Word recognition with masking

At illuminances between .07 and 17 ft.-c, the word-recognition threshold was lower when a common word was preceded and followed by a homogenous field than by a noise pattern composed of a random array of bits of letters. Most of the difference is ascribed to the pattern’s interference with post-stimulatory processes. This interference may explain why with masking the threshold reached a minimum at 90 msec. and then did not decrease further despite increasing illuminance, whereas without masking the threshold continued to decrease down to 7 msec, the shortest duration tested.     

Course and form variations of cyclothymic phases in lithium therapy

The authors have attempted by means of a statistical survey to quantify changes in the course and, in particular the phase-related and non-phase-related form of cyclothymic phases during long-term lithium treatment.     

Schizophrenia: The Narcissistic Retreat

A 27-item Fear of Success Scale (FOSS) was developed to assess individual differences in the motive to avoid success. Females scored significantly higher on the FOSS than did males; the FOSS was positively related to Horner's projective measure of fear of success, and negatively related to Mehrabian's measure of achievement motivation; subjects (both males and females) with high scores on the FOSS (a) performed less well on an anagram test, (b) attributed success more to external factors, and (c) attributed failure more to internal factors than subjects with low scores on the FOSS. These results supported the validity of the FOSS with regard to its use in future research.     

A Theory of Blame

We introduce a theory of blame in five parts. Part 1 addresses what blame is: a unique moral judgment that is both cognitive and social, regulates social behavior, fundamentally relies on social cognition, and requires warrant. Using these properties, we distinguish blame from such phenomena as anger, event evaluation, and wrongness judgments. Part 2 offers the heart of the theory: the Path Model of Blame, which identifies the conceptual structure in which blame judgments are embedded and the information processing that generates such judgments. After reviewing evidence for the Path Model, we contrast it with alternative models of blame and moral judgment (Part 3) and use it to account for a number of challenging findings in the literature (Part 4). Part 5 moves from blame as a cognitive judgment to blame as a social act. We situate social blame in the larger family of moral criticism, highlight its communicative nature, and discuss the darker sides of moral criticism. Finally, we show how the Path Model of Blame can bring order to numerous tools of blame management, including denial, justification, and excuse.     

I think I like you: Spontaneous and deliberate evaluations of potential romantic partners in an online dating context

The present research examined processes of impression formation within an online dating context. Across two studies, female participants formed impressions of a potential partner based on an online dating profile containing information about the target's facial attractiveness and self‐described ambition. Afterwards, deliberate evaluations of the target were assessed with a self‐report measure and spontaneous evaluations were measured with an affective priming task. The results showed that deliberate evaluations varied as a function of both self‐described ambition and facial attractiveness. In contrast, spontaneous evaluations varied only as a function of facial attractiveness. Experiment 2 further showed that these effects were independent of the order in which the two types of information had been encoded. The results are discussed in terms of associative and propositional processes, and the conditions under which these processes can lead to conflicting evaluations of the same potential romantic partner. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychosocial aspects of truancy in early adolescence.

The authors studied truancy in junior high school students, largely by structured interviews of 33 truants. Truancy at this age was commonly associated with significant difficulties at home, at school and with peers. Two modal types of truants were delineated: "authority defying" and "peer phobic." The school environment, including the response to truancy and the transition to the junior high, was found to play a critical role in creating and aggravating truancy. The authors discuss the findings with respect to strategies for prevention and remediation.