The Role of Non-Numerical Stimulus Features in Approximate Number System Training in Preschoolers from Low-Income Homes

Recent findings have suggested that adults’ and children’s approximate number system (ANS) acuity may be malleable through training, but research on ANS acuity has largely been conducted with adults and children who are from middle- to high-income homes. We conducted 2 experiments to test the malleability of ANS acuity in preschool-aged children from low-income homes and to test how non-numerical stimulus features affected performance. In Experiment 1, mixed-effects models indicated that children significantly improved their ratio achieved across training. Children’s change in probability of responding correctly across sessions was qualified by an interaction with surface area features of the arrays such that children improved their probability of answering correctly across sessions on trials in which numerosity conflicted with the total surface area of object sets significantly more than on trials in which total surface area positively correlated with numerosity. In Experiment 2, we found that children who completed ANS acuity training performed better on an ANS acuity task compared with children in a control group, but they only did so on ANS acuity trials in which numerosity conflicted with the total surface area of object sets. These findings suggest that training affects ANS acuity in children from low-income homes by fostering an ability to focus on numerosity in the face of conflicting non-numerical stimulus features.     

Self-affirmation and affective forecasting: Affirmation reduces the anticipated impact of negative events

When forecasting how they will feel in the future, people overestimate the impact that imagined negative events will have on their affective states, partly because they underestimate their own psychological resiliency. Because self-affirmation enhances resiliency, two studies examined whether self-affirmation prior to forecasting reduces the extremity of affective forecasts. Participants in self-affirmation conditions completed a values scale or wrote an essay asserting their most important value, whereas participants in the no-affirmation condition asserted a relatively unimportant value. Participants then predicted their affective reactions to a negative or positive imagined event. In both studies, self-affirmation reduced the unpleasant affect expected to result from a negative event, but had no impact on affective forecasts for a positive event. This pattern was mediated by participants’ cognitive appraisals of the imagined event, but not by differential focus on that event. Results are consistent with self-affirmation activating or enhancing psychological resiliency to counteract immune neglect during affective forecasting of a negative event.     

Evaluating Gender Biases on Actual Job Performance of Real People: A Meta‐Analysis1

This study examined gender bias on job performance in work settings where confounding variables (e. g., organizational level, experience, education) were cautiously taken into consideration to ensure fair comparisons. Although previous meta‐analyses examined gender biases on evaluations, findings in tightly controlled laboratory environments may differ from those in highly complicated field studies. We found little evidence of overall gender bias in performance appraisals in nonconfounded field studies. However, there were significant pro‐male biases when only men served as raters. Measure‐specific gender stereotypicality, instead of genera! stereotypicality about the job, produced gender bias in performance appraisal. Masculine measures produced pro‐male bias, and feminine measures produced pro‐female bias.     

Predicting Cognitive and Social Consequences of Emotional Episodes: The Contribution of Emotional Intensity, the Five Factor Model, and Alexithymia

Emotional events are followed by recurrent thoughts (rumination) and talking about the event (social sharing of emotion). Factors that can account for variations in these consequences were examined (emotional intensity, the Five Factor Model, and two factors of alexithymia). In two samples, participants reported the most negative emotional event of recent months and in one sample also reported the most positive one. Results indicated that emotional intensity predicted social sharing and rumination, while neuroticism was positively related to intrusive thoughts about negative events and extraversion to rumination and social sharing about positive events. Difficulty describing feelings was negatively related to social sharing for negative events and reduced fantasy to rumination for positive events.     

From method to critique: a reply to Vonk and van Vliet

Vonk & van Vliet (1998) criticise the methods used in the study by Wagner, Elejabarrieta & Lahnsteiner (1995). They conclude that methodological flaws render some findings of the study invalid. It is shown that those flaws are in fact not present and that the remaining part of the conceptual critique is at least debatable. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developing coherence in community and clinical psychology: the integration of idealism and pragmatism

Illustrations of how ideas from community psychology may be integrated with clinical psychological thinking and practice are described from the perspective of a clinical psychologist working in the NHS. The intentions are to consider socially relevant conceptualizations of the causes of people's well-being and distress, and to develop ways of helping individuals and communities to clarify and address these causes. Incorporating an analysis of social power also necessitates a critical awareness of the limited potency of psychological interventions. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.