Temperamental differences between healthy,asthmatic, and allergic children before onset of illness: a longitudinal prospective study of asthma development

The authors investigated the link between children's temperament and the development of asthma and allergies. Prospective longitudinal data on children at the ages of 3-5 months, 3-5 years, and 7-9 years were collected. At age 7-9 years, analyses were performed on data for 3 groups of children (n = 42): those with asthma (no allergies), those with allergies (no asthma), and those with neither asthma nor allergies (the control group). Data for children who developed asthma or allergies prior to age 7-9 years were not analyzed. Differences were found in the premorbid period between the control group and the children who later developed asthma or allergies as well as between the asthma and allergy groups. After onset of illness, no temperamental differences were observed between the 3 groups. The study shows the importance of longitudinal design for asthma research.     

Age differences in coping resources and satisfaction with life among middle-aged,young-old,and oldest-old adults

The authors examined age differences in perceived coping resources and satisfaction with life across 3 older-adult age groups (45-64, 65-74, and 75 years and older). The 98 participants represented healthy, socially active, community-residing adults. Group comparisons were made on 12 individual coping scales, and an overall coping resource effectiveness score was computed. No significant differences were found for 11 of the coping resources or for overall coping resource effectiveness. Similar consistencies in life satisfaction were found across the 3 age groups. The findings indicate that (a) for healthy adults, the oldest old cope at least as effectively as their younger counterparts, despite their likelihood of encountering increased levels of stress; and (b) psychologically, old age may be viewed as a time of resilience and fortitude.     

The effects of hand gestures on verbal recall as a function of high- and low-verbal-skill levels

The author examined the effects of cueing for verbal recall with the accompanying self-generated hand gestures as a function of verbal skill. There were 36 participants, half with low SAT verbal scores and half with high SAT verbal scores. Half of the participants of each verbal-skill level were cued for recall with their own gestures, and the remaining half was given a free-recall test. Cueing with self-generated gestures aided the low-verbal-skill participants so that their retrieval rate equaled that of the high-verbal-skill participants and their loss of recall over a 2-week period was minimal. This effect was stable for both concrete and abstract words. The findings support the hypothesis that gestures serve as an auxiliary code for memory retrieval.     

The moderating roles of personal and social resources on the relationship between dual expectations (for instrumentality and expressiveness) and well-being

The authors examined the roles of self-esteem and perceived social support in moderating the relationship between dual social expectations (instrumentality and expressivity) and well-being. Participants were 166 female and 87 male students in an urban community in the midwestern United States. After the authors controlled for the main effects of instrumental and expressive expectations, social support, as predicted, moderated the relationship between dual expectations and well-being: With higher levels of social support, higher levels of dual expectations were associated with higher levels of well-being; with lower levels of social support, higher levels of dual expectations were associated with lower levels of well-being. Contrary to predictions, however, self-esteem did not moderate the relation between dual expectations and well-being. The discussion focuses on the importance of social resources in enhancing the potential benefits of dual expectations in interpersonal contexts.     

How a group goal may reduce social matching in group performance: shifts in standards for determining a fair contribution of effort

The authors investigated whether the presence of a specific group goal would reduce social matching (i.e., matching one's own performance to the performance expected from others) by serving as an alternative standard. As predicted, when there was no specific goal, the participants matched their own performance to the performance expected from other group members. When there was a specific group goal, the women no longer engaged in social matching, although that effect did not emerge among the men. Instead, the women's mean personal performance was close to the performance level representing an equal share of the group goal. Moreover, the participants' perceptions of a fair contribution mediated the performance of the men and the women, both in the presence and in the absence of a goal.     

Adaptive self-regulation: meeting others' expectations of leadership and performance

The authors used longitudinal multisource field data to examine core aspects of the adaptive self-regulation model (A. S. Tsui & S. J. Ashford, 1994) in terms of linkages between self-monitoring, discrepancy in manager match-to-position, 5 measures of leadership, and manager performance. At Time 1, 64 superiors of focal managers rated the managers' matches to their positions within the organization; at Time 3, they rated the managers' performance. At Time 2, the 64 focal managers completed a measure of self-monitoring, and 192 subordinates rated the focal managers' leadership behaviors. Results of partial least squares analysis revealed that discrepancy in manager match-to-position was associated with reductions in laissez faire and passive management-by-exception behaviors and increases in transformational leadership behavior. Self-monitoring was positively associated with all 5 leadership behaviors. Performance was related positively to transformational leadership behavior and negatively to passive management-by-exception and contingent-reward behaviors     

Contextual control of equivalence-based transformation of functions

The transformation of functions refers to the untrained acquisition of stimulus functions among members of stimulus equivalence classes or relational frames. Although it is widely assumed that contextual control over the transformation of fuctions must exist, this has not yet been conclusively demonstrated in laboratory studies. Four experiments are reported in which (a) stimulus equivalence classes were established, (b) a conditional stimulus function was trained for one member of each of the classes, and (c) multiple-exemplar procedures were used to train and test for contextual control over the transformation of the stimulus function within the classes and to assess whether it generalized to new equivalence classes. Although a significant amount of training was required, the procedures ultimately resulted in the contextual control of function transformation for 9 of 10 participants and generalized contextual control for 4 of 5 participants.     

Role of sex in externally motivated self-touching gestures

Self-touching gestures can be externally induced by the verbal presentation of anxiety-inducing stimuli and the active discussion of a passage. The frequency of these self-touching gestures appears to be affected by the individual interacting with the topic, the type of discourse (listening or discussing), the type of stimulus (canaries or leeches), and the interaction between the types of discourse and stimulus. This study assessed these variables as well as the sex of the participant and the order of presentation of stimulus type, neither of which were statistically significant. Participants were read two passages, one about a topic (leeches) expected to produce anxiety and the other about a topic (canaries) not expected to do so, and asked to answer questions about the passages. The number of self-touches was counted by an observer in another room. Each participant had both types of discourse (listening and discussing) and both types of stimulus (canaries and leeches). There was no significant difference between the number of self-touches by participants with either the male or female reader. Discussion as a method of discourse was associated with a significantly greater number of self-touches than listening. The interaction between discourse type and stimulus type was also significant. The combination of the anxiety-producing stimulus and the active discourse (discussion) produced the highest average number of self-touches.     

Selective exposure and dissonance after decisions

Well-known literature reviews from the 1960s question whether cognitive dissonance underlies experimental participants' selective exposure of themselves to consonant messages and avoidance of dissonant ones. A meta-analytic review of 16 studies published from 1956 to 1996 and involving 1,922 total participants shows that experimental tests consistently support the supposition that dissonance is associated with selective exposure (r = .22, p < .001). Statistical power exceeded .99. Advances in statistical methodology and increased attention to selecting appropriate tests of dissonance theory were essential to finally resolving this question.     

A measurement theory of illusory conjunctions

Illusory conjunctions refer to the incorrect perceptual combination of correctly perceived features, such as color and shape. Research on the phenomenon has been hampered by the lack of a measurement theory that accounts for guessing features, as well as the incorrect combination of correctly perceived features. Recently, several investigators have suggested using multinomial models as a tool for measuring feature integration. The authors examined the adequacy of these models in 2 experiments by testing whether model parameters reflect changes in stimulus factors. In a third experiment, confidence ratings were used as a tool for testing the model. Multinomial models accurately reflected both variations in stimulus factors and observers' trial-by-trial confidence ratings.