Effects of the SPARK Teen Mentoring Program for High School Students

Journal of Child and Family Studies - This study employed a randomized controlled trial with pre- and post-intervention measurement to investigate the impact of the Speaking to the Potential,...     

A Sensory Origin for Color-Word Stroop Effects in Aging: Simulating Age-Related Changes in Color-vision Mimics Age-Related Changes in Stroop

ABSTRACT

An increase in Stroop effects with age can be interpreted as reflecting age-related reductions in selective attention, cognitive slowing, or color-vision. In the present study, 88 younger adults performed a Stroop test with two color-sets, saturated and desaturated, to simulate an age-related decrease in color perception. This color manipulation with younger adults was sufficient to lead to an increase in Stroop effects that mimics age-effects. We conclude that age-related changes in color perception can contribute to the differences in Stroop effects observed in aging. Finally, we suggest that the clinical applications of Stroop take this factor into account.     

The Dread of Mutual Creation of Meaning

Anthony Bass's and Ilana Laor's papers are viewed through the lens of the modern philosophical discussion regarding the ways meaning is created. A distinction is thus made, between “the setting” and the meaning of the setting, seeing the latter as inevitably created by the intersubjective dyad. The encounter with an Other, with whom we mutually create the meaning of our thoughts, feelings, and dreams, can be experienced as expanding the configurations of our selves and that of others, and thus, playfully or painfully, makes what was unbearable bearable, making all facets of oneself that could not live before come alive. But this very encounter also holds within it the dread of losing our own sense of self, of integrity and of sanity, and thus results in an impasse or “deadlock.” Because it touches the core of our being, as therapists and as human beings, the issue of “the frame and the picture,” of creating with our patients the meaning of the setting, amplifies this dialectic and is one of the most fascinating and difficult challenges of relational psychoanalysis.     

When and Why People Evaluate Negative Reciprocity as More Fair Than Positive Reciprocity

If you are kind to me, I am likely to reciprocate and doing so feels fair. Many theories of social exchange assume that such reciprocity and fairness are well aligned with one another. We argue that this correspondence between reciprocity and fairness is restricted to interpersonal dyads and does not govern more complex multilateral interactions. When multiple people are involved, reciprocity leads to partiality, which may be seen as unfair by outsiders. We report seven studies, conducted with people from the United States, in which participants were asked to evaluate situations involving resource distribution in contexts such as economic games, government, and the workplace. Specifically, we find that equal resource distribution in multilateral interactions is seen as more fair than engaging in reciprocity. We also find that negative reciprocity is seen as more fair than positive reciprocity in these multilateral situations because positive reciprocity is perceived as based in favoritism. We rule out alternative explanations and demonstrate that there are contexts where favoritism is not viewed as unfair. These findings are important for theories of fairness and reciprocity as they demonstrate the central role of perceived partiality in the evaluation of multi‐party resource allocation.     

Priming of spatial distance enhances children's creative performance

According to construal level theory, psychological distance promotes more abstract thought. Theories of creativity, in turn, suggest that abstract thought promotes creativity. Based on these lines of theorizing, we predicted that spatial distancing would enhance creative performance in elementary school children. To test this prediction, we primed spatial distance by presenting 6- to 9-year-olds with pictures of increasingly distal objects (from their own desk to the galaxy) or increasingly proximal objects (from the galaxy to their own desk) and then assessed the fluency and originality of their ideas in a creativity test. We found, consistent with the hypothesis, that after priming of spatial distance, compared with priming of spatial proximity, children were more creative, as reflected in higher scores of both fluency and originality. This result was not qualified by children's age or gender.     

“Poverty and Resourcefulness”: On the Formative Significance of Eros in Educational Practice

This article seeks to examine the special quality of Eros operative in educational practice, through the frame narrative of Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”. The subject is examined from two aspects illuminating the paradoxical nature of educational practice. The first, epistemological, considers the practicability of learning, and the second, ethical, deals with the complexity of commitment to teaching. The resolution of the paradox, the article contends, can only be understood through the concept of “Eros”—the same mysterious driving force, devoid of rational meaning, which compels one to know and act. The article examines the revelations regarding Eros, its possibilities and perils with reference to the pedagogical experience of the author as a school teacher and educator.     

Executive control influences linguistic representations

Although it is known that words acquire their meanings partly from the contexts in which they are used, we proposed that the way in which words are processed can also influence their representation. We further propose that individual differences in the way that words are processed can consequently lead to individual differences in the way that they are represented. Specifically, we showed that executive control influences linguistic representations by influencing the coactivation of competing and reinforcing terms. Consequently, people with poorer executive control perceive the meanings of homonymous terms as being more similar to one another, and those of polysemous terms as being less similar to one another, than do people with better executive control. We also showed that bilinguals with poorer executive control experience greater cross-linguistic interference than do bilinguals with better executive control. These results have implications for theories of linguistic representation and language organization.     

A sensory origin for color-word stroop effects in aging: simulating age-related changes in color-vision mimics age-related changes in Stroop

An increase in Stroop effects with age can be interpreted as reflecting age-related reductions in selective attention, cognitive slowing, or color-vision. In the present study, 88 younger adults performed a Stroop test with two color-sets, saturated and desaturated, to simulate an age-related decrease in color perception. This color manipulation with younger adults was sufficient to lead to an increase in Stroop effects that mimics age-effects. We conclude that age-related changes in color perception can contribute to the differences in Stroop effects observed in aging. Finally, we suggest that the clinical applications of Stroop take this factor into account.     

Perspective taking as egocentric anchoring and adjustment

The authors propose that people adopt others' perspectives by serially adjusting from their own. As predicted, estimates of others' perceptions were consistent with one's own but differed in a manner consistent with serial adjustment (Study 1). Participants were slower to indicate that another's perception would be different from--rather than similar to--their own (Study 2). Egocentric biases increased under time pressure (Study 2) and decreased with accuracy incentives (Study 3). Egocentric biases also increased when participants were more inclined to accept plausible values encountered early in the adjustment process than when inclined to reject them (Study 4). Finally, adjustments tend to be insufficient, in part, because people stop adjusting once a plausible estimate is reached (Study 5).