Volume Contents

Volume Contents

Volume Contents     

Configural processing and perceptions of head tilt

Configural processing is important for face recognition, but its role in other types of face processing is unclear. In the present study, participants made judgments of head tilt for faces in which the vertical position of the internal facial region was varied. We found a highly reliable relationship between inner-face position and perceived head tilt. We also found that changes in inner-face position affected the perceived dimensions of an individual unchanged facial feature: compared to control faces, nearly two-thirds of faces in which the features had been moved down were judged to have a longer nose. This finding suggests an early integration of configural and featural processing to create a stable holistic percept of the face. The demonstration of holistic processing at a basic perceptual level (as opposed to during face recognition) is important as it constrains possible models of the relationships between featural and configural processing.     

A Review of Self-Management Interventions Targeting Academic Outcomes for Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

The purpose of this review was to report on the effectiveness and focus of academic self-management interventions for children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders. Twenty-two studies published in 20 articles and involving 78 participants met inclusionary criteria. The overall mean effect size (ES) across those studies was 1.80 (range –0.46 to 3.00), indicating effects were generally large in magnitude and educationally meaningful. Self-monitoring interventions were the predominant type of self-management technique used by researchers. The mean ES for intervention types were self-evaluation (1.13), self-monitoring (1.90), strategy instruction techniques (1.75), self-instruction techniques (2.71), and multiple-component interventions (2.11). Interventions targeted improvement in math calculation skills more than any other area. The mean ES by academic area were math interventions (1.97), writing (1.13), reading (2.28), and social studies (2.66). There was evidence to support a claim of the generalization and maintenance of findings. Implications, limitations, and areas for future research are discussed.     

Uncertainty reduction, self-enhancement, and ingroup identification

Two experiments tested the prediction that uncertainty reduction and self-enhancement motivations have an interactive effect on ingroup identification. In Experiment 1 (N = 64), uncertainty and group status were manipulated, and the effect on ingroup identification was measured. As predicted, low-uncertainty participants identified more strongly with a high- than low-status group, whereas high-uncertainty participants showed no preference; and low-status group members identified more strongly under high than low uncertainty, whereas high-status group members showed no preference. Experiment 2 (N = 210) replicated Experiment 1, but with a third independent variable that manipulated how prototypical participants were of their group. As predicted, the effects obtained in Experiment 1 only emerged where participants were highly prototypical. Low prototypicality depressed identification with a low-status group under high uncertainty. The implications of these results for intergroup relations and the role of prototypicality in social identity processes are discussed.     

Acquired distinctiveness and equivalence in human discrimination learning: Evidence for an attentional process

In a first stage of training, participants learned to associate four visual cues (two different colors and two different shapes) with verbal labels. For Group S, one label was applied to both colors and another to both shapes; for Group D, one label was applied to one color and one shape, and the other label to the other cues. When subsequently required to learn a task in which a given motor response was required to one of the colors and one of the shapes, and a different response to the other color and the other shape, Group D learned more readily than Group S. The task was designed so that the associations formed during the first stage of training could not generate differential transfer to the second stage. The results are consistent, however, with the proposal that training in which similar cues are followed by different outcomes will engage a learning process that boosts the attention paid to features that distinguish these cues.     

A comparative analysis of North American adolescent and adult mass murderers

Thirty adult mass murderers and 34 adolescent mass murderers in North America are compared on both offender and offense variables to delineate similarities and differences. Findings indicate a plethora of psychiatric disturbances and odd/reclusive and acting-out personality traits. Predisposing factors include a fascination with weapons and war among many of the adolescents and the development of a "warrior mentality" in most of the adults. Precipitating factors indicate a major rejection or loss in the hours or days preceding the mass murder. Results are interpreted through the lens of threat assessment for targeted violence (Borum, Fein, Vossekuil, & Bergland 1999), recognizing that a fact-based, dynamic behavioral approach is most useful for mitigating risk of such an extremely low-base-rate violent crime.     

Beyond the individual: the impact of ethnic context and classroom behavioral norms on victims' adjustment

With a sample of 1,630 sixth-grade students from 77 classrooms, the authors used hierarchical linear modeling to examine how ethnicity within context and classroom social disorder influenced the association between peer victimization and social-psychological adjustment (loneliness and social anxiety). Victimized students in classrooms where many classmates shared their ethnicity reported feeling the most loneliness and social anxiety. Additionally, classroom-level social disorder served as a moderator such that the association between victimization and anxiety was stronger in classrooms with low social disorder. Both findings were interpreted as evidence that problem behavior deviating from what is perceived as normative in a particular context heightens maladjustment. The authors discuss implications for studying ethnicity and classroom behavioral norms as context variables in peer relations.     

Indirect personality assessment of the violent true believer

The violent true believer is an individual committed to an ideology or belief system which advances homicide and suicide as a legitimate means to further a particular goal. The author explores useful sources of evidence for an indirect personality assessment of such individuals. He illustrates both idiographic and nomothetic approaches to indirect personality assessment through comparative analyses of Timothy McVeigh, an American who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, and Mohamed Atta, an Egyptian who led the airplane attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. The risks of indirect personality assessment and ethical concerns are identified.