Relationships between ability and personality:does intelligence contribute positively to personal and social adjustment?

Intelligence/personality associations were studied in four large datasets. Correlations between general ability (g) and major personality traits were generally consistent with previous findings. For other traits, an interpretation of the correlation patterning is that traits classifiable as adaptive in terms of personal and social adjustment have positive correlations with g, whilst maladaptive traits have negative correlations. Regression modelling confirmed these associations and structural equation modelling of selected traits showed that Neuroticism acts as a mediator of g on the outcome. Non-linear relationships between intelligence and personality were not found. In two of the datasets the correlation between Neuroticism and Psychoticism decreased with ability level, and the correlation between fluid and crystallised ability increased with level of Neuroticism.     

Evolutionary Psychology of Facial Attractiveness

The human face communicates an impressive number of visual signals. Although adults' ratings of facial attractiveness are consistent across studies, even cross-culturally, there has been considerable controversy surrounding attempts to identify the facial features that cause faces to be judged attractive or unattractive. Studies of physical attractiveness have attempted to identify the features that contribute to attractiveness by studying the relationships between attractiveness and (a) symmetry, (b) averageness, and (c) nonaverage sexually dimorphic features (hormone markers). Evolutionary psychology proposes that these characteristics all pertain to health, suggesting that humans have evolved to view certain features as attractive because they were displayed by healthy individuals. However, the question remains how single features that are considered attractive relate to each other, and if they form a single ornament that signals mate quality. Moreover, some researchers have recently explained attractiveness preferences in terms of individual differences that are predictable. This article briefly describes what is currently known from attractiveness research, reviews some recent advances, and suggests areas for future researchers' attention.     

The Treatment of Substance‐Abusing Clients in Multiservice Mental Health Agencies: A Practice Analysis

This article examines the work behaviors related to counseling substance‐abusing clients by mental health service providers in multiservice mental health agencies. The results support the need for specialized knowledge and skills in working with substance‐abusing clients.     

The Role of Attachment Styles and Interpersonal Problems in Suicide‐Related Behaviors

The relationships among adult attachment styles, interpersonal problems, and categories of suicide‐related behaviors (i.e., self‐harm, suicide attempts, and their co‐occurrence) were examined in a predominantly psychiatric sample (N = 406). Both anxious and avoidant attachment styles were associated with interpersonal problems. In turn, specific interpersonal problems differentially mediated the relations between attachment style and type of suicide‐related behaviors. These findings suggest the importance of distinguishing between these groups of behaviors in terms of etiological pathways, maintenance processes, and treatment interventions.     

Book reviews

Weiskrantz, L. (1986). Blindsight: A case study and implications. Oxford University Press. Pp. 187. ISBN 0-19-852129-4. £19.50.

Humphreys, G. W. & Riddoch, M. J. (1987). to see but not to see: A case study of visual agnosia. Hove and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd. Pp. 124. ISBN 0-83677-064-9. £12.95.

Downing, J. A. (1988). Advances in psychology: Cognitive psychology and reading in the USSR. Amsterdam: North Holland; Elsevier Science Publishers. Pp. 471. ISBN 0-444-70374-8. $108.00.

John Beech & Ann Colley (Eds.) (1987). Cognitive approaches to reading. Chichester: John Wiley. Pp. xii + 315.

James Wertsch (Ed.) (1985). Culture, communication and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 379. ISBN 0-521-25214-8. £27.50 (Hardback).

Fodor, J. A. (1987). Psychosemantics: The problem of meaning in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. Pp. xiii, 1-171. ISBN 0-262-06106-6.

Richardson, K. (1988). Understanding Psychology. Milton Keynes: The Open University Press. Pp. 114. ISBN 0-335-09842-8. Paperback £7.95.

Stanovich, Keith E. (Ed.) (1988). Children's reading and the development of phonological awareness. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Pp. 177. ISBN 0-8143-1909-2. $20.00.

Allport, A., MacKay, D.G., Prinz, W., & Scheerer, E. (Eds.), (1987). Language perception and production: Relationships between listening, speaking, reading, and writing. London: Academic Press. Pp. xiii + 497. ISBN 0-12-052750-2. £32.00

Light, L. L. & Burke, D. M. (eds.) (1988). Language, Memory and Aging. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 280. ISBN-0-521-32942-6. £27.50

Friedman, S.L., Scholnick, E.F., and Cocking, R. R. (1987). Bleuprints for thinking: The role of planing in cognitive development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xv + 559. ISBN 0-521-25605-4. £40.00.     

Schaffer's Demon

Jonathan Schaffer (2010) has summoned a new sort of demon – which he calls the debasing demon – that apparently threatens all of our purported knowledge. We show that any debasing skeptical argument must attack the justification condition and can do so only if a plausible thesis about justification is false.     

The Effect of Practice on the Control of Rapid Aiming Movements: Evidence for an Interdependency Between Programming and Feedback Processing

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate how the control of aiming movements performed as fast and as accurately as possible changes with practice. We examined: (1) the influence of visual feedback on the initial impulse and error correction phases of aiming movements during acquisition; and (2) the effect of removing visual feedback at different levels of practice. Results from the acquisition trials indicated that vision had a major impact on the organization of the initial impulse and error correction phases. Also, consistent with findings from research involving temporally constrained movements, the cost of removing vision was greater after extensive levels than after moderate levels of practice. Collectively, these results denote the importance of visual feedback to the learning of this particular class of aiming movements. Learning appears to be a dual process of improved programming of the initial impulse and increased efficiency of feedback processing. Practice not only acts on programming and feedback processes directly, but also indirectly through a reciprocal interplay between these two processes.