Effects of hypothesis and assigned task on question selection strategies

Semin and Strack (1980) demonstrated that the findings obtained by Snyder and Swann (1978) with respect to an hypothesis-confirming strategy in social interaction were due to the assigned task, and not to a person's hypothesis. In our first experiment we replicated Semin and Strack's results. In a second experiment, employing a more effective manipulation of the subject's hypothesis, support was obtained for an effect of the hypothesis factor. It was concluded that both an assigned task effect and an hypothesis effect can be demonstrated in the laboratory and probably exist in reality.     

The Chances for Children Teen Parent–Infant Project: Results of a pilot intervention for teen mothers and their infants in inner city high schools

Adolescent motherhood poses serious challenges to mothers, to infants, and ultimately to society, particularly if the teen mother is part of a minority population living in an urban environment. This study examines the effects of a treatment intervention targeting low‐income, high‐risk teen mothers and their infants in the context of public high schools where daycare is available onsite. Our findings confirm the initial hypothesis that mothers who received intervention would improve their interactions with their infants in the areas of responsiveness, affective availability, and directiveness. In addition, infants in the treatment group were found to increase their interest in mother, respond more positively to physical contact, and improve their general emotional tone, which the comparison infants did not. Importantly, these findings remain even within the subset of mothers who scored above the clinical cutoff for depression on the Center for Epidemiological Studies‐Depression Scale (CES‐D; L. Radloff, 1977), confirming that it is possible to improve mother–infant interaction without altering the mother's underlying depression. The implications of these findings are significant both because it is more difficult and requires more time to alter maternal depression than maternal behavior and because maternal depression has been found to have such devastating effects on infants.     

A comparison of units for visually measuring facial actions

Visual inspection and categorization of facial appearances constitute the most frequent and useful technique for measuring facial activity. The techniques developed, however, have different units with varying characteristics. In this paper, I discuss categorical and scalar units for facial measurement and show the relationship of categorical units listed by different researchers.     

Effects of mood on memory: Experimental tests of a mood-state-dependent retrieval hypothesis and of a mood-congruity hypothesis

Summary In the present experiment a mood-state-dependent retrieval hypothesis and a mood-congruity hypothesis are tested. The first hypothesis states that recall is higher when mood at test matches mood at input than when it does not match. The second hypothesis states that people learn more about events that match their mood state. Both hypotheses are consistent with the network model of mood and memory proposed by Bower and his colleagues. Our study was conducted to test the cited hypotheses with normal subjects (instead of highly hypnotizable subjects as in the studies by Bower et al.) and with a comparatively mild mood-induction technique. Another aim was to test different predictions from the two hypotheses.We experimentally varied mood (happy vs. sad), both at learning and at recall by using the Velten technique. Additionally, the emotional content (pleasant vs. neutral vs. unpleasant) of the text to be learned was manipulated.The empirical evidence with some restrictions favored the mood-state-dependent hypothesis and disagreed with the mood-congruity hypothesis. Possible explanations for the failure to obtain a mood-congruity effect are offered, and the results are discussed with reference to a network model of mood and memory.     

Aging, body image, and body shape

Participants were 25 older men (M age = 72 years, SD = 10 years) and 27 older women (M age = 71 years, SD = 8 years) who examined multiple line-drawing figures of babies, children, young adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults. Participants picked a number on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (very thin) to 9 (very obese) in response to questions including "Which is the most attractive?" and "Which figure would you most like to look like?" They also completed questionnaires about their body image and body shape. In response to the age-specific line drawings (e.g., those depicting older men and older women), older women endorsed thinner figures (e.g., picked smaller numbers) than did men. Likewise, older women reported thinking more about their body shape and appearance than did men and perceived their body image as "a little too big" in comparison with the older men who perceived their body image as "just the right size." However, a breakdown of normal and overweight women in this sample revealed that for some overweight elderly women, obesity could become a satisfactory way of life. Much as with college-aged women, the endorsement of a thinner body image by many of the older adult female participants appeared to persist into late adulthood and suggests that research into body image issues with older adults is relevant and necessary.