Unraveling the race paradox of achievement and self-views

Considerable evidence indicates that African American students achieve less academically than European American students. Yet, African American students hold more positive self-views than their European American counterparts. Previous studies that address these seemingly paradoxical findings focus on students in a relatively narrow age range and/or convenience samples. Therefore, the current study examines two common explanations for these seemingly paradoxical findings, among a large and diverse sample of African American and European American students (N = 1, 493) from elementary to post-secondary school and across the socioeconomic spectrum. Results indicate that among a diverse group of students and conceptualized in two different ways, African American students do not devalue academics. However, African American students are more likely than European American students to discount academic feedback.     

Prototype abstraction by monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

The authors analyze the shape categorization of rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) and the role of prototype- and exemplar-based comparison processes in monkeys' category learning. Prototype and exemplar theories make contrasting predictions regarding performance on the Posner-Homa dot-distortion categorization task. Prototype theory--which presumes that participants refer to-be-categorized items to a representation near the category's center (the prototype)--predicts steep typicality gradients and large prototype-enhancement effects. Exemplar theory--which presumes that participants refer to-be-categorized items to memorized training exemplars-predicts flat typicality gradients and small prototype-enhancement effects. Across many categorization tasks that, for the first time, assayed monkeys' dot-distortion categorization, monkeys showed steep typicality gradients and large prototype-enhancement effects. These results suggest that monkeys--like humans--refer to-be-categorized items to a prototype-like representation near the category's center rather than to a set of memorized training exemplars.     

Process demands of rejection mechanisms of recognition memory

A surge of research has been conducted to examine memory editing mechanisms that help distinguish accurate from inaccurate memories. In the present experiment, the authors examined the ability of participants to use novelty detection, recollection rejection, and plausibility judgments to reject lures presented on a recognition memory test. Participants studied a list of word pairs that were arranged in a category relationship (both words from the same category) or an unrelated relationship (both words from different categories) under full or divided attention. At test, participants were given a yes/no recognition test in which they were to respond after seeing the test items for 400 ms or 2,800 ms. Some of the test items were rearranged word pairs that were consistent with the study relationship, whereas others were inconsistent with the study relationship. The results demonstrate that the participants required full attention at study to use novelty detection, recollection rejection, and plausibility judgments to reject lures. Moreover, the results indicate that a long response deadline at test was needed for participants to use both recollection rejection and plausibility judgments to reject lures.     

Mapping the scale of the narcissism epidemic: Increases in narcissism 2002–2007 within ethnic groups

[Twenge, J. M., Konrath, S., Foster, J. D., Campbell, W. K., & Bushman, B. J. (2008a). Egos inflating over time: A cross-temporal meta-analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Journal of Personality, 76, 875–901.] found that Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) scores increased between 1982 and 2006 among college students nationwide, but [Trzesniewski, K. H., Donnellan, M. B., & Robins, R. W. (2008). Do today’s young people really think they are so extraordinary? An examination of secular changes in narcissism and self-enhancement. Psychological Science, 19, 181–188.] found that NPI scores remained unchanged over that time in samples from the University of California (UC) campuses. The increasing numbers of Asian-Americans at the UCs over time may have masked changes in narcissism, as Asian-Americans score lower on the NPI. When examined within ethnic groups, Trzesniewski et al.’s data show that NPI scores increased significantly between 2002 and 2007 at twice the rate of the yearly change found over 24 years in Twenge et al. (2008a). The overall means also show a significant increase 2002–2007. Thus the available evidence suggests that college students are endorsing progressively more narcissistic personality traits over the generations.     

Is Character Fate,or Is There Hope to Change My Personality Yet?

Different perspectives on personality development propose a range of possible degrees to which traits are free to change, from hardly at all to very much. This essay reviews the empirical evidence on just how consistent and changeable personality traits are across the life course. To gain a thorough perspective on personality trait development, we review developmental studies that focus on three different types of change: rank‐order consistency, mean level change, and individual level change. Starting in late childhood, personality traits exhibit modest levels of rank‐order consistency that increase with age. In addition personality traits show mean level changes, especially in young adulthood, that are consistent with the idea of increasing maturity. Finally, despite these general trends in personality continuity and change, there is evidence that individuals may change in ways that contradict general trends and that these individual differences in change are related to life experiences.     

