Rich analysis and rational models: inferring individual behavior from infant looking data

Studies of infant looking times over the past 50 years have provided profound insights about cognitive development, but their dependent measures and analytic techniques are quite limited. In the context of infants' attention to discrete sequential events, we show how a Bayesian data analysis approach can be combined with a rational cognitive model to create a rich data analysis framework for infant looking times. We formalize (i) a statistical learning model, (ii) a parametric linking between the learning model's beliefs and infants' looking behavior, and (iii) a data analysis approach and model that infers parameters of the cognitive model and linking function for groups and individuals. Using this approach, we show that recent findings from Kidd, Piantadosi and Aslin ( 2012 ) of a U‐shaped relationship between look‐away probability and stimulus complexity even holds within infants and is not due to averaging subjects with different types of behavior. Our results indicate that individual infants prefer stimuli of intermediate complexity, reserving attention for events that are moderately predictable given their probabilistic expectations about the world.     

Individualism/collectivism and organizational citizenship behavior

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) are workplace activities that exceed an employee's formal job requirements and contribute to the effective functioning of the organization. We explored the roles of the dispositional traits of individualism and collectivism in the prediction of OCB. The relationship was examined in the context of other constructs known to influence OCB, specifically, motives and identity as an organizational citizen. A total of 367 employees in 24 organizations completed surveys measuring individualism/collectivism, OCB motives, strength of organizational citizen role identity, and amount of OCB. The results showed collectivism to be a significant predictor of Organizational Concern and Prosocial Values motives, role identity, and OCB. Individualism predicted Impression Management motives and was a significant negative predictor of a role identity as one who helps others. The findings are discussed with regard to previous research in OCB.     

IS DATE RAPE JUSTIFIABLE? The Effects of Dating Activity, Who Initiated, Who Paid, and Men's Attitudes toward Women

In two related studies, 268 male undergraduates rated the justifiability of date rape under various circumstances. As predicted, rape was rated as significantly more justifiable (a) if the couple went to the man's apartment rather than to a religious function, (b) if the woman asked the man out rather than vice versa (significant in Study 1 only), and (c) if the man paid all the dating expenses rather than splitting them with the woman. It was also predicted that men who were classified as traditional on the Attitudes toward Women Scale would rate rape as more justifiable than nontraditional men, especially under the three conditions mentioned above. These results were always in the predicted directions, but did not always reach statistical significance. Two explanations for the differences between traditional and nontraditional men are explored.     

Finding Sandra: Dr. Beebe’s Second as Analytic Third: A Discussion of “A Patient Who Does Not Look: A Collaborative Treatment with Video Feedback”

Larry Sandberg and Beatrice Beebe (this issue) offer a moving account of their work with Sandra, a gaze-averse woman with a painful and traumatic childhood history. Drs. Sandberg and Beebe describe their work together in the context of an innovative conjoint treatment model including psychotherapy, video feedback consultation, and dance movement therapy. Dr. Beebe’s Interventions at the sensorial, bodily, and affective register facilitated Sandra’s movements from being in the grips of a terrifying object world, to an experience of companioning with Dr. Beebe, giving her a greater sense of holding and emotional security. Further, “Dr. Beebe’s Second,” an image from Dr. Beebe’s own reverie offered Sandra an “emotional third”; a new found internal experience of herself-with-others that helped her lift her gaze to the future.     

Risk Comprehension and Judgments of Statistical Evidentiary Appeals

Too little theory and research has considered the effects of communicating statistics in various forms on comprehension, perceptions of evidence quality, or evaluations of message persuasiveness. In a considered extension of Subjective Message Construct Theory (Morley, 1987), we advance a rationale relating evidence form to the formation of impressions of evidence. We compare visual versus verbal representations of statistical evidence associated with multivariate relationships in a community‐based field experiment (N= 206). Verbal forms were found to be better comprehended than visual forms and contributed to enhanced understanding when compared to an attention control condition. Comprehension was found to mediate the effect of statistical evidence form on perceptions of evidence quality, while comprehension and perceptions of evidence quality moderated judgments of message persuasiveness. In addition to the effects of evidence form on subjective impressions of statistical evidence, we advance perceiver characteristics as another realm in which persuaders may identify persistent patterns associated with comprehension and judgments of statistical evidence. Numeracy skills, race, and gender emerge as characteristics with merit in this regard. Nonsignificant findings associated with perceiver characteristics were found. Finally, we consider the results for evidence form and perceiver characteristics on comprehension and judgments of statistical evidence for their theoretic and pragmatic importance.     

Very pre‐term infants' behaviour at 1 and 2 years of age and parental stress following basic developmental care

This study explored the effects of basic developmental care on the behaviour of very pre‐term infants and parental stress at 1 and 2 years of corrected age. A randomized controlled trial was done to compare basic Developmental Care (standardized nests and incubator covers) and controls (standard care). Parents of infants born <32 weeks of gestation completed questionnaires measuring child behaviour and parental stress at 1 year (N = 139) and 2 years (N = 133) of the child's age. Parental stress was measured using the Nijmegen Parenting Stress Index and child behaviour was measured using the Infant–Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (ITSEA) and the Child Behaviour Checklist 2–3. At 1 year of age, children in the basic developmental care group had significantly higher behaviour scores on the total competence domain (p = .009) and the competence subscale mastery motivation (p = .002) of the ITSEA questionnaire, meaning that the infants showed more curiosity, persistence, obedience and enjoyment with small accomplishments. No significant effects were found on problem behaviour or parenting stress. We conclude that introducing a basic form of developmental care in the neonatal intensive care unit has a positive influence on the child's competence behaviour at 1 year of age.