Planning and task management in older adults: Cooking breakfast

The article describes a simulated "cooking breakfast" task in which participants must remember to start and stop cooking five foods so that all the foods are "ready" at the same time. In between starting and stopping operations, the participants also carried out a "table-setting" task as a filler activity. The breakfast task yields various measures of multitasking and executive control. Groups of younger and older adults performed the task; half of the participants in each group were bilinguals and the other half were monolinguals. The results showed substantial age-related decrements in most measures of executive control. Additionally, older bilinguals showed some advantages in task management over their monolingual peers.     

False memories of the future: a critique of the applications of probabilistic reasoning to the study of cognitive processes

The authors argue that the ways in which people-scientists and laymen-use probabilistic reasoning is predicated on a set of often questionable assumptions that are implicit and frequently go untested. They relate to the correspondence between the terms of a theory and the observations used to validate the theory and to the implicit understandings of intention and prior knowledge that arise between the conveyer and the receiver of information. The authors show several ways in which the use of probabilistic reasoning rests on a priori commitments to a partitioning of an outcome space and demonstrate that there are many more assumptions underlying the use of probabilistic reasoning than are usually acknowledged. They unfold these assumptions to show how several different interpretations of the same results in behavioral decision theory and cognitive psychology are equally well supported by "the facts." They then propose a more comprehensive approach to mapping cognitive processes than those currently used, one that is based on the analysis of all of the relevant alternative interpretations presented in the article.     

Weathering a political storm. A contextual perspective on a psychological research controversy

In the spring of 1999, a storm of controversy arose at the local, state, and national levels surrounding an article on the effects of child sexual abuse published in 1998 in Psychological Bulletin. The article was vehemently denounced by various media outlets, conservative grassroots organizations, members of the general public, state legislatures, and ultimately by the United States Congress. The authors chronicle these unprecedented events and related challenges faced by the American Psychological Association. The authors also describe the Association's efforts to resolve the crisis, while staunchly upholding academic freedom and scientific integrity, and review the lessons learned for the field of psychology.     

Sex and Ethnic Differences in the Perception of Educational and Career‐Related Barriers and Levels of Coping Efficacy

Participants (168 female and 118 male undergraduate students) completed a brief questionnaire, a measure of perceived educational and career‐related barriers, and a measure of coping efficacy. As expected, women and ethnic minorities anticipated significantly more career‐related barriers than did men and European American students, respectively. Ethnic minorities also exhibited more perceived educational barriers and lower self‐efficacy for coping with perceived career‐related barriers relative to their European American counterparts. Findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical implications and practical career counseling applications.     

Improving Attention in Old Age

The aim of this study was to examine whether a mindful intervention, based on noticing distinctions, could be used to improve the attention of older individuals. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four attention interventions. In the mindfulness groups, participants studying a set of pictures were told to notice either three or five distinctions. In the control groups, participants were either told to pay attention or were not given any directions related to attention before exposure to the set of pictures. The results indicated that those who viewed the stimuli in terms of distinctions were able to remember significantly more pictures than did those in the control groups. Distinction drawing also increased liking for the stimuli. The findings suggest that if older individuals want to increase attention and recall, rather than focus their attention, they may want to find ways to vary their attention.     

Personality Predictors of Protégé Mentoring History

The present study identifies personality characteristics that are predicted to be associated with protégé status in a series of mentoring relationships, an area of research that has not been explored previously. Predictors of mentoring history identified are need for achievement, need for dominance, self-esteem, and tension dissipation. A MANOVA, using number of previous mentors as the independent variable and 4 personality characteristics (need for achievement, need for dominance, self-esteem, and tension dissipation) as outcome variables, showed a significant relationship. Univariate follow-up tests indicated that the number of previous mentoring relationships was significantly associated with need for achievement, need for dominance, and self-esteem, but not tension dissipation. Results are discussed in terms of protégé development, and directions for future research are suggested.     

The effect of divided attention on false memory depends on how memory is tested

In three experiments, we investigated the effects of divided attention on false memory, using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants studied six DRM lists with full attention and six in one of two divided-attention conditions (random number generation or digit monitoring). Both divided-attention conditions increased false recall of related words (Experiment 1) but reduced false recognition (Experiment 2). These results were confirmed in Experiment 3, in which the type of secondary task was manipulated within groups. We argue that the increase in false recall with divided attention reflects a change in participants' response criterion, whereas the decrease in false recognition occurs because the secondary tasks prevent participants from generating associates of the words presented at study.     

Displayed emotions and witness credibility: a comparison of judgements by individuals and mock juries

Mock juries of 5–7 jurors viewed one of three video‐recorded versions of a rape victim's testimony, role‐played by a professional actress. The statement was given in a free‐recall manner with one of three kinds of emotions displayed, termed congruent, neutral and incongruent emotional expressions. The juries were requested to reach a decision on items in a short questionnaire, probing the perceived credibility of the witness and judgements of the probability of a guilty verdict. The jurors were then asked to complete the questionnaire a second time, individually and anonymously. A control group filled out the questionnaire individually without preceding jury deliberations. When participants judged credibility and guilt independently, without a preceding jury discussion, the displayed emotions strongly influenced the judgements. However, discussions in the context of the jury strongly attenuated the effect of displayed emotion, with judgements converging on the credibility of a neutral emotional expression as judged by independent participants, and the attenuating effect outlasted the jury‐situation. The results are consistent with research within social psychology showing that social stereotypes and prejudices are often neutralised by group discussions. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Long-term effects from a randomized trial of two public health preventive interventions for parental depression.

This article presents long-term effects of a randomized trial evaluating 2 standardized, manual-based prevention strategies for families with parental mood disorder: informational lectures and a brief, clinician-based approach including child assessment and a family meeting. A sample of 105 families, in which at least 1 parent suffered from a mood disorder and at least 1 nondepressed child was within the 8- to 15-year age range, was recruited. Parents and children were assessed separately at baseline and every 9 to 12 months thereafter on behavioral functioning, psychopathology, and response to intervention. Both interventions produced sustained effects through the 6th assessment point, approximately 4.5 years after enrollment, with relatively small sample loss of families (<14%). Clinician-based families had significantly more gains in parental child-related behaviors and attitudes and in child-reported understanding of parental disorder. Child and parent family functioning increased for both groups and internalizing symptoms decreased for both groups, with no significant group differences. These findings demonstrate that brief, family-centered preventive interventions for parental depression may contribute to long-term, sustained improvements in family functioning.     

The affect heuristic and the attractiveness of simple gambles

Prior studies have observed that the attractiveness of playing a simple gamble (7/36 to win $9; otherwise win nothing) is greatly enhanced by introducing a small loss (7/36 win $9; otherwise lose 5¢). The present studies tested and confirmed an explanation of this finding based on the concept of evaluability and the affect heuristic. Evaluators of the “no‐loss” gamble lack a precise feeling for how good $9 is, hence give it little weight in their judgment. In the second gamble, comparison with the small loss makes $9 “come alive with feeling” and become weighted in the judgment, thus increasing the attractiveness of the gamble. These results demonstrate the importance of contextual factors in determining affect and preference for simple risk‐taking opportunities. They show that the meaning, utility, and weighting of even a very familiar monetary outcome such as $9 is not fixed, but depends greatly on these contextual factors. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.