subject gender and time-of-day influenced the estimation of duration and the perception of task-related mental workload. In the first experiment, 24 subjects performed a filled time-estimation task in a constant blacked-out, noise-reduced environment at 0800h, 1200h, 1600h, and 2000h, respectively. In the second experiment, 12 different subjects performed an unfilled time estimation task in similar conditions at 0900h, 1400h, and 1900h. At the termination of all experimental sessions, participants completed the NASA Task Load Index workload assessment questionnaire as a measure of perceived mental workload. Results indicated that physiological response, reflected in body temperature change, followed an expected pattern of sequential increase with time-of-day. However, estimates of duration and the perception of mental workload showed no significant effects for time-of-day. In each of the experiments there were significant differences in time estimation and mental workload response contingent on the gender of the participant. These results are interpreted in light of the previous positive findings for circadian fluctuation in performance efficiency and the equivocal findings of a gender difference in time estimation. A unifying account of these collective results is given based on gender by time-of-day interactional effects. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Human Factors Society, Anaheim, CA, October, 1988.     

Components of analogical reasoning in a mildly head injured population

This study sought to investigate the effects of mild head injury on a particular type of cognitive ability, verbal analogical reasoning. The performance of 19 individuals with head injuries was compared to a group of 30 control subjects matched for age, education, and gender on 100 verbal analogies. Solution times and error rates were modeled. Unstandardized regression weights for individual subjects were correlated with subjects’ performance on a number of standardized ability tests. Results showed that compared to the control subjects, the head injured subjects: (a) were significantly slower to solve the analogies, and were particularly slow to perform certain processes: encoding/inference and comparison; (b) tended to show greater variability in performance; and (c) had data that had a poorer componential model fit. The data suggest that analogical reasoning is affected by a head injury, and that certain information processes may be responsible for performance deficits.     

The application of relative deprivation theory to justice perception of preferential selection

This study attempted to apply the relative deprivation theory to preferential selection research. Two questions were addressed in this context: First, does preferential selection cause feelings of injustice or deprivation? and, second, can the magnitude of such feelings of injustice be predicted? A questionnaire was designed to assess fairness perceptions of all types of selection outcomes: preferential selection; together with selection involving discrimination against minorities and selections without either forms of discrimination. Results showed that preferential selection caused feelings of injustice. The level of felt injustice associated with preferential selection was identical to that due to discrimination against minorities. Further, the magnitude of felt injustice due to preferential selection could be predicted by the size of the discrepancy in “performance-relevant merits” between the selected minority candidate and the unsuccessful majority candidate. The study also compared effects of the “self-other” comparison process, used in previous relative deprivation research, and a “other-other” comparison process on justice perception. Implications of the results for the application of relative deprivation theory to preferential selection research were discussed.     

The psychological present

The present paper compares behavior-analytic and cognitive treatments of the concept of psychological history with regard to its role in current action. Both treatments take the position that the past bears some responsibility for the present, and are thereby obligated to find a means of actualizing the past in the present. Both do so by arguing that the past is brought to bear in the present via the organism. Although the arguments of the two positions differ on this issue, neither provides a complete account. An unconventional treatment of psychological history is proposed, the logic of which is exemplified in anthropological, biological, and psychological perspectives. The unconventional treatment in psychological perspective holds that (a) the organism's interaction with its environment, not the organism itself, changes with experience; and (b) the past interactions of an organism exist as, and only as, the present interactions of that organism. This solution to the problem of psychological history provides obligations and opportunities for analysis that are not available when the more conventional positions of cognitivism and behavior analysis are adopted.     

Confronting Our Own Hypocrisy: Being a Model for Our Students and Clients

Counselor educators, supervisors, and practitioners sometimes act in ways that contradict the most significant beliefs and values that they espouse. Despite communicating to students and trainees the importance of being caring, respectful, warm, flexible, honest, and personally competent, we are sometimes found to be operating quite differently. Issues related to the counselor educator, supervisor, and practitioner's narcissism, self-indulgence, abuses of power, illusions of omnipotence, prejudices, and unresolved issues are discussed. A case is strongly presented that we would all be a lot more effective if we worked to confront our hypocrisies and practice more what we preach.     

Bias in the Counseling Process: How to Recognize and Avoid It

Counselors' vulnerability to inferential bias during the counseling process may result in misdiagnosis and improper interventions. This article provides readers with information regarding inferential bias. The inferential biases discussed include (a) availability and representativeness heuristics; (b) fundamental attribution error; (c) anchoring, prior knowledge, and labeling; (d) confirmatory hypothesis testing; and (e) reconstructive memory. Each bias is described and illustrated through fictitious case vignettes, and suggestions concerning what precautions counselors may do to avoid each type of bias are presented.