Judgment processes in motivation: Anchoring and adjustment effects on judgment and behavior

The behavioral correlates of human judgment have received little attention from judgment and decision making researchers. One behavioral domain that provides for the study of judgment-behavior relations is task motivation (i.e., the allocation of time and effort to a task). Judgments of contingent relations are primary components of several theories of motivation, including expectancy theories and the theory of behavior in organizations proposed by Naylor, Pritchard, and Ilgen (1980). The characteristics of heuristic judgment processes are hypothesized to affect contingency judgments and thus behavioral allocations of time and effort. This paper examines the effects of the anchoring and adjustment heuristic upon (a) judgments of future effort and performance and (b) upon actual allocations of time and effort using several types of anchoring information. Results indicate that both irrelevant and relevant information have strong anchoring effects on effort and performance judgments, but do not have concomitant effects on behavior. Implications for the role of judgment in motivation and for the link between judgment and behavior are discussed.     

Impact of artificial fissioning and social networks on levels of aggression and affiliation in primates

Levels of aggression may be affected by stability of social relationships or by population density. A number of studies of nonhuman primates have indicated that spatial density influences agonistic activity levels less than does social density. Artificial fissioning of a captive troop of rhesus macaques was undertaken and the resultant differences in patterns of aggression and affiliation were examined. If population density has a major effect on levels of aggression, then fissioning will result in a decrease in aggression; if social stability has a major effect on levels of aggression, then fissioning is likely to be accompanied by an increase in aggression. An increase in rates of both aggressive and affiliative behavior resulted from artificial troop fissioning. These findings concur with other studies that have concluded that social stability is a more important determinant of primate aggression than is population density. Nonhuman primates use affiliative mechanisms to adjust their behavior when population density increases such that potentially adverse consequences of crowding are avoided.     

Disruptive Behavior Disorders in Children and Adolescents: How Do Girls Differ From Boys?

Disruptive behavior disorders in children and adolescents can lead to a lifetime of problems. The 2 disruptive behavior disorders identified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM‐IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) are oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder. Although much research has been conducted to learn more about these 2 disorders, little is known about gender differences in the disorders. There is a dearth of specific information regarding girls with disruptive behavior disorders. This article discusses the diagnosis, risk factors, and treatment of oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder while incorporating information specific to girls to investigate how disruptive behavior disorders differ for girls.     

Human perception of verticality: Psychophysical experiments on the centrifuge and their neuronal implications

The role of the otoliths in the perception of verticality is analyzed in two different gravitational environments, 1 g and 1.5 g , and in different roll body positions between upright and upside down. The subjective visual vertical (SVV) is determined when a subject judges the orientation of an indicator as apparently vertical. An increase of g level hardly affects the SVV in the subject's frontal plane (y-z plane). However, for the first time, a three-dimensionally adjustable indicator was used for the SVV and this revealed a new phenomenon: An increase of g level induces a backward slant of the SVV into subject's median plane (x-z plane). The data are discussed with regard to Mittelstaedt's SVV theory; particular emphasis is given to the otolith-head coordinate transformation and the normalization of afferent otolith components. The results of this study provide evidence that the former is implemented at an earlier level and thus precedes the latter.     

The psychoanalytic dictionary: a position paper on diversity and its unifiers

An attempt is made to create a conceptual housing for an increasingly common stance among clinicians who willingly draw from diverse theories as they seem applicable to the immediate clinical moment. The working clinician generally does this without regard to questions of eclectic contradiction or of whether concepts can be extricated from the theories in which they are embedded. The metaphor of a psychoanalytic dictionary is used to create this conceptual housing. Within this metaphor, a psychoanalytic alphabet, vocabulary, and grammar are defined, as well as a set of core assumptions that gives some shape to the boundaries of the psychoanalytic language. Diversity is located in the preferred alphabets and vocabularies of varied psychoanalysts, and unifiers are found in the grammar and core assumptions of the language. Questions regarding internally inconsistent eclecticism and extricability are discussed. The integrative concepts chosen here (among the many that are possible)--concepts defining a shared view of how mind works--are found in such familiar ideas as displacement, condensation, over-determination, and multiple function.     

Language-experience facilitates discrimination of /d-th/ in monolingual and bilingual acquisition of English

To trace how age and language experience shape the discrimination of native and non-native phonetic contrasts, we compared 4-year-olds learning either English or French or both and simultaneous bilingual adults on their ability to discriminate the English /d-th/ contrast. Findings show that the ability to discriminate the native English contrast improved with age. However, in the absence of experience with this contrast, discrimination of French children and adults remained unchanged during development. Furthermore, although simultaneous bilingual and monolingual English adults were comparable, children exposed to both English and French were poorer at discriminating this contrast when compared to monolingual English-learning 4-year-olds. Thus, language experience facilitates perception of the English /d-th/ contrast and this facilitation occurs later in development when English and French are acquired simultaneously. The difference between bilingual and monolingual acquisition has implications for language organization in children with simultaneous exposure.     

Impact of the hormonal milieu on the neurobiology of alcohol dependence and withdrawal

Alcoholism, or alcohol dependence, is a complex disorder with withdrawal symptoms that are often problematic for those trying to recover from their dependence. As researchers attempt to elucidate the neurobiological underpinnings of alcohol dependence and withdrawal, it is becoming clear that numerous factors, including the hormonal environment, impact the manifestations of this disorder. Of particular interest is the observation that women have fewer and less severe withdrawal symptoms than do men even though they tend to suffer greater physiological harm from excessive alcohol consumption. In this article, the authors present an overview of their understanding of how gonadal and stress hormones interact with alcohol, which results in differential neurobiological responses between males and females. Thus far, data generated from representative animal models have shown significant differences between the sexes in behavioral responses and neuroadaptations to chronic alcohol consumption and withdrawal. Accumulating evidence suggests that treatment of alcoholism, including withdrawal, should be tailored to the patient's gender and hormonal status.