Effects of language experience on the perception of American Sign Language

Perception of American Sign Language (ASL) handshape and place of articulation parameters was investigated in three groups of signers: deaf native signers, deaf non-native signers who acquired ASL between the ages of 10 and 18, and hearing non-native signers who acquired ASL as a second language between the ages of 10 and 26. Participants were asked to identify and discriminate dynamic synthetic signs on forced choice identification and similarity judgement tasks. No differences were found in identification performance, but there were effects of language experience on discrimination of the handshape stimuli. Participants were significantly less likely to discriminate handshape stimuli drawn from the region of the category prototype than stimuli that were peripheral to the category or that straddled a category boundary. This pattern was significant for both groups of deaf signers, but was more pronounced for the native signers. The hearing L2 signers exhibited a similar pattern of discrimination, but results did not reach significance. An effect of category structure on the discrimination of place of articulation stimuli was also found, but it did not interact with language background. We conclude that early experience with a signed language magnifies the influence of category prototypes on the perceptual processing of handshape primes, leading to differences in the distribution of attentional resources between native and non-native signers during language comprehension.     

Picture recognition without picture identification: a method for assessing the role of perceptual information in familiarity-based picture recognition

The present study examined the claim that unidentifiable test-pictures are processed and recognized on a perceptual, as opposed to a conceptual, level. Using an extension of the recognition without identification paradigm (e.g., Cleary, A. M. & Greene, R. L. (2000). Recognition without identification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26, 1063-1069; Peynircioglu, Z. F. (1990). A feeling-of-recognition without identification. Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 493-500), it was observed that when test-pictures were unidentifiable during a masked perceptual identification task, old-new discrimination occurred when the study-list consisted of pictures (Experiments 1-3), but not when the study-list consisted of picture names (Experiment 2) or when picture exemplars served as test-cues (Experiment 3). Results provide converging evidence that a study-test perceptual match is needed for the episodic recognition of unidentified test-pictures. Implications for the present paradigm as a tool for examining the role of perceptual information in recognition-familiarity are discussed.     

Egos inflating over time: a cross-temporal meta-analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory

ABSTRACT A cross-temporal meta-analysis found that narcissism levels have risen over the generations in 85 samples of American college students who completed the 40-item forced-choice Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) between 1979 and 2006 (total n =16,475). Mean narcissism scores were significantly correlated with year of data collection when weighted by sample size (β=.53, p <.001). Since 1982, NPI scores have increased 0.33 standard deviation. Thus, almost two-thirds of recent college students are above the mean 1979–1985 narcissism score, a 30% increase. The results complement previous studies finding increases in other individualistic traits such as assertiveness, agency, self-esteem, and extraversion.     

A new look at the consequences of attitude certainty: the amplification hypothesis

It is well established that increasing attitude certainty makes attitudes more resistant to attack and more predictive of behavior. This finding has been interpreted as indicating that attitude certainty crystallizes attitudes, making them more durable and impactful. The current research challenges this crystallization hypothesis and proposes an amplification hypothesis, which suggests that instead of invariably strengthening an attitude, attitude certainty amplifies the dominant effect of the attitude on thought, judgment, and behavior. In 3 experiments, the authors test these competing hypotheses by comparing the effects of attitude certainty manipulations on univalent versus ambivalent attitudes. Across experiments, it is demonstrated that increasing attitude certainty strengthens attitudes (e.g., increases their resistance to persuasion) when attitudes are univalent but weakens attitudes (e.g., decreases their resistance to persuasion) when attitudes are ambivalent. These results are consistent with the amplification hypothesis.     

A comparison of the Psychological Entitlement Scale and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory's Entitlement Scale: relations with general personality traits and personality disorders

Given the negative consequences of psychological entitlement, it is important to have a reliable and valid measure of the construct. We used an undergraduate sample (N = 271) to examine the Entitlement subscale (ENT) of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Raskin & Terry, 1988) and the Psychological Entitlement Scale (PES; Campbell, Bonacci, Shelton, Exline, & Bushman, 2004) in relation to general personality traits (i.e., Revised NEO Personality Inventory; Costa & McCrae, 1992) and personality disorders (PDs; Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-4; Hyler, 1994). We found similar personality correlates (e.g., disagreeableness; Cluster B PDs) for both measures, although ENT was comprised of greater disagreeableness and less warmth and positive affect. ENT was also more positively associated with schizoid and borderline PDs compared to the PES. Overall, these measures are closely related with regard to their relations with general and pathological personality dimensions, although the ENT scale may capture a slightly more pathological variant.