Spontaneous and reactive attributions following academic achievement

This paper describes two studies which deal with attributions following academic achievement. Study 1 investigated the influence of different types of instructions (spontaneous vs. reactive), self-concepts of ability (high vs. low), and outcomes (success vs. failure) on causal attributions in a school setting. Participants were 402 eighth to tenth graders. Students with a low self-concept of ability produced more attributions than students with a high self-concept. Under reactive conditions, students' attributions following success were in accordance with the self-consistency theory. Under spontaneous conditions, these students produced attributions in a self-serving way. Furthermore, success evoked more attributions than failure. In Study 2, 160 university students worked on an unfamiliar task (a computer-simulated dynamic system). The results supported the assumption that students spontaneously generate attributions to raise or at least preserve their self-esteem.     

Motion pattern and posture: Correctly assessed by calibrated accelerometers

Basic motion patterns and posture can be distinguished by multichannel accelerometry, as recently shown. A refinement of this method appeared to be desirable to further increase its effectiveness, especially to distinguish walking and climbing stairs, and body rotation during sleep. Recordings were made of 31 subjects, according to a standard protocol comprising 13 motions and postures. This recording was repeated three times with appropriate permutation. Five uni-axial sensors and three sites of placement (sternum with three axes, right and left thigh) were selected. A hierarchical classification strategy used a standard protocol (i. e., individual reference patterns) to distinguish subtypes of moving behaviors and posture. The analysis method of the actometer signals reliably detected 13 different postural and activity conditions (only 3.2 % misclassifications). A minimum set of sensors can be found for a given application; for example, a two-sensor configuration would clearly suffice to differentiate between four basic classes (sitting, standing, lying, moving) in ambulatory monitoring.     

The methodological role of mechanistic-computational models in cognitive science

This paper discusses the relevance of models for cognitive science that integrate mechanistic and computational aspects. Its main hypothesis is that a model of a cognitive system is satisfactory and explanatory to the extent that it bridges phenomena at multiple mechanistic levels, such that at least several of these mechanistic levels are shown to implement computational processes. The relevant parts of the computation must be mapped onto distinguishable entities and activities of the mechanism. The ideal is contrasted with two other accounts of modeling in cognitive science. The first has been presented by David Marr in combination with a distinction of “levels of computation”. The second builds on a hierarchy of “mechanistic levels” in the sense of Carl Craver. It is argued that neither of the two accounts secures satisfactory explanations of cognitive systems. The mechanistic-computational ideal can be thought of as resulting from a fusion of Marr’s and Craver’s ideals. It is defended as adequate and plausible in light of scientific practice, and certain metaphysical background assumptions are discussed.

     

Assessing the Organizational Climate for Translational Research with a New Survey Tool

Science and Engineering Ethics - Promoting translational research as a means to overcoming chasms in the translation of knowledge through successive fields of research from basic science to public...     

Harming and failing to benefit: a reply to purves

Philosophical Studies - A prominent objection to the counterfactual comparative account of harm is that it classifies as harmful some events that are, intuitively, mere failures to benefit. In an...     

How regulatory focus influences consumer behavior

According to Higgins ( 1997 ) the theory of regulatory focus says that in terms of both information processing and motivation it makes a difference whether people have a promotion or prevention focus. In this paper, this theory will be applied to the area of consumer psychology. In three experiments we show that consumer's regulatory focus either measured or induced in a given situation influences product evaluations. Study 1 shows that consumers are interested in different product features depending on their focus; whereas in the prevention focus they are more interested in safety‐oriented aspects, in the promotion focus they concentrate more on comfort‐oriented qualities. In Study 2, a typical prevention product and a typical promotion product are compared with one another and data shows that focus compatible products are evaluated more positively. In Study 3 we demonstrate that advertisments that correspond to the focus of the consumer lead to more positive evaluations of the product than advertisments that are incompatible with the focus of the consumer. Theoretical and practical implications will be discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Business owners' action planning and its relationship to business success in three African countries

A model of business success was developed with motivational resources (locus of control, self-efficacy, achievement motivation, and self-reported personal initiative) and cognitive resources (cognitive ability and human capital) as independent variables, business owners' elaborate and proactive planning as a mediator, and business size and growth as dependent variables. Three studies with a total of 408 African micro and small-scale business owners were conducted in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Structural equation analyses partially supported the hypotheses on the importance of psychological planning by the business owners. Elaborate and proactive planning was substantially related to business size and to an external evaluation of business success and was a (partial) mediator for the relationship between cognitive resources and business success. The model carries important implications for selection, training, and coaching of business owners.     

Fear conditioning in panic disorder: Enhanced resistance to extinction

Enhanced conditionability has been proposed as a crucial factor in the etiology and maintenance of panic disorder (PD). To test this assumption, the authors of the current study examined the acquisition and extinction of conditioned responses to aversive stimuli in PD. Thirty-nine PD patients and 33 healthy control participants took part in a differential aversive conditioning experiment. A highly annoying but not painful electrical stimulus served as the unconditioned stimulus (US), and two neutral pictures were used as either the paired conditioned stimulus (CS+) or the unpaired conditioned stimulus (CS-). Results indicate that PD patients do not show larger conditioned responses during acquisition than control participants. However, in contrast to control participants, PD patients exhibited larger skin conductance responses to CS+ stimuli during extinction and maintained a more negative evaluation of them, as indicated by valence ratings obtained several times throughout the experiment. This suggests that PD patients show enhanced conditionability with respect to extinction.     

Completed vs. interrupted priming: Reduced accessibility from post-fulfillment inhibition

We conceptualized an interrupted priming task as a state of an unfulfilled goal and a completed priming task as a post-fulfillment state. The accessibility of a primed construct was measured with both lexical decision and impression formation procedures. Lexical decisions showed enhanced accessibility of prime-related constructs after interrupted priming and reduced accessibility of the prime-related construct after completed priming. Replicating previous findings [Martin, L. L. (1986). Set/reset: Use and disuse of concepts in impression formation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 493-504], an ambiguous target was assimilated to the primed construct after interrupted priming, and was contrasted away from the primed construct after completed priming. Together, these results suggest that task fulfillment instigates inhibition of accessible constructs, in addition to (or instead of) a process of suppressing accessible constructs upon encountering a new target. These findings demonstrate how motivation can affect accessibility through inhibition as well as through suppression.