The construction of the self: An evolutionary view

Contemporary research on the construction of the self emphasizes the products rather than the process of self-development. Borrowing from the writings of William James and contemporary views of natural selection, we propose a model ofevolutionary self-construction. Grounded in the principles of evolution and the philosophy of pragmatism, evolutionary self-construction proposes a process that guides the seeking of “truth” inpossible selves. According to this view, the self develops in response to uncertainty reduction with the “correct” self identified via the “sentiment of rationality.” Selves presently identified as correct are considered to be “instruments of action” that facilitate the interaction between an individual and the environment. Selected selves can then be developed to one’s best advantage and presented in an optimal fashion. This model helps organize contemporary frameworks around a common theme and embraces affect as a central component in the development of the self. A previous version of this paper was presented at the 98th annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Boston, MA.     

An evaluation of a brief integrity test user orientation program

The purpose of this pilot study was to assess the effectiveness of a brief test user orientation program on increasing service station managers' familiarity with a few key employment testing issues, including their familiarity with theModel Guidelines for Preemployment Integrity Testing Programs. The obtained results reveal that even a brief orientation program was able to significantly increase the managers' stated degree of familiarity with testing issues.     

Task bias and the accuracy of judgment: Setting a baseline for expected group performance

When a judgment task evokes unbiased estimates (i.e. the errors in individual judgments are distributed randomly around the true value), mathematical aggregation of individual estimates, even by a simple arithmetic mean, often will outperform all group members. However, when a task evokes biased estimates, mathematical aggregation does not perform so well. In this study, simulated data were accumulated to specify the expected' accuracy of mathematical aggregation relative to the accuracy of observed judgment of individual group members under varying conditions of task bias. Three types of judgment tasks were employed: (1) single-estimate, holistic tasks, (2) multiple-estimate, ranking tasks, and (3) multi-cue, decomposed tasks. Findings indicated across all task types that a large percentage of judgment-making group estimates formed strictly by computing the arithmetic mean of individual estimates performed better than their most capable members when a judgment task evoked little or no bias, a result particularly pronounced for ranking tasks. When the task was more greatly bias-evoking, a large percentage of parallel groups performed more poorly than average (or median) members, again a pattern more starkly evident for ranking tasks. These results suggest that the extent to which a judgment task evokes bias in a population of prospective group members is an important explanatory variable deserving much greater attention in the study of group performance. For example, an assertion about the efficacy of a particular group intervention based on a reliable demonstration of group performance as accurate as the most capable members may be unfounded when a task evokes no bias, since the baseline standard under such conditions should be much higher. By selecting tasks and populations that jointly produced highly biased estimates, researchers can lower the performance floor enough to detect (with reasonably small samples of groups) experimental effects should they occur.     

Components of phonemic processing and the beginning reader

This study primarily investigated various aspects of phonemic processing and memory in relation to reading in 74 5- and 6-year-old British children. A principal components analysis revealed a major connection between reading and aspects of phonemic processing for both age groups. For the 5-year-olds the processing of the initial phoneme was important for reading, whereas for the 6-year-olds processing of initial and final phonemes appeared to be equally related on this factor. A second factor for both groups was intelligence, which was related to reading only for the 6-year-olds; but this intelligence factor was more associated with phonemic processing for the 5-year-olds. An analysis involving clustering individual readers with similar patterns across the experimental variables showed some consistent profiles for disabled readers across the two age groups. These profiles suggested potential areas for remediation according to subgroup membership.     

Comparison of simultaneous prompting and constant time delay procedures in teaching sight words to elementary students with moderate mental retardation

Simultaneous prompting (a type of antecedent prompt and test procedure) and constant time delay were compared with four students with moderate mental retardation learning expressive sight words. A parallel treatments design across word sets and replicated across students was used. For acquisition, the simultaneous prompting procedures required fewer trials, sessions, and training time to criterion and resulted in fewer student errors during daily probe and training sessions. However, maintenance data indicated mixed results across the two procedures. Reliability data (both dependent and independent variables) revealed no differences between the two procedures in terms of the teacher's accuracy in recording student responses and implementing each procedure. Future research issues are discussed.     

The utilization of genetic counselors within a newborn screening program

Genetic counselors have participated in the Michigan Newborn Screening Program on a contractual basis since 1988. Their role includes newborn screening education and training, newborn nursery site visits, and monitoring newborn screening in hospitals. Their impact has been to improve the quality of newborn screening services by reducing errors and increasing completion of data fields on newborn screening cards, improving hospital nursery cooperation and problem solving, and enhancing health department response to specific problems.     

The effects of baby bath and massage by fathers on the family system: The sunraysia australia intervention project

Instruction in baby massage and the Burleigh Relaxation Bath technique was given to one-half of our sample of 32 couples who had just had their first child. This brief intervention, given at 4 weeks post-partum, led to beneficial behavioural and psychological effects for the family system when assessed at 12 weeks postpartum. Depression and marital satisfaction were assessed with mothers and fathers at 4 weeks and 12 weeks after the birth of their child, and self-esteem was measured at 12 weeks only. The mothers and fathers who were shown baby bathing and massage techniques showed higher degrees of marital satisfaction and self-esteem, as well as lower levels of depression at 12 weeks post-partum, than parents who did not receive instruction. It seems likely that brief interventions which educate new parents concerning functional techniques of baby care may favourably affect their feelings of competence and be of benefit to the entire family system.