Keeping track of locations during movement in 8- to 10-month-old infants

Infants of $\text{8}\text{1}\text{2}$ and $\text{9}\text{1}\text{2}$ mo of age were tested for the ability to “keep track,” i.e., to determine the location of an object hidden in one of two covered containers before their left-right positions were reversed. Infants in both age groups for whom the covers were the same color and younger infants for whom the covers were different colors were generally unable to keep track. Only the older infants provided with different colored covers were able to do so. An analysis which separated keeping track from the sensorimotor stage 4 error indicated that (a) there was no contingency between the two and (b) there were developmental differences in the nature of the error.     

The Impact of Work Resources on Job Stress Among Correctional Treatment Staff

In an exploratory study of the relationship between resources in the work environment and job stress, correctional treatment staff members reporting quality personal relationships in the work environment also experienced fewer stressors at work.     

Dynamics of oralrespiratory coordination in full-term and preterm infants: II. Continuing effects at 3 months post term

Thirty-two infants participating in a longitudinal study of the effects of premature birth on sucking and breathing were tested at 3 months post term. They were assigned at a previous test to either a healthy full-term, healthy preterm, or high risk preterm group on the basis of birth weight, postconceptional age at birth, and perinatal medical status. Positive and negative sucking pressure as well as chest and abdominal breathing movements were recorded during nutritive sucking. The high risk preterms used a simpler and more stable pattern of coordination between sucking and breathing, were more likely to interrupt breathing at milk onset, and produced longer phase lags between positive and negative sucking pressure.     

Individualism and Authoritarianism Shape Attitudes Toward Physician-Assisted Suicide1

We investigated the relation between value orientations and attitudes toward physician-assisted suicide (PAS) in 267 United States college students. We predicted that individualistic values, especially those having to do with control and self-determination, would lead to favorable attitudes toward PAS, and authoritarianism would lead to a rejection of PAS. A positive association between individualism and approval of PAS emerged which was moderated by attitude importance: People who did not endorse individualistic values did not have favorable opinions of PAS, regardless of how important the issue was to them. However, for individualists, PAS attitudes and attitude importance were positively related. Independent of individualism, authoritarianism was negatively related to PAS attitudes. Primarily for low authoritarianism, we found a correlation between attitude and attitude importance. The discussion focuses on the value-expressive function of death-related attitudes.     

Mishandling the Gift of Life: Noncompliance in Renal Transplant Patients1

Two studies investigating renal transplant patients compliance with their post-transplant medical regimen are presented. Compliance was operationalized as a multidimensional construct incorporating behaviors that represent adherence to the regimen. Study 1 examined the association of noncompliance with clinically significant outcomes and the medical and demographic predictors of noncompliance. Noncompliance was associated with rejection episodes, graft loss, and multiple transplants. The best predictors of noncompliance were medication side effects, age, education, and insurance coverage. Study 2 examined the psychosocial predictors of noncompliance. After age and side-effects complaints, self-efficacy and threat appraisal were the best predictors of compliance. The implications of these results for expectancy-value models of health behaviors (e.g., protection motivation theory; Rogers, 1983) and their ability to predict compliance in patients following long-term regimens are discussed.     

From being motivated to motivating oneself: A Vygotskian perspective

Conclusion The aim of this paper has been to draw attention to the non-cognitive aspects of Vygotsky's theoretical heritage. We hope that we have succeeded in presenting here his principal ideas on motivation and volition in the present-day problem context. It should be noted that the problem of human freedom and self-determination was of great importance for Vygotsky, though the explicit discussion of this problem is not common in his writings. Approaching this problem both as a philosopher and as a psychologist, Vygotsky inevitably had first to get some idea of the general psychological regularities which could serve as a concrete-psychological basis for the constructive paradigm in the explanation of the phenomena of human freedom and non-freedom. It is highly probable that he planned to discuss this problem at length in his last uncompleted book,Doctrine of Affects. However, even the existing texts provide a weighty and insightful basis not only for scientific research but also for creating applied methods of enhancement of human will-power, or, more exactly, the talent to will. Some of the possibilities, revealed by the Vygotskian approach, are presented in the last section. Many other of Vygotsky's brilliant ideas still await an unbiased reading in the contemporary, rather than merely historical, context.     

The Influence of Decision Makers' Goals on Their Concerns About Procedural Justice1

Two studies examine how decision makers' goals of enhancing organizational effectiveness and promoting positive interpersonal relations shape their decision making when they are allocating scarce resources among group members. Past research has conceptualized this problem as one of balancing between the use of two distributive justice principles: equity and equality. The studies reported examine the degree to which authorities are also concerned about issues of procedural justice. The results suggest that experienced decision makers—both managerial and administrative—believe that when trying to maintain positive interpersonal relations it is as important to use decision-making procedures that will be regarded as fair (procedural justice) as it is to allocate outcomes in ways which will be regarded as fair (distributive justice). Decision makers' definitions of procedural justice are also examined.