Factors influencing the graphic development of a talented young artist

The focus of this case study was on the graphic development of a highly talented art student. Retrospective accounts and reactions to his spontaneous artwork done from preschool until he was in the tenth grade were used. The ability to depict the world realistically was viewed as only one indicator of artistic talent. It was concluded that effects of family background, cultural influences, skill mastery, and personal dispositional factors all contributed to the form and content of this student's artistic development.     

Filling the Gap on Developmental Change: Tests of a Dynamic Field Theory of Spatial Cognition

In early childhood, there is a developmental transition in spatial memory biases. Before the transition, children's memory responses are biased toward the midline of a space, while after the transition responses are biased away from midline. The Dynamic Field Theory (DFT) posits that changes in neural interaction and changes in how children perceive frames of reference underlie the transition. Here, we tested a prediction of the DFT that children younger than the transitional age would show the more advanced developmental pattern when tested with a perceptually salient midline axis. Four age groups (3 years, 6 months; 3 years, 8 months; 4 years; and 5 years) were tested at targets near midline. As predicted, children's responses were biased away from midline.     

A meta-analysis of the relationship between anxiety and telomere length

Background and objectives: Telomeres are protective caps at the ends of chromosomes, and shorter telomeres are associated with poor physical health. The present study set out to consolidate the varying effect sizes found so far in studies of anxiety and telomere length.

Design and methods: A meta-analytic investigation of the relationship between anxiety and telomere length used information from 17 different samples comprising a total of 19,424 participants.

Results: The results showed a small but significant association, r?=??.06, between higher anxiety and shorter telomeres. Studies comparing individuals diagnosed with an anxiety disorder with other individuals had a significant effect size, and studies that did not use this comparison threshold did not have a significant effect size.

Conclusions: Anxiety is associated with an important biomarker related to health. Future experimental studies that examine the impact of interventions intended to reduce anxiety in conjunction with measurement of telomere length can further clarify the impact of anxiety on telomere length.     

Approaching Environmental Sustainability: Perceptions of Self-Efficacy and Changeability

This paper describes a model focused on the role of self-efficacy and belief in changeability of behavior in motivating environmentally sustainable behavior. The model was tested in two studies. The first study found that participants who had greater self-efficacy for sustainability behavior and a greater belief in their changeability of sustainability behavior had a higher level of approach motivation toward sustainability behavior and reported more such actual behavior. The second study investigated the effect of brief interventions intended to increase perception of self-efficacy for sustainability-related purchasing and changeability of sustainability-related purchasing. The intervention that focused on enhancing self-efficacy for making sustainability-related purchases had the strongest impact on intention to purchase. These findings have implications for interventions intended to change behavior related to environmental sustainability.     

Person–Situation Interaction in Adaptive Emotional Functioning

Two studies applied a person–situation model to examine the effect of emotional affordances of situations. Participants rated their emotional functioning as more extensive in situations classified as being high in emotional affordance than those classified as low in emotional affordance. Participants who scored higher on the individual difference characteristic of emotional intelligence were more interested in entering high emotional affordance situations than were individuals lower in emotional intelligence, and participants who scored higher on emotional intelligence were rated by others as being more successful in high emotional affordance situations than individuals lower in emotional intelligence. These results provide preliminary evidence that the interaction between emotional intelligence and situations may influence emotional functioning.     

Designing an instrument for resolving individual conflicts in “Total” institutions

Individual complaint and grievance arbitration as a means to solve conflicts between individuals and organizations is especially useful as a management tool in situations involving a power difference between conflicting parties, as in employer-employee relationships or in total institutions. To design an instrument for solving individual conflicts in total organizations, influences of organizational structure, organizational climate, and grievance system on the resolution of individual conflicts were examined. The data were subjected to quantitative and qualitative analysis and considered in light of theoretical notions in organizational sociology, sociology of law, and conflict theory. Enid Mante-Meijer was a lecturer at the faculty of Sociology of Leyden University in 1988 she became senior researcher at the Royal Dutch PTT Research Institute for Applied Social Science Research.     

Effectiveness of a brief group RET treatment for divorce-related dysphoria

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a brief, group rational-emotive (RET) treatment and problem solving treatment for divorce related dysphoria, involving six hours of therapy over 22 days. A waiting list condition was used for comparison. On three measures of dysphoria, RET and Problem-Solving subjects improved significantly more than Waiting List subjects and RET and Problem-Solving subjects maintained their improvement at a one-month follow-up. There was no significant difference in improvement between RET and Problem-Solving treatments. Effectiveness of the treatments could have been due either to specific content, group therapy components, or nonspecific effects.John Malouff is a clinical psychologist with the Rehabilitation Center of Palm Beach, Florida. Richard Lanyon is a professor in the Psychology Department at Arizona State University in Tempe. Nicola Schutte is an assistant professor of psychology at Nova University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The authors wish to acknowledge the many contributions of Kris Cooper, Wendy Ramerth and Denise Gehrling to the study.     

Toward a formal theory of flexible spatial behavior: geometric category biases generalize across pointing and verbal response types

Three experiments tested whether geometric biases--biases away from perceived reference axes--reported in spatial recall tasks with pointing responses generalized to a recognition task that required a verbal response. Seven-year-olds and adults remembered the location of a dot within a rectangle and then either reproduced its location or verbally selected a matching choice dot from a set of colored options. Results demonstrated that geometric biases generalized to verbal responses; however, the spatial span of the choice set influenced performance as well. These data suggest that the same spatial memory process gives rise to both response types in this task. Simulations of a dynamic field model buttress this claim. More generally, these results challenge accounts that posit separate spatial systems for motor and verbal responses.     

The broaden and build process: Positive affect,ratio of positive to negative affect and general self-efficacy

Previous research indicates that increases in positive affect enhance personal resources and bring about improvements in various realms of life. The present study examined the role of general self-efficacy as a mediator between increases in positive affect and change in work and relationship satisfaction and mental health. Participants randomly assigned to a three-week intervention intended to increase positive affect showed significantly greater change in positive affect, ratio of positive to negative affect, self-efficacy, work satisfaction and mental health than participants in a control condition. Changes in affect were associated with changes in self-efficacy, work satisfaction, relationship satisfaction and mental health. Changes in self-efficacy were associated with increases in work satisfaction and mental health. The findings incorporate the concept of general self-efficacy into the broaden and build model and provide information regarding the utility of ratio of positive to negative affect indices.     

The effect of meaningfulness and integrative processing in expressive writing on positive and negative affect and life satisfaction

Meaningfulness and integrative processing of expressive writing may influence the effect of expressive writing. Participants completed measures of positive affect, negative affect and life satisfaction before and after an expressive writing intervention. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four expressive writing instruction conditions, which combined higher and lower levels of meaning and integrative processing instructions. Meaningfulness and integrative processing instructions had significant effects in increasing positive affect and there was a significant interaction between meaningfulness instructions and integrative processing instructions; participants in the high meaningfulness and high integrative processing instruction condition showed the greatest increase in positive affect. Meaningfulness had a significant effect in decreasing negative affect. The intervention did not influence life satisfaction. Both meaningfulness and integrative processing instructions led to more self-reported personal meaningfulness of the writing and more cognitive, emotional, behavioural and situational changes. More self-reported meaningfulness of the writing and more cognitive, emotional, behavioural and situational changes made as a result of the writing were in turn associated with greater increases in positive affect. The results of the study affirm the importance of meaningfulness and processing in expressive writing and potentially provide information regarding how to increase the effectiveness of expressive writing.