Family or friends: who plays a greater supportive role for Latino college students?

This study compared the relative contribution of perceived family and friend support to psychological well-being and distress and examined whether family or friend support moderated the effects of stress on psychological adjustment in 338 Latino (228 Mexican American, 110 Central American) college students from a predominantly Latino university. Two multiple regressions, controlling for gender, socioeconomic level, acculturation level, and stresses (generic college, acculturative, and minority status), showed that friend support made a slightly greater contribution to well-being than family support, and friend support and not family support protected against psychological distress. Neither family nor friend support moderated the effects of stress on psychological adjustment. Further examination of these variables that assess common-specific stresses within a culture-specific theoretical framework is recommended.     

A test of object permanence in a new-world monkey species,cotton top tamarins (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Saguinus oedipus</Emphasis>)

Cotton top tamarins were tested in visible and invisible displacement tasks in a method similar to that used elsewhere to test squirrel monkeys and orangutans. All subjects performed at levels significantly above chance on visible (n=8) and invisible (n=7) displacements, wherein the tasks included tests of the perseverance error, tests of memory in double and triple displacements, and "catch" trials that tested for the use of the experimenter's hand as a cue for the correct cup. Performance on all nine tasks was significantly higher than chance level selection of cups, and tasks using visible displacements generated more accurate performance than tasks using invisible displacements. Performance was not accounted for by a practice effect based on exposure to successive tasks. Results suggest that tamarins possess stage 6 object permanence capabilities, and that in a situation involving brief exposure to tasks and foraging opportunities, tracking objects' movements and responding more flexibly are abilities expressed readily by the tamarins. Electronic Publication     

Developmental change in the cross-modal Stroop effect

E. M. Elliott, Cowan, and Valle-Inclan (1998) reported a cross-modal Stroop-like interference effect in adults when an auditory distractor (a color or noncolor word) occurred simultaneously with a color patch to be named. Response times were slower with color as opposed to noncolor distractors. To distinguish two accounts of this phenomenon, we tested 4- to 11-year-olds and adults. The suppression hypothesis posits that the irrelevant word enters a phonological buffer and is injurious to color naming if the participant is unable to suppress its representation in time. The concurrent processing hypothesis states that interference occurs when the distractor and the color name are lexically accessed at the same time. Our finding that the cross-modal Stroop effect occurred in young children even with a distractor presented 500 msec in advance of the color patch favors the suppression account. Development in executive functioning may also contribute to the interference effect's becoming progressively weaker with age.     

Visual marking: a convergence of goal- and stimulus-driven processes during visual search

Watson and Humphreys (1997) proposed that visual marking is a goal-directed process that enhances visual search through the inhibition of old objects. In addition to the standard marking case with targets at new locations, included in Experiment 1 was a set of trials with targets always at old locations, as well as a set of trials with targets varying between new and old locations. The participants' performance when detecting the target at old locations was equivalent to their performance in the full-baseline condition when they knew the target would be at old locations, and was worse when the target appeared at old locations on 50% of the trials. Marking was observed when the target appeared at new locations. In Experiment 2, an offset paradigm was used to eliminate the influence of the salient abrupt-onset feature of the new objects. No significant benefits were found for targets at new locations in the absence of onsets at new locations. The results suggest that visual marking may be an attentional selection mechanism that significantly benefits visual search when (1) the observer has an appropriate search goal, (2) the goal necessitates inhibition of old objects, and (3) the new objects include a salient perceptual feature.     

The relation of children's everyday nonsocial peer play behavior to their emotionality, regulation, and social functioning

The relations of children's nonsocial behavior to their emotionality, regulation, and social functioning were examined in a short-term longitudinal study. Parents (primarily mothers) and teachers rated children's effortful regulation, emotionality, asocial behaviors, problem behaviors, and social acceptance, and children's nonsocial play behaviors were observed for two semesters. Peers also rated likability. Children's observed reticent activities were related to adults' ratings of high regulation, low externalizing problems, and high asocial behavior, as well as to low anger and low positive emotion. On the other hand, solitary play was associated with low positive emotion and low regulation over time and with high asocial behavior and high peer exclusion. Peer rejection mediated the relation of internalizing emotions (anxiety, low positive emotion) and regulation to solitary play later in the school year, and asocial play mediated the relation of internalizing emotions to both solitary and reticent play behavior.     

Cognitive ability and risk for alcoholism: short-term memory capacity and intelligence moderate personality risk for alcohol problems

This study tested the hypothesis that short-term memory (STM) capacity moderates the effect of social deviance on alcohol problems. Personality, cognitive ability, and alcohol use and abuse were assessed in the adult offspring of alcoholics (FHPs; n = 153) and the adult offspring of nonalcoholics (FHNs; n = 150). The results revealed that STM capacity moderated the effect of social deviance on alcohol problems, independent of intelligence. High social deviance and high-STM participants had fewer alcohol problems than did high social deviance and low-STM participants. Intelligence also moderated the effect of social deviance on alcohol problems in the same way, independent of STM capacity. FHPs had lower IQs, lower verbal ability, and more response perseveration than FHNs. The results suggest that working memory capacity moderates the risk for alcoholism associated with disinhibited traits.     

Effects of modeling versus instructions on sensitivity to reinforcement schedules

This study examined the effects of modeling versus instructions on the choices of 3 typically developing children and 3 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) whose academic responding showed insensitivity to reinforcement schedules. During baseline, students chose between successively presented pairs of mathematics problems associated with different variable-interval schedules of reinforcement. After responding proved insensitive to the schedules, sessions were preceded by either instructions or modeling, counterbalanced across students in a multiple baseline design across subjects. During the instruction condition, students were told how to distribute responding to earn the most reinforcers. During the modeling condition, students observed the experimenter performing the task while describing her distribution of responding to obtain the most reinforcers. Once responding approximated obtained reinforcement under either condition, the schedules of reinforcement were changed, and neither instruction nor modeling was provided. Both instruction and modeling interventions quickly produced patterns of response allocation that approximated obtained rates of reinforcement, but responding established with modeling was more sensitive to subsequent changes in the reinforcement schedules than responding established with instructions. Results were similar for students with and without ADHD.     

Mothers' negative evaluations of their children's performances enhance boys' memories for crafts

The authors predicted that mothers' evaluative comments would affect their preschool-aged children's learning during a craft-making activity. Each mother (N = 67) taught her child 6 crafts in a playroom in a university setting. Three weeks later, the child returned to the playroom to redo the crafts. Evaluators tested the children's memories of the procedures for completing the crafts. The authors used videotapes of the mothers' teaching to code for statements that positively evaluated their children's performances (praise) or that negatively evaluated their children's performances (criticism). Maternal praise did not affect children's memories. Maternal criticism did not affect their daughters' memories. However, sons were more likely to more accurately redo craft steps for which their mothers had made at least 1 comment criticizing their performances. The authors proposed that emotional arousal was a reason for girls' and boys' differential responses to maternal criticism.