Perceptions of Brainstorming in Groups: The Quality Over Quantity Hypothesis

Our research focused on the implicit beliefs of potential brainstormers about the possible outcomes of brainstorming. We conducted four studies to assess the relative importance of quality and quantity as goals of brainstorming. In Study 1, we found evidence for a quality over quantity hypothesis: participants indicated that it was more important to produce creative, original, and high quality ideas than to generate a large number of ideas. In Studies 2 and 3, participants displayed support for the quality over quantity hypothesis by showing in group favoritism for a quality dimension but not a quantity dimension. Study 4 showed that participants believed brain-storming would enhance the quality of others' ideas more than one's own ideas, but they did not display a similar bias about idea quantity.     

Influences of Destructive Personality Information on Decision Making1

This study examined the effects of information about a landlord's personality on juror judgments for a landlord-tenant civil trial. The personality information manipulated was specifically relevant to destructive acts. Alternative versions of witness testimony were used to describe a landlord either high or low on need for power. treating people as objects, and negative life themes. This information strongly influenced aspects of the schema for this case constructed by the individual mock jurors. Destructive personality information caused dislike of the landlord and lowered the credibility of his story. If the landlord treated people as objects, the credibility of the tenant's story and positive evaluations of the tenant increased. Juror judgments about relative fault were strongly shifted by destructive personality information. An empirical model for juror decisions indicated a dynamic interplay of story components and fault judgments.     

Religious Coping and Heart Transplantation: From Threat to Health

Previous research has established the existence of homogeneous religious coping profiles in cardiac-transplantation candidates labeled as the deferring/collaborators, self-directors, and the eclectic religious copers. However, their prospective impact on outcome has not yet been established. This paper examines potential differences between pre-cardiac transplantation religious coping cluster groups on post-cardiac transplantation quality of life (physical functioning, mental health, and general health). Results indicated that the religious coping profiles of deferring/collaborators and self-directors had significantly better scores on mental health and general health than did the eclectics. Implications for religious-coping research and clinical practice are discussed.     

Donald Arnstine,Democracy and the Arts of Schooling

Studies in Philosophy and Education -     

Location errors in partial-report bar-probe experiments: In search of the origin of cue-alignment problems

In studies using Averbach and Coriell’s (1961) partial-report bar-probe paradigm with linear arrays, most errors involve the naming of an item that was in the display but in a position other than the cued one. Up to now, there is no general agreement on the origin of these location errors. Point of departure in this paper is that part of the location errors arises from inappropriate application of the cue. It is tested whether this originates from problems to perceive the position of the cue (“cue-displacement hypothesis”) or from confusion about the order of the items in the array (“item-order hypothesis”). The results of two bar-probe experiments are reported. A novel, crucial, finding in both experiments is that, among the location errors, there was a preponderance of response letters that came from the central side of the cued item. In the second experiment, this was observed not only in the usual postcue conditions but also when the cue preceded the array. These results positively corroborate the cue-displacement hypothesis and do not support the item-order hypothesis: The cue tends to be perceived more toward the center of the visual field than it actually is exposed—that is, there is a central drift of the cue.     

Perfectionism and Suicide Ideation in Adolescent Psychiatric Patients

This study was conducted to examine the relations between dimensions of perfectionism and suicide ideation in an adolescent psychiatric sample. A sample of 66 adolescents from an inpatient psychiatric facility completed the Child and Adolescent Perfectionism Scale, the Child's Hopelessness Scale, and the Suicide Ideation Questionnaire. Overall, the results indicated that socially prescribed perfectionism was associated with greater suicide ideation and that it, along with hopelessness, accounted for unique variance in suicide ideation scores. The findings are discussed in terms of their practical and theoretical significance as well as their consistency with similar research with adults.     

The Moderating Effects of Children's Fear and Activity Level on Relations Between Parenting Practices and Childhood Symptomatology

Parenting practices have been previously linked to childhood symptomatology. However, little consideration has been given to the potential effect of individual differences within the child on this relation. The current study assessed the moderating effects of children's activity level and fear on relations between parenting practices and childhood aggression and depressive symptoms using a sample of 64 fourth-, and fifth-grade boys. The findings showed that poorly monitored active boys and fearful boys who were exposed to harsh discipline exhibited high levels of aggression. Boys characterized by high fear who were exposed to harsh discipline or whose parents were extremely overinvolved showed elevated levels of depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that integrating children's individual differences with parenting models enhances our understanding of the etiology of childhood symptomatology. The intervention implications of such an integration are discussed.     

Unimanual Performance as a Measure of Laterality

The study of unimanual performance as a measure of laterality has ranged from simple concepts such as tests of handedness to highly complex conceptualizations interrelating anthropologic, cultural, genetic, and neurological aspects, including difference between unimanual performance in brain injured versus normal samples. This paper traces measures of unimanual performance through behavioral correlates of natural and unnatural sinistrality as related to cerebral organization, and concludes that unimanual performance represents a robust phenomenon with implications for understanding of neuropsychological correlates of behavior.