Exploring the Use of Experience Sampling to Assess Episodic Thought

Mental time travel is the ability to mentally relive events in one's own past (episodic recall) and pre‐live potential personal future events (episodic foresight). Recent research has used experience sampling to reveal when and how often we think about the past and future in everyday life; however, it remains unclear how much of thought is episodic, involving the sense of self that underpins mental time travel. In this study, we investigate the use of experience sampling to assess the frequency of episodic past and future thought in everyday life. Participants (n = 214) were exposed to 20 short message service prompts over 1 or 2 days. Half of thoughts were sited in the present; of the remainder, future‐oriented thoughts were more frequent than past‐oriented thoughts. Participants reported 20% of thoughts as episodic. This study suggests that experience sampling methodology can provide a means of assessing episodic thought during everyday activities.Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Smoking in College Women: The Role of Thinness Pressures, Media Exposure, and Critical Consciousness

There are strong social pressures for U.S. females, particularly those of European heritage, to achieve and maintain an extremely low body weight. These pressures are reflected in a variety of media sources, including advertising. We argue that valuing thinness, exposure to thinness-depicting media, and lacking skepticism about tobacco advertisements have adverse effects on young women's decisions about smoking, particularly smoking for weight control. We tested these hypotheses in a study of 188 female undergraduates, both never-smokers and daily smokers. Believing that smoking controls weight, exposure to thinness-depicting media, and low levels of skepticism about tobacco advertising were associated with being a smoker. Among smokers, believing that smoking controls weight, internalizing thinness pressures, and low levels of feminist consciousness were associated with smoking for weight control. Results are discussed with the aim of encouraging public health anti-smoking campaigns targeted at women, and smoking cessation programs that are responsive to the needs of weight-concerned female smokers.     

A noninvasive method for delivering controlled doses of nicotine via cigarette smoke

A cigarette-smoke delivery system is described in which nicotine dosage was delimited by having the subject inhale a measured amount of smoke to a predetermined depth and duration of inhalation. A plastic syringe was used to “inject” a specified amount of cigarette smoke into the subject’s mouth, and an airbag containing 1 liter of air was used to provide a “chaser” with a fixed volume of inhalation for the smoke. Using plasma nicotine boost as an indicator, dose control was found to be nearly linear for the three dose levels employed; in the high-dose condition, plasma nicotine levels were moderately consistent within subjects over three successive administrations. Between-subject variability was considerably greater than within-subject variability, however, suggesting that each smoker obtained a characteristic nicotine boost that reflected individual differences in nicotine pharmacokinetics in addition to nicotine intake per se.     

Five-month-old girls' and boys' exploratory behaviors in the presence of familiar and unfamiliar toys.

The exploratory behaviors of 60 5-month-old girls and boys were observed as they played with three unfamiliar toys and one familiar toy of their own during a laboratory session. Infants were seated at a table on the lap of an assistant. Each toy was placed on the table and remained there for 2 min after the infant first touched it. Frequency and duration of visual fixation on the toy, hand contact with the toy, five categories of lateralization, and eight categories of handling behaviors were measured. On the whole, the exploratory behaviors of girls and boys were not markedly different. However, girls spent more time than boys did in simultaneous hand contact with and visual fixation on their own familiar toy, whereas boys made more frequent contact with the familiar toy without visual fixation. In addition, boys displayed, overall, more tapping behaviors, and girls, more pinching and object-displacement behaviors. Girls and boys did not differ in manual lateralization. Results are discussed in reference to infants' rate of development, motor activity level, and girls' and boys' reactions to novelty.     

Supervisory styles index: Examining supervisees' perceptions of Supervisory Style

The goal of this research was to develop an instrument, the Supervisory Styles Index (SSI), that would examine supervisory style. Style has been described as the way in which the personality and convictions of the supervisor are demonstrated in the supervisory relationship (Leighton, 1991). This study focuses on the interplay between supervisory style and the influence of sex and gender. The findings of this study reveal that female supervisees discern their supervisors to be more self-disclosing than do male supervisees. Implications of the findings and utilization of the index are discussed.Portions of this paper were presented at the 52nd annual conference of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, Chicago, Illinois, November, 1994.     

Rewarding psychiatric aides for the behavioral improvement of assigned patients

Different ways of modifying the aide-patient relationship to promote improvement in psychiatric patients were investigated. Psychiatric aides were given information about the behavior of assigned patients, cash awards based on the improvement of assigned patients, and different kinds of supervision by the psychology staff; the effects of these variables on a large number of psychiatrically relevant behaviors were measured. Appropriate behavior of patients increased when the aides were given quantitative information about the improvement of assigned patients. Cash awards for aides, which were not contingent on the behavior of patients had little effect, while cash awards contingent on the behavior of assigned patients were associated with more appropriate behavior. Direct supervision of aide-patient interactions was associated with an increase in appropriate behavior, while required consultation for the aides about assigned patients was not. Behavior of patients deteriorated when the program was terminated.     

The effects of stimuli followed by response-independent shock on shock-avoidance behavior

Four rhesus monkeys were trained on a non-discriminated shock-avoidance schedule (baseline). Stimuli followed by response-independent shock were then presented with the avoidance baseline no longer in effect. The main portion of the experiment consisted of superimposing (independently of responding) the stimuli followed by response-independent shock on the avoidance baseline. Different temporal values of stimulus duration and delay of shock (produced by an avoidance response) were presented successively, using each subject as his own control. When the stimulus duration was short or the delay of shock was long, so that avoidance rate during the stimulus could assume any value without resulting in baseline (avoidable) shocks during the stimulus, a lowered or "suppressed" rate of responding developed during the stimulus. When the stimulus duration was long or the delay of shock was brief, so that avoidable shocks resulted from a response decrement during the stimulus, high or "facilitated" rates of responding developed for a large proportion of the time that the stimulus was present.     

Multiple layers of information processing in deductive reasoning: combining dual strategy and dual-source approaches to reasoning

The idea that inferential performance cannot be analyzed within a single model has been suggested within two theoretical contexts. The dual strategy model suggests that people reason using different approaches to processing statistical information. The dual-source model suggests that people reason probabilistically using both statistical information and some intuition about logical form. Each model suggests that people have different approaches to processing information while making inferences. The following studies examined whether these different forms of information processing were equally present during reasoning. Participants were given a series of problems designed to distinguish counterexample from statistical reasoners. They were then given a series of MP or AC inferences for which identical statistical information was provided. Results show that MP inferences were considered to be deductively valid more often than equivalent AC inferences. The effect of logical form was independent of reasoning strategy, and of relatively equivalent size for both counterexample and statistical reasoners. The second study examined explicitly probabilistic inferences, and showed smaller effects of logical form and of reasoning strategy, although with a complex set of interactions. These results show that understanding the way that people use information when making inferences requires a multidimensional approach.     

Psychometric Properties of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support in Urban Adolescents

The psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) were investigated in 222 urban, largely African-American adolescents (68%). High internal consistency was demonstrated, and factor analysis confirmed the three subscale structures of the MSPSS: family, friends, and significant other. Correlations with a family caring scale supported the discriminant validity of the Family subscale. These results confirm the reliability, validity, and utility of the MSPSS with an urban, largely African-American adolescent sample. Implications of the findings are discussed.