Validity of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-64) for predicting assertiveness in role-play situations

The Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-64; Horowitz, Alden, Wiggins, & Pincus, 2000) is a self-report measure of maladaptive relationship behavior. Ninety-five adult female participants completed the IIP-64 and then interacted with a same-sex confederate in three diagnostic role plays, designed to evoke assertive responses. After each role play, both the participant and the confederate judged how assertive the participant had been, using two subscales from the Interpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS; Wiggins, 1995). The participants' general self-images, assessed with the IIP-64, were quite congruent with how they judged their own assertiveness in the role plays. But when role-play assertiveness was judged by the confederate, the match with the participants' general self-images was considerably lower. Our results indicate that self-reported interpersonal problems do not converge well with external judgments of interpersonal behavior.     

The social construction of race: biracial identity and vulnerability to stereotypes

Multiracial individuals are more likely to have a heightened awareness of race as a social construct than monoracial individuals. This article examines the impact that a heightened awareness of race as a social construct has on the relationship between racial stereotypes and performance. Study 1 finds that multiracial individuals reported subscribing less to the notion that race biologically determines ability. Study 2 finds that monoracial individuals show stereotype activation, whereas multiracial individuals show stereotype inhibition in reaction to race salience. Study 3 draws on the work on stereotypes and performance to test the susceptibility of multiracial individuals to racial stereotypes about ability. The authors find that Asian/White and Black/White multiracial individuals were less susceptible to racial stereotypes than monoracial individuals. Whereas monoracial participants showed significant performance changes in reaction to race salience, multiracial individuals did not. Study 4 finds that emphasizing the social construction of race buffers individuals from stereotype threat effects.     

A Big Regulatory Tool-Box for a Small Technology

There is little doubt that the development and commercialisation of nanotechnologies is challenging traditional state-based regulatory regimes. Yet governments currently appear to be taking a non-interventionist approach to directly regulating this emerging technology. This paper argues that a large regulatory toolbox is available for governing this small technology and that as nanotechnologies evolve, many regulatory advances are likely to occur outside of government. It notes the scientific uncertainties facing us as we contemplate nanotechnology regulatory matters and then examines the notion of regulation itself, suggesting new ways to frame our understanding of both regulation and the regulatory tools relevant to nanotechnologies. By drawing upon three different conceptual lenses of regulation, the paper articulates a wide range of potential regulatory tools at hand. It also focuses particularly on the ways various tools are currently being used or perhaps may be employed in the future. The strengths and weaknesses characterising these tools is examined as well as the different actors involved. The paper concludes that we will increasingly face debate over what is likely to work most effectively in regulating nano technologies, the legitimacy of these different potential approaches, and the speed at which these different regimes may be employed.

The tie effect in simple arithmetic: An access-based account

Simple arithmetic problems with repeated operands (i.e., ties such as 4 + 4, 6 x 6, 10 - 5, or 49 / 7) are solved more quickly and accurately than similar nontie problems (e.g., 4 + 5, 6 x 7, 10 - 6, or 48 / 6). Further, as compared with nonties, ties show small or nonexistent problem-size effects (whereby problems with smaller operands such as 2 + 3 are solved more quickly and accurately than problems with larger operands such as 8 + 9). Blankenberger (2001) proposed that the tie advantage occurred because repetition of the same physical stimulus resulted in faster encoding of tie than of nontie problems. Alternatively, ties may be easier to solve than nonties because of differences in accessibility in memory or differences in the solution processes. Adults solved addition and multiplication (Experiment 1) or subtraction and division (Experiment 2) problems in four two pure formats (e.g., 4 + 4, FOUR + FOUR) and two mixed formats (e.g., 4 + FOUR, and FOUR + 4). Tie advantages were reduced in mixed formats, as compared with pure formats, but the tie x problem-size interaction persisted across formats. These findings support the view that tie effects are strongly related to memory access and are influenced only moderately by encoding factors.     

