Assertiveness,self-actualization,and locus of control in women

An intervention program designed to facilitate psychological growth in middle-aged women was implemented and evaluated. Specifically, the study examined the program's effects on the participants in the areas of assertiveness, externality, and self-actualization at the end of the program and five months later. The results showed significant increases in assertiveness and self-actualization in the women at the posttest and five months later. There was no change in locus of control; most of the women were internally oriented at the pretest and remained the same over time.     

Recognition memory in mentally retarded persons

The continuous recognition memory of retarded and normal subjects was assessed. The stimuli were magazine pictures, arranged so that lags of up to 250 pictures occured. The overall performance of the retarded subjects was poorer, in terms of hit rate or d′. However, the differences were present at 0 lag and the slopes of the forgetting curves were similar in both groups. It was concluded that differences between these subjects were due to a perception related process and not to memory.     

Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) can be treated effectively with cognitive-behavioral therapy. When working with clients who have GAD, therapy can focus on four central areas that help to promote therapeutic change. The initial focus of therapy is on developing a sound therapeutic alliance and educating the client about anxiety symptoms. Skills training focuses on relaxation training and cognitive changes that can help clients confront their worries in a constructive manner. Then, exposure to internal and external aspects of the anxiety can help clients test and refine their coping skills. Finally, because of the chronic nature of GAD, relapse prevention strategies can be used to help maintain treatment gains over time. These strategies allow a broad but flexible treatment plan that can be adapted to the unique needs of each individual client.     

Predicting Academic Dishonesty on National Examinations: The Roles of Gender,Previous Performance,Examination Center Change,City Change,and Region Change

The purpose of the present studies was to evaluate and predict academic cheating with regard to a national examination in a Middle East country. In Study 1, 4,024 students took part and potential cheaters were classified as those having discrepant scores in multiple administrations that exceeded 1 SD in absolute terms. A latent class mixture analysis suggested two pathways for potential cheating: (a) The first path involved students—most male—who changed city or region of examination during test taking, and (b) the second path described students—most male—who did not change city, region, or center of administration. Study 2 profiled cheaters using a sample of examinees who were actually caught cheating. Participants were 545 students, 253 of whom were caught cheating between 2002 and 2012. Both samples were selected from a pool of 319,219 testees using random sampling procedures. Results indicated that a 4-class solution best fitted the data as in Study 1. Furthermore, a predictive model was tested with an independent cross-validation sample of 112 examinees (56 cheaters, 56 noncheaters). Results indicated that the model classified correctly 78.57 of the new cheating cases (sensitivity) and 94.64% of noncheaters (specificity).     

Attributionally more complex people show less punitiveness and racism

Based on past findings that attributionally more complex people make less fundamental attribution error, it was hypothesized that they would show less punitiveness and racism. In a study of 102 undergraduates, this hypothesis received robust support. The effect of attributional complexity was significant in two different punitiveness measures, a rehabilitation support measure, and two different racism measures. Also, this effect still held when demographic variables, crime victimization history, and need for cognition were statistically controlled. Moreover, attributional complexity mediated the effect of need for cognition and gender on punitiveness and racism. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Social axioms and values: a cross‐cultural examination

The relationships between social axioms, general beliefs that people hold about the social world, and values, defined as desirable goals for life, were examined in five cultural groups. Results show that the correlations between social axioms and Schwartz's (1992) values are generally low, suggesting that they represent two distinct types of construct. Based on a structural equation modelling approach, results further show that generally speaking, the five axiom dimensions are related to the value types in a meaningful and interpretable manner, and that these relationships are generally similar across the five cultural groups. Implications of these results and directions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Choices and preferences: Evidence from implicit choices and response times

We present a new experimental paradigm where choice-induced preference change is measured for alternatives which are never compared directly, but rather confronted with other alternatives in a way which keeps choices predictable without exogenously manipulating them. This implicit-choice design improves on the free-choice paradigm, avoiding the recently criticized selection bias. Rating and ranking spreads in two experiments show that preference-based choices feed back into and alter preferences even if choices are not directly among similarly evaluated alternatives. In agreement with recent brain-imaging evidence, response time measurements for direct choice pairs in our experiments indicate that reappraisal processes are already triggered during decision making, with larger post-choice spreads (sharper attitude change) being associated to quicker decisions.     

Emotional responses to honour situations in Turkey and the northern USA

The main goal of the current research is to investigate emotional reactions to situations that implicate honour in Turkish and northern American cultural groups. In Studies 1A and 1B, participants rated the degree to which a variety of events fit their prototypes for honour-related situations. Both Turkish and American participants evaluated situations generated by their co-nationals as most central to their prototypes of honour-related situations. Study 2 examined emotional responses to Turkish or US-generated situations that varied in centrality to the prototype. Highly central situations and Turkish-generated situations elicited stronger emotions than less central situations and US-generated situations. Americans reported higher levels of positive emotions in response to honour-enhancing situations than did Turkish participants. These findings demonstrate that the prototypes of honour relevant situations differ for Turkish and northern American people, and that Turkish honour relevant situations are more emotion-laden than are northern American honour relevant situations.     

Scaling Incentives: Determining Preference and Indifference in 8- to lO-Year-Old Girls

The present study adopted procedures similar to those used by Logan (1965) to determine choice behavior in children. The objective was to provide an improved methodology in delay-of-gratification studies, thus avoiding the problems associated with scaling different kinds of rewards, and to provide approximate functions relating a delay-of-token reward to choice behavior. Thus, 7 girls aged 8 to 10 years were exposed to a choice paradigm in which a larger reward (2 tokens) was pitted against a smaller reward (1 token); access to these rewards was delayed a certain period of time. The results of this experiment showed that as the delay of the larger reward increased, preference for the smaller reward increased in an orderly fashion. The finding that delay shifted preference from the larger to the smaller reward is discussed in relation to current theory. The results of this experiment also provide evidence for the utility of tokens in scaling incentives for choice studies.