Remembering Your Parents: Reflections on the Retrospective Method

In the present paper, I critique the use of the retrospective method when it is used as a proxy for actual longitudinal data on personality development. Studies on the constructive nature of memory cast strong doubts about the meaning of retrospective data. There are good reasons, both theoretical and empirical, to distrust the accuracy of such recall concerning parenting, whether recalled by parents, children, or siblings. Instead of using the method as a shortcut to developmental data, studies examining individual differences in accuracy and distortion and the factors that moderate them may inform us of the various meanings of retrospective data.     

The Public and Private Use of Consensus-Raising Excuses

ABSTRACT Two experiments tested the proposition that people use consensus-raising excuses more in private than in public when the audience has information that could refute subjects' claims about others In Experiment 1, subjects received success or failure feedback and made public or private attributions to ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck In Experiment 2, subjects received positive or negative feedback and evaluated themselves and others on the trait Task difficulty attributions and evaluations of others are consensus-raising measures Consistent with our hypothesis, subjects receiving negative feedback in Experiment 1 claimed that the task was more difficult, and in Experiment 2 evaluated the other more negatively in private than in public.     

The relationship of social power to visual displays of dominance between men and women

Two studies, with undergraduate subjects, investigated how sex and situation-specific power factors relate to visual behavior in mixed-sex interactions. The power variable in Study 1 was expert power, based on differential knowledge. Mixed-sex dyads were formed such that members had complementary areas of expertise. In Study 2, reward power was manipulated. Consistent with expectation states theory, both men and women high in expertise or reward power displayed high visual dominance, defined as the ratio of looking while speaking to looking while listening. Specifically, men and women high in expertise or reward power exhibited equivalent levels of looking while speaking and looking while listening. High visual dominance ratios have been associated with high social power in previous research. Both men and women low in expertise or reward power looked more while listening than while speaking, producing a relatively low visual dominance ratio. In conditions in which men and women did not possess differential expertise or reward power, visual behavior was related to sex. Men displayed visual behavior similar to their patterns in the high expertise and high reward power conditions, whereas women exhibited visual behavior similar to their patterns in the low expertise and low reward power conditions. The results demonstrate how social expectations are reflected in nonverbal power displays.     

Coping, locus of control, social support, and combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder: a prospective study

We examined the relations between coping, locus of control, and social support and combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The sample consisted of 262 Israeli soldiers who suffered a combat stress reaction episode during the 1982 Lebanon war and were followed 2 and 3 years after their participation in combat. Cross-sectional analyses revealed significant relations between locus of control, coping, and social support and PTSD at the two points of assessment. Changes in PTSD from Time 1 to Time 2 were also associated with changes in coping. We discuss theoretical and methodological implications of the findings.     

Neuroticism, extraversion, and related traits in adult twins reared apart and reared together

The relative importance of genetic and environmental factors for neuroticism, extraversion, impulsivity, and monotony avoidance were estimated in a sample of 99 monozygotic and 229 dizygotic pairs of twins reared apart (TRA) and a matched sample of 160 monozygotic and 212 dizygotic pairs of twins reared together (TRT). The average age was 58.6 (SD = 13.6); 72% of the twins were 50 or older. Model-fitting analyses verified the importance of genetic factors for all four measures; from 23% to 45% of the total variation was attributable to genetic sources. There was considerable evidence that these factors were operating in a nonadditive manner for extraversion and impulsivity. Shared environment accounted for less than 10% of the variance; some evidence for selective placement was found for neuroticism.     

Autonomic arousal feedback and emotional experience: evidence from the spinal cord injured

We interviewed spinal-cord-injured, other handicapped, and nonhandicapped subjects to investigate the relation between the perception of autonomic arousal and experienced emotion. The three groups differed significantly on only one measure of affect intensity, with the spinal-cord-injured subjects more often reporting stronger fear in their lives now compared with the past. In addition, spinal-cord-injured subjects often described intense emotional experiences. Spinal-cord-injured subjects who differed in their level of autonomic feedback differed in intensity on several measures. Subjects with greater autonomic feedback tended to report more intense levels of negative emotions. The findings indicate that the perception of autonomic arousal may not be necessary for emotional experience. There were weak trends in our data, however, suggesting that the perception of arousal may enhance the experience of emotional intensity. The subjective well-being reports of the handicapped groups were comparable to those of nonhandicapped subjects, indicating successful coping with their disability.     

The effects of contextual information and gender on the prediction of hypnotic susceptibility

Council, Kirsch, and Hafner (1986) obtained empirical support for the hypothesis that significant correlations between questionnaire measures of absorption and hypnotic susceptibility are an artifact of subjects' beliefs about their own hypnotizability. We tested this hypothesis in a two-session experiment. During Session 1, subjects completed questionnaire measures of absorption, mystical experience, daydreaming frequency, and paranormal beliefs. During Session 2, subjects were tested for hypnotic susceptibility. Subjects were also exposed to one of three information manipulations: They were told about hypnotic testing either before or after filling out the questionnaires or were not told about hypnotic testing. The information manipulation moderated the prediction of susceptibility by the questionnaire measures for women, but not for men. For women, scores on the absorption questionnaire predicted susceptibility only when subjects were informed about hypnotic testing. In the told-after condition, this effect generalized to all of the remaining questionnaire measures. For men, none of the questionnaires was a reliable predictor of susceptibility.     

The development of locomotor coordination: longitudinal change and invariance

Developmental sequence, relative timing, center of gravity, and phase-plane analyses were used to study a minimum of 15 years of longitudinal, filmed data on the development of hopping in 7 children. The developmental sequences revealed common, qualitative changes in the movement of the children, although each child progressed through the changes at his/her own rate. The timing analyses showed that, in the advanced hop, the tightest limb relationships were found within the hopping leg, then between contralateral limbs of the same girdle, and then between legs and arms. Relative-timing calculations revealed (a) intralimb, timing invariances that were present in first attempts to perform the skill at age 3 and remained for 15 years across all developmental levels; (b) emergent, interlimb timings that gradually became invariant; and (c) intra- and interlimb timing showing gradual development over the 15 years. One invariant, the time between landing and deepest knee flexion, is also invariant in the walk and the run (Shapiro, Zernicke, Gregor, & Diestel, 1981). Phase plane analyses indicated that the timing of peak and zero velocities may be the coordinative constant accounting for a relative timing invariance between the two legs. Position of the body's center of gravity may explain the invariant relative time between landing and deepest knee flexion, or the explanation could lie in the "equation of constraint" regulating joint equilibrium points. The data suggest that modeling the developing hop as the evolving interaction of four vibratory systems would be promising.