Shared and item-specific information in memory for event descriptions

Memory &; Cognition - If you are asked to remember an event described by a sentence, how will your memory be affected by the number of related events experienced in the same context? The...     

Performance-self-esteem and dominance behavior in mixed-sex dyads1

Past studies suggest that males tend to be more dominant than females in task-oriented, mixed-sex groups. It was hypothesized that one factor accounting for this sex difference is performance-self-esteem. Subjects were 44 male-female pairs (college undergraduates) who participated in a decision-making task. As predicted, female performance-self-esteem level was related to the dominance cluster of opinions, disagreements, and decision outcome scores (p < .035). Females were more dominant and males less dominant in dyads containing high performance-self-esteem females; the reverse was true in dyads containing low performance-self-esteem females. No relationship was found between male performance-self-esteem level and dominance. Also, with performance-self-esteem level controlled, no overall sex difference in dominance occurred. However, some sex differences were found in the relationships between outcome satisfaction and dominance for high and low performance-self-esteem subjects.     

Psychological processes and paranoia: implications for forensic behavioural science

Paranoid delusions have recently become the focus of empirical research. In this article, we review studies of the psychological mechanisms that might be involved in paranoid thinking and discuss their implications for forensic behaviour science. Paranoia has not been consistently associated with any specific neuropsychological abnormality. However, evidence supports three broad types of mechanism that might be involved in delusional thinking in general and paranoia in particular: anomalous perceptual experiences, abnormal reasoning, and motivational factors. There is some evidence that paranoia may be associated with hearing loss, and good evidence that paranoid patients attend excessively to threatening information. Although general reasoning ability seems to be unaffected, there is strong evidence that a jumping- to-conclusions style of reasoning about data is implicated in delusions in general, but less consistent evidence specifically linking paranoia to impaired theory of mind. Finally, there appears to be a strong association between paranoia and negative self-esteem, and some evidence that attempts to protect self-esteem by attributing negative events to external causes are implicated. Some of these processes have recently been implicated in violent behaviour, and they therefore have the potential to explain the apparent association between paranoid delusions and offending.     

Age of acquisition for naming and knowing: a new hypothesis

This paper reports an investigation into the age of acquisition of object names and object knowledge in a cross-sectional study of 288 children aged between 3 years 7 months and 11 years 6 months, comprising equal numbers of boys and girls. The objects belonged to four categories: animals, fruit and vegetables, implements, and vehicles. They were presented in three image types: line drawings, black-and-white photographs, and coloured photographs. In the knowledge test, five probe questions were asked for each object given the spoken name. Results showed that line drawings were more difficult to name than either black-and-white photographs or coloured photographs, which did not differ. The boys significantly out-performed the girls at naming and knowing, both overall and specifically for the category of vehicles. Naming and knowledge increased steadily with age but while young children below about 6 years 6 months showed an advantage to naming, older children showed an advantage to knowing. Similarly, age-of-acquisition measures for each item revealed a significant shift in the relationship between naming and knowing at around 80 months. We argue that differences in learning experience lead younger and older children to associate object names with different types of information, and we suggest that this difference probably accounts for the age-of-acquisition effects reported in adult object naming.     

Children's identification of faces from lineups: the effects of lineup presentation and instructions on accuracy

The authors investigated whether the type of lineup and instructions given to children 6-7 or 9-10 years of age affected their identification accuracy. Children witnessed a man stealing property and were later asked to identify him in either photo or video lineups. Some lineups contained the target and some did not. Two lineup procedures were used (standard or elimination), and 2 types of instruction were used (standard or cautioning about false identification). Standard lineups with cautioning instructions decreased target-absent errors with no associated reduction in correct identifications, but elimination lineups did not. Lineup media had an interaction effect whereby correct identifications were reduced in video but not photo elimination lineups. The results are discussed in a forensic context.     

Exploring attributions in natural settings: Gender and self-esteem effects

Two studies investigated the attributions of undergraduates for the outcomes of satisfying and dissatisfying achievement events that occurred naturally over the course of a 3-week period. In both studies, women with low performance self-esteem gave less ego-enhancing attributions than high self-esteem women, high self-esteem men, or low self-esteem men. Also, in Study 2 high self-esteem subjects attributed greater stability to causes of satisfying events than to causes of dissatisfying events, whereas low self-esteem subjects gave both types of events equivalent stability ratings. Both studies provide evidence of consistent individual differences in attributional style across occasions and situations. The gender differences were interpreted in the context of sex-role socialization factors and Anderson and Slusher's (1986) two-stage model of the attribution process.     

Assessment of narcissistic psychopathology in the clergy

This study examines Meloy's (1986) hypothesis that pathological narcissism is prevalent among the clergy. Various psychometric instruments (three MMPI subscales, the MCMI Narcissism scale, selected EPPS scales) were administered to a sample of ministerial candidates to empirically assess the presence of pathological narcissism. Test findings did not confirm the majority of characteristics commonly associated with pathological narcissism, e.g. lack of empathy, exploitativeness, intolerance of criticism, grandiosity, etc. Female candidates, however, were identified as having greater narcissistic vulnerability owing to the persisting lack of acceptance accorded to women in this role.     

The influence of teacher models on the career confidence and motivation of college students

Sex Roles - Changes in undergraduates' career-related confidence and motivation were tested in a sample of 107 females and 72 males during their first college year. Subjects identified their...     

Career Goals of College Women and Men and Perceived Achievement-Related Encouragement

Encouragements and discouragements for achievement-related behavior were reported in an interview setting by three groups of college seniors: Career women (n = 20), career men (n = 20), and traditional women (n = 19). Career women reported significantly more encouragement from teachers, family members (except parents), and significant others of the opposite sex than did either career men or traditional women. Career women also reported more encouragement from counselors and friends, while career men reported more encouragement from parents; however, these differences were not significant. Career women reported a significantly higher grade point average than either of the other groups. Implications of the results for the achievement behavior of women and men are considered.     

Intolerance of uncertainty and novelty facilitated extinction: The impact of reinforcement schedule

Individuals who score high in intolerance of uncertainty (IU) display reduced threat extinction. Recently, it was shown that replacing threat associations with novel associations during extinction learning (i.e., presenting a novel tone 100% of the time) can promote threat extinction retention in individuals with high IU. This novelty facilitated extinction (NFE) effect could be driven by the tone's novelty or reliability. Here, we sought to address this question by adjusting the reliability of the novel tone (i.e., the reinforcement rate) during NFE. We measured skin conductance response during an associative learning task in which participants (n = 92) were assigned to one of three experimental groups: standard extinction, NFE 100% reinforcement, or NFE 50% reinforcement. For standard extinction, compared to NFE 100% and 50% reinforcement groups, we observed a trend for greater recovery of the conditioned response during extinction retention. Individuals with high IU relative to low IU in the standard extinction group demonstrated a larger recovery of the conditioned response during extinction retention. These findings tentatively suggest that NFE effects are driven by the novelty rather than the reliability of the new stimulus. The implications of these findings for translational and clinical research in anxiety disorder pathology are discussed.