Nevertheless,she persisted (in science research): Enhancing women students’ science research motivation and belonging through communal goals

Social Psychology of Education - There is no doubt that connections with other people motivate behavior; yet science is stereotyped as being lonely work devoid of communal connections. Drawing from...     

A review of common sleep disorders

What should clinicians know about sleep disorders? This article briefly introduces the reader to sleep medicine and succinctly reviews common sleep disorders. First, the authors describe the diagnostic tools unique to sleep medicine: the over-night polysomnogram and the multiple sleep latency test. Next, the authors review essential features of a subset of the sleep, described in the International Classification of Sleep Disorders-Revised, that sleep disorder specialists commonly evaluate, diagnose, and treat. The disorders reviewed include the intrinsic and circadian rhythm subsets of the dyssomnias group and the parasomnia group of sleep disorders. The authors identify the core signs and symptoms, polysomnogram findings, multiple sleep latency test findings, and treatment of these disorders.     

Resistance can be good or bad: how theories of resistance and dissonance affect attitude certainty

This research investigated how lay theories about resisting persuasion can affect attitude certainty. Specifically, people who believed that resistance was negative (i.e., implies close-mindedness) showed different levels of attitude certainty after resisting persuasive messages than people who believed resistance was positive (i.e., implies intelligence). When people held positive lay theories of resistance and overcame ostensibly strong arguments, they showed increased attitude certainty (compared to those who overcame ostensibly weak arguments). However, individuals who believed that resistance was negative did not show increases in attitude certainty when overcoming strong arguments. Experiment 2 suggests that the effect of lay theories and perceived argument strength on attitude certainty was due to dissonance created by believing that resistance is undesirable but nonetheless resisting persuasion.     

Understanding implicit and explicit attitude change: a systems of reasoning analysis

There is considerable controversy about how to conceptualize implicit and explicit attitudes, reflecting substantial speculation about the mechanisms involved in implicit and explicit attitude formation and change. To investigate this issue, the current work examines the processes by which new attitudes are formed and changed and how these attitudes predict behavior. Five experiments support a systems of reasoning approach to implicit and explicit attitude change. Specifically, explicit attitudes were shaped in a manner consistent with fast-changing processes, were affected by explicit processing goals, and uniquely predicted more deliberate behavioral intentions. Conversely, implicit attitudes reflected an associative system characterized by a slower process of repeated pairings between an attitude object and related evaluations, were unaffected by explicit processing goals, uniquely predicted spontaneous behaviors, and were exclusively affected by associative information about the attitude object that was not available for higher order cognition.     

Self-efficacy and Endurance Performance: A Longitudinal Field Test of Cognitive Mediation Theory

On demanda à 123 étudiants de cours de perfectionnement, désignés au hasard, de réaliser de leur mieux une tâche très difficile, au but presqu' impossible à atteindre, après cinq semaines d'entraînement à effectuer une tâche spécifique en trois minutes. Une période-test de quatre semaines suivit au cours de laquelle les buts des táches que devaient réaliser les sujets et leur confiance en leur efficacité furent mesurés une fois par semaine avant chaque évaluation de performance. Construit d'après une théorie de médiation cognitive (Garland, 1985), un modèle causal fut utilisé dans lequel des buts de tâches individuelles furent soumis aux effets de la performance, notamment sur l'efficacité des sujets. L'analyse des résultats à partir des quatre tests hebdomadaires confirma les propositions du modèle.
One hundred and twenty-three students in a fitness training course were assigned at random to a do your best, very hard, or highly improbable goal condition after five weeks of baseline training on a three-minute sit-up task. A four-week test period followed in which subjects' task goals and efficacy expectations were measured once each week prior to an assessment of their performance. Based on cognitive mediation theory (Garland, 1985), a causal model was presented in which individual task goals are proposed to influence performance through their influence on self-efficacy. Path analyses on the data over each of the four test weeks provided support for the proposed model.     

Differential reinforcement of reaction times in developmental retardates.

The effects of differential reinforcement on reaction times to two intensities of reaction signal were investigated in 36 developmental retardates. One group was reinforced for reaction times to the higher intensity signal; a second group was reinforced for reaction times to the lower intensity signal; a third group received no reinforcement. Reaction time decreased as signal intensity increased and decreased over sessions as a function of reinforcement. Likewise, reinforcement either exaggerated or reversed differences in reaction times to each signal depending on the particular reinforcement contingency. Results were discussed in terms of attentional and motivational explanations of effects of signal intensity on reaction times of retardates.     

There is an alternative to the IQ.

Another approach was indicated for understanding the intellectual functioning of the person considered to be retarded from the viewpoint of measured intelligence. Rather than utilizing the standard, usually academically-oriented, test, the inkblot method was used to differentiate how the individual deals with familiar and unfamiliar problems. The emphasis was not on the predetermined responses and verbal meanings of the test constructor, but the language and mode of perceiving, organizing, and responding of the individual to the problems presented to him.