Interest as a Motivational Resource: Feedback and Gender Matter, but Interest Makes the Difference

This study tested the hypothesis that interest in a certain topic enables children to sustain their intrinsic motivation in topic-related tasks when positive feedback is absent. Ninety-one Israeli children in the seventh grade completed a questionnaire assessing their interest in the topic of logic questions. Later, in individual sessions, children worked on logic questions, and either received positive feedback or no feedback on their performance. Then, they completed a questionnaire assessing their intrinsic motivation to participate in a similar task. As expected, children with a high level of interest reported more intrinsic motivation than did children not high on interest. Among children with moderate interest, absence of positive feedback was associated with decreased intrinsic motivation for boys, and increased motivation for girls. This gender-related pattern was interpreted as suggesting that girls with moderate interest perceived the positive feedback as an attempt to control them. The findings support the view that interest may serve as a personal resource that helps children to cope with non-optimal learning conditions.     

The Change in Middle School Students’ Achievement Goals in Mathematics Over Time

Through the use of longitudinal survey data the change of achievement goal orientations was tested in a sample of middle school students in mathematics as they moved from sixth to seventh grade. Achievement goals include task goals and performance goals, with the partitioning of performance goals into approach and avoidance components. Results indicate that all goal orientations were moderately stable over time. Task goals in sixth grade positively predicted academic efficacy in seventh grade. Performance-approach goals in sixth grade positively predicted performance-avoid goals in seventh grade. Multiple regression and multi-sample analyses revealed that the path from performance-approach goals to performance-avoid goals was significant only among students reporting high academic efficacy before the transition. The results suggest that individuals who feel efficacious in math while endorsing a performance-approach goal orientation may be particularly vulnerable to adopting maladaptive performance-avoid goals over time and with change in circumstances.     

Separation Anxiety,Perceived Controllability,and Homesickness1

The present study examined the multidimensional interactionism model of anxiety, stress, and coping by investigating trait separation anxiety, controllability, and homesickness in 152 university students living away from home. Participants completed measures of trait separation anxiety, state anxiety, perceived controllability of the situation, and homesickness. Correlational tests confirmed that trait separation anxiety and homesickness were associated. Also, low perceived controllability was associated with state anxiety and homesickness. Finally, tests of a mediational model confirmed that both perceived controllability of the situation and state anxiety are significant mediators of the association between trait separation anxiety and homesickness. The findings provide support for models of homesickness that focus on diminished sense of personal control and proximity to attachment figures.     

The emotional costs of parents' conditional regard: a self-determination theory analysis

Parents' use of conditional regard as a socializing practice was hypothesized to predict their children's introjected internalization (indexed by a sense of internal compulsion), resentment toward parents, and ill-being. In Study 1, involving three generations, mothers' reports of their parents' having used conditional regard to promote academic achievement predicted (a) the mothers' poor well-being and controlling parenting attitudes, and (b) their college-aged daughters' viewing them as having used conditional regard, thus showing both negative affective consequences from and intergenerational transmission of conditional regard. Study 2 expanded on the first by using four domains, including both genders, and examining mediating processes. College students' perceptions of their mothers' and fathers' having used conditional regard in four domains (emotion control, prosocial, academic, sport) were found to relate to introjected internalization, behavioral enactment, fluctuations in self-esteem, perceived parental disapproval, and resentment of parents. Introjection mediated the link from conditional regard to behavioral enactment. The results suggest that use of conditional regard as a socializing practice can promote enactment of the desired behaviors but does so with significant affective costs.     

The apple does not fall far from the tree: attachment styles and personality vulnerabilities to depression in three generations of women

The intergenerational transmission of attachment insecurity was examined in a community sample of 300 participants consisting of 100 three-generation triads of women. It was hypothesized that personality vulnerabilities mediate the association between attachment insecurity and depression within each generation. Findings show significant intergenerational congruence of trait vulnerabilities and attachment styles. Moreover, the second generation's attachment dimensions and personality vulnerabilities were found to mediate the association between first- and third-generation scores on attachment and vulnerability variables. Findings supported the following hypothesized within- and between-generation paths: Within generations, self-criticism was found to mediate the association between attachment insecurity and depression; between generations, depression, but not self-criticism, mediated the association between assessments of attachment insecurity in mothers and their daughters. This study constitutes a first approach to the delineation of the role played by self-criticism in the association between negative models of the self and depression across generations.     

Society’s Symbolic Order and Political Trials: Toward Sacrificing the Self for the “Big Other”

The need to establish a borderline between legitimate and illegitimate political trial is one of the central societal discourses. In this paper the author claims that the issues are complex and that a political trial can remain legitimate as long as it is not dealing with a confrontation with the symbolic order on which the society (and the court itself) is founded and as long as the subject (or action) it is dealing with does not threaten the symbolic order’s (or the “Big Other”) existence. When the symbolic order’s existence is in danger, the court is bound to participate in an act of “sacrifice” that is intended to protect the “order.” The author uses Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory of the “Big Other” (and its development to ideological-political terms) in examining three categories of sacrifice. Through these categories the author claims that in extreme cases of confrontation with the existence of the symbolic order, the court cannot remain objective and it would be difficult to justify the trial as legitimate (especially in historical perspective).     

Face recognition is affected by similarity in spatial frequency range to a greater degree than within-category object recognition

Previous studies have suggested that face identification is more sensitive to variations in spatial frequency content than object recognition, but none have compared how sensitive the 2 processes are to variations in spatial frequency overlap (SFO). The authors tested face and object matching accuracy under varying SFO conditions. Their results showed that object recognition was more robust to SFO variations than face recognition and that the vulnerability of faces was not due to reliance on configural processing. They suggest that variations in sensitivity to SFO help explain the vulnerability of face recognition to changes in image format and the lack of a middle-frequency advantage in object recognition.