Helping as a function of feeling state and nature of the helping behavior

The proposition that positive feelings increase helping because they increase the perception of personal power implies that if the person prefers not to help, positive feelings would decrease helping. This was tested in an experiment that varied feelings and pleasantness of the helping task. False meter feedback was used to manipulate feelings, and an indirect check on the manipulation showed that it was effective in varying feelings. As expected from the notion that positive feelings allow the person to feel free to refuse to help, there was an interaction between feelings and pleasantness of the helping task; positive feelings produced less helping than neutral or negative feelings when the helping task was unpleasant.This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.     

A method of matrix analysis of group structure

Matrix methods may be applied to the analysis of experimental data concerning group structure when these data indicate relationships which can be depicted by line diagrams such as sociograms. One may introduce two concepts,n-chain and clique, which have simple relationships to the powers of certain matrices. Using them it is possible to determine the group structure by methods which are both faster and more certain than less systematic methods. This paper describes such a matrix method and applies it to the analysis of practical examples. At several points some unsolved problems in this field are indicated.     

Stimulus selection by the retarded: list length and response requirement.

Institutionalized retardates learned paired associates of redundant trigrams and double digits (e.g., DLZ/10) and were given a transfer test to measure their stimulus selection. List length (four or six items) and response requirement (recall or recognition) were both manipulated during learning. The finding of most interest was that the retardates became more efficient at cue selection as the amount of information increased. This finding suggests that, at least to some extent, these retarded persons actively tended to choose a stimulus-processing strategy that puts a low load on memory as the overall memory requirements of the paired-associate task were increased.     

Helicopter Parenting and Emerging Adult Self-Efficacy: Implications for Mental and Physical Health

Helicopter parenting has become an increasing concern among practitioners, college administrators, and professors. Further, some research has indicated that this form of parenting may have a deleterious effect on emerging adult college students’ mental health. This study examines the factor structure of the Helicopter Parenting Behaviors measure, a recent scale developed to examine intrusive and supportive parenting behaviors, by using confirmatory factor analysis. We utilized a self-determination theoretical framework to replicate and expand current research regarding the impact of helicopter parenting and autonomy supportive parenting on emerging adult mental and physical well-being. Further, we examined self-efficacy as a mechanism for helicopter parenting and autonomy supportive parenting to impact well-being, using structural equation modeling with a sample of 461 emerging adult college students from a large southeastern, United States university. The two-factor structure of the Helicopter Parenting Behaviors measure was confirmed, indicating helicopter parenting and autonomy supportive parenting are two unique, but related, constructs. Both autonomy supportive parenting and helicopter parenting were found to have indirect effects on anxiety, depression, life satisfaction, and physical health through self-efficacy. Results also indicated autonomy supportive parenting was directly related to life satisfaction and physical health when accounting for self-efficacy, whereas helicopter parenting was not directly related to well-being. This study adds to the extant literature by its’ application of a family-level lens to the self-determination theory, its’ advancement of parenting behaviors measurement, and its’ exploration of the continued influence of parenting during emerging adulthood.     

Qualitative and Quantitative Shifts in Adolescent Problem Behavior Development: A Cohort-Sequential Multivariate Latent Growth Modeling Approach

The aim of this study was to examine the nature of problem behavior development from late childhood through adolescence, to assess the quantitative development of problem behavior (alcohol use, marijuana use, deviance, academic failure) as well as potential qualitative shifts in problem behavior over time. Multivariate latent growth curve modeling (LGM) analyses and a cohort-sequential design were employed. Data were from the National Youth Survey and included 770 youth from four cohorts (11, 12, 13, 14 years old), assessed annually for 5 years. Results showed significant growth in problem behavior from ages 11 to 18. Alcohol use and marijuana use contributed most, and academic failure contributed least to the problem behavior latent construct. Results of the variant model revealed that the contribution of all four behaviors to the overall problem behavior construct increased similarly as children aged.     

Increased exposure and phonetic context help listeners recognize allophonic variants

This study examines the influence of increased exposure and phonetic context on the recognition of words that are produced with nasal flaps in American English (e.g., the word center produced as cenner). Previous work has shown that despite their high frequency of occurrence, words produced with nasal flaps are recognized more slowly and less accurately compared with canonical pronunciation variants produced with /nt/, which occur less frequently. We conducted two experiments in order to investigate how exposure and phonetic context influence this reported processing disadvantage for flapped variants. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the time to recognize flapped variants presented in isolation decreased over the course of the experiment, while accuracy increased. Experiment 2 replicated this finding and showed further that flapped variants that were presented in a casually produced sentence context were recognized faster compared with flapped variants presented in a carefully produced sentence context. Interestingly, the effect of context emerged only in late responses and was present only for flapped but not for canonical variants. Our results thus show that increased exposure and phonetic context help listeners recognize allophonic variants. This finding provides further support for the notion that listeners are flexible and adapt to phonetic variation in speech.     

Empirical comparisons of bilinear and nonbilinear utility theories

Several bilinear and nonbilinear utility theories are evaluated using individual data from 144 informants. The nonbilinear models are best for 67% of the informants. The nonrational property of duplex decomposition linking joint receipts and mixed gambles of gains and losses is more adequate than the rational link of general segregation for 73% of the informants. The correlations are very high and linear, even in the worst fitting case. The weighting functions are mostly inverse-S-shaped and for 84% of the informants are fit best by the class of functions proposed by D. Prelec. These fits were generally excellent, with a minimum correlation of.81, a maximum of.99, and an average of.97.     

A computer-automated laboratory for studying complex perception-action skills

In this paper, we describe a computer-based laboratory for collecting and analyzing real-time performance and eye-movement data by using video game-like tasks. These tasks assess skills that require the integration of varying numbers of perception and action components. Customized hardware and software are described for configuring tasks, collecting data, reconstructing performance, and organizing, editing, and reducing data. General design considerations are emphasized for solving several of the problems encountered in constructing a real-time data collection system. The paper concludes with examples of data that illustrate the system’s usefulness for studying complex perception-action skills.     

Predictions from a model of global psychophysics about differences between perceptual and physical matches

A well-known phenomenon is that ??matched?? successive signals do not result in physical identity. This phenomenon has mostly been studied in terms of how much the second of two signals varies from the first, which is called the time-order error (TOE). Here, theoretical predictions led us to study the more general question of how much the matching signal differs from the standard signal, independent of the position of the matching signal as the first or second in a presentation. This we call non-equal matches (NEM). Using Luce??s (Psychological Review, 109, 520?C532, 2002, Psychological Review, 111, 446?C454, 2004, Psychological Review, 115, 601, 2008, Psychological Review, 119, 373?C387, 2012) global psychophysical theory, we predicted NEM when an intensity z is perceived to be ??1 times a standard signal x.?? The theory predicts two different types of individual behaviors for the NEM, and these predictions were evaluated and confirmed in an experiment. We showed that the traditional definition of TOE precludes the observation, and thus the study, of the NEM phenomenon, and that the NEM effect is substantial enough to alter conclusions based on data that it affects. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the custom of averaging data over individuals clearly leads to quite misleading results. An important parameter in this modeling is a reference point that plays a central role in creating variability in the data, so that the key to obtaining regular data from respondents is to stabilize the reference point.