Choose your own adventure: attachment dynamics in a simulated relationship

According to attachment theory, insecure individuals respond to events in their romantic relationships in ways that sometimes can be destructive. The objective of this research was to examine how these responses may accumulate over repeated interactions to influence the quality of the relationship. Across three studies, participants were presented with a "Choose Your Own Adventure" dating story in which they made choices based on their partners' behaviors. In each study we found that attachment styles predicted the kinds of choices participants made at the outset of and throughout the story. Additionally, relationship satisfaction was related to the choices participants made throughout the fictional narrative, even in situations in which the partner's behavior was the same for all participants.     

A comparison between three and five factor models of Pakistani personality data

The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised (EPQ-R), the Eysenck Personality Profiler Short Version (EPP-S), and the Big Five Inventory (BFI-V4a) were administered to 135 postgraduate students of business in Pakistan. Whilst Extraversion and Neuroticism scales from the three questionnaires were highly correlated, it was found that Agreeableness was most highly correlated with Psychoticism in the EPQ-R and Conscientiousness was most highly correlated with Psychoticism in the EPP-S. Principal component analyses with varimax rotation were carried out. The analyses generally suggested that the five factor model rather than the three-factor model was more robust and better for interpretation of all the higher order scales of the EPQ-R, EPP-S, and BFI-V4a in the Pakistani data. Results show that the superiority of the five factor solution results from the inclusion of a broader variety of personality scales in the input data, whereas Eysenck's three factor solution seems to be best when a less complete but possibly more important set of variables are input.     

The Benefits of Mutual Support Groups for Parents of Children With Disabilities

This study examined what parents of children with disabilities and special needs found helpful about belonging to mutual support groups. Quantitative data (based on 56 parents from 6 groups) indicated that members found the groups very helpful and were very satisfied with the support they received from their groups; they also described the groups as high in cohesion, expressiveness, task orientation, and self-discovery. A grounded theory analysis of focus group data (based on 43 parents from 5 of the groups) indicated that such support was helpful in three broad domains: (1) the sociopolitical, which involved developing a sense of control and agency in the outside world; (2) the interpersonal, which involved asense of belonging to a community; and (3) the intraindividual, which involved self change. A central theme of identity change emerged as superordinate to these three categories.     

Structural Solutions to Social Dilemmas: A Field Study on Commuters’ Willingness to Fund Improvements in Public Transit1

The present field study examined commuters’(N= 152) willingness to fund improvements in public transit. Consistent with Samuelson's (1993; Samuelson & Messick, 1995) multiattribute evaluation model of structural change in social dilemmas, support for the transit plan was higher when it was perceived to be (a) effective at reducing congestion and pollution, (b) personally beneficial, and (c) fair in terms of taxes and benefits. Also consistent with predictions, these relationships were moderated by individual differences in social value orientation (MClintock, 1968) and the consideration of future consequences (CFC; Strathman, Gleicher, Boninger, & Edwards, 1994). Prosocials responded more to the perceived fairness of the plan, while proselfs responded more to the plan's effectiveness in reducing congestion. Low CFCs responded more to the plan's personal benefits and effectiveness in reducing congestion, while high CFCs responded more to the plan's effectiveness in reducing pollution.     

THE EFFECTS OF FORM TRAINING ON FOUL‐SHOOTING PERFORMANCE IN MEMBERS OF A WOMEN'S COLLEGE BASKETBALL TEAM

The effects of instruction and feedback in proper form on foul‐shooting performance was evaluated in 3 players of a women's NCAA Division II college basketball team. Players showed an increase in percentage of shots made and in correct form compared to baseline shooting without instruction or feedback. All players reached criterion within seven training sessions. The results suggest that training proper form is an effective strategy for improving foul‐shooting performance.     

Protection Motivation Theory and Adolescents' Perceptions of Exercise1

Coping strategies endorsed by adolescents in dealing with a potential threat to their health were assessed in a study which investigated components of protection motivation theory. Year 9 and 10 high school students were presented with information about cardiovascular disease risk and the role of exercise in maintaining cardiorespiratory fitness. Three components specified by the theory were manipulated: response efficacy (effectiveness of exercise in preventing cardiovascular disease), response costs (costs associated with taking up a regular program of exercise) and self-efficacy (belief in ability to carry out a program of exercise) in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design with two levels (high vs. low) of each variable. It was hypothesized that such information would affect participants' perceptions of response efficacy, response costs, self-efficacy, and their selection of coping strategies. Six dependent variables were investigated: two adaptive coping strategies (behavioral intention to exercise, rational problem solving) and four maladaptive strategies (avoidance, wishful thinking, hopelessness, arid fatalism). Manipulation checks found significant differences between the high and low conditions of each independent variable. Adaptive strategies were strongly endorsed, whereas endorsement of the maladaptive strategies ranged from minimal to complete disagreement. Participants in the high self-efficacy condition indicated stronger intentions to exercise. Students in the low response efficacy condition demonstrated more endorsement of hopelessness and fatalism than did students in the high response efficacy condition. When exercising status was included as a fourth independent variable, it was found that active adolescents endorsed the adaptive coping strategies more strongly than did inactive adolescents. The cognitive coping strategies adopted by adolescents when dealing with perceived threats to their health may be influenced by information on the efficacy of relevant behavior, by perceptions of their ability to perform such behavior, and by their actual involvement with the behavior of concern.     

Attentive fields are related to focal and contextual features: A study of Müller-Lyer distortions

The mathematical model associated with integrative field theory was used to infer the size of attentive fields in a task involving judgments of size. A compounded Müller-Lyer task was employed in which fins between or outside the standard shafts were systematically removed. Performance on this task was simulated by a computer that generated families of theoretical functions varying in the parameter of attentive field size. Individual theoretical functions were then correlated with an empirical function obtained from real observers. The value of attentive field size that provided the best fit between functions was then selected. The results showed that, in almost all cases, the optimum size of the attentive field was smaller for the shrinkage form than for the expansion form of the Müller-Lyer pattern, that the attentive field changed more dramatically with changes in stimulus variables in the expansion form than in the shrinkage form, and that changes in viewing distance had little effect on the optimum size of the attentive field. It was concluded that the attention was involved both in figure-ground segregation and in maintaining object constancy. The similarity of these results to data obtained in recognition and detection tasks was noted.