Physiological evidence that a masked unrelated intervening item disrupts semantic priming: implications for theories of semantic representation and retrieval models of semantic priming

Event-related potentials were recorded in a paradigm where an unrelated word was interposed between two related words. In one condition, the intervening item was masked and in another condition it was not. The N400 component indicated that priming of the related word was disrupted by the intervening item whether it was masked or not. The data are interpreted to be inconsistent with retrieval models of priming.     

Somatic and social: Chinese Americans talk about emotion

Empirical findings suggest that Chinese and Americans differ in the ways that they describe emotional experience, with Chinese using more somatic and social words than Americans. No one, however, has investigated whether this variation is related to differences between Chinese and American conceptions of emotion or to linguistic differences between the English and Chinese languages. Therefore, in two studies, the authors compared the word use of individuals who varied in their orientation to Chinese and American cultures (European Americans [EA], more acculturated Chinese Americans [CA], and less acculturated CA) when they were speaking English during emotional events. Across both studies, less acculturated CA used more somatic (e.g., dizzy) and more social (e.g., friend) words than EA. These findings suggest that even when controlling for language spoken, cultural conceptions of emotion may shape how people talk about emotion.     

Illusory Control and Motives for Control: The Role of Connection and Intentionality

An experiment was done to examine the control heuristic perspective on illusory control and the effects of motives on control judgments, using a computer task similar to the light onset task used in previous research. Desire for the outcome and reinforcement were manipulated. As predicted from a control heuristic perspective, the effect of level of reinforcement on judgments of personal control was mediated by the measure of perceived connection: the perception of the number of positive confirming cases. Motives increased illusions of control, but only in the high reinforcement condition. A mediational analysis that examined how motives affect control judgments found that when the motive to get the outcomes was high, participants had higher estimates of having acted intentionally and these estimates partially mediated the relationship between the motivation manipulation and judgments of control. It appears that perceptions of connection mediate the relationship between reinforcement and illusory control, while judgments of intentionality partially mediate the effect of motives for control and illusory control.     

Archival note: an inquiry into the relationshp between Alfred Binet and Cyril Burt

Two recent archival items offer material for analysis of Alfred Binet's (1857-1911) and Cyril Burt's (1883-1971) relationship in the early twentieth century. Burt's letter to Binet's biographer Theta Wolf was an answer to her request for information about his contact with Binet. An analysis of Burt's account prompts more questions than it answers. His statements in the letter are compared with previous ones and are put into the context of the activities of the two men, but these do not enlighten us about his actual relations with Binet. The problem arises because of Burt's desciptive vagueness and lack of supporting evidence. Despite attacks against Burt's integrity made from 1976 onward, we found no conclusive evidence of false claims. The negative outcome of this analysis probably results from Burt's faulty memory, and herein lies the caveat that personal memories make unreliable material for historical accounts.     

Ethnophaulisms and exclusion: the behavioral consequences of cognitive representation of ethnic immigrant groups

Ethnophaulisms are the words used as slurs to refer to ethnic immigrant outgroups. This article explores the effects of these cognitive representations of ethnic immigrant groups on exclusion behavior directed toward these immigrant groups. Using archival data spanning a 150-year period of American history, the results of these analyses provide a sobering picture of the effects of the cognitive representation of immigrants: a century and a half of thinking about ethnic immigrant groups in a simplistic and negative manner and a corresponding tendency to exclude those immigrant groups from the receiving society. The implications of these results for theoretical approaches to intergroup relations are considered.     

The low-frequency encoding disadvantage: Word frequency affects processing demands

Low-frequency words produce more hits and fewer false alarms than high-frequency words in a recognition task. The low-frequency hit rate advantage has sometimes been attributed to processes that operate during the recognition test (e.g., L. M. Reder et al., 2000). When tasks other than recognition, such as recall, cued recall, or associative recognition, are used, the effects seem to contradict a low-frequency advantage in memory. Four experiments are presented to support the claim that in addition to the advantage of low-frequency words at retrieval, there is a low-frequency disadvantage during encoding. That is, low-frequency words require more processing resources to be encoded episodically than high-frequency words. Under encoding conditions in which processing resources are limited, low-frequency words show a larger decrement in recognition than high-frequency words. Also, studying items (pictures and words of varying frequencies) along with low-frequency words reduces performance for those stimuli.