From Wishing to Intending: Differences in Salience of Positive versus Negative Consequences

ABSTRACT Goal ratings by 345 subjects in seven data samples supported a functional distinction between two types of positive incentive value, one based on approaching positive affect (positive-based value or PBV), the other on avoiding negative affect (negative-based value or NBV). Ratings of PBV were more related to ratings of earlier action-phases of motivation (“wishing”), whereas ratings of NBV tended to be more related to factors entailed in later action-phases (“urgency/priority” and “intention”). These findings and previous ones are consistent with the proposal that this distinction parallels distinctions in Maslow's motivation theory. If the parallel is accepted, the findings support predictions from Maslow's theory. Results also indicate that purportedly unidimensional rating scales of motivation can reflect more than one underlying attribute.     

Predictors of Accurate and Inaccurate Memories of Traumatic Events Experienced in Childhood

How likely is it that traumatic childhood events are misremembered or forgotten? Research on children′s recollections of painful or frightening medical procedures may help answer this question by identifying predictors of accurate versus inaccurate memory. In the present study, 46 3- to 10-year-old children were interviewed after undergoing a stressful medical procedure involving urethral catheterization. Age differences in memory emerged, especially when comparing 3- to 4-year-olds with older children. Children′s understanding of the event, parental communication and emotional support, and children′s own emotional reactions also predicted accuracy. Memory did not reliably vary for children who endured the medical procedure once versus multiple times. Results are discussed in relation to possible precursors of accurate and false memories, and forgetting, of traumatic events experienced in childhood.     

Fear of criticism in washers,checkers and phobics

Fear of criticism in patients who manifested specific phobias, washing rituals and checking rituals was investigated. Six items from the Fear Survey Schedule measuring degree of anxiety to criticism were selected for this purpose. Results indicated that both washers and checkers showed more sensitivity to criticism than did phobics, while washers and checkers did not differ significantly. The implications of these findings for treatment are discussed.     

The effects of delay and exposure duration in a face recognition task

Face recognition was investigated in a successive comparison task. Subjects were required to makesame/different judgments about pairs of Photo-fit faces that were either identical or differed by a single feature. Picture information extraction and retention were examined by manipulating stimulus delay and exposure duration. Results indicated that overall performance was better for the top of the face. The eyes and mouth were more vulnerable than the rest of the face to recognition decrement after a delay, possibly due to their role in facial expression. When features were ranked in order of processing difficulty for each subject, it appeared that features were processed serially and delay affected a retrieval stage, while short exposure affected a visual comparison stage of processing. For the feature ranks, a single dimension of “salience” appeared to be both perceptual and mnemonic.     

Effects of expectancy of outcome on the reactivity of self-monitoring

The present study investigated the effects of subjects' outcome expectancy on self-monitoring of a clinically relevant behavior, overeating. In conjunction with self-monitoring of eating habits, subjects received either a positive expectancy of behavior change or no expectancy regarding change. While both self-monitoring groups achieved significantly greater weight loss than controls, subjects in the expectancy group demonstrated significantly greater weight loss than no-expectancy subjects. Possible factors accounting for the disparity in findings between this and previous self-monitoring investigations are discussed.     

The effects of ambient temperature and insult on the motivation to retaliate or escape

In order to investigate the impact of high ambient temperature on the motivation of angered persons, 48 men were either insulted or not insulted under normal or excessively hot conditions. The men received ratings from a partner that conveyed a negative or neutral personality evaluation, ostensibly as part of an impression-formation task. During this time, the participants were exposed to normal or excessively hot temperatures in an experimental room while their partners were in a normal temperature room. The subjects were subsequently given the opportunity to choose between two tasks for the next part of the study. One task, described as tedious, permitted their leaving the situation earlier than did the other task, described as involving administration of white noise to their partner. The results revealed that the insulted relative to noninsulted men more often chose to participate in a potentially aggressive interaction in the normal conditions whereas insulted relative to noninsulted men chose more often to participate in a nonaggressive task in the hot conditions. The design of the study precluded a shared stress interpretation of the data. Supplementary data were interpreted as supporting a negative affect rather than an attributional interpretation of the results.     

Occupational Achievement Motivation as a Function of Biological Sex, Sex-Linked Personality, and Occupation Stereotype

Predicted sex differences in occupational achievement motivation based on the work of Horner (1968) and Stein, Pohly and Mueller (1971) were examined by administering questionnaires to 87 female and 91 male undergraduate psychology students. Subjects made six achievement related responses to twelve occupations which had been stereotyped by a separate group of subjects as being either high prestige masculine, middle prestige masculine, middle prestige feminine or middle prestige androgynous (appropriate for both sexes). Analyses of variance were performed on all achievement responses with subjects'sex, sex-linked personality (Spence, Helmreich & Stapp, 1974), and occupational stereotype as independent variables. Significant sex by occupation stereotype interactions were found on all six dependent measures supporting the Stein et al. prediction of highest achievement motivation toward sex appropriate occupations. The fact that females did not show significantly lower motivation than males toward high prestige masculine occupations is inconsistent with earlier findings. Sex-linked personality was related to some of the achievement measures but did not interact with either occupation stereotype or biological sex.     

Self and external management compared with psychotherapy in the control of obesity

Seventy-four obese TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) members were assigned to one of five conditions: delayed treatment control, insight psychotherapy, self-management training plus external reinforcement, self-management training only, or external reinforcement only. The latter four groups met once per week for ten weeks and were seen at three and six months and followup. It was hypothesized that self-management plus external reinforcement would be superior to other conditions at both post-treatment and followup, and that this condition alone would produce continuing weight losses. Analysis of covariance on body weight, with pretreatment weight as covariate, indicated that self-management plus external reinforcement, self-management only, and external reinforcement only, did not differ in mean body weight at post-treatment. These three groups differed significantly from control and psychotherapy conditions, which did not differ from one another. Self-management plus external reinforcement produced better performance of techniques. At three and six month followup, differences between the four treatment conditions were no longer significant. Results are discussed in terms of evaluation of psychotherapy and behavior modification and durability of results.     

NEWBORNS FORM "PROTOTYPES" IN LESS THAN 1 MINUTE

Abstract— Past research demonstrated that newborns looked longer at live faces and two-dimensional still images of the mother than at the faces and images of strangers (Bushnell, Sai, & Mullin, 1989; Field, Cohen, Garcia, & Greenberg, 1985; Walton, Bower, & Bower, 1992). This study examined schema (prototype) theory as a basis for newborn's preference for the mother's face by creating composite (prototype) faces with a pixel averaging technique. Results obtained with a preferential operant-sucking procedure indicated that formation of a representation of faces was rapid. Newborns preferred to look at a composite of presented faces rather than a composite of unseen faces on the first-look presentation of each. The effect faded over the duration of the experiment.